There are many factors to think about when considering adoption. The type of adoption you want, where you would like your child to live, what ethnicity and faith will your chosen adoptive parents have, and how much contact you would like to have with your child. All of these things can and will likely influence your decisions when choosing who will be the adoptive parents of your child.
Depending on how much physical contact youd like to have with your child and their adoptive family in the future, distance can play a role in your decision. But how important is distance when choosing the family that is right for your child?
How Important is Distance?
In the past, birth mothers would have very little knowledge or control over where their child would be placed, so feeling cautious about the family your child will be placed with is natural. But as times and social attitudes have changed, pre-birth connections and open adoptions have become much more common processes, giving birth mothers much more control over where their child will be placed as well as who they will be placed with.
There is nothing wrong with choosing a family for your child in another state, or even in another country, if you feel that family is the right one for your child. But with letters, phone calls, and the leaps and bounds of modern technology, your child being so far away doesnt have to mean you will lose contact with your child, especially if you are wanting to maintain a relationship with your child and their adoptive family.
Distance no longer has to be the most important factor for you when choosing adoptive parents for your child, letting you focus on finding the right people for your child and you, as well as what the more intimate details of your future relationship will be.
So Far, But Still So Close
With the help of your adoption agency, you can decide how much communication you want to have with your child and their adoptive family, and what kind of communication you’d like it to be. This could be photo updates emailed to you every few months, letters sent to you from the parents and your child about how they are doing and how they are feeling, or it could even be video chats to catch up more directly, making the communication process that little bit more personal in spite of the distance. Some open adoptions also include in-person meet-ups every now and then.
The distance can play a part in defining the type of communication you share with your child and their family, but it shouldnt be the defining factor of your choice when choosing adoptive parents. There are so many other qualities and aspects to keep in mind that could make an adoptive couple perfect for your child, wherever they may be. Its recommended that you keep these at the top of your list of priorities when choosing who is right for your child, and not necessarily how close by or far away they may be. Distance is something you should consider, but its not something to base all of your choices on.
