In my post, Adoptive Parenting: Inequity In Hands-On Parenting Responsibilities, Fenyimom posted the following comment:

One that I've heard from several of my male co-workers, whose wives are stay at home moms - we work in an operations team, where we are oncall. If you're oncall and get contacted after work, you have *got* to take the call and work the issue. For some strange reason, my co-workers wives don't understand this. Their... more

In my post, Adoption: Does Reluctant Spouse = Reluctant Husband?, John posted the following comment:

Hi Faith, interesting post. I am always amazed at the standard assumption that parenting is purely working with the child. It takes a place to live, and food on the table to parent also and that is a key part of parenting. Someone has to bring home the bacon, and they are parenting every bit as much as the stay at home mom. That is one tread that appears... more

This week, I have been posting about topics raised by an adoptee named IzzyMom on her blog in the post entitled What About MY Rights?. In this post, I will address the heart of her message.

IzzyMom makes some valid points about the unfairness of denying adult adoptees basic information about their pasts. She did her own research to track down her birth family after being told that no records were available from the adoption agency because it had closed.

IzzyMom asks some valid questions on her post... more

When I was going through the home study process, I did not want to believe that my son would have any challenges resulting from his adoption. I wanted to believe that I would have the answers and love him enough to blot out any negative feelings from having been separated from his birth family. Then, I learned about a book called The Primal Wound by Nancy Newton Verrier. In this book, the author asserted that all children who are separated from their birth family suffer from grief, even when... more

One of my friends forwarded me a powerful post written by an adoptee named "IzzyMom" on her blog. The title of the post is What About MY Rights? I e-mailed IzzyMom and asked permission to quote from and discuss her post. Here was her response:

Please feel free to discuss my post and quote from it. People need to know that secrecy about adoption is never a good choice. - IzzyMom

I agree with IzzyMom that keeping the fact that a child was adopted a secret is never a good choice.... more

Sometimes posts about adoption can get me feeling a bit down. Topics like "adoptive grief" or "adoption loss" definitely have their place, but adoption is not solely about grief and loss. Adoption is also about joy! It is about families coming together and agreeing to be related forever even though they do not share the same DNA.

I have experienced pain and frustration while going through the adoption process, but most of what I have experienced has been positive. Without adoption, I would not be a mother today. I would not have my precious son reminding me... more

Sometimes people get into a contest about who is a better parent – a biological parent or an adoptive parent. Some people believe that you have to share the same DNA as your child in order to bond fully with your child. Other people believe that, because adoptive parents tend to be older and more financially secure, they are better parents than biological ones. Which is correct?

I know some biological parents who are fabulous parents. Their lives revolve around their children, and they always seem to have an unending amount of patience with their kids. However,... more

How much does adoption affect your day-to-day life? If you are an adoptive family, then you obviously would not have the family you do without adoption. However, does adoption have a daily impact on your family?

My answer to this question might surprise you. Considering I write ten posts about adoption a week (five for the Adoptive Parenting blog and five for the Hoping to Adopt blog), you might think that I live and breathe adoption in my household.... more

In my last post, Perceptions of Irresponsible Adult Adopted Child, I talked about how insulting it is to an irresponsible young adult to assume that he does not have the ability to learn how to make better choices. I promised to provide advice for how to teach an adult adopted child responsibility in this post. Here is my advice: Love your adult adopted child enough to allow him to make his... more

In case you missed it, the Reactive Attachment Disorder blog has a heated debate going about Nancy’s adult adopted child who is not making the most responsible choices. Nancy has made the decision to let her adult daughter make her own choices and either sink or swim without bailing her out. Some readers have accused Nancy of not being “loving” by making this choice. See the following posts and comments for more on this situation: