As an adoptive mom parenting my daughter in a fully open adoption, I know how hard it is to get answers when the inevitable conflicts arise. If we talk to friends and family who don’t share our commitment to openness we hear, “It’s time you moved on” or “You should just close the adoption.” Even fellow members in our respective adoption communities may not be much help. If we are first parents, other first parents in closed adoptions may not be able to understand what we’re going through. If we’re adoptive parents, we may hear the same tired “close the adoption” from families who don’t support openness.
This site is meant to help those of us who are committed to making decisions rooted in our belief that our children deserve connection to their other families. At the heart of this site is the belief that openness — in word, in deed and in relationships — is a good thing.
One thing I want to make clear is that this site, as an entity, does not promote one way to have a healthy open adoption. Open adoption looks like a lot of different things for different families and what works for one family may not work for another. We also understand that sometimes our belief in open adoption is not shared by our children’s other parents. If you are part of a closed adoption that you wish were open, know that you are welcome here.
Not all of us are living open adoptions — we may not have access to our kids or we may not have access to their other parents — but we are living in the belief that open adoption is important to our children. What we have in common is the understanding that our children have two families and that both families matter because they matter to our children. We may disagree on the details but that’s the central value that drives this site.