For various reasons I don’t leave the house to go lift weights in a gym. The obvious excuses would include a lack of time and a lack of money, plus what would I do with all my kids while I indulged myself?

I’m slowly learning, maybe other mothers learned this faster than I, but my kids don’t like me to go anywhere without them. All adopted in sibling groups, all suffered abandonment and rejection; they prefer my constant presence in the house, a buffer against the world, another level of security for them. These children had often been... more

My previous blog highlighted a case of parents abusing children. But there is another side to things, that doesn't get talked about.

Try doing a Google search on “children abusing parents” or “abused parents” and you will come back with a long list of websites. Some dealing with elderly parents being abused by their children, a few will deal with drugs and alcohol abuse, but the majority pertain to children being abused by their parents, very little shows up about parents being abused by their children.

I have been abused by... more

In the last couple of posts I’ve been musing about the communication agreement birth and adoptive parents sign in an open adoption—the contract that states how often they will exchange letters and pictures.

Here are links to the first two posts:

Part 1: Maintaining Your Open Adoption Communication Agreement

Part 2: Problems That Arise Between... more

I am in favor of adoptive parents having full information on their child's birth parents. Most birth mothers I know would have gladly given their names to the adoptive parents in case their child ever wanted or needed the information. In private closed adoptions, birth parents sometimes receive the names of adoptive parents as well. The adoptive dad in this story said:

What if someone in my class checks CCAP and finds out they have a half brother or half sister they didn't even know about? It could be devastating for a family. These... more

Just when you think you have heard all there is to hear, along comes a story like this one! How a parking violation could be related to adoption is a weak possibility. However, if I can walk down the street, see a hole in a fence and relate that to adoption, I suppose anything is possible. (Yes, I can relate a hole to adoption, but I will blog about that on my firstparent blog later in the week.)

David Munro was searching a state-run court records database late last year looking for his parking citation when he stumbled across a piece... more

continued from part 2

The next tool mentioned that our family uses for communicating with Caleb is to use the internet for translating simple phrases. This of course will only be useful if you have adopted a child who knows how to read and write her native tongue. Knowing that many words have multiple meanings, you need to keep the sentences simple and try to use words that don't have multiple meanings. For example, if you typed "plane"... more

This story is making the news here in Wisconsin. I don’t know if you have heard about it in other places. You can read the full story online.

The report claims

Clint Engstrom's 13-year-old daughter from a previous relationship - wasn't treated like the others. Instead, she was kept in near-solitary confinement in a bare attic bedroom for two years, police say, behind a deadbolted door and a video camera, let out only for timed bathroom... more

An announcement at wwwfamilysearch.org was released on the 18th of this month stating that 250,000 Utah Death Certificates from 1905 to 1954 are now available online at no charge. These are not just extractions or indexes. They are the digital images themselves.

This service will open doors to additional information for family historians and genealogists with Utah ties. To search the index and view the certificates users need to go to http://historyresearch.utah.gov/indexes/index.html.

The... more

I wanted to tell you about a site put together by a mom who is expecting her referral from Ethiopia any day now. In this wait she noticed that it is possible to buy t-shirts for with adoption slogans for families adopting from China and other countries, but nothing for Ethiopia.

She designed shirts for herself and some friends, and in the process discovered that there was broader interest than she'd thought. Her website is called Making A Difference. $4 from every shirt goes towards... more

Today, I started wondering why people assume that all Korean adoptees will get along just because we are adopted from Korea. Yes, we have the added advantage of a common bond, but that does not automatically make us a unit. So when I hear that parents think that because their children are both Korean adoptees they will be best friends, I tend to sigh a little. It's like thinking that all people with blond hair will get a long just because of their hair color.

Growing up, I had one Korean adoptee friend (until she moved). We clicked right away, but it was no different than the way I clicked with my Caucasian friends. We were young and we really didn't discuss being Korean or not... more