Ever on the lookout, I love finding adoptee voices that help me better understand the mosaic that is the adoptee experience. So many generous adoptees over the years have made an inestimable difference in the way I connect with my children. My entire family benefits when I listen to understand.
Enter Sara Easterly. Sara is new on my radar, but already an accomplished author and writer. I met Sara last month at the Tattered Cover for an author event around her new memoir, Searching for Mom. In this guest post, Sara explores a word that can roll off the tongue just as easily as it can pierce a heart, with or without that intention.
Sometimes, as Sara tells us, that word can be a sacred invitation to abide with someone in their grief.
Rant: I’m frustrated that these questions still come up (and surprised because my readers are adoption-savvy, so I start thinking everyone is). Who is preparing adoptive parents for adoption telling? And who should be preparing them? What can we do for the current and next generation of adoptees to help them own their story from their very beginning?
But time alone doesn’t mean all adoptive parents and hopeful adoptive parents have gotten the message of dealing in truth and openness. The adoption professionals who are launching these moms and dads into the world of adoptive parenting are not, as a group, doing a good-enough job preparing their paying clients to parent with openness and disclosure (there are definitely some exceptions).
When it comes to adoption, I tend to go by feel and Dawn Davenport prefers to go by data. *
Dawn founded Creating A Family, a rich resource for those impacted by infertility and those interested in adoption and other family-building methods. Its Facebook community is cross-triad, which means the group tends to keep itself in check more intentionally than groups made up of only adoptive parents or only first parents or only adoptees.
I was thrilled, then, to have the chance to talk with Dawn during a recent podcast/radio show. Regarding open adoption myths, I just know in my gut what is and isn’t true, and she knows by staying on top of research.
