Connor Howe

It means a different thing in a different stage of life.

If you're thinking about relinquishing your child for adoption, open adoption means the world.

It means whatever you want it to mean.

They literally – I think when you guys were – I saw clips from the show where it's like you are in the driver's seat.

I think that's like what the exact words were.

Yep.

But obviously that's not really enforceable in any way like legally speaking.

And even in those legal agreements, they're not like – a lot of them – if you have a legal agreement, it's not like it's always enforceable because –

you're generally the party that with fewer or fewer, like less money, less, uh, you know, power legally speaking.

And so if the other party has more money or a lawyer on their side that can get the job done, or there's a judge who's like, well, the kid's better off with this new family.

It's not really going to have any, you're not in a position of any level of power.

I mean, not to say that you need power, power, but like you have no agency at all.

But again, it's like, it's all this, it's a huge promise.

And then,

Once the adoption is an open adoption, quote-unquote, it becomes this thing of, like, you hear all the time, even with you guys, right?

Like, your adoption closed.

Yeah.

The difference between closed and open adoption was never about contacts, really.

It was about...

closed adoption meant that the records are sealed.