Adoptive Parenting

Who’s job is it to tell people our child’s adoption story?  Is there even such a thing as a right to know when it comes to a person’s adoption status?  Of course the child herself or himself has a right to know, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  What about the child’s relatives?  Friends of the family?  Parents’ coworkers? There are situations when it is abundantly clear that an adoption took place.  The parents may have needed to take a lot of time off work for travel, or a group of people see the mother on a regular basis and go from seeing her slim one day and with a baby the next, or the parents look nothing like their adopted child. … [more]

Maury Povich’s talk show focuses on  what is apparently a TV staple nowadays – paternity testing.  The usual story blatantly screams of loose morals, lax judgment, or both, and builds up to the paternity reveal.  Sometimes, the man in question turns out to have indeed fathered the woman’s baby.  The crowd yells in unison as Maury confidently pronounces, “You ARE the father!”  Often times, this comes after the man adamantly denied the possibility, and now the woman feels vindicated and a physical altercation between the two is not unheard of. Other times, the crowd gasps when Maury announces, “You are NOT the father!”  Here, the woman generally begins to cry, maybe even runs off stage, realizing that someone else, someone she had… [more]

My mom never really talked about the hard times she had with me as a kid, but there was one story I remembered hearing her tell another young lady who had adopted a child that always kind of stuck with me throughout the years. When I was three days old my parents came and picked me up. It was a pretty amazing story, they were expecting to get a daughter in a few months but had received a last minute call from the adoption worker saying that a young mom had chosen them as parents and that if willing they could come pick their son up the next day. This threw everything in to chaos. First off they were expecting a… [more]

Craig is one of my better friends and stops by all the time. He stays well informed about everything happening with my family and we often talked freely about the goings-on in our life. So when my wife and I adopted our son he was one of the first to stop by for a visit. We sat across the living room from one another talking about the different aspects of adoption—specifically about the things we hadn’t anticipated. We were talking about what it was like to be full-time parents while someone else, living somewhere completely separate, also carried a title of “parent”. It was something unique to get used to; a concept we needed to adjust our minds to. I had been… [more]

Most adoptive parents dread the thought of being seen as “not real parents” to their adoptive children.  The pendulum seems to swing in the opposite directions out of adoptive parents’ fears, minimizing the role of the birth parents with the use of the qualifier (“birth” or “biological”, etc.), while at the same time taking offense at similar qualifiers with their own title ("adoptive" parent instead of just "parent").  Is there a better way? If we stop thinking of the title “parents” as being strictly limited to a certain definition, we are able to accurately represent all parties.  In my own life (I was not adopted), I have several people in my life with the title “parent”.  My mom and dad, of course, but… [more]

My husband and I parented our foster daughter VV for 10 months, from the age of 6-16 months.  During this time, we had ongoing contact with VV’s family, especially her young mother.  It wasn’t clear whether or not we’d be able to adopt VV at first.  We assumed that we would until proven otherwise.  So in the meantime, we did what we could to form a proper attachment with our little girl. We were obligated to have VV in daycare during the week, but in the evenings and on the weekends, she was all ours.  Before she became too heavy, I loved to carry her in a baby carrier, especially when walking our two dogs.  It was like a never ending hug… [more]

Rasmussen's are soccer players.  Whether you were born into our family or adopted in, that's what we do…or so I thought.  We have six kids, 3 bio, 3 adopted.  Our adopted kids are sandwiched in the middle with an older brother (13) and younger twin sisters (4).  We have two boys adopted from Ukraine (age 10, not bio brothers) and a daughter (9) adopted as a newborn (a domestic open adoption). Did you know that everyone does not like the same things?!?  Yes, I knew that was probable, bio or adopted, kids are all different.  I assumed a child with my DNA would be more likely drawn to the same activities that I was programmed to enjoy, and to some extent that is… [more]

When an adopted child first comes into your home, the joy and excitement the little one brings is magical. There is nothing like that euphoria. You fall in love. However, when the child's health or behavioral challenges surface, an adoptive parent's imagination can easily drum up dark fears.   While a birth parent worries about the child's issues, as an adoptive parent, you may also worry about the issue plus the unknown or known history of the adoptee's background. You may even hear the haunting voice from a family or friend who was against your adoption, "Why adopt?  You don't know what that child has in her background." This is when you must stay strong. Separate the facts from fiction.  Your… [more]

“I know how a birthmother feels,” a man told me once. “My nephew and I were really close, but one day my brother told me he got a new job on the other side of the country and they would be moving. I miss that kid so much.” I couldn’t believe my ears. This man honestly thought he could directly relate to a birthmother because his nephew moved across the country. Wow. The human mind is a funny thing. When we’re little kids, everything is new to us. We spend our days exploring new shapes, situations, and ideas. Our minds are constantly being filled with concepts that are completely brand new to us, which makes the whole experience of being on this crazy world an exciting adventure. Once we become adults, though… [more]

The last few weeks have been bubbling in the adoption community. I head up a lot of discussion forums and am a regular reader/participant in a lot of others. Ever since the horrific and tragic shooting in Colorado, there have been a lot of people talking about how the shooter was adopted. A lot of people blamed his antisocial and demonic behavior on how he was abandoned by his biological parents, never fit in with his adopted family, and so on and so forth. I slipped in a few comments here and there, but for the most part I stayed out of the discussion. Finally, when I saw it posting so many places, I decided to start my own thread on my own Facebook page (Open Adoption, Open Heart) about the… [more]