My daughter brings stuff up at bedtime. Most five-year-olds do; they don’t want to be left alone to sleep. She likes when I tell her stories in the dark and rub her back. Who wouldn’t like all that? Aside: bedtime can—if I let it—take forever.
“Dear Mom of an Adopted Child”
I knew you right away. I recognize the fierce determination. You are the kind of woman who Makes.Things.Happen. After all, you made this happen, this family you have.
“Bonding with My Daughters Over Pink Nail Polish”
My first 19 years of parenting were spent learning the scientific names of dinosaurs and organizing a bug collection. Was I ready to parent preteen girls?
Summer Reading 2015
Everyone touched by adoption should check out these powerful memoirs, by a birth mother and an adoptee.
“Many Kinds of Love”
Being adopted, I have found, means being familiar with many different kinds of love, many varieties of connection. It’s a roller-coaster of sorts. There’s an immense amount of gratitude; yet an overarching sense of loss persists, and permeates every interaction, every decision, and every relationship.
“Everything Counts”
When you’re waiting to adopt, you count each day that passes. But how should I count my daughter-to-be, who is already a part of me?
“Music in His Genes”
My son craves the comfort of music the way other kids his age rely on their blankets.
“Journey to Calcutta”
Despite my parents’ urging, I had always rejected my Indian identity. At 21, I learned to embrace it.
“My Little Man’s Hair”
Sam’s hair is close-cut and precisely edged. Looking at it from any angle, you can see that this child’s mother knows how to care for his hair. This has not always been the case.
“A Christening Ceremony”
The moment I felt I became Eva’s forever mother and for Eva, adopted from the Ukraine, being my forever daughter.
“Why Tae Kwon Do?”
So far, each step I have taken into my future daughter’s world has taught me nearly as much about myself as it has about her culture.
“Being Noticed as a Transracial Family”
For once, the barista at Starbucks didn’t recognize me. He shouldn’t. I’m there only about once a month. The thing is, he remembers me. Well, not me so much as us. This is one of those things that come with being the white mother of a black child. Comments, questions, stares—those I expected. The strange experience of just being visible—not so much. I didn’t realize how invisible I was until I wasn’t anymore.
“The Meetings of the Moms”
The day my mother met my birth mother.
“We Always Called You Jason”
Fantasizing about my birth parents, I never dreamed my strongest link to the past would be through a flinty grandmother.
“Our Relationship with Our Child’s Birth Mother”
Getting to know our daughter’s birth mother was a tremendous blessing.
“The Refrigerator Picture”
When I dressed up my daughter and took a portrait, was I just showing off my cute kid — or perpetuating stereotypes?
“My Adoption (And Bunko) Support Group”
My Bunko buddies were the ones who were there for me when I suddenly got “the call.”
“Homeward Bound”
Retracing a journey I had made 23 years earlier inspired unforeseen emotions about my past, and about one child’s future.
“Martin Luther King’s Dream Come True?”
When my son was harassed by a classmate for his race, I knew I only had a second to act.
“Pocket Rocks”
A mother shares the story of her daughter’s growth (who was once deemed “too small to fight for her needs”) at summer camp.