This weekend we watched another really fun family movie. Some unseasonable weather had us stuck indoors, and after countless rounds of checkers and quite a few other games, we were ready for a movie. Josh came home from the video store with “Cheaper by the Dozen Two”, which is another one we missed while it was in the theaters but really wanted to see.

I really enjoy the large family movies that have been popular lately, like the Cheaper by the Dozens and Yours Mind and Ours. (Ok, I was not overly impressed with the remake of Yours, Mine and Ours but I LOVE the original.) I... more

More on moms…Today I have been thinking about how being the mom of a child that is of a different skin color than you is different than being the mom of a same-race child.

Since I am the mom of kids that are biologically mine, and kids that have joined us through the miracle of adoption, I know that there are some differences between the two. There is no difference in how I treat them or how I feel about them or how very much I love them, but there is a difference in how society sees us.

The biggest difference is recognition. If I am out in public with one of my biological sons, I am never ever questioned about my relationship to that child. Society at large assumes I am his... more

Raising children today is not an easy task. We live in a time where families, family values, childhood and innocence are attacked and challenged at every bend.

To raise children who can grow up to be happy, well-adjusted and moral adults is a challenge. I taught a lesson in church today about how it is extremely important that parents build bonds with their children that create a “family identity”, so that when children turn into preteens and (ikes!) teenagers, their family identity is stronger than any other peer group, etc. that they identify with.

Although this lesson had nothing to do with adoption, it got me thinking on that path. We often talk about in adoption literature... more

I did an exercise for one of my college social work classes a year ago (slowly slowly working towards a degree) that involved defining family.

Without peaking ahead and reading the text book’s definition of family, it asked the students to try and define family. Then it gave us a whole bunch of pictures and asked “is this a family?” after each one. The answer to each one was yes. One picture showed an older woman and a young child. One picture showed a traditional family with a mother, a father and two children (all of the same race). One picture showed two women and a child, one picture showed just two men, one picture showed a mother, father and children of different races, etc.... more

I got the idea for this post off of the Transracial adoption message board on Adoption.com forums. A prospective adoptive parent who was open to a child of “any race” was wondering what “a transracial home should look like”.

I thought that was an interesting question. Often we hear that we need to incorporate our children’s birth cultures into our home, family and life, and certainly if we do that, it will, in at least small ways, be reflected in our home.

And yet there is no one right answer to this... more

Here’s a question that seems to come up a lot on adoption boards and email groups often. How important is it for a child that was adopted transracially to have a sibling of the same race as them?

Is it valuable for example, for an Asian girl, with white parents and white brothers, to have sibling who is also Asian?

This is a question that my husband and I gave a lot of thought with our first adoption, because at that point, we honestly believed that our family would be complete when our daughter came home from Vietnam. (Ha! If we only knew!!) I knew that I could do a good job raising our Vietnamese daughter. I knew I could teach her to be proud of who she was and where she... more

This article is currently on the New York Times website. It is titled “Adopted in China, Seeking Identity in America” and was written by Lynette Clemetson.

The article is written about adoptees from China, but easily applies to any transracially adopted child and family. It focuses on children adopted from China who are now teenagers, and how this first group of current-day adopted children are handling issues of race and culture.

The article states, “As the oldest of the adopted children move through their teenage years, they are beginning — independently and with a mix of enthusiasm... more

Over on the birth/first parents blog there was a recent post by Maja, called “Sinners or Saints?”

In this post Maja talks about how birth parents are often depicted as either sinners or saints for their decisions and the fact that they made an adoption plan for their child.

I have to say that when I was reading this it made me think that it is often the same for us adoptive parents! I get very tired of both strains of thinking, to be perfectly honest.

I cannot count the times... more

One of the things that has been on my mind the last couple of days is something that was said in the podcast I talked about...

One of the things that was said, is that as big and important as the issues of race, ethnicity and culture are to children and parents in a transracial family, that 95-98% of the time, you are just Mom and Dad, and they are just your kids, and life goes on just like any other family. I know that I have plenty of days that I sort of “forget” that some of my kids are adopted. Not that I really “forget” that, but when I look at them I just see my kids.

Most... more

One of the things that come up a lot when people start talking about adoption is bonding. Will the child bond to you? How are they bonding? How do we help them bond easily? These are all questions that are heard a lot.

From a mom that has been there and done that, I can tell you that one of the best ways to promote bonding, between parents and child and between siblings, is to have fun together as a family.

There are lots of great books on attachment and lots of great tips. Making eye contact, lots of physical contact, limiting caregivers, etc. are all effective.... more