Having once been a school library media specialist, years ago referred to as a librarian, simply because I adore books, I was more than pleased to be sent a delightful children’s book on Russian older child adoption to review.

I’ve taken several courses in Children’s Literature over the years and reviewed such books for a now defunct Georgia magazine at one point, doing so just for the free books. I’m telling you, I love books.

I won’t sit through a bad one though, I’ll shut it and move on, so many books so little time.

I was particularly overjoyed... more

Once upon a time I only had 16 children and so I had my home study updated for another adoption. I had an excellent caseworker who always wanted me to wait a couple of years between adoptions and back then I would have been too pushy without her putting on my brakes. Looking back, I’m certainly glad that she did so.

Back then I had several in college and one other who was grown but rebelling all over town, weird stories coming back to me that never made any sense. She was working and paying her own bills and my parental influence over her was real close to zero.

Or so I thought. In reality she’d listened to my admonitions and requests for her to continue her education and... more

Admittedly I walk a different road than most people. I do it by choice; I’m drawn to the odd aspects of my life. It is not a chore for me to parent a large family; it is a deliberate, thought-out, planned choice. A choice I am happy that I made years ago.

So if I choose to watch a taped version of Intervention on New Year’s Eve rather than go out and celebrate, it should be considered my right, my choice and so what if it may not seem like fun to others? I owe no one any explanation.

I did watch this and I came... more

Just as a suspected drunk driver made a very poor choice, one minute enjoying himself, drinking the night away, the next minute realizing he killed a mother and four children, so too was the unintentional creation of my children. Likely the drunk driver will serve time and then drink himself into oblivion every time he allows himself to think about what he has done.

Most of my children were created with zero thought as to either their future or any concern whatsoever that one particular night of sex would... more

Continuing from Part One of Birth Families Finding Us, one daughter immediately went for comfort food; pinto beans and nachos in our case, the younger children kept running into the room to make sure their older siblings have survived this trauma.

Sad to say, it is traumatic and grossly unfair on every level.

This charming young lady was denied the right to live with her four birth siblings, not meeting them until her late twenties. She lives several states away so she still won’t be able to see them as much as I know she’d like to.

She told me she felt guilty upon learning... more

If my experiences are any kind of common, then the answer is likely a big yes. Particularly now with the internet making connections so easy, sleuthing is a breeze.

This afternoon we had a birth sister, now 28, come into the lives of four of my children who are now 23, 26, 29 and 30. They’ve been my children for nearly eighteen years. Once they were four very frightened, disoriented children fresh from an adoption disruption meeting me in 1990 and moving a thousand miles east of their home then in Brownsville, Texas.

This beautiful young lady found my grown children... more

What kind of boundaries should adoptive parents set for their grown children? What if these children have a long history of stealing, lying, hurting others and remorseless, manipulative and anti-social behaviors?

I’ve heard from several parents lately of their very difficult grown children. Here at Christmas they’ve shown up expecting gifts, never acknowledging the damage they’ve caused, maybe not even recognizing that fact.

When a kid is so damaged as to not comprehend the ramifications of their vicious behavior, it’s a little difficult to... more

Most of my older adopted children basically came off the streets where they’d been allowed to run unsupervised and certainly undisciplined. Clueless as to proper behavior of any sort, full of anger issues and emotional challenges, I now have just a few years to teach them civilized manners and people skills.

In their former families, holidays were all too often drunken revelries, drugs were involved and the children were neglected.

When holidays arrived, the children automatically cringed knowing intuitively that trouble was on the way.

Now, years later... more

The focus of these blog posts should be more in the how-to realm, I tend to write about parenting my traumatized children as that is my aim in life. I’m now debating internally if I should continue here or work harder on my other blog/book.

On my personal blog I’d recently had a young lady contact me, the victim of emotional abuse all her life, now very educated and wondering what steps she should take in her consideration of the adoption of older children from foster care.

My first thought was that she go through therapy in order to understand that she was mistreated... more

I stopped adopting three years ago when I accepted the referral of my last sibling group. I knew then, at that moment, that I’d adopted exactly the right amount of children over exactly the correct span of decades. I simply knew that 39 children was enough.

39 children are more than enough to keep one busy, but I also had to redirect my own mindset. I’d been heavily emotionally invested in building up my family, making sure we had the resources, enough room, and could meet everyone’s varied needs.

It should be noted that I’ve never had all 39... more