Pondering Again….

So I’ve been reading some adoption blogs here and there these past few weeks, and I guess I’ve been surprised by the number of aparents who are against/nervous about open adoption and the potential for a relationship with a bmom. For whatever reason,it was never a big deal for us.

We were surprised when we learned about open adoption–but that was just becuase we didn’t know much about adoption in general. Our agency pitched open adoption in a way that made it sound like it was best for the child. Why? Because most adoptees have questions, and who better to answer those questions then the bmom. The bmoms are counseled to understand that they aren’t “the mom”, that the child they placed will have parents (chosen by her), and that there are boundaries.

Of course, it’s easy when your Babe is 5 months old. We’ll see if it gets tricky when she’s 5 years old. But what we are thinking, and hoping, is that whatever our relationship is, she’ll take it in stride b/c that’s the way it is.

I can see the arguement that it’s up to the child to decide what kind of relationship (if any) she’d like with her bfamily–but isn’t that a lot to expect from a child (or teenager)? It’s like not imposing your religion on a child because as she grows she may not agree with you. WTF? You’re the parents, it’s your job to instill values. What she does with them later is up to her.

So I guess we’ve decided one of our values is to respect and acknowledge the people who created our lovely daughter, chose to give her life, and chose us to be her parents. She needs to know that we respect these two people for those reasons, and that’s why we include them in our lives.

When she’s older, she can choose to do the same thing or not–but atleast we know that we’ve done all we can to instill that value by leading by example.

As with so many other things on this parenting roller coaster, we just hope we’re doing the right thing.