I’ve been thinking a lot about adoption in the past few weeks, namely my own which occurred January 16, 1952, nine months after I was born. I’m trying to open adoption records right now that have been kept closed by a tri-consent law in the State of California.

There are some people who should adopt and some people who should never be allowed to even hold a baby much less adopt one. My adopted parents fit into the second category.

But adoption is a very important part of our cultural needs. Without adoption, we would see a resurgence of orphanages, and for us, a nation of plenty, the mental picture of orphanages is too much for us to handle as a culture.

There’s a new book out on adoption. Here’s the media release: Adoption, 21st Century Style:

The Art of Finding and Bringing Home the Child Who’s Right for You

An authoritative new book explains how adoption has changed in the Internet Age–and how playing by the new rules can help you finally complete your family.

Nevada City, CA (May 2005)–Adoption has changed. The process that once seemed cold, secretive, and formal has been transformed. Sure, adoptive parents must still deal with waiting lists, reams of legal paperwork, visits from social workers. But the heartening truth is, the entire process has become faster, less costly, more open, more human. And while there are many reasons for this friendlier new face of adoption, one of the biggest may surprise you.

The Internet. That’s right. The world of hard drives, URLs, and bandwidth can yield a decidedly un-technical result: a deeply cherished bundle of joy.

Successful adoptions are all about information, communication, and resources, and that makes the Web a natural tool for bringing families together, says adoption professional Mardie Caldwell, C.O.A.P.

In her exciting new book, Adoption: Your Step-by-Step Guide (American Carriage House Publishing, 2005, ISBN: 0-9705734-2-1, $34.95), Caldwell offers practical, easy-to-follow guidelines for anyone who is thinking of adopting a child.

“In the past several years I have seen the adoption community develop a substantial presence on the Internet,” she writes. “It has connected adoptive parents to agencies and facilitators, lawyers and social workers. It has created a thriving online community of adoption professionals and enthusiasts. Without the Internet, many thousands of families would not have found the children who have made each of their lives wonderfully complete.”

Caldwell’s book presents a comprehensive list of more than 1,200 “hotlinks”–online adoption resources that range from private and public agencies, to chat rooms, to birth mother profiles, to attorneys. But the other part of the book may be even more useful: it’s packed with simple techniques and how-to advice that greatly improve readers’ odds of finding and bringing home the child who’s right for them. (Post later)

According to Mardie Caldwell’s book Adoption: Your Step-by-Step Guide, Mardie states:

Don’t let “reclaim” fears hold you back. It’s a common belief, reinforced
by media sensationalizing, that a birth mother can come back during the child’s
life and reclaim him or her. But if the adoption is legal (no fraud and no
duress), then it is irrevocable.

However, for a period of time after the birth, as set by state law, the
biological mother may decline to sign papers relinquishing parental rights to
her child, an act known as reclaim. In Washington State she has forty-eight
hours, in California, thirty days, and in some states, six months. The bottom
line? Do your research, choose a good adoption professional (who knows the red
flags), and make certain that the adoption is legal and aboveboard.

By clicking HERE, you can visit any state’s adoption laws.

Adoption is a glorious experience on the side of receiving, but it should never be taken for granted. Giving up a child is a wrenching experience. Leaving a hospital after giving birth with no infant is a real difficult thing to do.

Open Adoption:

If at all possible, consider open adoption. Open adoption–in which the
birth parents may select the adoptive family and sometimes have contact with the
child afterward–is healthier for everyone involved. The birth parents will be
satisfied that they made the correct choice, and the adoptive parents will have
access to the medical information necessary to raise their child. The level of
contact the birth parents have with the child can vary.

It may be the exchanging of photos, emails, and/or letters, or having more
direct contact, such as telephone calls, or in some cases, getting together on
occasion. For more information, see adoption.

This too is a really difficult thing for parents who come to a position of not agreeing with the birth mother. Whose child is he or she, and what say does each have. Many times there is quite an age difference between birth parents and adopted parents and what is important to one generation is not to another. The other things that make open adoption hard are religious differences, economic dependencies, and moving. When adopted parents have the opportunity to move from city to city, they leave one of the partners of an open adoption.

