For Birth Mothers: Top 40 Questions to Ask Adoptive Parents
The process of choosing the adoptive parents your child will grow up with can seem a bit daunting at first. At Adoption Choices of Colorado, we want to support you along the entirety of your adoption journey in every way possible. Your adoption caseworker will help you in looking through adoptive parent profile books and determining what’s most important to you.
The next step will be to conduct interviews with prospective adoptive parents. Again, your adoption caseworker will walk you through this process step by step. However, it can be helpful to have a sense of what kinds of questions to ask adoptive parents as a birth mother.
1. Questions about Background
It can be useful to start by asking a few basic questions regarding prospective adoptive parents’ backgrounds. This will give you a basic idea of them and help you start to parse through whether they are the right choice for your. Knowing whether things like educational background and location matter to you beforehand is helpful and can be discussed in detail with your adoption caseworker.
- How old are you?
- Have you been divorced?
- What level of education do you have?
- Where do you live? Do you plan to live here in the years to come? Where might you move?
2. Questions about Education
If education is important to you, you may desire that it be important to your chosen adoptive parents. If you care that your child is pushed academically or has options to take advanced classes, etc., then it is a good idea to talk to prospective adoptive parents about education specifically and directly.
- Would you most likely send your child to public, private, or home school?
- How will you manage homework assignments? What role will you play as parents?
- How important is it to you that your child attends college? Will you help pay for school?
- How much will academic achievement be emphasized as a goal at home?
- What do you believe the importance of school to be? What is the value of learning/education to you personally?
3. Questions about Relationships
Understanding the importance of relationships to your chosen adoptive parents can help you have confidence that they will be a strong example to your child and that they have the support they need to navigate the ups and downs of parenting. This may also be an appropriate time to figure out what their plans are regarding conflict and divorce if such a situation arises.
- How long have you been married? (unless you are interviewing a single adoptive parent)
- How do you resolve conflict in your relationship?
- What are your feelings on divorce? How would you navigate this with your child if it did occur?
- How close are you to your family?
- What role do you see your families playing in your child’s life?
- What is your support network like?
- How often do you spend time with friends?
- Are you involved in your community?
4. Questions about Faith/Religion
If faith or religion is important to you, you may want to ensure that your child is raised by parents who share the same values. If you would rather your child not be raised around spirituality, this is also important to know about your chosen adoptive parents.
- What is your faith/religious background, if any?
- How important is your spirituality to you?
- Do you regularly attend a religious community or service?
- What would you teach your child in terms of spiritual values?
5. Questions about Work
Parents often spend much of their day at work. When considering what questions to ask adoptive parents, think about not only the financial implications of adoptive parents’ jobs, but also aspects such as emotional fulfillment and work/life balance.
- Where do you work?
- Why did you choose that profession?
- How many hours do you work a week?
- Do you travel? How often?
- How will you navigate childcare while you’re working?
6. Questions about Fun
Family also includes downtime together. Sharing celebrations, outings, and cozy nights-in. Getting to know your child’s adoptive parents as people, including their hobbies and interests, can help you imagine whether your child would have a happy life with them.
- How do you like to spend your weekends?
- What hobbies would you want to share with your child?
- What important holidays/traditions do you celebrate and want to share with your child?
- Do you travel or take vacations?
- Do you have any pets/plan to?
7. Questions about Parenting
In making the decision, to place your child for adoption it is important to understand how adoptive parents relate to the role of parenting itself. Asking direct questions about their values and plans as parents can help you find the assurance and confidence you need in your choice.
- How did you decide you wanted to be a parent?
- How many children do you plan to have?
- What values are important for you to instill in your child?
- What will your disciplinary style look like as a parent?
- How will you respond to your child when they are sad, make a mistake, or fail at something important to them?
- How would you integrate health, wellness, and nutrition into your family life?
- What would your ideal open adoption look like?
- Why did you choose adoption?
- How do you plan to talk about adoption with your child?
Top 40 Questions to Ask Adoptive Parents
It may feel like a lot to consider, but just remember that the questions you choose to ask are about you and your desires for your child! Feel free to adapt these questions, ask some of them, or none of them. You can discuss this process more in depth with your Adoption Choices of Colorado caseworker, who will assist you in honing down which questions you ultimately decide to ask in interviews.
These are just ideas and suggestions to get you thinking about what is and isn’t important to you when choosing adoptive parents. The choice of what to ask is entirely up to you in order to ensure that you feel confident that your choice of adoptive parents will provide the best life possible for your child.
