• The vast majority of adopted children are well-adjusted. Multiple studies over the past 25 years have found that as many as 9 out of 10 adopted children experience only minor difficulties in their adjustment compared to their peers who were not adopted.
• For the small percentage of adopted children who have significant emotional or behavioral problems, this is more often due to pre-adoption circumstances than to adoption itself.
• Adopted children are not destined to have adjustment problems. While they may experience turbulence and questioning at certain ages, this should not be confused with lasting disturbance.

Lessons from conversations about adoption

When someone I have just met asks what I do, I tell them I am a clinical psychologist. A common response is, “Oh, that must be interesting.” The next question is usually, “Do you have a specialty?” I reply that I work primarily with children and families and specialize in adoption.

What typically follows is a solemn look and in a lowered voice, “Oh, that must be hard!” This is often followed by a story of someone they know (or have heard about) who had a hard time with adoption.

People are usually surprised at what I say next: “Actually, my work is not as hard as you might think.” I add, “You probably don’t know that the vast majority of adopted kids are doing far better than people expect.”

Now either puzzlement or disbelief cross their face. But more often than not, I also see a flicker of curiosity. And many say something like, “I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.”

I assure them that they’re not alone in not knowing: “Most people don’t.”

The negative stereotypes and inaccurate assumptions that exist about adoption color perceptions of adopted children.

The public expects adopted children to be troubled

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has surveyed public attitudes toward adoption since 1997. Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, was adopted, and he was very invested in promoting adoption for children in need of stable and loving families.

The surveys consistently show that while support for adoption is high, there is a persistent expectation that adopted children have emotional and behavioral difficulties.

This is not a surprise to most adopted children and teenagers. They often encounter comments and opinions that convey doubt that they could be healthy and thriving. As one ten-year-old adopted boy said, “It is not adoption that is a problem. It is what everyone thinks about it.”

I agree with him. I have been working with adoptive families and closely following adoption research for 40 years. I have also done some of that research.

The negative stereotypes of adopted children

The negative stereotypes and inaccurate assumptions about adoption color perceptions of adopted children. They can have an unfortunate impact on children, their adoptive families, and their birth families (or first families, as some prefer to say). While family ties of adopted children and youth are more complex than those of children and youth raised by two biological parents, they are navigated successfully far more often than not.

Factors that contribute to negative misperceptions of adoption

What we have learned about what it takes for adopted children to thrive during childhood has changed dramatically over the 40 years since I worked with my first adoptive family. It changed as developmental researchers took a different approach to learning about adoption in the 1980s.

Until that time, most professional writing about adoption focused on adopted people who were struggling or in distress, people who had gone into therapy or returned to their adoption agency to address their questions and difficulties. Many of those patients were adults. Some struggled with aspects of their adoption while growing up. For some, their therapist may have suggested that adoption was a source of trauma. In those days, professionals, not just the public, assumed that adoption was always a liability.

Photo: RDNE Stock project. Pexels.

The societal beliefs around adoption

Another feature of that era was secrecy and shame about adoption. Societal beliefs made it more likely that adoption would be a difficult and isolating experience growing up. Adoptive parents were routinely advised to either not tell their children they were adopted or wait until their children were “old enough to understand.” Given that telling is difficult and these instructions were vague, adoptive parents often postponed communicating this information. For those children and youth who were told, some were warned not to share the information with others for fear of stereotyping and stigma.

Sometimes people discovered they were adopted on their own, which left them feeling understandably betrayed and confused. Experiences like these were among the retrospective accounts of adoption gathered in treatment settings. They shaped mental health providers’ understanding of adoption.

Because adoption is a theme that intrigues people almost universally, it has also been the subject of movies, television shows, books, and magazine articles. These portrayals, typically fictionalized and dramatized for entertainment value, also influenced public views of adoption.

Developmental psychology’s shift to a scientific approach to study adoption

In the 1980s, some developmental psychologists began to wonder whether the research on adoption represented too narrow a slice of the adoption experience to provide a thorough understanding. When one is focused on adoption, it is easy to overlook the reality that the lives of most children include challenges as well as opportunities, losses as well as enrichment.

Three questions guided a new, more scientific approach to learning about adoption:

• What can be learned from the experiences of all the adopted children who never entered into treatment?
• What might be learned from adoptive families directly about how their children did during childhood?
• How are children and youth who joined their families through adoption doing compared to non-adopted kids growing up in the same or similar communities?

