By Jillian Lauren We spent a remarkable weekend with T’s “first friends.” Unprompted by me, he calls them his brothers and sisters. The first picture is of the kids when they were still living in a care center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The second one is of the same kids now (in […]
By Jillian Lauren When I was stuck in traffic after the camp drop-off this morning, I found myself musing about the day I first heard the words “special needs” applied to T. It seems a lifetime ago. I remember the combination of fear and relief I felt. What would this mean to him? To our […]
by Meika Rouda Last year I had coffee with a friend of a friend to talk about adoption. Her name was Sarah and she and her husband had been waiting five years for a baby. They had been matched several times with birthmothers but each time the adoptions fell through. She was feeling very sad […]
By Jillian Lauren Here is the talk I gave at Chapman University, about adoption and the role of imagination in forming our identities. For more from Jillian Lauren, check out her blog.
By Jillian Lauren I love Cesca Leigh’s Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls. Can’t get enough of it. It so eloquently addresses micro-aggressions. Micro-aggressions are described by Chester M Pierce as: brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people […]
By Jillian Lauren T keeps wanting to hear the stories of our scars. His favorite is “How Dad’s Tooth Turned to Gold.” He also wants to incessantly recount the details of his own injuries. He walked into a closed sliding glass door on Memorial Day (he’s fine) and the narrative has practically become a Homeric […]
By Jillian Lauren I was in line at the coffee shop the other day eagerly awaiting my caffeine fix, when I overheard a couple of moms chatting. One of them was describing the behavior of a child in her daughter’s class. The behavior sounded similar to T’s, so of course my ears perked up. The […]
By Jillian Lauren There is a bully on T’s baseball team. The age of the kids is 4-6, but I’m sure it shouldn’t surprise me that bullying starts this young. T had his first game last Saturday and there was a moment in the dugout during which which the bully grabbed T’s hat off his […]
By Jillian Lauren An old, dear friend emailed yesterday to tell me that he and his wife are considering international adoption. He wanted to know if I had any advice. I began to write a short email back and a novel pretty much poured out of me. As I was writing, I looked at the […]
By Jillian Lauren I recently went out for non-drinks with a pregnant writer friend, who is understandably concerned that motherhood will ruin her life. Oh, it will, I told her. Everyone’s going to tell you to go see a movie alone or some stupid thing like that. As if balancing a popcorn bucket on your […]
