Talking About Adoption
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.
2014 Families often consult Pact about how to tell their communities when they have a new baby join their family through adoption. Adoptive parents James and Heidi sent the following letter to parents and teachers in their school community, and gave us permission to...
by Steve Kalb 2018 “Use your words,” I remember telling my daughter. Only two years old at the time, she was upset and couldn’t articulate her feelings. I needed her to speak to me in a way I could understand so I could address her problem. I now realize how...
by Dawn Friedman 2014 “It’s very dangerous where I was born.” The little boy* in my office was eight years old and worried. He was sitting on the edge of his chair, fiddling with the markers in front of him, popping their lids on and off. “There are dangerous people...
by Mary Grossnickle 2015 Many of us have experienced loss in our lives: Loss of a loved one, a marriage, the possibility of not having biological children. All are losses that can be life-altering and/or lifelong. Do you rage against the unfairness of it? Do you...
by Beth Hall 2014 At Pact, we get many calls from families asking about the possibility of connecting with their children’s birth parents. When adoptive parents consider opening their child’s adoption with one or more birth family members while that child is still a...
by Susan Ito 2018 Realize that my inner identity might not always match my outer identity. Identity is complicated for adoptees of color, and how we identify inside might be different than how we present externally. Please ask me how I identify. The answer, especially...
by Beth Hall 2018 Why adoptive parents need to talk about birth/first parents Birth parents are surely the least understood and most often villified members of the adoption triad.[1] Outsiders to the experience of adoption will often recommend that it is best to...
by Beth Hall 2018 Speaking from experience My parents loved to tell the story. They would describe the two ways children could come into the family: through birth and through adoption. In the end, it was me—the non-adopted sibling—and not Barbara, who burst into...
2010 Ritual can play an important role in helping children address and express unspoken feelings. The folks at FAIR (Families Adopting in Response) developed a beautiful ritual for adopted children. We at Pact encourage families and professionals to think about how...
by Beth Hall 2009 To prepare: To provide a person with the necessary equipment for an expedition or journey, to defend, to guard, to keep, to look after, to care for, to shield, to shelter or to watch over. To protect: To prevent somebody or something from being...
by Michele Rabkin 2016 As Mother’s Day approaches, you may be shopping for greeting cards. You can easily find a card for your mother, your grandmother, your mother-in-law, or for that special woman who has been “like a mother” to you. What you can’t find is one for...
2019 Adoptive parents of color are often told that just being the same race as their child is enough. As adoptive parents ourselves, we know that it takes more than love and racial matching to support our children. We believe that by creating a foundation of trust,...
by Robert L. Ballard, PhD 2010 Alasdair MacIntyre, a well-known ethicist, wrote: “We all live out narratives in our lives.”[1] If this is true, then each life is a story, with a beginning, an end, and a wide range of characters, plot changes, and climaxes that enrich...
by Pat Irwin Johnston, MS 2011 Secrecy hides far more than what is private. A private garden may not be a secret garden; a private life is rarely a secret life. Conversely, secret diplomacy rarely concerns what is private, any more than do arrangements for a surprise...
by Beth Hall and Martha Rynberg 2012 One of the most popular themes in children’s movies is loss of parents, often followed by some variation on adoption. It is hard to think of a recent animated kid’s movie that doesn’t touch on these family themes. And that means...
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...
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...
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...