The traditional American family is no longer. Working dad, stay-at-home mom, two and a half kids—say goodbye to all that. Meet the new American family: families headed by single parents (increasingly fathers), working women juggling the obligations of career and work, gay parents, divorced parents who share responsibilities. And then there's adoption. According to Adam Pertman, there are "five to six million adoptees in the United States," and the number continues to rise. As Pertman argues in his important book, adoption has changed the nature of family life in America, and it's about time we faced up to the fact.

For this reason, Adam Pertman advocates openness about adoption. In the past, parents would not talk about adoption; the act was concealed from adopted children, largely out of shame. Birth parents gave up their children with no hope of seeing them again. Pertman is a heart-felt advocate of what is called "open adoption." For him, this means birth parents have a right to meet adoptive parents and stay in contact with their children, and, just as importantly, that Americans must accept all the different ramifications of adoption.

As Pertman explains, "The bottom line is that greater openness for adoptees means an upbringing rooted in self-knowledge and truth rather than equivocation or deception; for birth parents, it helps diminish angst and permits grieving, and therefore increases their comfort levels with their decisions; and for adoptive parents, it eases personal insecurities while establishing a steady stream of information for their children and for making critical parenting decisions (based, for example, on the birth family's medical history)."

Pertman's passionate belief in openness is welcome. Who would want to go back to the "old days" when parents lied to their adopted children? On the other hand, much of his argument focuses on private adoption where birth parents are voluntarily giving up their rights to parenting (it should be pointed out that Pertman adopted two children this way). In the public system, where children are sometimes removed from birth parents under traumatic circumstances, openness seems a trickier question. There are many child advocates who believe that it is only destructive for some adopted children to have contact with their birth parents.

Tough Questions, Few Answers
Though Pertman is willing to pose tough questions about open adoption, he rarely answers them. For instance, at one point he asks: "What happens if two parents, perhaps who despise or barely know each other, differ on whether their baby should be relinquished or on which applicants should get to adopt?" The question is left unanswered, the reader confused. Throughout the book, open adoption is vociferously defended (which, at times, makes the book slightly repetitive). Unfortunately, the author rarely answers the tough questions posed by the policies he embraces.

With this said, Pertman does a better job at confronting some of the other impediments to full acceptance of adoption's ramifications. First, there's law. Everyone has heard the stories of children languishing in the foster system, never finding permanent homes, their cases hung up in the courts. Here there's some good and bad news surrounding the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. This legislation, one of Clinton's lesser-known but very important legacies, provides "financial incentives for states to increase public adoptions." The goal is to move kids into permanent arrangements sooner rather than later in hope that closure can provide stability (something most foster kids don't have). But, as Pertman makes clear, the application of the law at the local level is haphazard at best. As Pertman explains, the foster care system "remains maddeningly bureaucratic, capricious, and discriminatory because of the intransigence of some states and individuals." If permanency is the goal, the law has left a mixed record.

The second problem is America's entrenched racism. Here again there's some hopeful news. Having interviewed so many people affected by adoption, Pertman has piled up some optimistic stories about the ways in which cross-racial and ethnic adoptions change the attitudes of some Americans. Pertman writes, "There are innumerable white grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, for example, who have surprised themselves with the unconditional love they feel for their new black or Asian or Hispanic relatives, and who have learned critical lessons as a result. Adoption is helping to crack the walls of prejudice." Adoption therefore might help Americans towards the "beloved community" Martin Luther King celebrated.

The third and biggest problem facing those interested in adoption is money. Increasingly, private adoption is becoming a prerogative of the rich. Pertman points out that "the total spent by most people for adoptions outside the public system today seems to wind up between $20,000 and $35,000." Wealthy people can afford to pay attorneys and nonprofits, working- and middle-class people can't.

Pertman is rightfully bothered by this, not only because it sets up an exclusionary system but also because it turns children into commodities bought and sold on the market to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, on this count as with others, Pertman has few solutions to pose. Regulatory approaches seem out of fashion today, what with the recent penchant for government bashing. The public system of adoption continues to move sluggishly and is thus unappealing to those who have money and expect quickness. So we're left facing a deeply disturbing pattern that seems difficult to solve.

Though he doesn't come up with all the answers to tough questions, Pertman at the least poses them. For anyone interested in adoption (especially those considering adoption), this is an important book to read. Policy makers who need a brief, readable introduction to adoption would do well by picking it up. They won't find solutions but will be introduced to the ways in which adoption is changing America. Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming America, by Adam Pertman was published 1991 and can be purchased through many retailers, including Amazon.com.

Kevin Mattson is a historian and writer. In addition to articles in both academic and popular magazines, he has written Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era (1998). He lives with his wife and foster son in New Jersey.