Things to think about.

Mardie Caldwell has this advice in her book about writing a Birth Mother:

In writing your Dear Birth Mother letter, speak from the heart. Your adoptive parent profile has to sketch an intriguing and truthful portrait of who you are and the kind of parent you’ll be.

Caldwell offers a trove of tips on writing and posting a letter that will stand out from the pack and capture the attention of a prospective birth mother. “When you tell about your childhood, she wants to know what you learned that made you into the person you are, the parent you will be: the morning you saved the life of a sparrow fallen from its nest, or the time you broke your mother’s favorite cookie jar and she responded not with anger, but with love and a kiss,” she writes.

“You will want to cover the essential topics: life in your home, the people in your family, the fun things you do, and your ideas about parenting. Share yourself with your birth mother. She will appreciate it.”

Little things can mean a lot to a birth mother. Something that you might consider trivial could be the deciding factor for a birth mother. Caldwell tells of one couple she worked with whose profile had not gotten a nibble from even one of some fifty birth mothers. The reason? The husband, Larry, had a full, bushy beard that made him look–in the words of one of the birth mothers–like “an ax murderer.” Once he shaved his beard and submitted a new photo, the couple was soon matched with a birth mother. “When they finally met in person, Larry had grown his beard back and that was okay,” writes Caldwell. “By then the birth mother had gotten to know the person inside.”

Here are some helpful tips:

1) Imagine yourself as a birth mother. Put yourself in her shoes. What would you want to know about prospective adoptive parents?

2) Share with her your genuine feelings, written personally. This will touch her heart and set you apart from other Dear Birth Mother letters.

3) Tell her that you will love her child unconditionally.

4) Most women are looking first and foremost for a family they can trust.

5) Don’t make your profile too good to be true. The birth mother will sense that you’re trying to manipulate her to get her baby. She won’t trust your words.

6) Don’t misrepresent yourself or try to impress by stretching the truth. Be yourself.

7) Tell stories; they move readers and are the most natural way to communicate.

8) Have several friends and relatives review the draft of your profile and make suggestions.

9) When you write about your life in areas such as Around the House, Holidays, Work, Your Passions, tell about the unique things that make you who you are.

10) Phrase your profile in a way that will not offend anyone. For example, don’t write: I can provide your child a home you never could; instead say: I can provide a loving and safe home for your child.
11) Your faith may be important to birth mothers, but be brief when writing about it.

12) Don’t preach or sound like you’re trying to convert or rescue a birth mother. She’ll sense that you’re judging her for her lifestyle.

13) If you have a passion, for example, about basketball, don’t bring it up in every paragraph. A birth mother wants adoptive parents with balance in their lives.

14) Don’t whine about your infertility or the birth mother will believe you have unresolved infertility issues.

15) Briefly mention that you’ve tried to conceive, that doctors did all they could and that now you’re thrilled to bring a child into your lives through adoption, if this is in fact what you did.

16) Your profile and the website where it’s posted are the first images a birth family will see to judge you as prospective parents. Make the best first impression you can!

17) Few birth mothers respond to profiles on websites that are cluttered and poorly designed. So find a well-designed site for yours.

18) The number one reason that Web users click the stop button is slow downloading. If your profile doesn’t load fast, put it on another site with a faster server or reduce the size of your images.

19) Be there when the birth mother calls. Be sure there’s a live person to talk with her–i.e., your adoption professional, a friend or relative, or answering service personnel; it certainly should not be a machine or voice mail.

20) Have fun creating your profile and it will show you are really happy about adopting!

When the adoption is happening, the adoptive parents should encourage the birth parents to leave at least one letter and some pictures. These, without names, are called unidentifying materials and are stored with adoption records with the adoptive agency or the State Welfare Department.

Personally, I’ve requested these things after 54 years, and I’m excited to see if anything was left for me over a half a century ago.

Adopted children feel differently about adoption than their adopted parents. Belonging always has a hole in it for many adopted children. I remember once being told I could never join The Daughters of the American Revolution because I was adopted. Like I would.

The feeling of being outside the circle will eventually creep into the mind of an adopted child. Attachment is important. Knowing is important.

