Open adoption
Open adoption is a form of adoption in which the birth and adoptive parents have varying degrees of access to each other's personal information.
Open adoption
In the case of open adoptions, there is sometimes already, but often only after the birth of the child, a conversation between the donating and the receiving parents. Depending on how this first contact goes, this sometimes results in permanent meetings between the different parents and the child. For the biological parents, contact with the child is an opportunity to get their own picture of the child's further development. For the adoptive parents, personal contact with the birth parents is an opportunity to get a realistic picture of the personality of the transferring parents and to pass this picture on to the child if the contact between the parents does not last until the child has an opinion of his own can educate his or her parents of origin. The effects of the various forms of open adoption on the children have not yet been investigated.
history
By the 20th century, most adoptions in the United States were open. Up until the 1930s, most birth and adoptive parents were in contact at least during the adoption process. Adoptions closed when society began to exert pressure to spare the myth of the naturally formed family. One researcher called the families who went out of their way to physically match the child with the adoptive families "as if" families. Open adoption slowly became more widespread as research from the 1970s showed it was better for the children. In 1975 the trend changed and by the early 1990s, open adoptions were offered by most American adoption agencies. The development accelerated particularly in the late 80s and early 90s - according to a study, between 1987 and 1989 a third of the agencies surveyed enabled open adoptions as an alternative. By 1993, 76% of the agencies surveyed offered open adoptions.
The situation changed significantly until the 1980s, and the vast majority of unmarried mothers kept their children. Since the early 1990s, most adoption agencies have been allowing partial or full open adoptions. At the beginning of the adoption process, the natural mother reviews dozens of letters from potential adoptive parents. The majority of states allow complete openness not only about identities but also about personal information about one another.
When the natural mother has narrowed down the group of potential adoptive parents to a few, they get to know one another personally. Many natural mothers have more contact with the adoptive parents after an initial pre-birth meeting. If they live close enough to each other, natural mothers often invite adoptive mothers to appointments with doctors.
Although openness before the birth is becoming commonplace, there are various options after the birth or after the adoption has been completed. It is customary to send photos of the child and new family to the natural mother each year with brief written updates attached. These pictures and updates are often sent more than once a year, including on the child's birthdays or other significant events. Sometimes an agent sends these updates, sometimes it is done directly.
Semi-open adoption
With the so-called semi-open adoption, contact between birth parents and child can be maintained by means of letters and photos via the youth welfare office or the agency. Surrendering parents and adoptive parents can also get to know each other. This usually takes place in a neutral place, such as the adoption office or the youth welfare office.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dewey Cheatam & Howe 1991
- ↑ Barbara Yngvesson: Going 'Home': Adoption, Loss of Bearings, and the Mythology of Roots . In: Duke University Press (Ed.): Social Text - 74 . 21, No. 1, Spring 2003, pp. 7-27.
- ↑ Barbara Yngvesson: Refiguring Kinship in the Space of Adoption . In: George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research (Ed.): Anthropological Quarterly . 80, No. 2, Spring 2007, pp. 561-579. doi : 10.1353 / anq.2007.0036 .
- ↑ Confidential Adoptions: A Trend of the Past? ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Adoption Services
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://writepass.co.uk/journal/2012/12/open-adoption/
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Summon/Record?id=FETCH-LOGICAL-c1346-8a25fdc07e0a1257e1bc2b7e8d11586e554550fafe69b4c63d73c774959a59de1 ( page no longer available , searching web archives ) Info: The link is automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.allforchildren.org/for-birth-parents/your-adoption-choices.php ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.adoption101.com
- ↑ DEAR BIRTH MOTHER, by Kathleen Silber and Phylis Speedlin, Corona Publishing 1991
- ↑ http://www.allforchildren.org/for-birth-parents/your-adoption-choices.php ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Adoption101.com
- ↑ ADOPTION: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ADOPTING QUICKLY AND SAFELY, by Randall Hicks, Perigee Press 2007
Web links
- Adoption: What types of adoption are there? Information on the family portal of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs