Adoption - Life on the Road Less Traveled

January 25, 2011

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The March: Now What?

Today at AnnArbor.com, I posted an article that was especially hard to write. I actually drafted “The Face I Never Knew” (AnnArbor.com retitled it), anticipating the annual “March for Life” in Washington that commemorates the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This 1973 Supreme Court decision legalized the murder of over 52 million pre-born children. As part of my thesis on adoption, I’m reading a book right now called When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity by O.M. Bakke. This book deals extensively with the first century (AD) Roman practice of “exposio,” by which parents were legally able to dispose of their children […]

December 18, 2010

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Advent Blessing for Extraordinary Moms

Last Sunday was our annual Advent Tea, and at my table was a woman who had adopted two children. She had heard me speak on Al Kresta’s program about the Extraordinary Moms Network, and said she’d hoped I was still helping adoptive parents. It seems she was looking for a little support involving some changes her daughters were going through right now. To be honest, I’ve become a bit gun-shy, and haven’t been writing as extensively about the subject of adoption for a while. For one thing, I recently resigned from the board of the foster/adoption agency because I didn’t agree with their recruiting practices, […]

December 10, 2010

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For Parents Who Wait: St. Thomas More, Patron of Adopted Kids

The other day a friend of mine was asking me about St. Thomas More, the patron saint of adopted and foster children. His feast day is June 22 — but as Advent is a time of “waiting,” and adoptive and foster parents are prone to wait, I thought I’d share this little true story with you today. Before our children came to us, Craig and I visited London and saw the Tower where St. Thomas was held prisoner by Henry VIII. As part of the tour, the guard took us to the crypt where the head of St. Thomas was interred. Craig and I knelt […]

December 8, 2010

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Adoption

Top 10 Signs That My Child Really DOES Have Homework…

10. Backpack weighs as much as a Thanksgiving turkey. 9. Planner sereptitiously stuffed under the bed. 8. Eyes dart frantically toward computer when you threaten to confirm with the teacher. 7. Claim they can’t do reading, either, because THEY CAN’T FIND THEIR LIBRARY BOOK. (And apparently the fifty ga-jillion books on our library shelves won’t do.) 6. The Moral Focus essay (ironically, on integrity and perseverance) they did during recess. (Yeah, right.) 5. Suddenly can’t find their homework folder, either. 4. They start feeling their noses to see if they’re growing. 3. Suddenly they are SO TIRED and want to take a bath, then bed. […]

August 21, 2010

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Adoption

Eat, Pray, Love … why bother?

After reading Barbara Nicolossi’s scathing review of “Eat, Pray, Love,” I confess I thought twice about saying anything more about it. Her credentials are far superior to mine, and her POV is pretty much right in line with what the USCCB media office had to say on the subject regarding the film’s faulty reflection of authentic Catholic spirituality. And if I made it a practice to see only movies that reflected and affirmed my own POV, there would be little to recommend this one. Much of what both reviews had to say about the movie is true. [SPOILER ALERT]. Liz does walk away from her marriage and […]

August 15, 2010

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The Mother Who Opens Her Arms: On the Feast of the Assumption

Recently I found this post over at Theresa Whitfield’s blog, listing an impressive number of individuals who share one thing in common . . . they were adopted. Gerald Ford, Faith Hill, Cyrus the Great — all these individuals became who they were because someone cared enough to raise them. As I write this, the day is winding down. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Assumption — the day when the angels swept Our Lady from her earthly existence and carried her to heaven. This is the destination of all believers, departing from this world so that we may join our “forever family.” When we […]

July 23, 2010

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Adoption

Weekend Ponderings: In the Still of the Night

Have you seen “Delovely” — the life of Cole Porter, as told through his music? The first time I watched it, I was struck by Ashley Judd’s portrayal of the longsuffering Linda Porter, who endured the repeated humiliations of her husband’s repeated gay affairs and the additional burden of infertility for 34 years before succumbing to emphysema in 1954. Their marriage by all accounts was one of mutual convenience — she, to maintain social standing and a measure of self-protection from her first, abusive husband; he, to protect his professional and public image. Neither of them were free to abandon themselves to the kind of […]

July 23, 2010

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Foster Families – How will your kids handle it?

The other day I received this comment from Jane, whose parents opened their home to foster children. She has recently started a blog about what it was like to grow up in a home with foster children. I have recently,(yesterday) started my blog about growing up a “natural” child in a family that took in foster children. As I became an older teenager, my mom had become a Foster Parent Trainer and would take me to the trainings so potential Foster Parents could ask me questions about how their children might feel throughout the experience. I know that was one of the most helpful times […]

July 21, 2010

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A Time to Let Go …

Yesterday we spent the day with the boys of a good friend recovering from leukemia. Whenever our kids get together, the subject of their older brother always comes up. The violent fifteen-year-old has been holding the entire family hostage, with the assistance of DFS, which is refusing to place the boy in a therapeutic group home because of the expense. Both social workers and lawyers have advised my friends to arrange a “planned abandonment” at the agency, to disrupt the adoption. Unfortunately, the state is playing dirty pool, threatening to take all four boys and put them back in the system if the parents do […]