I reflect on my co-blogger Lyn’s blog in the Education Blog about teen-age girls making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Teen mothers who plan adoption for their babies are less likely to go on welfare than those who parent as teens. Unfortunately, most mothers choosing adoption are young adults—teenagers often decide to parent. Of course, some teen moms do a fine job—but these girls will quickly realize it’s no lark.
My blog Wild Horses Couldn’t Drag Me Away from You cautions that some doctors’ and dentists’ comments and policies regarding keeping parents out can be extra damaging to an adopted child. It’s important for our kids to know that no one can “make your mom and dad leave”!
A series on adoption loss talks about the often-unacknowledged grief that occurs when a planned adoption does not occur, after the adoptive parents have been looking forward to welcoming a specific child. My blog Legal-Risk Placements talks about some (not all) placements from the foster care system in which the adoptive parents agree to cooperate with a plan to reunite the child with birth family, but to become the child’s adoptive family if that is not possible. I also look at Other Adoption Loss Scenarios.
Last month’s “big discussions with Meg” theme appears again in “If I Had a Baby, I would Keep It”. A documentary gives us reason to talk about the difficulties a young unmarried couple faces and the reasons they might make an adoption plan, and Meg’s certainty that she would parent a child instead of making an adoption plan.
Book Reviews this month included:
The Adoption Decision and Adoption is a Family Affair: What Family and Friends Must Know. This last is a book designed for grandparents and other supporters of the adopting parent(s).
Lucy’s Family Tree talks about whether there is such a thing as a “typical” family and how one girl is upset by a school assignment to make a family tree. She finds a creative solution from her Mexican heritage.
I did a series on adopting when you already have children, included blogs about birth order and spacing, safety, emotional risk, shared or different heritages, and others.
The series concluded by discussing whether to travel to pick up your child if you have current children, and whether to bring them with you. This travel blog consists of Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
I blogged about Preparing for a Family Reunion and Telling Family and Friends that You are Adopting .
Shoshanna blogged about adopting from two countries at the same time, a situation of which she has personal experience!
We’ve gotten many great comments and compliments from readers this month. Thanks for reading and we look forward to dialoguing more with you in future blogs!