Improving Open Adoptions

Openness and Boundaries

Does an emphasis on openness mean adoptive parents need to leave ourselves wide open to just about anything? That we give up our sovereignty or that we co-parent with birth parents?

Quite the contrary. The very health and structure of our relationships with birth family members relies on the quality of the boundaries we set and the way we set them.

We tend to think of boundaries as things that keep people away. But according to Prentiss Hemphill, “boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” [13] To reframe, boundaries don’t keep people apart; they are what allow people to come together.

Closed adoption gave us a wall. Open adoption installed a door in the wall. But doors have two settings: open and closed. Too many open adoptions close when things get tough, and the adoptee remains living in the Either/Or of a wall.

Openness in adoption gives that door a screen, a more flexible and responsive boundary than a door. Our job as adoptive parents is to continually set the mesh of the screen to let as much in as is beneficial for all involved under changing conditions.

Boundaries are the mesh—the screen door—in our adoptions. We do not set them and forget them; we are constantly reassessing to know when they can be loosened and when they need to be tightened. And we do so mindfully and with self-awareness of what we bring to the mesh-setting.

When our boundary is approached or even crossed, we spring into action: Not okay! the warning lights tell us. We want to act immediately to protect what is precious.

This brings us to the third shift that helps adoptive families bridge the gap for adoptees: shifting from reacting to responding.

The difference between a reaction and a response can be a mere moment, a mere breath, just enough time to insert choice, a chosen course of action. After all, a literal knee-jerk reaction when the doctor taps your knee with a rubber mallet comes without any thought at all—the brain isn’t even consulted. But when the boundary involves a birth parent or our child, we do want to engage our brain. We do want to have at least two or three options for how to proceed, and then we do want to choose something that is likely, overall, to have the optimal impact on all.

But as Dr. Brad Reedy says in his work with parents, “you can’t always win, but you can choose how to lose.” [14] Sometimes we find ourselves in unsolvable problems in which the best we can hope for is to find an acceptable way to lose, balancing the trade-offs between our child, their birth parents, and ourselves.

Dr. Reedy also points out that the more inner work we do around our boundary setting, the more capacity we have to expand and remain grounded—yet another way our ongoing work serves our counterparts in adoption well. [15]

Incorporating the Three Shifts

With all that as a very brief primer, here is an example of what can happen when we make these three shifts.

A family is in an open adoption and has contact with the child’s birth mom. However, she sometimes shows up high, like today. 

A reaction, which often stems from a closed stance, comes with very little thought:

That’s the third time she’s done this. It’s not good for Micah to see her high. We’re done. Visits are on hold until she gets her act together.

The win we would all look for would be that she would break her addiction. Barring that, though, we may only be able to choose how to lose. So, let’s tease this out a little more.

With an open stance and a moment to check in and ponder, a response might look like any or all of this:

• Hmm… it would certainly be easier not to have to keep navigating visits.
• It is hard for Micah to see and it is hard for me to manage!
• Do I have any underlying beliefs about people with substance use disorder?
• Am I judging her harshly because of my own experiences with a person who was addicted?
• Is there a way for me to show more compassion for what has brought her to this place? After all, trauma begets trauma, and people often try to numb what they don’t want to feel in various ways. My way is ________ (shopping, eating, drinking, busyness, social media scrolling, sugar, etc.).
• Is zero tolerance necessary, or is there any leeway? 
• What are some ways we might support her in showing up sober? Maybe a certain time of day is better, or maybe there’s a location that’s more soothing to her—I will ask her.
• I wonder if there is something about visits that is especially difficult. Maybe there is context we don’t know about. I wonder if she would talk with us about it to help solve the issue around visits.
• If we cannot make this work with her now, maybe someone else in her family can maintain a connection with Micah for the time being.
• We will also talk with Micah in an age appropriate way about what it is like to be addicted to something, how overpowering that can be. We may even get an adoption-competent therapist to help us so we do not bring a different kind of harm to him as we handle this series of conversations. 

Curiosity opens up explorable ways to let in the benefits of birth family contact while also trying to keep out the problematic parts. This is the screen mesh. We need to make sure we don’t close the mesh for our own comfort, but for our child’s overall benefit.

When we focus on openness, we become willing to look at what we ourselves bring to the situation. We get curious. What am I feeling? Is it envy of her biological connection to Micah? Is it superiority because I am clearly a better parent/person than she is? Is it anger because she makes my life so hard? Is that— wait—is that grief that I did not get to conceive and give birth to him? Oh dear…I do not want to go there, but maybe I…could?

And from the process of finding these deeper layers, a way to deal with a situation often becomes clear. Parents begin to acknowledge and heal their own wounds, making way for more creativity, openness, and compassion with their child. 

A Call for True Openness

Let’s revisit the benefits of openness and see what a powerful effect it can have for adoptees:

• Openness strengthens an adoptee’s sense of identity by creating the space to freely and openly discuss their adoptedness with their parents.
• Openness encourages attachment to adoptive parents. By offering the adoptee the opportunity to hold both families as part of their story, we show we are okay with the big emotions that adoption brings. When our child feels they can bring their entire range of emotions to us, we offer them a sense of felt safety, comfort, and connection.
• Openness can decrease an adoptee’s sense of abandonment. When we have the capacity to walk alongside the adoptee through their struggle, sadness, and grief, we can help them process their sense of abandonment in a space of connection. 

When we cultivate openness, we infuse curiosity, humility, groundedness, self-awareness, clarity, and connection into our relationships. In this way we help bridge the gap between biology and biography that adoptees live in.