HTT: Ignorant open adoption questions

Dr.Loretta

Taken from this blog:

http://osolomama.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/ignorant-questions-about-open-adoption/

I thought it would be interesting to get people's comments on the 7 "ignorant" questions the blogger posted about open adoption. I wanted to give the link to the blog post to give some context to the questions.

1. If open adoption is so great, why do so many people suck at it? By this I mean, not honouring commitments, closing the adoption, telling the other family they?re not ?doing this thing? correctly or playing the ?for the sake of the child? card?

2. From the standpoint of first parents, open adoption sounds like something that could prolong suffering. Could this suffering potentially outweigh the good of knowing where your child is? Who helps the first parent?

3. I?m guessing kids are not hung up on how many relatives they have. Tell me that the thing that hangs up the public all the time about open adoption and other unconventional relationships?two mommies, two daddies, three, four, parents?is the least of your worries because it seems to me it is.

4. Do you ever feel like you should give this child back? Does the thought ever seize you totally as you watch your child with her bio-family: ?ooops?? (OR for f-parents: Do you ever feel as though you need to take this child back? That nothing is stopping you beside an agreement that feels false? Does that feeling go away?)

5. How do children ever cope with knowing they could not be kept? When they see their natural parents having more kids, what do they think? Who helps the child in this situation? Both sets of parents?

6. Can you say comfortably that some surrendering mothers could not cope with an open adoption or do you think that it should always be the standard?

7. Is there ever a reason (aside from extreme/illegal behaviours) to close an adoption totally?