The contradictions of identity-work for parents of visibly adopted children

Meredith Marko Harrigan

33 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Social and Personal Relationships

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Family Dynamics and Relationships Child Welfare and Adoption Attachment and Relationship Dynamics

Abstract

As the number of families formed through visible adoption continues to increase, so too does the need to understand how members communicatively experience their families. Grounded in the interpretive paradigm and framed by relational dialectics theory, the researcher conducted 31 interviews with 40 parents to investigate what, if any, contradictions parents experience as they engage in identity-work. The researcher describes six contradictions active in parents’ identity-work: (i) similarity and difference, (ii) invisibility and visibility, (iii) integration and distance, (iv) fortune and loss, (v) openness and closedness and (vi) community and privacy. Implications of these findings are discussed to provide insight to researchers and individuals who interact with members of families formed through visible adoption.

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References

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2016Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Adoptive Parents’ Socialization Approaches to Children’s Minority Statuses 2010Parental management of adoptive identities during challenging encounters: Adoptive parents as ‘protectors’ and ‘educators’2011“Dear Birth Mother”: Addressivity and Meaning-Making in Online Adoption-Seeking Letters 2010Discursive Struggles in Families Formed through Visible Adoption: An Exploration of Dialectical Unity 2012Narrative Coherence in Online Stories Told by Members of the Adoption Triad 2015

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