Although the general public, and even some people involved in adoption, would like to think that adoptive families are no different from non-adoptive families, the truth is that there are some issues unique to families and individuals where adoption and relinquishment are part of the history. Two of these areas are boundaries within and between families, and legal issues.

Society tends to use the term “boundaries” to mean barriers, or at least separation and sometimes conflict. That is a distortion of the term as originally coined by therapists, especially family therapists, and addiction therapists. As the term is frequently used with respect to birth parents and adoptive family, and the adopted person, it often means the adoptive family “setting boundaries” with birth family, especially in restricting birth family members’ access to the adoptee.

It is quite true that there are times and circumstances which leave adoptive parents, the legal system, or, as the adopted person gets older, the adoptee him/herself, little choice but to restrict one or more members of the birth family from interacting with the adopted person. However, such restriction and attempts to control birth parents, is rarely a matter of safety. More often, it arises out of attempts to control, even parent, the birth parent(s), which arises out of fears still promoted by society in general, including news stories, fictional films and books, extended family, tradition, and attitudes.

There are still assumptions that adoptive parents are better off financially than birth parents, probably morally superior, and thus better parents. Although relative poverty or the threat of poverty (such as a birth mother’s parents’ threat of disowning her if she does not relinquish the child) is an unfortunate reality, most birth parents go on to lead regular lives and do not languish in abject poverty, hoping to be rescued or to exploit the adoptive family or adoptee. As for moral superiority, most birth parents lead quite respectable lives, and not all adoptive parents are paragons of virtue. Circumstances where children have been removed from an abusive or even criminal situation and subsequently adopted make the news, or that fact is mentioned even when it’s irrelevant, influencing the stereotype of undesirable birth parents who must be kept away from their offspring. The fear is that these birth parents must be controlled and denied access or even full knowledge of their children, or they will come and snatch the child back, at any time, up to and including the “child’s” adulthood.

It was hoped that open (or semi-open) adoptions would end these stereotypes, but it has not happened. Some agencies still want that power of being the go-between in granting or denying access and in controlling the scheduling of visits, often seeing themselves as the ally of the adoptive parents, which implies there is a need for defense against birth parents, or birth grandparents. Since many adoption agencies have gone out of business, especially those who only did closed adoptions, and those who restricted placement to parents who were of a certain religious persuasion, were affluent, white, young but infertile, heterosexual and married, remaining agencies sometimes see their power waning and their very existence threatened. This is certainly not the case for all adoption agencies; many have policies that are quite the opposite, and state agencies, such as CYFD, place children who have been relinquished under duress.

Sometimes adoptive parents feel called upon to parent or mentor the birth parents, especially if the birth parents are young. Although there are situations where this might work, in general it does not. Adoptive parents need to focus on parenting the child, and birth parents need to find other mentors and friends. That does not mean the adoptive parents should not be supportive of birth parents—that can enrich everyone’s lives, including the child. In the middle of this, when the birth parent(s) are not allowed to know adoptive parents’ full names or where they live, nor allowed to see the child in other than a public place or agency office, the message the child gets is, “My birth parents are scary, unsafe people, so I must be, too.”

There is no easy, one-size-fits-all answer to these issues. Situations change, and people change. The birth parent who was in the middle of an addiction may find recovery; adoptive parents sometimes have their own addictions, or they are no longer that happy, ideal couple the agency saw and they get divorced, for instance. The child’s health may change, or the adoptive parents’ health, or the birth parents’ health. No one can predict the future, and arrangements sometimes need to be changed to adapt to reality.

Legal issues may relate to the above issues, but also include the need for families and individuals to plan ahead in the form of wills or trusts. Legally, the adopted person belongs to the adoptive family, no longer to the birth family. Even in the most open of adoptions, the adoptive parents are the ones who can make legal decisions for the minor child. In the case of inheritance, the adoptee is considered the same as biological offspring of the adoptive parents, unless a will or trust states otherwise. They are only heirs of their birth parents if the birth parent(s) will or trusts so state. These are issues for all parents to discuss with their attorneys. Some birth parents specify that their relinquished offspring shall inherit equally with their other offspring, or designate a certain amount, or specify certain personal property to be inherited, such as rings, art pieces, or family keepsakes. Other people want to specify that this not happen. Again, the intent needs to be clear, and should be discussed with an attorney, but also with partners and whoever in the family might be affected by decisions concerning inheritance. This is not a new issue—one can see in wills going back hundreds of years that not every child was treated the same as every other one, and some people provided for offspring not born within a marriage.

Although problems with boundaries and with legal issues exist in nearly all families, there are some special considerations when adoption is a factor, and thinking things through rationally instead of clinging to old stereotypes and fears will result in better relationships.