We find that people who are adopting for the first time have a ton of questions. We know that we did to when we were in the process with our first adoption, what we want to do is try and help get some of the answers out in the open. Adoption is a beautiful thing and the reality is, many of the worries people have are unfounded, we want to do everything we can to help more people see adoption as a viable option for their family.

Interracial Adoption

The first thing that we want to talk about is interracial adoption, it’s a huge question on peoples minds and one that should be considered with care before you jump in. We are all for adopting a child no matter what your or the child’s race may be, we found one incredibly helpful book on the topic, it’s called Interracial Intimacies by Randall Kennedy and although it’s not specifically on the topic of adoption it’s a wonderful look at racial tensions in America and how we have dealt with it as a nation over the years. It’s a big read but well worth the time if you plan on adopting a child of a different race.

Cultures

Another issue that we find is especially relevant in America is the topic of cultures, as a nation we often tend to place American culture above all others and tend to forget that the rest of the world is out there, and lives very differently than we do. We found that Peter Menzel has written some incredible books on the differences in cultures around the world. His books are photo expeditions showing the way people live and act in their daily lives. We like to have his books in the coffee table for our kids to look at and remember that not everyone lives like we do. The books are, Hungry Planet – What the world eats and Material World – A global family portrait, both are by Peter Menzel. A few other great books on the topic are, Houses and Homes by Ann Morris and A life like mine by DK Publishing

Adoption Books

We tried and tried to find good books on the topic of adoption and honestly found very few out there that are worth mentioning. I am sure that there are some that we did not see that are helpful and if any of you have any to share, please post a comment about them.

Adoption Blogs

Another incredible resource we found is adoption blogs, we found that there are some incredible families out there who have adopted or are in the process of adopting and are sharing their stories for the world to read. We love it when people open up and tell about their life and adoption journey, blogs alone may be one of the primary reason that adopting is becoming more accepted socially than it has been in the past. The more people who let us into their journey of adopting an orphan the more we might be willing to see that we to are capable to adopting ourselves. One great blog is Owlhaven it’s written by a mom of 10 kids 6 of whom are adopted and although you might think it’s a crazy insane life she actually makes it sound doable, her blog is a great read for those who need to see that they can make life work under any circumstances. Another one we love to read is called Spirit of Adoption it has tons of helpful info and stories about international adoption on it.  Again, just like the books if you have any great adoption blogs or perhaps are writing one your self please post a comment below to share with us.

Now it’s your turn…

We don’t want to try and pretend that we are the adoption experts, but would love to offer our help in any way that we can to those who are considering adopting. We have a two year old who we adopted through the Foster Care Adoption (FOS Adopt) program in California, when she was 5 weeks old and another 7 month old from here in the country we work who we are in the process of adopting in country. We would love to offer our experiences as a help. If you have a burning question about adoption please put it here in the comments, because chances are you are not the only who was wondering and we just might be able to answer it.