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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We adopted our kids privately though our attorney.  There is no planned contact wit the birth fmaily unless the kids want to on their own when they are 18. [/quote]

I think this is often the least traumatic. We're seeing problems with our family member's open adoption and the full inclusion of the child's birth family. There are real concerns arising about how this will affect both the adopted child and other children in the family.  [/quote]

It’s more traumatic for kids not to know as well as the birth family.  [/quote]

How do you know this - can you cite a reference?  Please show me some longitudinal studies which show that [b]fully integrating[/b] the birth family into the child's life is psychologically healthy?  I'm not talking about an occasional letter/photos or a visit once or twice per year.  I'm talking about full-on involvement - contact at least weekly, birth parents choosing/deciding which clothing child will wear, having their extended family involved and visiting regularly and posting info on SM of "their baby." It's all happy family now while child is young but what happens when conflict arises?  Where are the studies which show those impacts on the adopted child and the rest of the families?  That information MUST be made available to birth families AND adopters if they want to fully understand the decisions they are making. [/quote]

Wait, are you saying anything less than fully integrating the birth family is a closed adoption?  Because I would call anything where the child knows who there birth family is (not even contact, just a name/birthdate/identifying info available to the child) an open adoption.  I know a couple people who don’t have anything at all and I am extremely against hiding birth info from kids but I think there’s a lot of (healthy) space between nothing and fully integrating the birth family.  There are studies showing that hiding birth info is unhealthy, but I don’t know of any assessing the degrees of openness and relationship between birth and adoptive families.[/quote]

An open adoption is not just telling the child information about the birth family.  It ranges from xx of pictures/letters a year to visits, phone calls, and emails.    Telling my child about their birth family is a closed adoption.  Emailing, talking to and seeing them regularly is an open adoption.[/quote]

What is the term for an adoption where there is no contact between the families but the child is given information about them?  If that is “closed” what is the term for an adoption where the child has no way of finding their birth family and the birth family has no way of knowing what happened to the child?[/quote]

I think it has varied by era, for example:

My family member born in 1940s was issued a birth certificate with his adoptive parents' names. He wasn't even told he was adopted, but found out as an adult. He had to go to the courthouse to get his original birth certificate. Then he knew his birth mother's name. The birth mother had hired a private investigator to find her biological son, but she was unsuccessful. They didn't find each other while she was alive.

A family member who was born in the 1970s - his adoptive parents were given paperwork that described his birth parents appearance, health, hobbies, etc, but not their names. His parents gave him the papers when he was old enough, and the way it was set up, by agreement between parties and the agency, was that at 18, he could go to the agency and ask to get his birth mother's information, which he did.

I don't know enough about open adoptions, but someone upthread said that basically, only the adoptive parents have legal rights over the kid, so they can decide whether the kid has contact or not, at the end of the day. So if a family is practicing an "open" adoption in which they share pictures and accept visits, that's just a choice on their part, or maybe something they negotiated with the birth mom to seal the deal.  I guess there's also the matter of whether the adoptive parent is willing to be found -- in the past, I think they could say no, but now because of DNA they don't necessarily get to choose.

[/quote]

You don't know anything about adoptions but keep posting as you do.  A 1940's or 1970's adoption is very differs than today.  Those are closed adoptions.  Not everyone does DNA testing so the only way for someone to match is if both parties do the DNA testing or close relatives.  You are talking in topics you know nothing, NOTHING about.[/quote]

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