In this new work, adoptive and non-adoptive families completed the same questionnaires and interviews for direct comparison. This work:

• Provided a broader picture of the adoption experience by recruiting community-based (versus clinical) samples;
• Looked at adoption in real time, rather than in hindsight;
• Relied on information provided by members of adoptive families (mostly parents), rather than professional sources (e.g., therapists), and
• Put adoption into the context of other life experiences, rather than singling it out.

While adoption is complex, it does not predestine a young person to have emotional or behavioral problems.

Looking at adoption through this new lens, what did the research show?

The picture that emerged from this new research was quite different from what many mental health providers had described in their accounts of treatment with adoptees. In these community-based research studies, the vast majority of adopted children functioned in the typical range. Differences between the groups of adopted and non-adopted children were not large.

Findings from this new approach broadened our understanding of adoption. It did not look as problematic as many had believed. This led to some heated disagreements, even between experts, over which picture of adoption really captured the truth.

In the late 1990s, Jeffrey Haugaard, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, reviewed adoption research to address this controversy. Haugaard concluded that being adopted did not in and of itself create adjustment difficulties. As others have, he found small differences in adjustment between adopted children and their non-adopted peers. This did not mean that there were no adopted children with significant struggles – in fact, a very small group had more extreme difficulties. But this group was estimated to be as small as 1 in 10 adopted children, with 9 out of 10 adjusting well and functioning typically.

Haugaard concluded, “There may be a risk of increased behavior or adjustment problems for some adopted children, or for adopted children at certain ages, but this risk is neither high nor widespread.”

Research has continued to confirm that most adopted children are well-adjusted

In the 25 years since Haugaard did his work, research has become more sophisticated. Only 2% of U.S. children under age 18 are adopted, and small study samples can lead to less reliable findings. Two approaches have helped researchers address this problem: 1) using data from national samples that include information about family background, and 2) meta-analysis, which combines results from several studies to expand the sample size and form more robust conclusions.

In an example of the first approach, a large national study of adolescent health and well-being in the United States compared three groups of teenagers who varied in their family makeup. Results showed little difference between adopted teenagers who were living with two adoptive parents and teenagers living with two biological parents. Interestingly, teens whose parents had divorced (and were living with only one biological parent in either step- or single-parent households) had far greater adjustment problems than the other two groups.

Photo: Pavel Danilyuk. Pexels.

These findings are a powerful reminder that while adoption is complex, it does not predestine a young person to have emotional or behavioral problems. Even during adolescence, which most people assume will be the most turbulent time, adopted teenagers have not stood out as a subset with greater difficulties. Children may face other challenges and adjustments as they grow up, such as parents’ divorce, that create greater disruption.

In an example of the second approach, a meta-analysis of adoption outcomes based on 85 studies from around the world confirmed what Haugaard speculated 18 years earlier. The meta-analysis concluded that “most adoptees could be expected to be in the normal range of psychological function and should not be pathologized.” Other large and comprehensive studies have also arrived at conclusions that normalize, more than pathologize, adoption.

How to eliminate false perceptions of adoption through research and accurate messaging

Our understanding of adoption has grown and diversified as researchers have studied different questions and used more rigorous methods. We now have more accurate and generalizable answers, and we know that adopted children are not as troubled as many people expect them to be.

If adopted children and teenagers are not that different from their non-adopted peers, why does adoption get singled out as a source of turbulence during childhood and adolescence? An astute commentary about how adoption is depicted in popular culture made this point: “Negative attitudes and misgivings toward adoption are so ingrained in pop culture that they’re almost invisible.”

Photo: Gabe Pierce. Unsplash.

Along even starker lines, the author of a column published in The Atlantic recounted how the phrase “You’re adopted” as an insult has “enjoyed continued popularity online as a retort or rejection.” The sometimes-subtle and sometimes-blatant derogatory representations of adoption contribute to stubborn and inaccurate assumptions that adoption is associated with disruption.

With the prevalence of negative representations of adoption, the psychological principle of confirmation bias becomes relevant to understanding how inaccurate assumptions about adopted children’s adjustment and well-being persist. Confirmation bias predicts that individuals are more likely to remember stories that confirm what they already believe to be true.

In this case, the belief so frequently reinforced is that adopted children as a group are more troubled or have more problems than their peers who are not adopted. I believe this is why the conversations I described earlier unfolded as they did. This is why remembering, and sharing, the evidence that 9 out of 10 adopted children experience positive outcomes is so important.

