November is National Adoption Month

Did you know that?

This past Saturday, in fact, was National Adoption Day, where families throughout the United States celebrated by finalizing their adoptions. In honor of this month, I'll be running posts related to adoption all week long. And if you haven't tapped into my Adoption FAQs, scroll down the sidebar for answers to some of the most popular adoption questions people have asked.

Today, however, I'm sending you off. Author and foster/adoptive mom, Heidi Hess Saxon, has several important articles about adoption you should know about. You may remember my response to the very anti-adoption article run by the National Catholic Register in September. Heidi has written "an important article about the alarming rise of anti-adoption advocates EVEN IN PRO-LIFE CIRCLES and Catholic publications such as the National Catholic Register." From the article:

Recently I was appalled to discover that these “anti-adoption advocates” are making inroads even in Catholic publications. Last September the National Catholic Register ran this article by self-professed “anti-adoption advocate” Melinda Selmys, who writes about encountering teenage adoptees who were acting out — though the adoptive parents were “kind and loving people.”

Rather than consider the real possibility that the teens had been damaged by circumstances that led up to the adoption, or that adoption may indeed have been their best chance at a bright future, or that these kids were just like others teens who have difficulties making the transition into adulthood, Selmys concludes that the adoption itself was the true source of the problem.

You can read the rest here.

Following its release, she posts a review of the book The Adoption Mystique, by Joanne Wolf Small, MSW, whose book was mentioned in her article. She also shares the response she received from the author of the original September NCR article.

There is also a post on her Mommy Monsters blog about coping with the pain of "Phantom Parents." She writes,

"the loss experienced by birth/first parents and adopted children is real, much like the phantom pains of an amputee ... and yet, those pains (however regrettable) may be necessary in order to save a life from the alternative: abuse and neglect, or even death."

You can read the rest here.

And, in the interest of fairness, she posts "a letter from an adult adoptee who is angry over the fact that she was taken from her mother, so you could listen to her story as well ... and better understand the nature of the pain adoptive parents need to help their children heal." You can find that article here.

There is much to read and reflect on here. Don't forget to check back tomorrow for more posts celebrating National Adoption Month!