Open Adoption

Open Adoption

One of the many remarkable birthparents to work with our program, Brenda Romanchik, defines open adoption this way:  Genuine open adoption offers the possibility of a one on one relationship between the adopted child and his or her birthfamily.  Depicting it as a child-centered relationship, she gets to the heart of the matter.  Note, too, that she speaks of the birthfamily, a line of thought that makes room for participants beyond the birthparents.  No wonder she has become one of open adoption’s leading spokespersons.  

Open adoption is difficult to define because it is best understood as a set of attitudes.  It boils down to goodwill and mutual respect.  It is an enduring expression of hospitality.  Psychologist Randolph Severson, another friend of the program, sets the experience of open adoption in the context of “courage, compassion, and common sense.” It takes courage to face uncertainty, compassion to take the other’s interests into account, and common sense to make it workably flexible.  When attitudes are positive and birthfamilies and adoptive families work cooperatively and sacrificially in behalf of children, everyone benefits.  Where the old secret system of adoption attempted to erase the past, the open approach seeks to preserve and honor it.  An important improvement on the frustrating constrictions of secrecy, openness has been called the “normalization” of adoption.