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This research on gay fathers contradicts beliefs that fathers have less innate caring ability than mothers and challenges the historical emphasis on mothers.

Researchers at Cambridge University in the UK have found that 10- to 14-year-old adopted children of gay fathers showed higher levels of “secure autonomous attachment” than did adopted children of heterosexual parents. Children who score highly on secure autonomous attachment are able to cope on their own at times, and have positive coping mechanisms, when upset, such as turning to others for support.

Secondly, adopted children of gay fathers also showed lower levels of “insecure preoccupied attachment” than children adopted by either lesbian or heterosexual couples. Children who score highly on insecure preoccupied attachment are typically over-dependent on parents for support and show high levels of anger towards them.

Finally, children of gay fathers showed lower levels of “disorientated-disorganised attachment” – contradictory or incompatible coping strategies – than children of heterosexual couples.

But before rushing to the conclusion that gay fathers are innately better parents, as opposed to equally good parents, the researchers point out other possible explanations.

For example, gay fathers, who are still leading a social change and forging a new way in the world, are on average more motivated and well-adjusted than heterosexual parents. Indeed, in this research, gay fathers rated lower in depression and parenting stress than heterosexual adoptive parents.

Or perhaps the adoption screening process for adoption by gay men is more stringent, meaning gay fathers have to demonstrate stronger motivation and competence than do other adoptive parents. Alternatively, adoption agencies might be placing children with fewer behaviour problems with gay fathers, though there is little evidence of this. Indeed, on average, gay fathers in the sample adopted older children, and older children are more likely to show behaviour problems.

Another possibility difference between gay fathers and heterosexual parents is that they are unlikely to have been through the distressing process of attempting and failing fertility treatment. This traumatic experience can harm parental wellbeing.

Beliefs about mothers’ innate caring abilities, and the historical emphasis on mothers as “primary” attachment figures, might raise questions about attachment patterns in families with two gay fathers. However, the evidence from this research contradicts such ideas.

This is good news for the adoption system. The researchers conclude, “Given the number of children waiting to be adopted and the scarcity of suitable adoptive parents, it is important that potential adopters are not discriminated against based on their gender or sexual orientation.”

The study took place in two phases, once when the children were four to eight years old and again six years later, when the children were 10 to 14 years old. In the second phase, the children were interviewed using the “Friends and Family Interview”. The interviewers focused on how the children discussed the relationship with their parents, assessing this against various measures of secure and insecure attachment. On three out of four measures, secure autonomous attachment, insecure preoccupied attachment, and disorientated-disorganised attachment, they found statistical differences between adopted children of gay fathers, lesbian mothers and heterosexual parents. There were no differences on the final measure of attachment, “insecure dismissing”, when children portray themselves as strong, and minimize negative experiences and their need for support from others.

Earlier research has established that children do equally well when raised by lesbian mothers as they do when raised by heterosexual parents. In later research, this finding was found to apply to gay fathers, who were more responsive and warm towards their children and spent more time with them, on average, than fathers in heterosexual couples.

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Less parental leave for same-sex male parents excludes them from benefits that support child development.

A study of parental leave entitlements has found that in the great majority of OECD countries, same-sex male parents are entitled to substantially less paid leave than different-sex parents and same-sex female parents. The study looked at the 33 OECD countries that offer paid parental leave. (The remaining OECD country, the United States, does not.)

The authors of the research suggest that the reasons behind their finding include a greater attribution of the caring role to women, and they recommend removing gendered and heteronormative language from parental leave regulations.

Only in four out of the 33 countries do all couples get the same paid parental leave: Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia. At the other extreme, in three countries—Israel, Switzerland and Turkey—same-sex male parents get nothing at all. In these three countries, same-sex female parents and different-sex parents get 14-17 weeks of paid parental leave. In 16 countries (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the UK), same-sex female parents get the same amount of leave as different-sex parents, but same-sex male parents don’t. On average, same-sex male parents get 22 fewer weeks of paid parental leave than different-six parents, ranging from two weeks less in the UK to over a year less in Hungary, Japan and South Korea.

Discrepancies in paid parental leave exist also between same-sex female parents and different-sex parents, but to a lesser extent. Same-sex female parents get the same paid parental leave as different-sex parents in 19 countries, though in two of these (Slovakia and Austria) that can only happen if one mother takes 100% of the parental leave and the other none, because no sharing with a second mother is allowed. In one country, Switzerland, the difference is absent because no partner of any gender gets any parental leave. In 14 countries, leave designed specifically for fathers is not available to same-sex female parents.

