We attended a workshop at WACAP over the weekend on open adoptions that was intended to start the conversation with perspective parents about the good and the bad of keeping in touch with birth parents. A very minimal level of openness is required in our program which states you must commit to sending a letter and photos once a year. That said, some families choose to maintain a very open relationship with yearly (or more) visits – even traveling across the country to make them happen.Obviously Kerri and I have thought about this a lot and we both have mixed feelings. There are those CNN Headline News stories that dissuade you from the any possibility of contact with birth parents – “Mother hitchhikes across country to reclaim adopted infant in bloody massacre of adoptive parents and their pets…â€? – but these are a rarity in reality. We are becoming more and more open to the idea of some sort of contact with the birth parents for the sake of the child. When we first began to consider it, I was more of the opinion that if we were going to take responsibility for parenting this child and, conversely, the birth parents were going to give up the responsibility of parenting this child, then all bets were off. The error of this view is that it’s entirely parent-centric and devoid of the child’s perspective.I’m coming around to the idea of maintaining contact because I’m beginning to realize the importance of biological heritage, particularly in our situation where a black child we be raised in our overwhelmingly white personal world. There may be a lot that a connection to a birth parent has to offer our kiddo – “why do those white people do those goofy things all the time?â€?The financial side of this is tough. We’re taking on a lot by raising the child and to shoulder the additional burdens an open adoption can bring (like flights to the East coast for visits) is a lot to ask. Like anything else in this whole process the answer really is just “it dependsâ€? which I’m learning to become more comfortable with, slowly.

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