Adopt-a-tude Says a Fond Goodbye

Well, the time has come for AAT editors and writers to admit to reality: We're busy! Raising kids, working jobs, doing other writing, moving on. After this entry, we'll no longer be posting on AAT.

When I began Adopt-a-tude a few years ago, it was an experiment in group blogging, one that did take off for awhile, possibly because of the sparks flying in the adoption community at the time. The sparks are still flying, of course, but the public discussion of adoption has shifted, too.

I wouldn't say that the cultural "moment" for adoption has passed. But it's no longer big news that many adoptees are determined to get access to their birth records—or that international adoption doesn't always have a happy ending. The increasingly nuanced depictions of adoption in movies and TV means that at least a few consciousnesses have been raised. May we all continue to raise awareness about adoption issues that matter to our families.

I'm currently Editor in Chief of Talking Writing, an online literary magazine, and I'm very open to publishing high-quality personal essays or fiction about adoption. Please check out TW's Submissions page for more information. Fran Cronin, AAT's blog manager, is also a columnist at the magazine and often touches on her experience as an adoptive mom.

So come follow us at Talking Writing, "like" us on TW's Facebook page, and sign up for a free TW subscription. And regardless, thanks for supporting Adopt-a-tude.

All our best wishes to you and your families!

Martha Nichols, founder of Adopt-a-tude

For those who missed it, here's the contents for TW's adoption spotlight last November...

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Spotlight: Adoption and Parenting

Celebrate National Adoption Month with TW in November

Melissa Fay Greene

Author Note: Melissa Fay Greene
Two personal takes on No Biking in the House Without a Helmet, Greene's 2011 memoir about her nine children

• "Whoa! I'm a Character in a Friend's Memoir?"
  by Andrea Cornell Sarvady
• Adoption, Light and Dark
  TW Review by David Biddle

Interview: Adam Pertman
One of adoption's staunchest supporters talks about the latest challenges—and Steve Jobs

• "We Teach Our Kids by Being Open"
  TW Author Interview with Adam Pertman
  by Fran Cronin

Personal Essay
A mixed-race adoptee reflects on the need to create himself

• Always an Orphan
  by David Biddle

Mei-Ling Hopgood

Interview: Mei-Ling Hopgood
The author of the acclaimed memoir Lucky Girl has a new book on the way about cross-cultural parenting practices

• "American Parents Go a Little Nutty"
  TW Author Interview with Mei-Ling Hopgood by William Gray

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Review: "No Biking in the House Without a Helmet"

By David Biddle

The "Do I Love Them Yet?" Syndrome

Once that last child begins to drive, most of us realize our capacity to parent is fading. We get a few years of empty-nest freedom before grandparenting kicks in. But the marathon is over. We finished!

Then there are the Melissa Fay Greenes of the world—and her attorney husband Don Samuel, a man who practices courtroom statements on his kids instead of reading them bedtime stories. Samuel and Greene, a journalist, had four children using their own DNA: Molly, Seth, Lee, and Lily. But then, in their early forties and with encouragement from their biological kids, the Greene-Samuel team adopted five more in less than a decade.

It began in 1999 with Chrissy (whom they renamed Jesse), a four-year-old boy of Romani (“gypsy”) descent from a Bulgarian orphanage. Then they adopted five-year-old Helen from AIDS-ravaged Ethiopia, where, Greene notes, 11 percent of the nation’s children were orphans in 2001. After Helen came nine-year-old Fisseha (renamed Sol), followed by brothers Yosef (8) and Daniel (11)—also all from Ethiopia.

In No Biking in the House Without a Helmet, Greene tells the story of building this mega-family—two loving parents, two quirky dogs, nine amazing children from three different birth cultures—all living under one roof in Atlanta, Georgia.

Cute, huh? Sweet?

Hardly. Greene is not a master parent by any means—in far too many scenes, she just lets chaos reign in her household—and this is not a simple, feel-good treatise on the ultimate blended family. Her memoir is powerful and alluring, almost like a reality TV show where you actually care about the characters.

Greene comments intelligently on adoption, family, intercultural experience, and—above all—real love. This last resonates with me most, because as a mixed-race adoptee, I know that love between parents and children, adoptive or biological, is one of the greatest mysteries I’ve encountered in life....

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

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Editor's Note: The full text of this review—"Adoption, Light and Dark"—appears in the Nov/Dec 2011 issue of Talking Writing. This issue features a special "Spotlight" on adoption and parenting in honor of National Adoption Month, including a companion essay about Melissa Fay Greene called "Whoa! I'm a Character in a Friend's Memoir?"

 

We invite you to check out Talking Writing and subscribe—it's free!

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