There are also differences in parental leave entitlements for adoptive parents of different gender orientations. Nine countries do not allow same-sex parent adoption at all (Chile, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey), and two countries do not provide leave for adoption (Greece and Switzerland). Most of the rest, 20 in total, provide the same parental leave benefit for all adoptive couples, irrespective of gender combination. In two countries (Mexico and Portugal), different-sex adoptive parents get more parental leave than same-sex female parents, who, in turn, get considerably more than same-sex male parents.

The authors highlight three factors that drive these discriminatory parental leave entitlements.

The first is the greater attribution of caring to women then to men, which disadvantages same-sex male parents. Whilst some difference in parental leave entitlements between mothers and fathers is biologically based – the need for recovery from the birth and for the establishment of breastfeeding – the disparities are often more substantial than biology alone would justify. And any parental leave reserved for biological mothers means that same-sex male parents get less time to care for their babies. This can be substantially less: in seven countries, this difference in availability of parental leave is six months long or greater (Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea).

The second factor works the other way: parental leave entitlements specifically designed to facilitate fathers taking leave in different-sex relationships are not always equally accessible for same-sex female couples

A third factor in discrimination is the wider inequality in marriage and adoption rights for same-sex parents.

The study authors recommend removing from parental leave legislation gendered and heteronormative language that designates women as primary caregivers and assumes that every family has one mother and one father.

The researchers refer to the Yogyakarta Principles, which outline human rights for LBGT people. Principle 24 relates to family benefits and states that “no family may be subjected to discrimination on the basis of the sexual orientation or gender identity of any of its members, including with regard to family-related social welfare and other public benefits.”

Since shared parental leave-taking has been found to be linked to a higher rate of breastfeeding, improved child development, improved parent mental health and better protection from wage or job loss, the inequalities in the legislation expose same-sex parents more to risks than different-sex parents face.

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The researchers found that a more important influence on the adopted child than having same-sex parents or heterosexual parents is how the family manages conflicts.

A study has found no differences in family functioning between same-sex parents and heterosexual parents of adopted children. Nor did it find any difference in how family functioning influences adopted children’s behaviour and how the children think about the adoption. The researchers conclude that there is no empirical argument against same-sex parents adopting children. In the USA, same-sex parents are seven times more likely to adopt children than are heterosexual parents.

The researchers found that a more important influence on adopted children is how the family manages conflicts, whatever the parents’ sexual orientation.

The researchers filmed and coded a 10-minute full family discussion (including other siblings, if any) about a recent conflict with the child. Across both same-sex and heterosexual parents, they found that better “cohesiveness” – the way the family works together to resolve a conflict – correlated with the parents’ report of better behavior on the part of the child. This corroborates much other family research showing that children do better when there is less conflict in the family. Some of these other studies have also observed whole families interacting when measuring conflict management, though few have included adoptive parents.

Similarly, the researchers found correlations between better family functioning – more cohesiveness (as above), less negativity in family interactions and more positivity – and more positive reports by the children regarding their feelings about the adoption. This too is in line with earlier research showing that children feel better about their adoption when their families are more responsive and supportive.

The children’s age and gender and whether the adoptive parents were separated made no difference in the findings, on average.

The study involved 96 families of adopted children (48 boys and 48 girls) aged between 5 and 12 years old. Twenty-six sets of parents were mother-mother, 29 father-father, and 41 mother-father. Forty-six percent of the adoptions were transracial, and the families’ average socioeconomic status was high.

Overall, families with same-sex parents scored highly for cohesiveness and positivity and moderately for negativity. The behavior of the children was below clinical problem levels, and overall the children were positive about adoption.

The family discussions were assessed for power-wielding versus power-sharing dynamics that characterise discussions about resolving conflict. Negativity and positivity in interactions, including tone and body language, were also scored.

The children’s behaviour was assessed by asking both parents, using a questionnaire covering things like disobedience, getting into fights and cheating. The children’s thoughts about adoption were assessed by asking them to complete a questionnaire that explored their positive feelings, negative feelings and their “preoccupation with adoption” (e.g., “How often do you think about adoption?” “How often do you think about your mother?”).

The results of this study confirm earlier research that shows children adopted by same-sex parents do as well as those adopted by heterosexual parents, irrespective of the different parenting practices that are often seen in same-sex couples. These families may demonstrate unique strengths in family communication as well as resilience in the face of social stigma.

