February 11, 2015

Adoption News Roundup

Here’s a look at some of the interesting articles that caught our eye this week:

There’s lots of advice on the web for parents looking to adopt for the first time…but what about parents who are planning on adopting their second child? Adoptive Parents has some excellent questions all parents looking to adopt for the second time should ask.

This birth mother writes a beautiful piece about how placing her child with a same sex couple helped her family grow.

This adoptive mother of a transracial family wonders, “is open adoption worth it?” “The other night I had a tea with a friend (who also happens to be a social worker).  I was explaining to her some of our recent open adoption struggles, and she asked me, ‘Knowing what you know now about how hard open adoption is, would you still have pursued it?’”

It’s that time of year: everyone’s sick. And for parents everywhere that means one thing: sick days. Being sick is a pain for anyone, but it’s especially boring when you have the energy of a child. 2 hours of laying in mom and dad’s bed drinking 7-up and watching cartoons? Awesome. A full day…or, god forbid, multiple days? BOR-ING. The amazing Carrie Goldman of Portrait of an Adoption strikes again with this post about 60 things to do with your stay-at-home sickies.

If you adopted a child and are now planning on signing up for foster care, it can be difficult explaining what that process is like. Depending on how old your child is they may have questions like: “What is foster care?” Why doesn’t the child have any parents?” “Why don’t they have a home or family of their own?” Adoptive Families shared these thoughts about how to tailor your conversations so that they’re age-appropriate for your child. A short piece, but good food for thought.

Huffington Post shares a powerful article about voiceless children, locked into the system. Have you ever thought about the fact that they’re all around us? “Imagine a teenager — let’s say she’s a 13 years old with purple, butterfly hairpins — who lacks a voice, a family and even a home. Now, stop imagining, because she’s real and probably lives within 100 miles of you. I see her often in my line of work. The truth is, she exists all over our country, yet many of us remain unaware. We remain unaware of all of the young boys and girls who lack a voice, a family and/or a home because they remain in a system that leaves them powerless.”