What Difference Does a Title Make? (A Story of Moral Adoption)

by Loretta Tayar

I am a verb.  I am all action.  I make homemade soup for my daughters when they are sick.  I jump out of bed in the middle of the night to lend a sympathetic ear to a frightened child and reassure her it was just a bad dream — their mother, father, brother, sister or friend did not get shot to death in their apartment.  I write checks for tuition, tutors, cheerleading uniforms, school supplies, clothes (some functionally necessary and some to avert the fashion death that they believe will occur if said clothing wasn’t purchased), food, cell phone charges, doctor visits, gym memberships, family vacations.  When my daughters were younger I went to parent-teacher conferences, graduations and plays.  I did not go to PTA functions at one daughter’s high school because she didn’t think she could explain having a white parent when she’s black. […]

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8 Myths and Realities About Adoption, from Adoptive Families magazine

8 Myths and Realities About Adoption, from Adoptive Families magazine

FACTS

  • As of the 2000 Census, there were 1.5 million children under age 18 in America who joined their families through adoption. This figure represents 2% of all children in the U.S.
  • In the U.S., there are 5 million people today who were adopted. More than 100,000 children are adopted each year.
  • 65% of all Americans have a personal connection to adoption and view it favorably. […]

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Baby Steps: The Journey of a (Brand-New) Foster-to-Adopt Mom

Dear Reader, this is the first in a series by a 54-year-old single, childless woman who is in the beginning stages of pursuing foster-to-adopt.  She is excited. She is scared. She is also a midlife woman. We will follow her journey to the end! To that aim, she will remain anonymous until it unfolds. We will then reveal her name, her child’s name and any other details necessary to complete her story.

I made the call today. I have been thinking about it for five years.

I have thought about becoming a foster parent ever since I moved to my state. But there were always reasons to wait. My dad was sick, I was in school, and most importantly, I did not have a partner – a man – in my life. I always wanted to create a family, in the traditional sense. Five years later, still no man. I am now 54. My dad has passed away, my mom recently passed as well. My brother’s family had also been my extended family and greatest supporter. Now he is divorced; my nephew has moved away to college; my youngest niece is living in another state with her mother. […]

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“Don’t Whisper, Don’t Lie – It’s Not a Secret Anymore”

by Adam Pertman

My son was three years old and my daughter had lived on this Earth for just two months when I met Sheila Hansen. She’s a tall, soft-spoken woman who laughs easily and exudes warmth when she speaks; she has the kind of comfortable self-confidence that immediately makes you think she’d make a loyal friend and a good mother. On that muggy July day, sitting in the conference room of a church in southern New Jersey, she told me a story that chilled me to the bone and forever altered the way I think about my adopted children, about birth parents, and about the country in which I grew up. […]

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