Customer Reviews

The Spirit of Open Adoption

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is required reading by our adoption agency. While I applaud Mr. Gritter's committment to his subject I have to say that it's a hard read. I think a little editing would have gone a long way as he tends to make his points over and over and over. Plus he feels so strongly about his opinions that he comes off a little heavy handed. On the plus side, many of the chapters (particularly the one about pain) were valuable as was the chapter on commercialization which confirmed our feeling that advertising for a baby through independent adoption wasn't right for us. Maybe the most valuable thing was that reading the book helped us understand what our agency's values were and helped us feel that we'd made the right choice for our situation. I would highly recommend another book suggested by the agency, The Open Adoption Experience. It was a wonderful and non-judgemental book written for adoptive and birth families. It covered not just the adoption itself but raising the child and other issues. It had tons of examples and really helped me think through a lot of things I hadn't considered before.

To hear a social worker write so beautifully about adoption was surprising and welcome. Gritter leaves the mechanics of adoption to other writers and concentrates on the quality and spiritual aspects of a good open adoption.

I've read most everything in the field of adoption, and this book stands out as one of the few to really "get" the need for openness in adoption. Gritter tackles difficult subjects with honesty and subtlety.

This book makes a nice companion to The Open Adoption Experience by Ruskai and Melina.

If you like intellectual musings and lofty philosophical principles about adoption, read this book. I could only take a couple chapters of Gritter. My wife read more and felt discouraged about adopting. An adoptive parent we know couldn't get through the first chapter. "Too dry", she said.

It puzzled me why the author, with many years of adoption counseling experience under his belt, wouldn't use real life stories and examples to illustrate his ideas. There's almost none. Instead he pontificates and lectures; I felt talked down to.

Fortunately, our experience with Open Adoption and Family Services in Portland, Oregon was far more positive and down to earth.

Most of this book gives a fair and healthy picture of the advantages to open adoption. The target audience seems to be social workers in the field of adoption and NOT perspective adoptive parents. This book IS clinical in form and often long winded. But the author ends the text (chapters 14 & 15 in particular) by ranting about the evils of adoptions that are not completely open. By reading these chapters, it seemed as if the author wanted me to feel guilty for wanting to parent a child what was not my biological child. This leaves the feeling that the author is biases against choosing an adoption plan over parenting a biological child. We actually learned tonight that our agency (dedicated to the counsel and caring of birth parents) has pulled this book from it's recommended reading list. My wife and I are dedicated to being parents, and ministering to birth parents by raising their child in an open adoption. The negative tone of Gritter's book almost made us reconsider this option. If you are a perspective adoptive parent read Field's "Should You Adopt" and Silber & Speedlin's "Dear Birthmother," but do not read Ritter.

The author beautifully discusses the topic of open adoption. Not only does Gritter cover the need for openness, but he also includes a realistic discussion of how to make it work for all members of the adoption triad. His writing style does not come across as a clinical approach; the book is quick and easy to read. Because it is so thought-provoking, though, I do not suggest trying to rush through it. Gritter helps us see things in a new light and think about things in a new way. I found myself crying at times, thinking to myself, "Yes, someone finally understands what my husband and I feel is so important as the parents of two children from open adoptions." We have a lot more to learn about openness, and birthmothers in particular, and this book took us further along that path. It is an excellent book for those in the social work field as well as for lay people.

Gritter's writing style is definitely academic. His sentence structure tends to be complex and he can wax verbose at times. That, however, shouldn't prove too difficult for anyone comfortable reading a college level text. This isn't a book to read if you're curious about adoption and want to test the waters. Instead the book feels like an impassioned and well written textbook. The information is incredibly dense. Gritter doesn't ask growth on the part of the reader. He requires it. But that is not a function of his prose style. Growth is necessary because the reader will, undoubtedly, encounter presumptions and negative attitudes about adoption previously unchallenged.

In other reviews and conversations some have called Gritter "anti-adoption" or "callous" in his handling of the subject. I cannot disagree strongly enough! The sensitivity and nuance Gritter uses in his writing is unblinking. He honestly addresses the issues of commercialization, pain, separation, identity, and joy without ever pandering to one side of the experience. The difficulty that many encounter with this book is how consistently Gritter discusses the experience of everyone involved at every step. For each step in an adoption plan Gritter elaborates upon the typical legal, social, and emotional experience of the birth parents, adoptive parents, adoptee, and occasionally even the adoption worker! Recognizing that most books on adoption are specifically written for adoptive parents it can seem that Gritter puts in a lot of unnecessary information. As a result of consistently discussing the experience of the birth parents pain is brought up consistently though out the book. If for nothing else I must applaud Gritter for this. The painful experiences of the birth mother and birth father are typically glossed over or ignored entirely.

Simply put most adoption books are written for their audience: middle to upper class Americans, college educated, early to mid 40's in age, eagerly looking forward to parenting. The pain of adoptive parents not being able to have biological children is, also, largely missing or glossed over in most other books. Gritter has written a book that is as true for the adoptive parents as a 17 year old birth parent or a 27 year old birth parent. It is inconvenient, emotionally difficult, and absolutely necessary.

If you intend to adopt, read this book. If you're curious about adoption, consider starting elsewhere, but remember this title.

This was required reading by the adoption agency I'm working with. It gives a very good overview of open adoption, sharing the risks and benefits. I felt some of the sections, particularly those describing adoptive and birth parents and adoptees to be interesting and enlightening, giving me a new perspective from other items I've read. Honestly, however, I had to skim large sections - the author spent a lot of time on handling grief (important, but I think too heavily emphasized) and repeating himself.