Mindfulness

Sacrificing Our Outrage

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A sampling — a sliver, really — of outrage from my Facebook feed.

  • Why aren’t you outraged every single day?
  • This should outrage everyone who reads it.
  • Where’s the outrage about this guy??
  • After a week of constant outrage and fear, I’m physically and emotionally ill.
  • Study Finds People Are Morally Outraged by Those Who Decide Not to Have Kids
  • Anti-pot billboards’ awkward race commentary sparks outrage
  • Outrage As White Teacher Tells Black Student Her African Themed Prom Dress Is Too Tacky!
  • Vanity Fair outrage: Michelle Obama, not Melania Trump, makes International Best Dressed List and…
  • Stop Pretending to Be Outraged by Kathy Griffin’s Gross Video

Besides social media exposures to outrage, there are also real life exposures to outrage. I can’t remember a time of so much outrage. Can you?

pockets of outrage

It’s outrageous.

We’re Being Played

The Internet has elevated an old currency to an unprecedented level of importance: our attention. Continue reading Sacrificing Our Outrage →

Birth parent

Birth Mom: Help Me Write Letter to Son’s Adoptive Mom

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Can a Birth Mom and Adoptive Mom from the Closed Era Coexist?

And if so, how?

Clare is a first mom who was found this year by her adult son. She left a comment recently, one that led to our email exchange. She recognizes that the readers here are savvy and sage, and that she might be able to tap into well-considered viewpoints from all parts of the adoption constellation.

birth mom adoptive mom coexist

Clare says:

I am considering sending a letter to my son’s parents and asking if they would like to meet with me for us to get to know each other a bit more and to help clear the air.

Continue reading Birth Mom: Help Me Write Letter to Son’s Adoptive Mom →

Guest Post

Everybody Owns a Scar: Trials in an Open Foster Adoption

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Lynn Sollitto tells of the difficulties that arose for her when a desire to remain open to her daughters’ first mother collided with the imperative to protect her children from unsafe and unpredictable situations — either which could lead to physical and/or emotional trauma.

Foster Adoption / Infant Adoption

In 2008, my husband and I adopted Paige through foster care after I assisted her birth mother, Ruth, in labor. A year later, Paige’s older sister Payton joined our family.

We had a connection to the girls’ birth family and were open to have an open adoption. This would consist of online pictures and updates through Facebook. Direct contact would be addressed later, when the girls were older and understood more, and Ruth could claim a history of sobriety.

We made the requirements for contact clear: Ruth needed to stay clean, out of jail, and gainfully employed. Essentially, she needed to live the life that would have enabled her to keep her children.

This never came.

blue october everybody owns a scar Continue reading Everybody Owns a Scar: Trials in an Open Foster Adoption →

Adoptive parenting, Open Adoption, Reunion in adoption

Update: the Mom Whose Son Left to Live with Birth Mom

35 Comments

A year ago I published a letter from Charlene that explained her son had found his birth mother and they had all attended his college graduation. The reunion had gone so well that the son had decided to move to another state to live with his birth mom and get to know his biological family.

Charlene was happy for her son, yet also had many other emotions and was feeling confused by their coexistence.

That post resulted in a lively and helpful discussion. Charlene wrote in this week with an update, and she doesn’t mind that I share it with you. We both feel there is value in seeing what happens when a person has no choice but to trust the process (well, I suppose you can fight the process, but in adoption that rarely ends well).

adoption reunion live with birth mom

Continue reading Update: the Mom Whose Son Left to Live with Birth Mom →

Open adoption & adoptive parenting