Parents by adoption: Differing perspectives of couples in the formation and launching stages of the adoptive family life cycle

Abstract

Sealed adoption records support the notion that adoptive families are the same as biological families and that adoptive parenting should mirror biological parenting. Whether adoptive parents subscribe to these beliefs is not really known, since they have had few opportunities to tell about this way of being a family. The research involved a narrative analysis of the stories told conjointly by six couples in the formation stage and six couples in the launching stage of the adoptive family life cycle; this reflexive research demonstrates the collaborative nature of social constructionism. The research subject (the storyteller) and the research interviewer (the listener) create meaning together through the questions and responses, the interviewers interpretation of the narrative and then the checkback which allows the storyteller to indicate disagreement or enlarged understanding. Adoptive couples with young children were found to believe that their family is not very different from biological families while the couples with children leaving home were assessing their parenting and the strength of their family ties. Overall, the couples seem to be constrained by their cultural understanding of parenthood. ^