[Continued from HERE.]

Even in the most harrowing of adoption stories I have encountered, it was not usually the fact of adoption that was the biggest issue, but rather the circumstances the adoptee grew up in that were traumatic.

In cases where adoptees have been abused by their (adoptive) parents, many are very resentful of having been adopted and blame being adopted for all of their problems. If... more

I have tried. I really have! I sat down every day last week (well, except for the day that my computer was on strike once again) and started to write on various topics that seem to be ... more

[Continued from HERE.]

The best part about the long-term memory loss of our community members is that we found it absolutely hilarious.

It was a good day when one of us (usually me or one of my parents) would come home with some anecdote or another about being stopped in the street by Mrs. So-and-so to be told that she had seen me walking by her house the other day... more

The place I grew up was a big village/small town. Things changed slowly. Everyone knew everyone. More importantly, everyone knew everything about everyone else... and yet, everyone also ended up believing exactly what they wanted to believe regardless of what they knew about everyone else.

I went to a small Catholic school in our village. Our class varied from nineteen to twenty-five students every year, including at least four of us who were adopted. So, in the firsth through eighth grades, between... more

[Continued from HERE.]

I have read quite a few discussions concerning the "best" time to tell a child about his or her adoption, about books and videos and movies concerning “what it is like” or “what it means” to be adopted. There are countless recommendations, it seems, to constantly talk to adopted children about their... more

[Continued from HERE.]

I definitely wasn’t given any special treatment because of being adopted. I was, indeed, the black sheep of my family in many ways but being that every family I knew had a black sheep (and none of them were adopted... though they had their suspicions...) it never even occurred to me that it was because I was adopted. I was different because I was me, and everybody’s “me” is different, so of... more

Something strange happened on my way to my inbox... instead of arriving safely at the sign-in page, I instead was bounced to the adoption store. I hadn’t realized there was such a thing as an adoption store, but then again, other than actually being adopted, and even that thirty-seven years ago, I haven’t exactly been in the adoption scene inner circle. Balloons, personalized books, T-shirts; everything one could (or could not) imagine are available there. Some of those things seemed very useful resources and tools whether you are a birth parent,... more