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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In my recent book, 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:
Once in Catalina, we became neighbors with a German family whose three daughters were close to me in age. Putzi, the youngest, wandered over to our house most often. We giggled and ...
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Blame it on the Gemini Mid-heaven or the waning quarter moon in the 10th house of my chart, or both, but fact is that I enthusiastically start a project only to let it lie around, sometimes for years. Then I find it, act as if I’ve made a great discovery, blow the dust off and continue where I left off as if there’d been no lapse in time.
That’s what happened with a manuscript I began in 2005. I had practically ...
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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 ...
The first time I met her was at the Bogner store in Munich. I was a young actress and fashion model, she was in her mid 50s, already a legend. She came up to me, paid me a few compliments and realizing my failure to recognize her, said “I’m Josephine Baker.” Well, I was struck dumb. I knew who the legendary Josephine Baker was, but words failed me when I had her ...
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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 ...
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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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Yesterday I participated in an interesting webinar titled Love Me, Feed Me offered by Katja Rowell M.D through Adoptive Families. Based on my experience and research, eating disorders in children are not unusual, particularly when talking about exotic children. From adoption expert Dr. Rowell, who is a family doctor and childhood feeding specialist, I learned that it does not matter whether the child is adopted at birth or later. ...
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