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July in Review, Part Two

I blogged about a tragedy in which a young mother did not seek medical help for her daughter who wasn’t eating, and the child died. The 19-year-old claimed that she had tried to plan adoption for her daughter but that agencies wouldn’t work with her because she had no prenatal care. A hard-to-believe claim, but the story got me thinking : Could Education Have Prevented This Tragedy? In Let’s Educate Our Youth About Adoption, I suggested that preschoolers learn to call 911, and that young children learn to see adoption as a normal way of building a family. I suggested … Continue reading →

Book Review: Annie’s Baby

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Annie’s Baby is a book whose official author is Dr. Beatrice Sparks, an adolescent psychologist who also edited Go Ask Alice. But the book’s real author is “Annie”, an anonymous client of Dr. Sparks, who narrates her story to her diary. As the book begins, Annie is a fairly typical fourteen-year-old—she plays on a soccer team and enjoys rollerblading. She says she’s too much of a tomboy to be one of the “popular girls”, but she has several good friends with whom she likes to go to the movies or the mall. Annie lives with her mom, a teacher. The … Continue reading →

Adoption Books with Great Art Series: I Love You Like Crazy Cakes

I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, written by Rose Lewis about her own adoption story, is illustrated by gorgeous watercolors by Jane Dyer. Like the other books she has illustrated, Dyer’s watercolors are realistic, evoke emotion, and are simply beautiful. The story is focused on a mother adopting a baby girl from a Chinese orphanage. It is appropriate for single mothers, but there is no reason it couldn’t be used by a two-parent family. The narrative is straightforward. There are baby girls in an orphanage with nannies to take good care of them, but no mother. There is a mother … Continue reading →

Helping Kids have a Clearer Vision of both Pregnancy and Parenting

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I’ve recently shared that statistically, as a group, teen mothers who place their babies for adoption fare better (in terms of staying in school and off the welfare rolls, and avoiding another premature pregnancy). I should also say that there are many young mothers who do a very good job of raising their babies. (To see one of our dedicated blogger’s series on being a young parent, click here.) I admit that I used to think two parents were always better than one. I now realize that being adopted does represent a loss for the baby as well as for … Continue reading →

Adoption Education for Teens

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Last blog, I shared that few teenage mothers place their children for adoption. I believe many do not do so because of common myths about adoption. Many people do not understand that in domestic adoption today, a birthmother can choose the family she wants to adopt her child. She can choose a family most like hers, or most like the one she wishes were hers, in terms of religion, family structure, rural or urban location, beliefs about education and discipline, and more. Many people also do not understand that birthmothers in the U.S. seldom go through their lives wondering if … Continue reading →

Can Education Influence Teen Pregnancy and Adoption?

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My last few blogs have dealt with educating young people. I started with suggesting that children at the elementary age learn about adoption and also about how to access community resources for various needs. (When I worked on an information and referral phone line at a Family Resource Center, I had one volunteer, a woman of about sixty, who suggested we have a training session on how to use the phone book. I learned not to assume anything regarding education.) I mentioned a class called Crib Notes written by Lyn, our education blogger here at Families.com, which teaches middle school … Continue reading →