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This research casts light on how children are socialised into gender roles, contributing to an understanding of how boys and girls develop and how they can best be supported to thrive. It also adds to the debate about gender equality and how differences between men and women emerge from early childhood onwards.

The researchers, Abbie Goldberg and Randi Garcia at Clark University in the USA, studied 181 adoptive families, 56 lesbian, 48 gay male and 77 heterosexual. They asked parents to rate how their child plays at three points: ages 3, 4 and 6. Parents also answered 24 questions about their children’s toys and activities and how they played (e.g., avoiding getting dirty, participating in rough and tumble).

Studying adopted children removes the potential for genetics to influence the results. We know from other research that children can exhibit gender-stereotyped behaviors from the age of about 18 months, with boys and girls choosing different kinds of toys to play with. These preferences become more rigid through the age of five. Boys tend to be more rigid than girls, avoiding cross-gendered toys and activities more than girls do.

Lesbian and gay parents may create different home environments from those created by heterosexual parents – buying different toys and encouraging different behaviors. This research suggests that such differences might occur more often in lesbian two-mother families than in gay two-father families. Are lesbian mothers more likely to resist stereotypically masculine behavior in boys more than gay male parents are? Could the absence of stereotypical father behavior, such as rough and tumble play, be a factor in explaining the difference in behavior of boys raised without a father? We do know from other research that fathers in heterosexual families are more likely to be intolerant of cross-gender behavior, particularly in sons.

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Research contradicts key concerns: that contact unsettles adoptees, increases birth mothers’ grief and exacerbates adoptive parents’ fears of losing child.

Is contact with birth relatives harmful for adopted children, or can it be beneficial? If so, how can we make it the best experience possible? What does the research say? According to our study, going back nearly 30 years, of open adoptions of infants through private adoption agencies in the United States, adopted adolescents and young adults were better adjusted when they felt more satisfied with contact. They also had a better sense of “who I am” — their personal identity — when they experienced good adoption-related communication within the family. Birth mothers and adoptive parents who maintained contact also felt more satisfied than those who lost touch.

What Is Open Adoption?

To put it simply, open adoption is where the adoptive family and birth family stay in touch for the benefit of the adopted child. Contact in an open adoption can mean different things to different families, from letters and emails to phone calls or regular visitation. It all rests on the adults to create a plan that fits everyone’s needs and expectations.

In contrast to traditional or closed adoptions, where there is little to no contact between the birth parents and adoptive parents and limited or no exchange of information, open adoption allows for varying degrees of openness and transparency.

An open adoption can be arranged in domestic adoptions, including foster care adoption. Biological (birth) family contact might include birth parents, grandparents, and/or siblings.

Open adoption requires people to think about adoption in a new way. Rather than “subtracting” children from their birth family and “adding” them to their adoptive family, open adoption means that the family has been transformed and extended to form what we call an “adoptive kinship network.” Family members find themselves entering a more complicated set of relationships, but one that is usually rewarding for everyone.

However, adoptive and birth relatives who keep in touch need flexibility, strong interpersonal skills, and commitment to the relationships. These skills can be learned, and they can be — and may need to be — supported by informed post-adoption professionals who can help families that run into difficulties. At present, such support is not readily available to adoptive families in the US.

Research into Open Adoption

My colleague, Ruth McRoy, and I began the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project in the 1980s. People worried that open adoptions would be harmful to everyone involved. They were especially worried that children would be confused about who their real parents were, leading to difficulties in self-esteem and identity, and possibly to adjustment and mental health problems. Our research shows that young people were not confused.

They knew the difference between adoptive and birth parents and understood their different roles. Children are inherently and healthily curious about their origins. In the absence of real information, they often make up fantasies about their birth relatives, but with open adoption, they recognize their birth relatives as real people. They know their birth parents’ faces, their health history, their mannerisms, and their special talents, and they can hear first-hand why they were placed for adoption. Adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents increasingly regard access to this information as a human right.

Open Adoption Agreement Examples

Open adoptions vary widely in type, frequency and directness of contact, as well as in terms of the people involved. Types of contact can include the exchange of pictures or gifts; communication via e-mail, letters, Skype, or telephone; and face-to-face meetings.

Frequency of contact can vary from initial contacts made only around the time of the adoptive placement to frequent, ongoing contact. Frequency typically ebbs and flows over time as circumstances change, and contacts can include the adopted child with any combination of adoptive and birth family members.

