Last week, an article in the Huffington Post https://huff.to/1I0A0fj To The Lady Who Called my Toddler a Thug, written by Rachel Garlinghouse, a white mother who adopted a black boy, got my attention. Particularly because of her concern that her little boy, just because of his appearance was, innocently and not so innocently stereotyped by people whom she knew. It’s the US, I thought, and it’s a dangerous, racialized ...
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These days I’m again going through the paces again with my hair. By that I mean: now that it’s more gray and white than black, I’m trying to figure out what to do with all the gray kinks and curls. I wish I had the nerve to just go “natural” the way younger women are doing. I’m also fascinated by the way African women have for centuries worked their hair. Look at novelist Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi’s many styles! Here she is in my ...
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In writing my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity (Kindle) or Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:
I was passing by Vati’s room one afternoon; we still ...
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Those who seek to adopt and those who have adopted don’t want to read about unsuccessful adoption stories or hear from adult adoptees who are at odds with their fate of having been given up for adoption. It’s easy to understand why that’s so. After all, parenting is the one science for which there are no guidelines. My childhood, as the only black pearl among white ones in Guatemala City, was undoubtedly a happy one.
Going to town ...
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For the past several weeks I’ve been following posts on The Lost Daughters website, where Karen Pickell and other contributors discussed The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption, by Karen Joyce. The thoroughly researched issues in the book have finally exposed the machinations of the adoption industry. For that, Karen Joyce ...
Johnny O’Callaghan has been a friend of my son’s for many years. I met him on one of my stays in Beverly Hills a while back. He is easily the most engaging, humorous, unencumbered Irishman I have ever encountered. So, imagine my surprise at hearing that Johnny had a young Ugandan son. How could this epitome of a free spirit, this young, single man with more lovers than intentions to marry, saddle himself with a baby? And I was not ...
Continue Reading →Twenty five years ago, I had a powerful reading that launched my search of self and threw me into therapy. A few days ago, by sheer providence and on Facebook (!) I stumbled upon the tarot reader of long ago.
We agreed to meet in the early evening on a late summer day. She lived on the second floor of a two-story house on a picturesque, tree-lined avenue like so many in New England. I looked at the clear evening sky ...
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Last night I came upon an article recently written by professor Darron T. Smith PhD. in The Huffington Post’s Black Voices. It underlines issues I had to deal with, anguished and alone, way into adulthood. It’s titled Can Love Overcome Race in Transracial Adoption? and adresses ...
This is my response to Anne Cavanaugh-Sawan’s article in Adoptive Families Circle: Does She Know?
Love this sensitive, well-written post.
It is clear that you are a psychologist and know how important it is to include the story the birthmother may have had, even though it may be quite different to your sensitized version. But your daughter knows she is an adopted child, and while she may at this point not show you that she feels different, you ...
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A very well written post by Jane Brown showed up this morning in Adoptive Families Circle addressing a variety of ways that are obvious regarding race in the mind of a child growing up with parents who differ in appearance to it.
Here is what I contributed to the discussion:
This is another great post.
Race is first and foremost on ...
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