Peer support

An unexpected question

I thought the most difficult thing my son could ever say to me was “You’re not my real mom,” but the question that really threw me for a loop was something completely different. We were driving to daycare when out of the blue, my brown-skinned, afro-haired, almost five-yearold son said innocently, “Mommy, I was white when I was a baby?”

“Um, what? No! Huh?” Tire screech, deep breath. I figured I had about five seconds to organize my thoughts and say the right thing.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because white skin is beautiful.”

Wow.

Are you planning to adopt a child?

Financial help for adoptive families

One of the most obvious challenges adoptive parents face is the significant cost associated with the adoption process. But no matter what stage of the process you are in—whether you’re just thinking about adoption, you’re already working with an adoption agency, or you’ve recently celebrated the arrival of your child—it’s important to know the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has credits and benefits designed to help adoptive parents shoulder the financial burden.

Are you adopting children of Aboriginal heritage, or thinking about it? Indigenous social worker Kelly Davie shares her wisdom about travelling this unique path.

Keep an open heart, an open mind, and laughter in your life; it will serve the family well.

Be patient with yourself and others, and persevere. The path to permanency can be much longer than we first imagine.

Counselling Therapist Geoff Ayi-Bonte, registered clinical counsellor, answers your questions on adoption, family dynamics, and transracial families.

Most new adoptive parents are between the ages of 30 and 50. That can make it difficult when adoptive parents are much younger.

Thanks to the recent publicity around celebrity adoption, some people claim that adoption has become the latest parenting trend.

That sort of comment annoys adoptive parent Laura Livingstone. As a 25-year-old parent she’s heard similar remarks all too often, and not just from people outside the adoption community.

When Maya Benson took her four children to Jane Brown’s Adoption Playshops, she thought it would be the kids that would do all the learning! How wrong she was.

Earlier this year, I decided it would be a great idea to take my kids to one of Jane Brown’s Adoption Playshops when she visited the Lower Mainland. I thought our children could discuss their experiences with other kids who were also adopted.

Last week I got an email from a woman whose friend’s family is struggling after their recent adoption.

Her heartfelt note asked what she could do to help this family. The line that grabbed me was, “The mom looks sad and frustrated all of the time.” Most likely, the entire family is fueled by fear and sadness.

She closed her email with, “What can I do to help? What can our church family do to help?”

A timeline of one youth’s life from adoption, through foster care, and into independence, as told to Mary Caros.

Author’s note: This account started out as an interview with a youth as a way to allow her to give voice to her life experience. There is more to this story—and more to all of our life histories— than one person’s subjective experience. Our recollection of life events are often affected by the time and space in which we remember them. This young woman may tell her story quite differently five years from now.

I can’t remember the first time I learned the term “waiting parent.” But somewhere along my journey of building a family, the term has become second nature. It was like a category was added to my identity. Some might have described me as a woman, wife, student, football fan, queer, Polish – but when all the paperwork was submitted – I was also a “waiting parent.”

1. Adoption is different in person