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Showing posts from 2018

Review of the Movie "Instant Family"

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Yesterday I went to see " Instant Family " with a friend of mine. This movie was timed to open during National Adoption Awareness Month, and brings much needed awareness to the children in foster care, some of whom are available to adopt. As a former CASA/G.A.L. for my local juvenile court, I was very interested in seeing how this movie portrayed the system, foster/adopt training and support, the realities of kids biological parents, the courts, and adoption in general.  (I tried to take notes in the pitch dark and wasn't very successful 😍).  My husband and I have gone through foster-to-adopt training three times. We briefly were emergency foster parents in the 90s.  And of course, we are also kinship adoptive parents to a now-teen via a private adoption. I had read two reviews ( one negative and one positive ) before viewing it myself.  My rating is 7.5 out of 10 as I believe it will educate the general public about the plight of children in foster care. *******

9 BETTER Ways to Celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month

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Flipping the Script on a mainstream National Adoption Awareness Month article. It has lots of advice about adoption. I just picked this one at random called "9 Ways to Celebrate National Adoption Month" and re-wrote it. 1. Retell Your Child’s Adoption Story to Them . How about you allow your child to tell his/her own story? Buy them an art pad or journal to draw or write their adoption story as they see it. Pro vide them lots of photos and information so they can make sense of their Chapter 1. Include their birth story. 2. Spread Awareness Through Social Media . The article advises to share your family’s adoption story. We don’t need more adoption stories via the eyes of adoptive parents. We need more #adoptee stories. 3. Watch Positive Adoption Movies With Your Family . Watch This is Us instead. Or better yet watch, "A Girl Like Her " by Ann Fessler. Or any documentary produced by an adoptee or birth parent. My favorites are by Jean Strauss

National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM) Day 1 (Flip the Script)

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November has arrived and with it an Ohio monsoon on the first day of National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM). I debated whether to write anything. No time for blogging much these days so I will say a few things you may have heard before. Being adopted does not define me as a human being yet it has limited my choices as a full, equal US citizen. It has limited my knowledge of who I was born to and who my ancestors were because of outdated laws created in an era of secrecy an d shame. Being adopted in the US has limited mine and my children’s access to important and potentially life-saving medical history and even limited my entry into organizations like DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) which require a paper trail of ancestry to join. I have spent many years writing and asking people to listen to adoptees Instead of adoption professionals who financially benefit from the industry or adoptive parents who host morning shows. Adopted people should be the

Parenting Your Kids' Kids - Considerations and Seeking Support

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September is National Kinship Care Month .     " National Kinship Care Month provides an opportunity to urge people in every State to join in recognizing and celebrating kinship care giving families and the tradition of families in the United States to help raise children…”   What is Kinship Care? Kinship  care refers to the care of children by relatives or, in some jurisdictions, close  family  friends (often referred to as fictive  kin ). Relatives are the preferred resource for children who must be removed from their birth parents because it maintains the children's connections with their  families . If you care about family preservation, then kinship care should be high on your list of causes to support.  Most kinship care happens outside of the child welfare system , which leaves families without support and education.  It is of the utmost importance to create new supports for these at-risk families, as the numbers of kinship families are growing (a

Back on the Birthfather Rollercoaster Awaiting DNA Results

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Benjamin Bratt, actor whose mother is Peruvian Peruvians are the  smallest percentage  of Latinos in the U.S. I am trying to keep my mind busy while I await the results of an Ancestry DNA test in order to solve a life-long mystery.   An excellent candidate has been found that fits a large part of the description of my biological father, including mine and my son’s DNA results.   However, in many ways this candidate may not fit.   Let me share with you why. I have a significant amount of outright conflicting information:   from the non-ID the adoption agency kept, to interviews with friends and family, it has felt very similar to crime stories where the investigators profile the murderer and try and create stories from the evidence at the scene of the crime.    Problem is, similar to criminal cold cases, there are many possible scenarios and memories that have become more convoluted over the years as time has gone by. We are talking about 50 years ago. Many of the peop

You Have No Idea What You Are Talking About!

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Today a friend, a public blogger , posted that adoptive parents sometimes tell her she has no idea what she is talking about.  My friend is a first mother and an adoptee . .. meaning she experienced the relinquishment of her daughter, in addition to her own personal reliquishment.  (Let that sink in for a moment). She was raised by adoptive parents whom she has publicly shared that she loves deeply. She is generous and kind with her hard-won wisdom, yet there are people raising adopted children who believe my friend has nothing helpful to bring to the table.  I have asked myself why people would say this to her. The first answer that comes to my mind is that they resent that she now stands for family preservation.  She is not out promoting adoption left and right like Evangelical Christians normally do.  She is not shouting from the rooftops that babies need more adoptive parents.  She is saying that babies need their own mothers.  Is this really a radical idea?  How many of you

10 Lessons Being Adopted Taught Me

Please go directly to Lost Daughters to read this blog originally posted 6/30/18.

God is Not a Birth Parent and Jesus is Not Adopted

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This letter is in response to the June 5, 2018 article, “Adopting a Child Mirrors God’s Adoption of Us All”   published in The Presbyterian Outlook.   I can appreciate that Rev. Glass, herself an adoptee and birth parent, has found something positive about her own relinquishment and adoption within scripture.  Rev. Glass had a wonderful loving adoptive family, for which she is grateful; however, comparing “being adopted” to our adoption by God does not ring true for me 1 .  There are many Christians who cannot relate to Rev. Glass’ interpretation of scripture. 2   In fact, hearing this comparison at church does damage to many adopted people who did not have the same loving and positive experience Rev. Glass did.  Where was God for them when they were being abused or re-homed after being adopted? What about the birth family members who were praying that their child/niece/grandbaby could stay with them and not have to live with strangers? Why didn’t God answer their prayers?   I ta

To my Friend Whose Message to Her Birth Mom Went Unanswered

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You did it! You reached the goal line.   You outlived the laws that said you couldn’t have the information.    You are the Queen of your own life because you didn’t back down.    You kept the faith. You didn’t forget the woman who gave you life.   You knew what you needed and you pushed through.  You supported the person in your life, also adopted, on his journey.   He supported you.   You had each other and that is no small thing.  You confided in me.   You trusted me, a complete stranger you met on the internet, to help you walk through this journey with you.   You cried and you were scared.   And I want you to know that I see you as brave.   I am sad that your message to your mother went unanswered.   I am frustrated for you that she deleted her Facebook page.    I want to call her up myself and say, “Look what you are missing out on!”.   You have a beautiful daughter, beautiful grand kids and a great granddaughter! It sounds like she is not

5 Reasons You Should Listen to Adoptees Instead of Adoption Experts

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1.        Experts in past eras got a lot of it wrong. Blank slates, secrets, born-as-if-to and separating twins and triplets in an effort to study nurture versus nature (and provide more babies to waiting families) are just a few examples of how the adoption experts of bygone eras got it so, so, wrong.   Just read up on child trafficker, Georgia Tann , and you will see the corruption that facilitated sealed records.    From doctors and lawyers who “knew somebody” to judges who signed off on questionable adoptions, if we look to the Baby Scoop Era for guidance, there is only one conclusion:   the “experts” got most of it wrong.     20/20 recently reported on this.      2.   Most adoption experts are benefiting financially from the adoption industry. Money tends to cloud ones motivations when it comes to educating about adoption.   Employees of adoption agencies benefit when adoptions occur.   Adoption attorneys benefit financially.   Even churches can benefit financi