In the last four decades, the concept of the american family has undergone a radical transformation, reflecting society¡¯s growing openness. Among all segments of society, there is a greater acceptance of a variety of family structures ¨c from single parenting to blended families to same sex parenting of children. The introduction of openness into the process of adoption offers new opportunities for children in need of a parent or parents and prospective parents wishing to create or expand their families. Meeting the requirements to become eligible to adopt no longer means being constrained by the conventions of an earlier generation. As defined in children of open adoption by kathleen silber and patricia martinez dorner silber and dorner, pg 9: open adoption includes the birthparents and adoptive parents meeting one another, sharing full identifying information, and having access to ongoing contact over the years. In open adoption, the birthfamily is extended family, like other relatives within the adoptive family.

Despite the challenges and emotional issues involved in open adoption, its incidence is growing and providing a means for families to share their lives in different ways and allowing adoptive children to feel positive about themselves and about adoption. The greatest known number of adoptions took place in 1970 when 175,0 children were adopted. 2 the most complete statistics were gathered by the national center for social statistics ncss from 1957 through 1975. Most new statistical information about adoption is being gathered and analyzed by private organizations, through private surveys and research.

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National adoption information clearinghouse, states with the highest number of adoptions are states with greater populations, with california, new york, and texas generally leading the nation. In 69% of public and private agency adoptions, the birth parents had met the adoptive couple. Berry, 1991 societal attitudes toward adoption have made great advances since the 1900s, both in the understanding of the complexities of adoption and the acceptance of adoption as a positive path for children.

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It is estimated that about 1 million children in the united states live with adoptive parents, and that between 2% to 4% of american families include an adopted child. Donaldson adoption insititute found that 6 in 10 americans have had personal experience with adoption, meaning that they themselves, a family member, or a close friend was adopted, had adopted a child, or had placed a child for adoption. Donaldson institute, 1997 understanding adoption along with adoption come stereotypes and myths which can make it difficult for parents to want or to be able to adopt. Some people assume that it¡¯s harder to love a child whose not of the own parent¡¯s blood. But sometimes it seems as though adoptive parents love their child even more when their child is adopted.

People also assume that children who are adopted are insecure, poorly adjusted and more prone to behavioral problems than other children. 4 most of the time people don¡¯t understand the pressure and guilt that the birthmother has to endure when making the decision. Current research on open adoption shows that adoptees in open adoptions have better psychosocial outcomes than adoptees in semi open and closed adoptions. One is a small qualitative study and the other two are large sample research projects. In the first wave of research when the children were between the ages of 4 and 12 with two thirds between ages 5.5 and 8.5 years the researchers found there was no relationship found between adoption openness and self esteem, either positively or negatively. there was also no relationship or a very weak positive relationship with adoptive father’s perceptions of socio emotional adjustment and adoption openness.

Not surprisingly, children’s understanding of adoption increased as they reported having more information about their birthparents. In addition, there was no relationship found between the satisfaction of adoptive parents with the adoption and the level of openness. finally, all the children exhibited curiosity about their birthparents regardless of the level of openness, but girls were more curious than boys. Finally, the research showed that adoptees in which their adoptive and birthparents had collaborative relationships were doing better on ratings of psychosocial adjustment. during the second wave of research, the children were ages 11 21 years with most between 12.5 and 15.5 years. Five different sets of researchers used this data to investigate various outcomes for adoptive children and all of the findings build on and reinforce one another. The first finding was that adolescents who had contact with their birthparents maintained higher satisfaction with their contact status than those who did not. not having contact with birthparents is generally, though not universally, associated with dissatisfaction with the amount of contact. In addition, none of the adopted adolescents who had contact with their birth mothers felt any fear, hatred, surprise, anger, or confusion about who their parents were. the data also showed that adoptees in open adoptions reported significantly lower levels of externalizing behaviors than those in closed adoptions.