Search Results for: blog the trend to open adoption

Book Review: After Adoption: Direct Contact and Relationships

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The book After Adoption: Direct Contact and Relationships, by Carole Smith and Janette Logan, fills a void in the adoption literature by providing real examples of how contact between birth relatives, adopted children and their adoptive families are arranged. The authors include comments from all parties regarding their feelings about these contacts. The authors, who are on the faculty of Applied Social Science at a British university, note that while there is an increasing presumption in favor of open adoption (in both the UK and the US), there is little substantive research as to its benefit. One interesting thing to … Continue reading →

The Trend to Open Adoption

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Apparently, the current trend in adoption circles is toward open adoption. In an open adoption, the birth parent is allowed to occasionally have contact with the children. Most of the prominent adoption magazines strongly recommend it. It is also the in-vogue direction that social work academics seem to be leaning. My wife and I were recently driving home from a three day vacation and “just for fun”, Nancy called in to a very popular national radio show hosted by a well-known family issues psychologist. The radio host seemed oblivious to all of our good reasons to avoid our children’s birth … Continue reading →

Your Typical American Mormon Family

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So, I was watching the Today show this morning and there was a lot of focus on Mitt Romney and the Republican Convention. Big surprise there, I know. The story also included the subject of MItt Romney’s faith because apparently he is going to speak about it in his speech tomorrow night. So, once again, Mormonism is in the spotlight. But, one thing that surprised me was that they said that most people don’t know a lot about our faith. And, I thought, really? Sure, maybe you don’t know a lot about specific theology, like the fact that we do … Continue reading →

The Waiting Child: How the Faith and Love of One Orphan Saved the Life of Another

This book is a tearjerker, but so much more. The Waiting Child: How the Faith and Love of One Orphan Saved the Life of Another is an adoptive mother’s account of adopting a four-year-old from an orphanage in China, then discovering that her daughter, at such a tender age, had already been responsible for caring for younger children at the orphanage—including one whom she called “her baby”. Even after bonding intensely with her “forever mama”, she advocates tirelessly for this little boy to be adopted also. She worries about him constantly, explaining that it was her job to dress him … Continue reading →

Reading and Thinking about Birthmothers

Reviewing all these adoption books has got me wondering. I’ve always read adoption books to the kids, but not ones that focus on birthmothers as much as the ones I’ve been reading lately. Over and over I read interviews with adopted teens and adults saying that they were curious about their birthparents and longed to talk about them, but their adoptive parents didn’t seem open and/or the kids feared hurting the adopted parents’ feelings. Social workers now seem to counsel parents to speak openly about birthparents. Recently a spate of books dealing with birthparents have been published, such as Mommy … Continue reading →

Is It Right to Sever Family Ties?

When I reviewed the book Adoption,from the Opposing Viewpoints series(you can read my review by clicking here), my attention was drawn to one author who argued for the elimination of adoption. She did accept that sometimes children must live apart from their biological parents for their own safety, but maintained that a child’s name and identity should never be changed and there should always be some kind of contact. Of course, no one can change a child’s identity. It is foolish for adoptive parents to think that a child’s genetics, prenatal and birth experiences, and early life experiences will have … Continue reading →