Adoption in the United States, A Reference for Families, Professionals, and Students is a new book just released in May by Lyceum Books Incorporated. If you are new to the world of adoption, reading this book could save you hundreds of research hours. It could also save you from making embarrassing blunders when dealing with birth families, adoptive families, or adoption professionals. Those of us who have been part of the adoption world for over a decade have had to learn the ropes by asking many questions and making mistakes. If you are thinking about adopting,... more

Should your family socialize with other adoptive families? What benefits are there to socializing with other adoptive families? Does your area have organized events specifically for adoptive families? If not, have you thought about organizing a support group or an event? Maybe you have never considered any of these questions. Because our adoption journey began through providing foster care to area children, attending social events for adoptive families seemed very natural. In the process of becoming licensed foster parents we were required to attend many hours of training and... more

A reader recently posted a question on one of my blogs as a comment. She asked me if the adoption tax credit could help to eliminate a person’s self-employment tax. This reader was understandably confused when she was told that the adoption tax credit did not apply to the self-employment tax. Surprisingly, I can answer this question. In my previous life, before adoption, I was an accountant. In addition, Super Dad and I completed two adoptions in 2007 and I earned money from self-employment (blogging) in 2007. Therefore, our tax return may be very similar to this reader’s tax... more

I love to read almost as much as I love to write. Books are my constant companion, and I learn so much through them. I have found that the same holds true for children: They can learn so much through reading a book. Reading books about adoption is a great way for children to understand the difficult concepts involved in adoption in an age-appropriate and non-threatening manner.

My favorite book about adoption is Jamie Lee Curtis' Tell... more

When looking for parenting advice and resources, it is often difficult to find articles and information that address the specific concerns of adoptive parents. While there are often articles about how to adopt in more mainstream parenting magazines, they seldom speak to the specific issues and concerns that parents face while raising adopted children.

A terrific resource our family found early on has been Adoptive Families Magazine. We actually located this helpful magazine in 1985 before we... more

Many of the bloggers on www.adoptionblogs.com have written some form of commentary about Ann Fessler's book The Girls Who Went Away. I have not read it yet. I wrote a post many moons ago stating that I would read it once I worked up the courage to do so. Clearly, from the comments of some of those who have read it it is quite a powerful read about the heartbreaking experiences of young women and girls who relinquished children to adoption in the late 1960's. From what I have been able to determine from others' accounts,... more

As bloggers we are a very fortunate lot here at www.adoptionblogs.com. We have a large and well known venue to blog from and we can be easily found. We can read about a wide array of adoption topics, express our opinions on one another's blogs, take a cue from someone else's writing, all just by showing up on the site to see what folks are writing about. However, there are tons of adoption blogs in the blogosphere that are easily overlooked because they lack the platform that we enjoy. Still, their authors write... more

Knowledge is power and information is power. So information that actually makes one more knowledgeable should be a double bonus. Here is a link to a pretty snazzy site that I believe will fit the bill. It is full of resources on all things child welfare related from abuse and neglect, to foster care, to adoption. The information is straightforward and easily understood, clearly written with the end use consumer (most likely a layperson) in mind. I have written before that one can become easily overhwlmed by the information that is available on the internet about adoption. However, this Child Welfare Information Gateway site seems to offer... more

While surfing the internet on the desperate hunt for useful resources for my readers I came upon this site. Ta-da! I felt as if I had struck gold. There is so much information out there on the web, and in bookstores, and in the libraries. Most of it is useful, some of it less so. But, this particular site is an internet talk radio show just on...adoption! How neat is that? In case you haven't noticed, I'm not the most technologically savy person in the world. So, if the entire adoption world is already familiar with this site... more

I have blog envy. I didn't even know such a thing existed, until I started following all of the exceptional writing here at AdoptionBlogs. I've discovered that my particular blog style is very linear, and some would say, concrete. I think it. I write it. I post it. But, I am challenging myself to grow and stretch. I have been practicing how to use new and different features over on my parenting blog and now I'm ready to try to fly my wings here. I still have a long way to go though to "run with the big dawgs" like Nancy, Bill, Moose and all the others who make me absolutely green with envy. Ha. But, I'll figure it out. Who knows, I might even learn... more