Exploring the Nature and Outcomes of Adoption Entrance Narratives Told in Open Adoptive Families

• In Event: Family Communication: Dynamics and Effects on (Adult) Children

Abstract

Open adoptions – or those wherein adoptive families know and interact with the birth family – have become increasingly prevalent. With open adoptions come complex identity work and relationships between the birth family, adoptive family, and adoptee. One way adoptive parents help their children to make sense of their adoptive experience is by creating adoption entrance narratives (AENs) that weave together the stories of how the child was born, placed for adoption, and integrated into their family. Thus, in the current study, we content analyzed 201 AENs told by open adoptive parent(s) to their child. Three themes emerged from the data: chosen, birth parents as family, and forever. Structural equation modeling revealed that relational satisfaction between the adoptive parent(s) and birth parent(s), the role of the birth parents in the AEN, and birth parents as family theme directly predicted child well-being, but relational satisfaction did not indirectly affect child outcomes through AENs.

Authors

• Alexie Hays, University of Missouri

• Haley Horstman, University of Missouri-Columbia

• Colleen Colaner, U of Missouri

• Leslie Nelson, University of Missouri