Birth Family Contact Experiences Among Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Adoptive Parents With School‐Age Children

AuthorRachel H. Farr,Harold D. Grotevant,Yelena Ravvina
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12295
Date01 February 2018
Published date01 February 2018
R H. F University of Kentucky
Y R  H D. G University of Massachusetts Amherst
Birth Family Contact Experiences Among Lesbian,
Gay, and Heterosexual Adoptive Parents With
School-Age Children
Objective: To examine how lesbian, gay, and
heterosexual adoptive parents navigate open-
ness dynamics with children’s birth family
across a 5-year period, when children are
preschool- to school-age.
Background: Few studies regarding birth fam-
ily contact have included longitudinal data as
well as a sample of adoptive parents of varying
sexual orientations. Thus, this study used a mul-
tiprong theoretical approach grounded in emo-
tional distance regulation, families of choice,
and gender theory.
Method: A mixed-methods approach with
longitudinal quantitative survey and quali-
tative interview data from 106 lesbian, gay,
and heterosexual adoptive parent families was
employed to examine the type of contact, its
frequency, who was involved, perceptions of
this contact, and the extent to which formal
agreements exist between adoptive and birth
families regarding contact.
Results: Findings revealedvariations in the sta-
tus and perceptions of contact across adoptive
families. We also discovered that many lesbian
and gay adoptive parents reported that birth
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky,
012-B Kastle Hall, 171 Funkhouser Drive, Lexington, KY
40506-0044 (rachel.farr@uky.edu).
Key Words: Adoption, birth family contact, lesbian and gay,
mixed-methods, openness arrangements, sexual orientation.
parents had intentionally selected a same-sex
adoptive couple, and birth parents appeared to
have distinct reasons for this choice.
Conclusion: Although some differences in birth
family contact distinguished lesbian, gay, and
heterosexual adoptive parent families, these
families generally appeared more similar than
different.
Implications: Implications—particularly a
need for demonstrated competencies in adop-
tion openness—are discussed for adoption
professionals in policy, practice, and legal
realms.
The rate of lesbian and gay (LG) adults adopt-
ing children in the United States doubled across
the rst decade of the millennium (Gates, 2011),
and LG adoptive parents have also become
more visible in the United States (Pertman &
Howard, 2011). Although there is growing liter-
ature about adoptive LG parents and their chil-
dren (e.g., Farr, Forssell, & Patterson, 2010;
Pertman & Howard, 2011), little is known about
their family dynamics.
Open adoption, dened as any contact or
information sharing between birth and adop-
tive families, has been controversial historically
but is increasingly common (Grotevant, 2012).
Adoption agencies typically offer an option for
open adoption (Siegel & Smith, 2012), and birth
parents (often mothers) may select the adoptive
132 Family Relations 67 (February 2018): 132–146
DOI:10.1111/fare.12295

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