Feeding the kids, no matter how old they are, is one of the main issues of good childcare.

We hear so many nightmare stories about how children are given a steady diet of chickpeas in one childcare facility, and not enough food in another, a piece of cheese for lunch someplace unlicensed, and graham crackers for every snack in a center, it may be interesting to parents to understand the rules surrounding meals in childcare.

The United States Department of Agriculture Child Care Food Program, better known as USDACCFP has been around since World War II. It was established and designed to amend growth and development problems in America’s poorer children whose parents had to work, and who found themselves in full time care. The program paid child care providers to do it right, and it still does.

The program inspects childcare facilities that are on the program. They reimburse the money spent on food and food maintenance.

Essentially, the program demands that children be fed certain food components at meal times. Meals may not be skipped and must be served in a reasonably timely manner.

The food program is not demanding.

For breakfast, a child needs to have milk, a grain product and a fruit or vegetable.

For lunch, a child needs to have milk, a protein, two fruits or vegetables or one of each, and a grain product.

For snack, a child needs to have one serving from any two food groups – like milk and crackers.

Lots of people are confused about the food program because the food program’s nutrition often differs from individual points of view. For example: a breakfast of eggs and bacon and potatoes and milk would not count as a reimbursable meal, but a breakfast of toast, raisins and milk would. It’s a matter of serving all components which are fruit or vegetable, bread and milk.

It’s the same with lunch. A peanut butter sandwich and milk and canned soup is not a lunch that is reimbursable, but a slice of cheese, a piece of bread, a quarter apple, a teaspoon of raisins and milk fulfills the USDACCFP component list.

As a monitor for the USDACCFP for over ten years, I realize the shortcomings of most people’s idea of nutrition. There’s a steady quarrel at my house about the “food-ability” of things like canned pasta, canned soup, boxed macaroni and cheese, Jell-O, and ready-mades.

“Peanut butter is not a food.” The fight’s on.

Peanut butter is half a protein, and as a legitimate source of protein for a child’s lunch, one must add beans or peas or cheese or egg, so why serve the peanut butter to begin with unless it’s just a snack?

Likewise, canned soup and pasta has no nutritional value. Neither does Jell-O, canned pudding, or most store- bought cookies.

Understanding good nutrition is only half the lesson. That’s the head lesson.

The heart lesson is realizing that food is not a “budget cutter.” Cheaping out on a menu to save a few dollars is about as dumb as it comes because food is an investment in life. Feed a child well, and not only will the doctor bills evaporate, but the adult will also be a healthier person. That’s the heart lesson.

Food is the heart of a child’s day. Food is fun; food is replenishing; food is a discovery.

The best plan for feeding children is to make half of it child-friendly and half of it child-discovery.

Starting in August, menus will be posted at the front of the school. We are going to join the USDACCFP. One of the outstanding agreements we have at the Garden School is that food is a priority. For us, it’s a moral issue, so our menus more than exceed the Federal requirements, and they always have.

If you would like to come and eat with your child, please let us know. We serve our lunches family style, and we would be happy to set a place for you.

When you do it right, you get kids who shoot for the sky. Children who travel the world and do really neat stuff make being an older parent as much fun as being a younger parent.

This week, Edith’s family is visiting. It’s an exciting time for her. Her son, Regis, has a particularly interesting job. He’s a writer and traveler for the Lonely Planet. His web site is on a new links list called “Fun Places to be Links.” You can also visit it by clicking Regis. I hope you enjoy it. Look for his blog Regis St. Louis.

You will find other fun places to be in the next weeks. These are the links we will use for our geography and history classes. So read up and be able to answer your child’s questions!

Here’s another area of the country and more parental discontent. If you read between the lines, you can see the same problems and the same discontent.

Changes Spark Anger At Child-care Center

Thursday, July 28, 2005

By Ben Cunningham

The Grand Rapids Press

CALEDONIA — Changes at the Duncan Lake Early Childhood Center have sparked discontent among parents, but district officials vowed to work on any problems.

The center has seen a new director, a new building and rate increases in the day-care program during the past year. Parents recently outlined grievances over staff turnover during a recent Board of Education meeting.

