Adoptive Parenting
Check out some of Pact’s most timely and popular publications. For permission to reprint or repost, please contact Beth Hall at beth@pactadopt.org.
by Beth Hall Originally published 2011, updated 2022 This essay is adapted from my closing comments at Pact Family Camp. While I recognize that the Pact community includes adoptees, parents who have placed children for adoption, extended family members, adoption...
by Malaika Parker October 2021 Dear Fellow Black Parents: With the beautiful Uprisings of 2020 there is a newfound awareness of something most Black folks have always been aware of: White Supremacy exists (welcome to the party, y’all are real late). There has been a...
by Holly van Gulden 1995 “How do we tell our daughter she has an older brother living with their birth mother?” “The records state our son’s birth mother was raped. Should we tell him his birth father raped his birth mother?” “We wrote to the agency requesting more...
How to Be an Anti-Racist Adoptive Parent by Beth Hall, with Michele Rabkin August 2020 “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It’s ‘anti-racist’….There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.’” Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist As an adoption...
Alternative Altars: Honoring the Loss in Adoption by Martha Rynberg 2011 Loss and grief are embedded in the experience of adoption. Often this loss is made invisible by the tremendous joy that new parents feel. This joy can mask the grief adoptive parents have...
Book Review: Parenting as Adoptees edited by Adam Chau and Devin Ost-Vollmers reviewed by Marie-Claude Provencher 2013 My oldest and youngest children were both adopted, while my middle one was born to our family. As they are getting older, I have started wondering...
Book Review: Brothers and Sisters in Adoption: Helping Children Navigate Relationships When New Kids Join the Family by Arleta James reviewed by Allison Branscombe 2009 Brothers and Sisters in Adoption (Perspectives Press, 2009), by Arleta James, is aimed at parents...
by Jae Ran Kim Fall 2008 As an educator, social worker and adult adoptee, I search for ways to help adoptees, adoptive families, and those who interact with us better understand the nuances and complexities of our experiences. Ambiguous loss is a concept that provides...
Book Review Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge reviewed by Pact Staff 2005 In Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew (Delta, 1999) Sherrie Eldridge does an excellent job of encapsulating...