Bringing Adoption into the Light

The Myths About Adoption
and How to Fight Them

By Mark Stackpole

Bringing a child into your family is perhaps the purest expression of love a person can make. It is virtually impossible to explain or understand the powerful and complex emotions that are involved in the process of becoming a parent or starting a family. This may be one of the reasons there are still many myths and misunderstandings that surround conception, pregnancy and childbirth. Of course, giving birth to a baby is not the only way to welcome a child into your family. Many families are created via adoption, a process which is surrounded not only by myths and misunderstandings, but often by judgment.

Hope Haslam Straughan is an assistant professor of social work at Wheelock College in Boston, Mass. As a volunteer childcare case reviewer for the Department of Social Services and the mother of two adopted children (biological siblings), Straughan is very familiar with the misconceptions that can surround adoption and adoptive families. "A major myth that comes up quite commonly is that once the adoption finalization has occurred, the adopted children are expected to be fine, like everything is 'over' for the children as far as their past and history," she says.

Adoptive parents need to be aware that it is important to acknowledge where children are coming from, which will help them determine the course of where they are going. "It's about the connections between all people, not the endings or pretending that someone no longer exists because a child is in a new family," says Straughan.

Want to see more?

• Finally Yours: When the Adoption Is Final
• International Adoption: Requirements by Country
• Six Lucky Siblings: An Older-child Adoption Story
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