Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Couples in Open Adoption Arrangements: A Qualitative Study

Little research has attended to the role of gender and sexual orientation in shaping open adoption dynamics. This qualitative, longitudinal study of 45 adoptive couples (15 lesbian, 15 gay, and 15 heterosexual couples) examined adopters' motivations for open adoption, changes in attitudes about openness, and early relationship dynamics. Key findings revealed that heterosexuals often described feeling drawn to open adoption because they perceived it as the only option, insomuch as few agencies were facilitating closed adoptions. In contrast, sexual minorities often appreciated the philosophy of openness whereby they were not encouraged to lie about their sexual orientation in order to adopt. Attitudes about openness varied over time, and changes in attitudes were attributed to a variety of factors such as perceived birth parent characteristics and the perceived nature of the birth parent relationship. Overall, although some participants reported tensions with birth parents over time, most reported satisfying relationships. Key Words: adoption, gay, gender, lesbian, longitudinal, qualitative. A literature on open adoption is gradually emerging (Wolfgram, 2008). Open adoptions are characterized by varying degrees of information exchange (e.g., letters, pictures, visits) between birth and adoptive parents, before or after the adoption (Grotevant, McRoy, Eide, & Fravel, 1994). Much of the existing research has focused on the perceived benefits of open adoption from the perspectives of adoption agencies (Henney, McRoy, Ayers-Lopez, & Grotevant, 2003), birth parents (Henney, Ayers-Lopez, Mack, McRoy, & Grotevant, 2007; McRoy, Grotevant, & White, 1988), adoptive parents (McRoy et al.; Siegel, 1993, 2003, 2008), and adopted children (Berge, Mendenhall, Wrobel, Grotevant, & McRoy, 2006; Gross, 1993; McRoy et al.). Topically, research on open adoption has focused on attitudes about openness (Berry, 1993; Siegel, 1993, 2003, 2008), changes in open adoption arrangements over time (Berry, Cavazos Dylla, Barth, & Needell, 1998; Crea & Barth, 2009), and challenges in adoptive -birth parent relationships (McRoy et al.; Siegel, 2008). Despite the rich nature of the open adoption literature, it has been limited in several key ways. First, little research has attended to the gendered nature of the adoption process, that is, the role of gender in the perspectives and experiences of members of the adoptive kinship network (adoptive parents, birth parents, and adopted children; Freeark et al., 2005). Gender theory suggests that gendered norms and practices shape individual experience and family formation (Connell, 1987; Risman, 2004). Both men and women may internalize gendered norms such that certain activities (e.g., caregiving) are perceived as primarily female or male domains of behavior (Cowdery, KnudsonMartin, & Mahoney, 2009). The role of gender is particularly important to examine within the context of open adoption because of the complex - and potentially gendered - dynamics that evolve via interactions between birth parents and adoptive parents. For example, gendered expectations of behaviors may result in power imbalances between men and women within the adoption context. Birth mothers are the ones who most often choose the parents with whom they will place their child, whereas birth fathers tend to be less involved in, and sometimes directly excluded from, this process (Hollenstein, Leve, Scaramella, Milfoil, & Neiderhiser, 2003). The expectation that birth mothers play a more central role in open adoptions may lead to a marginalization of birth fathers by both adoptive parents and birth mothers (Freeark et al.). By extension, research on birth parents' experiences with open adoption has tended to focus exclusively on birth mothers (Henney et al., 2007). Similarly, adoptive fathers are often ignored in research on adoption; many studies include only adoptive mothers (Grotevant, 2000). …