The Donaldson Adoption Institute | Untangling the Web II
secrecy and more openness. When women were sent away to have their babies, they were often pressured to keep their pregnancies secret and were left feeling isolated and alone. The opening of adoptions and increase in contact between birth and adoptive families has helped relieve some of the isolation felt by many birth/first parents. The Internet and social media also provide an outlet for birth parents and greater opportunity to feel they are not alone, offering a growing number of ways to connect with others and to gather the information. !
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“Knowing there are other Birth/First Parents out there who are going through the same thing you are, is a GREAT knowledge. Being able to contact them, ask them questions, receive sympathy from, etc. has helped me through difficult times - especially Mother's Day and her Birthday.�!
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PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF ADOPTIVE PARENTS
Adoptive parents make up the largest number of respondents to our survey. At the time the data were analyzed, 1216 adoptive parents had responded. They came from across the nation and beyond. Adoptive parents who reported their place of residence lived in every state except Mississippi5 , while just over 3 percent reported living outside the U.S. ! Â
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Respondents were overwhelmingly white (91%) and non-Hispanic (92%). Adoptive mothers were far more likely to respond than fathers (89% vs. 11%). Respondents were highly educated, with 52 percent having an advanced degree and another 37 percent having completed college. Respondents were generally affluent, with 53 percent who reported family incomes of over $100,000, while just 8 percent had annual incomes below $50,000 annually. !
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Most parents were in middle adulthood. The largest age category was 36-45 (35%). Most families (80%) were composed of two opposite-sex parents with one or more adopted children. Most (68%) had adopted one child.!
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Perhaps because demographic information came at the very end of a very long survey, about 23% of respondents did not complete this part of the survey. Thus, the description above refers to the 931 respondents who provided these data.!
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New York had the highest number of respondents, followed by California, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland.
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