If you are facing an unplanned pregnancy and want to learn more about your adoption options, contact Adoption Choices of Colorado by email, phone, or text: Email Us, Text us: 720-371-1099, Call us: 303-670-4673 (HOPE). If you are hoping to adopt, please contact us here.
Meet the Author: Kara Bringewatt is an English major and psychology minor at Queens University of Charlotte. She plans to get her masters in social work and work at a nonprofit as a case manager for at-risk youth. She loves using writing as a means of creating community and bringing attention to causes she’s passionate about.
Kara is particularly interested in educational and mental health interventions for young people in foster care. She’s worked as a tutor, professional caregiver, preschool teacher and acting instructor, and loves being able to utilize her wide range of passions to support young people and plans on being a foster and adoptive parent.
Stephanie joined the Adoption Choices family in 2014 as the Child Placement Supervisor. Her love for adoption began in first grade when she made friends with twins adopted from Vietnam. Her heart grew strong over the years for adopted children and ultimately led her to graduate school where she continued her focus to her dream of working in the adoption field. Stephanie earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Denver in 2001. Over the past 15 years, Stephanie has worked as a pregnancy counselor and as an adoptive parent counselor for foster care, international adoption and domestic adoption, writing hundreds of home studies for families, and helping build their forever families. Stephanie is married and has three boys ages 12, 9, and 5. Together with her family she enjoys riding bike, playing games, watching her three sons compete in their various sporting and musical activities and go on vacations.
Christy Ikeler, is our Executive Director and Birth Parent Director. Christy has been with Adoption Choices Team for 18 years, since opening the doors in 2002! Christy has a true passion for what she does and her true love is working with and helping each birth parent. Whether she is up all night on the phone talking with them, taking them to doctors appointments, out for their favorite treat, providing counseling or at the hospital during labor and delivery, Christy is very involved every step of the way. She has a contagious laugh and a spunky personality that our birth moms all can bond with and relate to. As an adoptive parent herself, adoption holds a very special place in her heart and she can relate on every level with both birth parents and adoptive parents. In her free time Christy loves spending time with her daughter, gardening, baking and taking vacations with her family. Christy is an excellent leader for our team at Adoption Choices and is truly one of a kind!! As Executive Director, Christy spends time with the staff, birth parents and adoptive families in order to ensure that the agency is running smoothly. She has placed a huge emphasis on community outreach and programs for birth parents. Christy loves the opportunity to lead the agency into a brighter future.
Ms. Mackenzie has built a successful counseling career over the past 20 years, supporting mothers and families, people of all ages and genders, students, community professionals and fellow clinicians. Liv values a diverse professional focus, including the entrepreneurial life of a sole proprietor, the evaluative process of certifying foster/adoptive homes, the insightful and mindful one-on-one one work with enthusiastic clients, and serving as an advocate for underserved populations. Liv is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds a BA in Pre-Law and Economics from American University, an MA in Counseling from Adams University and a certificate in Human Resource Management from Villanova University. Away from work you will find Liv spending time in nature, biking to the farmer’s market and adventuring with her family.
Catherine A. Madsen, joined the Adoption Choices family as legal counsel in 2013. Catherine is responsible for providing legal guidance to the Agency, training and updating staff on developments in adoption law and legislation, and program development. Catherine
Virginia Frank is an adoption attorney accredited since 1991 with the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Ms. Frank is a leader in the field of private adoption and has completed over 4,000 adoptions in her career. Ms. Frank has a law degree from Oklahoma City University and a BA in both Political Science and Communications from the University of Oklahoma.
Cassidie has been with Adoption Choices since 2015, she has her bachelors in Interdisciplinary Affairs with concentrations in both Sociology and Business Management. Cassidie has additional training in Victim Advocacy, foster care and has been working in women’s services for over 10 years. Cassidie has always had a heart for adoption and it was her career dream to work in adoption. She started off doing volunteer work for advocacy programs, adoption organizations and worked in High Risk Maternal Fetal Medicine through the University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Cassidie is also blessed to have personally experienced an adoption of her own in 2012, completing her family of five! Cassidie loves what she does as a case worker from initial phone calls, meetings, doctor appointments, interaction with the adoptive families to delivery and counseling. Cassidie has a passion for those in need and strives to help make a difference in the lives of the people she meets. She is a firm believer in being kind, compassionate and open minded in all situations. “Unless you’ve walked in their shoes, there’s no place for judgment. A kind word or compliment can go a long way!” The bittersweet moments in adoption reminds Cassidie each and every time, why she loves what she does!