Six months after she came home to us, our daughter stopped speaking. As I searched for clues as to her sudden silence, I became profoundly grateful to her Chinese foster father, a man I had never met, for teaching me a valuable lesson about selfless love.
For years, many white adoptive parents of children of color have sought to claim the relatively passive “not-racist” identity, but now is the time to push beyond self-examination into action and become an anti-racist family. Learn how to interrogate your own white privilege; talk with your child about systemic racism, the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others, and the resulting Black Lives Matter protests; and commit to working toward justice.
As my children move into the world without me, I can’t protect them the way I could when they were little. I can’t assume that their lives and actions will be cloaked with the same privilege I was born with.
As an adoptee in a mixed family of both biological and adopted children, working in the adoption field for the past 15 years has given me the opportunity to share my own adoption story and search for identity. I draw upon my personal experience, and understand complex family systems, as well as the grief and<a href="https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/directory/becca-leitman-psychotherapy-brooklyn-ny/" title="Read more" >...a>
Adoption allowed me to fulfill my dream of finally becoming a mother, and my flexible work schedule allows me to be the mom I’ve always wanted to be. Here’s how you can make it work, too.
"At what age should we start letting our daughter take the lead in birth parent contact? I know that my daughter will be able to call her birth mom freely when she gets her own cellphone, so how do we step back responsibly?"
Once, I grieved the loss of a biological child. Nineteen years later, as I watch my son leap and soar (literally) into adulthood, I am at peace with my role of nurturing the many gifts built into his nature.
When you formed your family through adoption, everyone seems to think it's their right to ask you nosy questions about adoption. Readers share some of the most common—as well as some of the most outrageous.
Adoptive Families presents our annual roundup of new memoirs, novels, children’s books, and non-fiction with adoption storylines or themes, published in the last year.
The attorneys at Fiddler Osband are compassionate, child-focused and bring over 20+ years of combined adoption experience to every matter. Mark is a nationally-recognized attorney in the areas of adoption and ICWA. He is a fellow in the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Mark is one of twenty Americans awarded a Kellogg International Leadership Program Fellowship,<a href="https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/directory/fiddler-osband-llc-edina-mn/" title="Read more" >...a>
TruAdopt is a non-profit law firm in Southern California dedicated exclusively to the representation and support of expectant mothers who are making an adoption plan.
"Our adoption profile was shown to an expectant mother, and she selected a different family. We knew this was a possibility, of course, but feel disappointed. How to cope?" Readers offer advice.
"Would knowing that somewhere, out in the world, she has a biological sister—but one she can’t get in touch with or live with as a sibling—help our child, or be harmful?"
Parents share the moment they knew in their hearts that their path to parenthood would involve adoption, whether they always knew or it came after years of trying to conceive.
Belated diagnoses of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) changed the way this mom parented her children, and the way she savored their successes. Join with her as she recounts some of their small victories and hard-won life lessons from their 20-year journey.
Fifteen years into parenting in a transracial family, I thought I had heard it all—with appropriate comebacks at the ready—until an interaction with a racist (former) boss left me simply dumbfounded.
Readers share feedback about articles published in the April 2019 issue of Adoptive Families magazine.
For years, my daughters’ birth mother dropped in and out of our lives as she battled a drug addiction. Now she is back in our lives, back in her own life, and I can’t wait to see what the future will bring for all of us.
