Ellen said:

Just to be the devil’s advocate…you do not know what the future holds. While I really admire your openness with J, there may come a time when your relationship is not as comfortable as it is now. It might easy now to judge those parents of 3 year olds who are closing their adoptions, when you and J are both in the early stages. It might be very different three years from now. And if you need to close the adoption for whatever reason, it is your right to do so. It will not make you a bad person or a bad parent. It just might be a good thing to remember so you don’t end up judging yourself too harshly.

I don’t judge every parent who closes an adoption because I don’t know their stories. It would be a little like saying people should never get divorced or adult children should always honor their parents. But I am a little doubtful that every closing of a once open adoption was done for the sake of family safety.

If we did need to close our adoption for safety reasons, I certainly wouldn’t judge myself harshly. I’d say, “Good call, Dawn!” But even if I had to stop visitation, (and I must adamantly state that I can’t imagine doing that) we would still use the agency to send pictures and letters.

Certainly closing an adoption because of active drug use or untreated mental health issues that could potentially threaten the safety of a family is always a good idea. However I wonder if more often the reasons for closing an adoption (because so many more seem to get closed) has to do with the natural feelings of competitiveness that springs up among adults who are all loving the same child.

Even at our agency where adoptive parents are asked to share letters and pictures once a month for the first year, many people choose not to do this. Or they send out-of-focus pictures and scrawled lists of milestones without any warmth or detail. Why do this unless you feel insecure about the presence of birth parents? Why not be generous with pretty pictures and gushing letters? Why quit after the agency asked-for first year? Why not send pictures forever???

Historically, people who place their children for adoption had no rights. This is still mostly true legally (with the exception of a few states, which enforce open adoption agreements) and it’s mostly true philosophically, too. Just the number of people who have given kudos to Brett and me about the openness in our adoption speaks to the basic belief that J. has no right to the child to whom she gave birth. J., people tell us, is lucky to have us. This may be true statistically — I have no idea about the stats on openness — but frankly I think we have a moral obligation to welcome J. to be a part of our family.

I believe that Madison has a heavenly-ordained right to a relationship with her birth family. If you don’t buy into that, then our set-up might not make sense. In any case, I think that in choosing to adopt, we were assuming the obligation to do what we could to honor Madison’s birth ties. If we had adopted overseas, I would have assumed a different but similar obligation to honor that’s child cultural ties.

I love Madison and that means I love from whence she came. Now in a practical sense, that will likely get hard but I believe that when conflicts arise, I need to do what I can to recognize my part in it and work to resolve them. I also believe that J. has an obligation to remain in Madison’s life but I can’t enforce this and I understand, too, that J.’s journey is hers alone. I hope that by creating an atmosphere of welcome now, we can cement a place for Madison even when J. has gone on to whatever it is her life is going to give her.

Every person in Madison’s birth family has the opportunity to contact us and build a relationship with this beautiful child. I believe that my role — and Brett’s role — is to facilitate that and to monitor those relationships until Madison is old enough to take care of herself.

Again, I don’t know every adoption story so I don’t pretend to have an opinion on what everyone else in the world should do. Oh, all right, I’ll admit it; I do actually have an opinion on what everyone else should do but I’m aware enough that I don’t try to visit my opinion on everyone. It would just be easier to trust that people are making good decisions if the adoption culture in this country recognized the rights of birth parents and — most importantly — adoptees. (Because when it comes right down to it, what J. wants and what I want pales in comparison to what Madison has a right to and she’s totally dependent on us to try to get it for her.)

I also recognize that when I hear about closed adoptions from birth parents that I’m only getting one side of the story. However there is such a similarity in those stories that I believe that competition and jealousy plays a part in many such closings. I fully expect to have to visit that myself.

I’m betting that there will be times in Madison’s childhood where I will wish there was less openness or that I’ll feel put upon and exhausted by birth family demands. Come to think of it, there are times I want to run away with the plumber, too, but I don’t. I’m committed to Brett, I’m committed to my children and likewise I am committed to J.

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