Open adoption--does it really solve all the problems?

Lorraine

When I gave my daughter up in 1966 all I really wanted—or thought I could ask for—was to be able to know her one day. That bare concession to the mother and child bond would not have made leaving her behind any easier, but it would have calmed my mind about the future. As I write today, open adoption is touted as the panacea for the pain of a closed adoption., or at least mute the anguish of mothers like me. Perhaps it would have been so—to know that she was safe and protected. But I don’t know how I would have reacted to other people being there for her, to be present but unable to make the decisions I thought best for a child of mine, a child related to me by blood, a child who shared my genetic makeup and family history.