Last week was National Adoption Day! National Adoption Day is a day to celebrate the adoption and finalization of children adopted from foster care. I mention this because I was watching a Wednesday Child story on the news and there was 2 beautiful sisters that were looking for a forever family. They are in separate foster homes because the state cannot find a home willing to take both a 10 year old and a 12 year old. The girls are smart, wanting to be together and want a forever family and the sad truth is that they will most likely … Continue reading →

November is National Adoption Month! I won’t go into the history or anything, since that has already been explained quite well in a previous post. I will say that I didn’t even realize myself that there was such a thing until this week! I arrived home from work on Monday to find a post put out by the Child Welfare Information Gateway about National Adoption Month showing up in my Facebook news feed! Had I known that this was coming up, I would have had a post about it ready by November 1st. I have now been made aware! So, … Continue reading →

When I was in elementary school one of my best friends was adopted. My understanding of adoption was pretty much what I gleaned from Disney’s The Rescuers. I thought babies just waited in basinets for someone to come and take them home. The message to adoptees was always that they were chosen. That didn’t seem all that special, though, in the cruelty of children when being adopted was hurled as an insult In high school I had a creative writing assignment to write about something I had never told anyone. I wrote about how I thought I was adopted. I … Continue reading →

In my last blog, referring to various obituaries written about Patrick Swayze, I talked about how calling attention to a person’s adoption without reason can seem to make a false distinction between permanently adopted family members and other permanent family members. Respect for the concept of permanence is also why I was a bit sad to receive a catalog in the mail yesterday. The National Wildlife Foundation suggests giving your child an “adoption kit” for Christmas. This will include a stuffed animal (size dependent on the price level you choose). In a more “deluxe adoption”, you will receive a book … Continue reading →

One positive that’s happened in adoption in 2008 is the activity of a creatively targeted program, funded by Wendy’s customers and the foundation started by the hamburger chain’s founder, to help kids in foster care find permanent homes. There are over half a million kids in foster care in the U.S. By last year’s figures, 129,000 were free to be adopted. Many spend five years or more in foster care before being adopted. Children who are in the foster care system until they “age out” at age eighteen often find themselves literally on the street with nothing and no one. … Continue reading →

I just finished watching the ninth annual “Home for the Holidays” television special made in association with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and the Children’s Action Network. I was pleasantly surprised—the experience was not the tearjerker I expected. I had been nervous that kids awaiting adoption would be put on display along with the celebrity entertainers. I can’t help wondering what this does to a child. I think if I were a child who had been in foster care a long time, I would feel desperate enough to do it (if I had a choice in the matter at … Continue reading →