1. Three Sides to Every Adoption
Listening for understanding can be one of the most important things we do in any relationship — as a partner, a parent, a friend, a colleague. It’s also how we can best effect change even beyond these relationships.
Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth mom) and I have unveiled a new video series. We talk about emotionally-charged issues in adoption, such as naming a newborn — high stakes for all involved! — and cover it from our three angles. You can be a fly on the wall listening in. You probably already know your own viewpoint, but how well do you know others’?
Also available so far:
Each week(ish) we’ll cover something new, sometimes based on viewer feedback. Let us know of a topic you’d like us to cover, and subscribe so you don’t miss a conversation.
2. NACAC’s One-Day Webinar on Transracial Adoption
The North American Council on Adoptable Children offers a webinar on Thursday, March 24 called Transracial Families: Building Positive Racial Identity. Sessions include:
- Historical Racism in Child Welfare: How History Informs the Present
- Affirming Children’s Identities
- First, Do No Harm: Raising Children in Transracial Families to Be Strong and Resilient
- Facilitated Discussion on Transracial Families
Registration is $50 for members and $60 for nonmembers.
3. American Baby now out in paperback
The hardcover edition of Gabrielle Glaser’s American Baby was a big hit last year, and now it’s been updated and made available as a paperback.
Meticulously researched, American Baby is part biography and part investigative journalism into a dark period of America’s adoption history — not even that long ago! Gabrielle tells the personal story “one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other” — and she tells it in a way that will tug at your heart.
What Gabrielle reveals about the secret practices of certain adoption professionals will tug at your sense of justice and rightness. Read, learn, and vow to be ever vigilant about shadiness in adoption practices.
4. Talking with Simon Benn of Thriving Adoptees
Simon Benn and I dive deep into healing practices on this episode of his podcast, Thriving Adoptees. As he summarized:
How do we respond rather than react? What role do our heads and hearts have in all this? How do we navigate the tough things our kids say to us and the tricky emotions we go through? By doing our own work and understanding our thoughts, feelings and who we are.
About Simon: “I was adopted at 5 weeks old and told about it so young I don’t ever remember not knowing. I didn’t experience any adoption trauma until I hit 40 when I found out my childhood teddy bear was a gift from my birth mother. This caused an eruption of anger, feeling rejected and unloved. That kickstarted a learning journey that led me to heal and then want to help others. Email [email protected] if you’d like to be a guest.”
What’s been on your radar lately? Share your finds in a comment below, whether adoption-related or not.
Lori Holden, mom of a young adult daughter and a young adult son, writes from Denver. She was honored as an Angel in Adoption® by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.
Her first book, The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole, makes a thoughtful anytime gift for the adoptive families in your life. Her second book, Standing Room Only: How to Be THAT Yoga Teacher is now available in paperback, and her third book, Adoption Unfiltered, is now available through your favorite bookseller!
Find Lori’s books on her Amazon Author page and catch episodes of Adoption: The Long View wherever you get your podcasts.
