Adoption-related Issues

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]

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]

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]

F-E-A-R-L-E-S-S  Letters spelled out in splashes of bright paint across the soft brown sides of the little horse.   A four legged canvas for the word that she wanted to stay forefront in her mind as she thought back to her time at the Ranch.  Words attached to memories.  Memories that she tucked away like treasures to be brought out in times of struggle and darkness.  Memories that would give her the strength to break free. Those memories threatened to flood her even now, fresh on her mind, as she stepped back to admire her art.  The intimidation at the size of her partner for the week- how the little mare seemed so large that first day.  She remembered her uncertainty the first time… [more]

It was a beautiful day yesterday.  A treasure to enjoy before the cold weather sets in.  Early fall, the sun was shining, the leaves just starting to turn orange, red and yellow.  We ran around as a family; cleaning the garage, cheering at soccer games, friends stopped by, the boys looked for frogs and played wiffle ball in the backyard. In the afternoon, my husband piled as many boys as he could fit in his car and took them out to lunch. I took Eliza, my four year old in my car. She wanted McDonalds (sorry health nuts), or Old McDonalds, as she calls it, so we went to get her Happy Meal, and I got the requisite boring mom salad.  We… [more]

I am well aware of the intricacies of sibling rivalry. I grew up in a very large family with eleven siblings of my own. I know that siblings can love each other one minute, hate each other the next and then love again. My youngest, and my next to youngest, have been engaged in an on going tug of war of anger, jealousy and love. Days of shoving, arguing, tattling mixed with times of love, playing and laughter. A true microcosm of the larger human word and all of our interactions with each other, person to person, culture to culture, country to country. I suppose it should come as no surprise really. It was bound to happen at some point. Kids are kids, they… [more]