Talking with Kids

In part one, I wrote about specific recent conversations about birthparents with our daughters, but in this section, I’d like to talk about adoption discussion “environment” that exists in our family. I’m certainly not an expert on adoption discussions, but we base what we do and say on extensive reading of authors who are, [...]

Yesterday morning, I took Lulu (8, Haiti) and Maizie (5, China) with me to run some errands. Number one on my “to do” list was delivering a packet of pictures and a letter to my friend J, who was leaving for Haiti the next morning and would be seeing Lulu and Jackson’s birthmom. [...]

Additional resources:
The Genesis Group
From the website:
The Genesis Group was established to meet the needs of Black members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many of whom were descendants of early pioneers, with the hope of reactivating those who had left the Church and of supporting new converts of African descent. It [...]

2 Nephi 26:33 “…and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.”
Article of Faith Three
We believe that through the [...]

I can’t possibly do justice to all the different theories (and theories, they are) about curses and lineage and when and where and how the policy began, but I use the story of Abel’s murder and Cain’s subsequent punishment to illustrate that the “knowledge” some church members have on the subject of blacks and the [...]

Another reason it’s a good idea for caucasian parents who hope to adopt transracially to have a handhold on race and church history is because social workers who are aware of the church’s past policy want to know how this will be handled with the child. “What priesthood ban?” is not a good response. [...]

Since I was hired to create this blog, I’ve been wanting to tackle the difficult subject of race issues and the Church. In the beginning, it sounded like a logical topic to cover for an LDS adoption blog, knowing that many members adopt transracially. But each time I tried to start mentally composing [...]

Lulu was quiet for a minute and then said, or stated, more accurately, that her birthmother would be coming back with us. She went on to ask which bedroom she would sleep in once she got here, and when she silently considered the fact that there were no more available rooms, she offered up [...]

Even though we talk about adoption issues on a daily basis in our family, we can go weeks between the really in-depth discussions that are prompted by specific questions from our children. The events of our evening, however, coincidentally elicited engaging conversations with two of our daughters.
Tonight, our daughter Lulu attended her [...]