Not even during a pandemic will we at All in the Family of Adoption forget about Veronica Brown. We hope that she, the entire Brown family, and all of our readers are safe and in good health during these especially challenging times. Today, let's all take a moment and think of Veronica Brown and wish her a very happy 11th birthday. She is one year closer to being able to make her own decision about who she considers her family and where she wants to live. We also send our thoughts to Dusten, Robin, their young son, and the entire Brown family. I'm sure you are all thinking of Ronnie today Read More
Happy Birthday, Veronica!
Today, let's all take a moment and think of Veronica Brown and wish her a very happy 9th birthday. She is one year closer to being able to make her own decision about who she considers her family and where she wants to live. We also send our thoughts to Dusten, Robin, their young son, and the entire Brown family. I'm sure you are all thinking of Ronnie today and reliving the pain of being forced to let her go. Many adoptees have said that the day of their birth is triggering, that they find it to be an especially painful day. With that in mind, we hope that Ronnie will be in touch with her Read More
If There’s One Thing I Know
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that an unmarried parent does not make a terrible parent just because of her marital status. Sorry conservatives, you are totally wrong on that one. And as our country and even the world become more conservative I feel I must raise the alarm. We cannot go back to the idea that all that matters for a child’s best interest is that he is raised by married parents, even if they are not the child's biological parents. Of course, if we lived in an ideal world every child would be born into a stable, loving relationship and would be kept by their natural Read More
Open Adoption Revealed
{Please click on ‘Read More’ to best view this post} As an expectant mother You’d never believe those nice, helpful people Were trying to coerce Until you succumb to their pressure And discover adoption is rarely for the better It's usually for the worse You believed all their promises Which seemed so fair and true Yet once you deliver the baby You may find they're done with you They made you feel so welcome "You're one of the family now" But once you hand over the baby You'll be treated like a stage actress Who’s expected to take her bow They’ll remind you Read More
My Life as a Pizza
So, I have two lives. The life I lived as the daughter of my adoptive parents and the potential life I would have lived if I'd been kept. I'm related to the first group by emotional attachment (and a piece of paper) as well as shared life experiences, and to the other group by blood. But I'm finding that it’s not as easy as I’d hoped to integrate the two. The early search movement, which I wholeheartedly endorse, stressed that having both the adoptive and original families in an adopted person's life would only increase the amount of love s/he had. But I think many of us have found that Read More
Happy Birthday, Veronica!
Today, let's all take a moment and think of Veronica Brown and wish her a very happy 7th birthday. She is one year closer to being able to make her own decision about whom she considers her family and where she wants to live. We also send our thoughts to Dusten, Robin, their baby boy, and the entire Brown family. I'm sure you are all thinking of Ronnie today and reliving the pain of being forced to let her go. Many adoptees have said that the day of their birth is triggering, that they find it to be an especially painful day. With that in mind, we hope that Ronnie will be in touch with her Read More
A Social Experiment
My life is a social experiment. Truly. All of the decisions that were made for me about who was best to parent me, where I belonged, and even how I would feel about it, were nothing but a social experiment based on the era when I was born. A social experiment, I might add, that was based on half-truths and social prejudices rather than facts. The funny thing is, I was given up for adoption so that I could be raised in a stable two-parent family, and yet my adoptive parents divorced before I even entered the first grade. So I ended up being raised by a single mother anyway. Only this time, I Read More
It is 2015, isn’t it?
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” --Arthur Schopenhauer It is 2015, isn't it? I can't stop myself from asking this rhetorical question after reading this at an adoptive parent's blog: "Those who are “flipping the script” aren’t adoptees who are happy and content with their adoption experience, they’re the ones who are angered, feel like something was done to them. The adoptees who aren’t speaking out (and far outnumber those who are calling out adoption) are Read More
Simplifying Adoption
There has been a lot of talk lately about the connection between adoption and abortion what with the storm brewing over Planned Parenthood and the social media campaigns #ShoutYourAbortion and #ShoutYourAdoption. So, now is as good a time as any to toss my hat in the ring and warn against something dangerous that I see happening. And that is: Simplifying Adoption. There are those in the adoption reform world who feel that if you are not going to raise the child then you should absolutely have an abortion. On the other hand, there are people who believe that abortion should be available but Read More
Happy Birthday, Veronica!
Today, let's all take a moment and think of Veronica Brown and wish her a very happy 6th birthday. She is one year closer to being able to make her own decision about who she considers her family and where she wants to live. We also send our thoughts to Dusten, Robin, their new baby boy, and the entire Brown family. I'm sure you are all thinking of Ronnie today and reliving the pain of being forced to let her go. Many adoptees have said that the day of their birth is triggering; that they find it to be an especially painful day. With that in mind, we hope that Ronnie will be in touch with Read More