Yesterday when I sat down to write my blog, I wanted to focus on the adoptive parents today and talking about information that will aid the adoptee to search when he or she is old enough. Then, I think I realized that because society is different today and with so many open adoptions, the search process for the current adoption years from now will be much different.

I think that one point I want to make is that we all know that the children that are adopted today may have difficult details in their personal histories. I am not a parent yet, and hope to be someday. We may create our family through adoption and I have been giving a lot of thought to the various difficult personal histories that come along with these children.

I think that it is natural for parent to want to protect their children. The thought process may even be what the child doesn’t know can’t hurt them. Am I right? Well, my answer to that is wrong. I really believe that secrets eventually come to light. The closed adoption era has proven that. When the secrets do come to light that just validates for the adoptee that he or she should feel ashamed. In today’s society with open adoptions the child should know their entire life story not just the good parts. Which brings me to my next question of when should that information that is difficult be shared.

I don’t know if there is a right or wrong answer to that and I do think it depends a lot on the child. In hindsight, learning that I was adopted at the beginning of adolescence was not the right time for me. I think it was one of the worst times to learn that I was adopted. Those years are difficult enough without having the adoption stuff thrown in their too.

For me, I think the perfect age would have been around the age of 7 or 8. This would have allowed me time to work through the information and for my parents to emphasize that poor choices made by my birth mother doesn’t mean that I will repeat those choices.

Whatever the age you choose to charge the circumstances of adoption plan what you say and be honest, open, and caring and as neutral or biased as possible.