I began the month with a book review that tied in to my November series on coping with discrimination and racism. The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate is based on an inspiring true story of how a town in Montana came together when Jewish and African-American families were terrorized.
Then I ran Part One and Part Two Part Two of Is It Okay to Be Choosy? regarding the comments adopting parents often get that if they “really wanted to help”, they’d choose the most needy child or the one with the most special needs–and sometimes we lay this guilt trip on ourselves too.
I reviewed The W.I.S.E. UP Powerbook: a Workbook for Children, which helps children choose how they will respond to intrusive questions about adoption. (I know I said I’d do another blog on my daughter’s assessment of it after she worked through it, but she’s resisting that right now. I’m working on it.)
I did a three-part series on gifts celebrating adoption and multicultural diversity: Toys and Dolls for Multicultural Families, Gifts and Books for Adoptive Families, and A Doll For Every Child,which talked about custom dolls to replicate a child’s appearance, special needs and medical equipment.
We talked about the annual “A Home for the Holidays” TV special featuring adoptive families and foster kids, sponsored in part by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
I did a three-part series on young adults whose foster care support expires at 18, leading some to literally be put on the street on their birthday while they are still in high school. The series started with Aging Out: No Home for the Holidays. The series continued with Helping Foster Care Teens Grown Up, which talked about becoming a mentor to a young person leaving or soon-to-leave the foster care system, and about being a Court-Appointed Special Advocate, a trained volunteer assigned to be aware of all aspects of a foster child’s case and to advocate for them. (This is for children of any age.) The final blog, More Ways to Help Foster Children, talked about donating old toys, clothes, books, luggage; donating money to organizations that provide ordinary extras not covered by foster care stipends, such as sports uniforms, field trips and lessons. We also mentioned Girl Scout troops for foster children and becoming a respite care provider, someone who can spell foster or adoptive parents for a few hours occasionally or a weekend once a month.
In “Being Adopted Means Being Born in Another State?” I shared more of my experiences with my daughter, who seems to find it popular to be from another country, in contrast to the experience of some other adoptees, but doesn’t want to talk about adoption. I muse on how we can talk about adoption plenty of times, only to have a kid we thought understood come out with something totally different.
I wrote a book review of the children’s book and song, Happy Adoption Day .
I wrote about my horror reading an account by one of the students who integrated Little Rock Central High School and had acid thrown in her face. I realized that this had been done for no other reason than her having the same beautiful brown skin as my daughter. In this blog, “Peace on Earth?” I mused about the seeming intractability of racism and found hope in a Christmas carol.
I then mused about my visceral fear about returning to an area of the country formerly home to a white supremacist group, in Things I Never Thought I’d Think About.
My next three blogs talked about the stages members of the adoption triad often (not always) go through in thinking about adoption, from a Pre-Conscious idealization to Contact with the difficulties, through Disillusionment to a healthy Integration. The blogs are: An Adopted Child’s Stages of Thinking about What it Means to be Adopted, Adoptive Parents’ Stages of Thinking About Adoption and Race, and Stages of Birthparents’ Thinking About Adoption.
My last blog mentioned many issues in adoption and asked what you, the reader, would like to see more of this past year.