Open adoptions vary widely in type, frequency and directness of contact.

Our key finding about adopted children is that their perception of the contact, especially their satisfaction with it, is more important than how often they have contact or what type of contact they have. In general, children who had contact were more satisfied with arrangements than those who did not. When family members were dissatisfied with their contact, it was almost always because they wanted more (rather than less) but were unable to bring it about. It was this satisfaction, rather than the actual level of contact, that predicted better adjustment among adopted adolescents and young adults.

“Open adoption requires us to rethink the meaning of family. Adoption doesn’t simply mean adding a child; it means extending the family’s boundary to include a child’s birth relatives. We have found that adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents alike are all more satisfied when they have opportunities for contact.”

Back in the 1980s, when our study began, the vast majority of adoptions were closed, meaning that women had to terminate their parental rights and agree they would never have contact with their children or information about where the children went or how they were doing. Under more open adoptions, birth mothers in the United States help to choose the family their child goes to. Skeptics feared that birth mothers would renew their sense of grief and loss each time they saw their child, harming their own mental health and relationships. We found the opposite: birth mothers in more open adoptions who were more satisfied with their contact arrangements had less unresolved grief 12-20 years after the placements than those involved in closed adoptions. Birth mothers typically don’t want to take on a parenting role. In fact, it’s clear that the adoptive parents are the full parents of the child, but birth mothers are often comforted by having information about and some contact with their children, knowing that they are safe and doing well, and having the reassurance that their decision to place the child for adoption was a good one.

In the 1980s, some people also worried that open adoptions would make adoptive parents constantly fearful that someone was looking over their shoulders, that the birth parents might show up one day and reclaim the child. In fact, we found the opposite. Adoptive parents were least afraid in open adoptions, often because the birth and adoptive parents had had a conversation about this issue and the birth mothers would often say, ”Why would I take my child back? I placed my child with you. I just want to make sure that my child is OK.” In closed adoptions, where adoptive mothers knew little about a child’s birth mother, fears tended to grow out of negative stereotypes about birth parents that were not informed by reality.

How Common Is Open Adoption?

In the United States today, about 55 percent of private adoption agencies primarily do open adoptions, while 40 percent offer mediated adoptions, meaning that there is some indirect contact with birth parents through the agency. Only 5 percent do only closed adoptions. The picture is different in other countries. For example, Scandinavia doesn’t have a strong tradition of domestic adoption of infants voluntarily placed by their birth parents, because Scandinavian countries have a stronger social welfare safety net for, and acceptance of, single motherhood. Adoption there tends to be international and largely closed, because contact would be difficult.

Our US research selected cases where birth parents voluntarily placed their children for adoption. In contrast, in the United Kingdom, most adoptions take place through the public care system, after children have been removed from their birth parents because of neglect, abuse, or parental incapacity. UK research suggests that open adoption can work well even where children have been taken away from birth parents, although sometimes contact may be with birth grandparents or birth siblings rather than with the birth parents. The picture is different again in Spain, which is only now considering legislation to make open adoption legal. Children removed from their families are typically kept in foster care or institutions rather than being placed for adoption because Spain has a strong tradition against terminating parental rights.

Managing contact over time requires participants’ flexibility, communication skills, ability to maintain boundaries, and commitment to the relationships.

Our research has explored the outcomes for many of those involved in open adoptions. But one voice remains missing – that of birth fathers. They are an understudied group who were not included in our project. However, other research and anecdotal reports suggest that, generally speaking, men who father children have some of the same desires and wishes as birth mothers. And many adopted children, particularly once they know their birth mothers, want to find out about their birth fathers to help them more fully understand who they are and also to gain a full family health history.

Including birth fathers in open adoptions could create still more complicated extended families and raise challenging issues concerning relationships between separated birth parents and with adoptive parents. However, our research has shown impressive levels of resilience, capacity, and success for all involved in open adoptions as far as they have developed to date.Internationally, policies about open adoption vary widely. Now that we have several decades’ practice experience with openness and a growing evidence base, it is important that adoption policies be informed by culturally-sensitive research that takes the best interests of the child as its primary focus.Managing contact over time requires participants’ flexibility, communication skills, ability to maintain boundaries, and commitment to the relationships. These skills can be learned, and they can be supported by others, through informal, psycho-educational, and therapeutic means. The field needs more adoption-competent professionals who understand these family dynamics.

Published 02/2015

Updated 02/2024

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