Adoptive Families

When you lose a parent or grandparent, you mourn the past. When you lose a child, as I lost my 24-year-old daughter, you grieve for the future that will not be. By adopting after this unimaginabl...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/how-to-adopt/grief-to-joy-older-parent-adoption-after-loss/

As she anticipates the release of her documentary Hayden & Her Family, the filmmaker reconnects with the mother of 12 she profiled to discuss special needs adoption, parenting outside “normal�...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/parenting/no-special-power-to-love-child-hayden-family-documentary/

Lois Melina has been a voice of wisdom and authority in the world of adoption for decades. We connected with Melina upon the publication of her latest book, The Grammar of Untold Stories,a collec...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/transracial-adoption/grammar-of-untold-stories-interview-with-lois-melina-adopted-child/

As I prepared to adopt my second child, I welcomed the home study worker into a perfectly clean and ordered home. The scene that greeted her at her post-placement visit was, well, different—but...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-bonding-home/post-placement-visit-breathing-feeling-like-real-life-family/

Six months after she came home to us, our daughter stopped speaking. As I searched for clues as to her sudden silence, I became profoundly grateful to her Chinese foster father, a man I had never...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-bonding-home/thank-you-baba-gratitude-toward-loving-foster-father/

For years, many white adoptive parents of children of color have sought to claim the relatively passive “not-racist” identity, but now is the time to push beyond self-examination into action ...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/transracial-adoption/how-to-be-anti-racist-adoptive-parent/

As my children move into the world without me, I can’t protect them the way I could when they were little. I can’t assume that their lives and actions will be cloaked with the same privilege ...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/transracial-adoption/mothering-children-of-color-becoming-adults-talking-about-racial-bias/

Adoption allowed me to fulfill my dream of finally becoming a mother, and my flexible work schedule allows me to be the mom I’ve always wanted to be. Here’s how you can make it work, too.

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-bonding-home/waiting-mom-to-flexible-working-mom/

"At what age should we start letting our daughter take the lead in birth parent contact? I know that my daughter will be able to call her birth mom freely when she gets her own cellphone, so how ...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/openness/preteen-independent-relationship-with-birth-mother/

Once, I grieved the loss of a biological child. Nineteen years later, as I watch my son leap and soar (literally) into adulthood, I am at peace with my role of nurturing the many gifts built into...

https://www.adoptivefamilies.com/parenting/becoming-parent-to-parenting-adult-child-from-afar/