“We are not getting the services we pay for,” said parent Angie Brown, during a recent meeting, adding that the district is sending mixed messages.

Another group of parents, when asked to specifically define their grievances, said there were “hundreds of problems.”

Beginning Sept. 1, the district’s rates for day care for a child five hours or more per day for four days or more a week jumps from $130 per week to $150. A part-time rate, for three days or fewer a week or less than five hours, rises from $38 per day to $44.

In comparison, Caledonia Appletree Christian Learning Center, a private facility, charges about $175 for five days of care, and Kid’s World Child Care/Learning Center charges about $160 per week.

District officials said the rate hike comes from a variety of causes, most
notably a desire to maintain competitive salaries and an effort to make the
center more self-sustaining.

Assistant Superintendent Carol Nelson-Purkey said bond money has been available to upgrade technology and other items in the general education in recent years, leaving other money to subsidize the Early Childhood Center. She said rates have not increased in more than three years, despite the rising cost of such things as natural gas.

Parents said they object not only to the rate increases but to the way they were informed of the changes, through an impersonal letter delivered just before spring break.

“It is not meant to be for profit, but we are trying to make things self-sustaining,” said Janel Switzer, who took over as the center’s director late last year.

Switzer oversaw the move from the now-demolished buildings on Johnson Street to a new facility in the former high school. She is leading the district’s effort to give the day care a more educational emphasis.

“Since we really are an educational institution, that really is the direction we are trying to take it,” she said.

While some turnover in staffing has taken place, the exact numbers are unclear as district representatives say personnel matters are confidential. Nelson-Purkey said much of the turnover has come because staff members are moving to private facilities that pay higher wages.

Switzer said the district offers training to employees to allow them to better blend with the institution’s newer educational philosophy.

“Change is always difficult,” she said.

“As an employee of the (center), I can honestly say that I felt the pain of our families and fellow workers,” Sheri Maxlow, an 11-year employee of the day care wrote to the board. “The lack of respect that we have all felt has not showed the support we once felt that our district tried to provide to all families in our community.”

Nelson-Purkey says she is meeting with any staff members who are having problems. District officials said they will continue working with parents to address concerns.

A Sunday school class was studying the Ten Commandments. Theywere ready to discuss the last one. The teacher asked if anyone could tell her what it was. Susie raised her hand, stood tall, and quoted,”Thou shall not take the covers off thy neighbor’s wife.”

Our Father who does art in Heaven, hallowed be my name…

Picture? Leah and Holden are both graduates of the Garden School or will be next week. They have been best friends for a long time.

I think this is a really cute picture. It was taken by Jordan Barclay at the Freedom Festival. It’s also for sale.

Here’s an article from Jacksonville, Florida. I was curious about it because that’s where my son and his family live. I found it interesting that they are going through this “fixer upper” mentality about child care just like we are in Evansville with the Welborn Foundation Grant.

I am aso curious as to why it took so long to discover why childcare is such a mess nation wide.

Here’s the article:

By Mark Spain

First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE, FL — The earlier children get off on the right foot to learning, the greater their chances for success later on in school.”We know that children do better when they are prepared at an earlier age,” said Susan Main of the Early Learning Coalition Of Duval, Inc.

The Oaks at Durkeville is one of 14 child care centers participating in the coalition’s pilot program to improve child care facilities in Jacksonville. “It’s gonna trickle down to the children. Our program is getting a boost and we are better equipped,” said Charlene Gross of The Oaks at Durkeville.

By utilizing a five-star rating system, with one being the lowest and five being the highest, parents can easily determine where their child’s facility stands. “The five star center is the epitome in the field. But we’ve set the bar really high and don’t expect many centers to reach it right away,” said Main.

The coalition evaluates the centers on everything from ratio and staff compensation to professional development and parent and family involvement. There are eight areas viewed for the evaluation. “We’re gonna be looking for every opportunity to build this program and help parents and students learn. We’re going forward in a big way,” said Main.

The Early Learning Coalition hopes to include 100 centers in an additional pilot program. Participation in the program is purely voluntary.