Adoption.com 

Your Sister's Race (Click here to read post.)
August 12, 2011

“Geez!” She exclaims. “What a question!  Of course not.  She’s my sister!  What difference does it make what color she is?  Do I sit around thinking about what race the boys are?  I gotta tell you Mom,” she says, a bit scoldingly. “I don’t know who it is asking you about that, but you can tell them that it’s a very strange and very inappropriate question.”

Tabernacle and Georgina (Click here to read post.)
July 23, 2011

“Nope. I’m going to have a lot. A big mish-mash of kids. Some’ll be adopted, some not,” she says.

My daughter was adopted when she was a toddler; she’s captured my interest with this last comment. Parents by adoption are always on the look-out for clues as to the way their kids are processing their own adoptions.

“From Guatemala?” I ask. My mind flashes on the adult Mia walking through the airport, holding a baby from the country of her birth. I see myself, seven years ago, with Mia sitting on my hip, snuggled in the sling.

“Sure. Guatemala first. And then from lots of places. Like somewhere in Africa. And maybe China, too.”

An Intersection of Hope and Loss (Click here to read post.)
July 7, 2011

As a person who has visited some of the world’s poorest countries, witnessed heroic efforts to help street children and kids orphaned by AIDS, I think it’s short-sighted (at best) to say that all adoptions are abusive to birth, or first, parents and to children. When I get an email from a stranger who says that I’m part of the “adoption industry” and responsible for trafficking children, I have to stop a moment, take a breath, and try to hear where he or she is coming from.

A Pirate's Life for Me (Click here to read post.)
June 29, 2011

I knew almost from the start that it wasn’t going to work out. When she met four year-old Isabel, my daughter by birth, and Mia, my two year-old daughter by adoption, she told Isabel she was adorable and gave her a little tickle and then commented on Mia’s dark skin and hair.

Where'd You Get Her? (Click here to read post.)
June 21, 2011

“You got her in China,” he announced, pointing his finger at her. The awkward silence that followed was quickly replaced by the man saying what good people they must be to have adopted a child. Soon enough, the moment passed, they all moved on and it was over.

The little girl’s mother, however, couldn’t help but wonder what this kind of attention would mean to her daughter when she was older.

Chosen Family (Click here to read post.)
June 16, 2011

A few years ago, we finally named it and pronounced to each other that, despite a lack of common blood relatives, we were forever members of each others’ families. Later, I posted a picture on Facebook of Jimmy and one of my sons and wrote the caption: “Ian and his Uncle James.”  A friend who knows my son Ian well assumed we meant he was a blood relative and wrote, “Wow! Look at that family resemblance.”

Bad Spray Tans (Click here to read post.)
April 28, 2011

My daughter is white. Her skin, like mine, is fair.  Her hair, as was mine years ago, is a reddish-blond.  But her sister, adopted almost seven years ago and born in Guatemala, is dark-skinned.  Having a Latina sister has made Isabel identify closely with people of color.

In Praise of Erma Bombeck's Common Sense (Click here to read post.)
April 22, 2011

How do you define family? Should the term only refer to a married man and woman who are raising children? Are our notions of what is family changing as we witness the emergence of new family constellations such as same sex parents, stepchildren, adopted children, transracial families, and grandparents raising and serving as legal guardians to their grandchildren?

Celebrity Adoptions (Click here to read post.)
April 8, 2011

What does family look like?  To some, “family” is exclusively a matchie-matchie bunch, like those “Dick and Jane” readers right out of the 1950s. Dad in his pleated khakis looking responsible. Mom in her skirt, hurrying to open the door for the kids after school. Kids, who will without doubt, grow up to look just like Mom and/or Dad.

So what does a transracial family look like?

Quieting the Cacophony (Click here to read post.)
April 3, 2011

When I connect with those in the adoption process, I empathize with their uncertainty, weariness with waiting, and the hope and excitement with which they anticipate their children’s homecoming. And then, every so often, I come across something on the internet that makes me catch my breath. (And not in a good way.)

“How can you remove children from their native cultures?”

“There’s no replacing biological ties.”

“Adoption is a fancy term for child trafficking.”

Wow.

Real Family (Click here to read post.)
March 29, 2011

Last weekend, a few women and I hosted a couples baby shower to celebrate the imminent arrival of our friends’ fourth child. Their soon-to-be daughter was born in Ethiopia and still waits in the orphanage where she has lived since early infancy. She’s now a toddler.

A Culture of Our Own (Click here to read post.)
March 21, 2011

My own nine year-old daughter loves to draw the quetzal bird, a symbol for her native Guatemala. She loves to read books about Mayan culture and ancient people. But maybe someday, she’ll say to me, “Mom! Enough about Guatemala already!” But I think it will be too late for me to stop exploring that culture – I’m already in love and it’s grown to feel like a part of my own.

Now You've Seen the Light (Click here to read post.)
March 12, 2011

My friend said she never heard the phrase “conspicuous family” before adopting her son, but now thinks about it often.  “It is a term I wasn’t aware of before,” she said. “You look at my family and it’s obvious he’s not my biological child. People notice us. Our experience, blessedly, has been so affirming. People see the light that’s in him, they love his smile. People are drawn to him.”

Respecting Difference: Lessons Learned (Click here to read post.)
March 7, 2011

Since my nephew’s birth, our family has become more sensitized to disability issues. We have attended fundraisers for advocacy organizations. We notice the way people with intellectual disabilities or other special needs are represented in the media. None of us toss off the “R” word — and we happily embraced the recent “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign to render that hurtful word obsolete. (See r-word.org for more.)

Conspicuous Family - Or Ambassadors? (Click here to read post.)
February 22, 2011

If the mission of international adoption advocates such as Juntunen is realized, more children will grow up in the loving homes – rather than institutions or on the streets – a right when they deserve.

And, families like mine (and yours) won’t seem so conspicuous anymore.