Last week I wrote about some of the things that my kids miss out on because Josh and I have decided to have a large, transracial, adoptive family, and I also wrote about the things that I believe our kids have gained from being a part of a large, transracial, adoptive family.

While I have tried to grow some "thicker skin" over the years, one of the comments that still... more

This Thanksgiving week, Josh and I have talked a lot with the kids about being thankful, what it means to be thankful and all of the very many things we have to be thankful for.

We want our children to be grateful for the lives that they have. Not in the sense that they are grateful that they were adopted or in any way that they are "indebted" to Josh and I, because no child should feel like that. Every child has the right to feel that they belong in their family and that they have as much of a right to be there as all of the other family members. All of our kids... more

I have been writing a lot lately about “transracial adoption barriers”…the big, often intimidating issues that can prevent people from adopting, and can cause a lot of concern to those who do choose to adopt.

To lighten the mood and create some balance, I wanted to spend some time now celebrating the wonderful things about transracial adoption (although I am sure there will be more “adoption barrier" posts in the future as well). It is important to remember that adoption is not all wonderful, happy-happy and perfect, and neither is it all stress,... more

I decided to do another “Top 10” list. Since I get questioned so much about our choice to have 10 kids, I thought I would share my “Top 10 Reasons why Kids are Great to Have Around” list. (If you can count you will notice that there are 12 things on this list…I just could not keep it to 10, and I have all sorts of other things I could add…)

Kids help you keep your priorities in order…they don’t care about your hair or a clean kitchen or the bills or the weeds in the garden.

Kids forgive quickly

Nothing feels better curled up in your... more

If you look around the internet for any period of time, you will find lots of people who are anti-adoption and have lots of reasons why adoption is “wrong”, “bad”, etc. Throw in the word “transracial” before the word adoption, and you will find that many more critics.

I have posted many posts on the issues and difficulties involved with transracial adoptions.

For a change of pace, here are my top 10 reasons why transracial adoption can be wonderful!

1. Most of the children available for adoption are non-white, and yet “minority race” children are the hardest to find adoptive families for. Most of the time the alternative to being adopted is growing up as a foster... more

Sometimes I get tired of hearing about all that kids “lose” in adoption. Of course we all know that children who have been adopted have lost their birth parents, their extended birth families and sometimes their birth countries, birth cultures, etc. I would never discount these losses, ignore them or sweep them under the proverbial rug.

And yet I think sometimes people get so caught up in focusing on all the loss, that they forget how much good comes out of adoption too. I look at my son from Ethiopia. He was an orphan of the true sense, with both of his parents deceased. International adoption may have taken him away from his home country and culture and all that was familiar to him,... more

On Wednesday, Ben (our 5 year old son who has now been home from Ethiopia for almost 6 weeks) had his first real day of school. We have been struggling with where the best place for him is next year…Kindergarten or first grade. We are unsure of his exact birthday, but know he is 5 turning 6 sometime this year. He is very smart and can already read, yet some of the “sounds” the letters make in the U.S. are different than how he learned in Ethiopia.

Anyway, my good friend runs our Child Development Center, and I had asked for her opinion on how to decide. She called the next day and said that they had had a child move away and leave an open spot at the preschool, and it was a scholarship... more

As I was rereading some of my entries, I realized I missed a bunch of what I wanted to say in my entry on the “Blessings of Transracial Adoption," so here is a little bit more on the same topic.

I neglected to mention one of the biggest blessings, that has nothing to do with myself. One of the biggest blessings of transracial adoption happens for the good of the children in the family. All of my children have such wide-open, loving hearts. They know about other cultures and other races and while they “see” the differences, they do not see one as any better or “less good” than the other.... more

So often when we talk about transracial adoption, or contemplate transracial adoption or read about transracial adoption, we hear about the difficulties. We hear about the challenges. What will our families think? What will our neighbors think? What will the child think? What will the community think? How can I raise a child of another race? Etc. etc. etc.

I think it is way overdue for us to do some thinking on the blessings of transracial adoption. Yes, there are challenges and difficulties associated with parenting a child of a different race than yourself, but I promise that the blessings are just as numerous.

My world has been completely changed by my children. I grew up... more