Open Adoption of Infants: Adoptive Parents' Feelings Seven Years Later‪.‬

Traditionally a family was defined as a married heterosexual couple living with their biological children. Today, of course, the definition of family is debated and many different family forms are accepted (Hartman & Laird, 1983). In fact, the traditional family is a statistical minority, and most children spend at least part of their years in a single-parent household (Okun, 1996). Consistent with this broad trend toward diverse family forms, adoptive family forms are also in flux. Just 10 years ago most adoption agencies and private adoption facilitators only offered prospective birth parents and adoptive parents traditional confidential or "closed" adoptions--that is, adoptions in which birth families and adoptive families had no contact with each other and only shared with each other written nonidentifying information through the agency or facilitator as a mediator. Today many, if not most, agencies and facilitators offer, encourage, or require an array of "open" adoption alternatives (Appell, 1996; Baran & Pannor, 1993; Etter, 1988; Grotevant & McRoy, 1998; Henney, Onken, McRoy, & Grotevant, 1998; McRoy & Grotevant, 1988; Melina & Rosczia, 1993). Social workers today need to understand the full range of different family forms, including the different kinds of adoptive family systems (Reitz & Watson, 1992), to facilitate client self-determination, to skillfully empower clients (whet her members of birth families or adoptive families) confronting predictable developmental tasks unique to their family constellations, and to design programs and services that adequately serve different family forms.