What's Up Magazines

A Special Section on
Adoption

November is National Adoption Month.

Family. Many of us take our families for granted, but there are many parents and children for whom the opportunity to bring someone into their family or to join a family is a privilege and a gift. Every year hundreds of thousands of children are adopted by families in the United States. In 2004, 1.6 million children were adopted worldwide. 18 percent of the children adopted in the United States were from another country.

National Adoption Month started as a week. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis established Massachusetts Adoption Week in 1976 to draw attention to the importance of adoption in his state. Later that year, President Gerald Ford, an adoptee himself, proclaimed it a National Week in a letter to the North American Council on Adoptive Children (NACAC). As more states participated, more time was needed for events.

By 1990, the NACAC began promoting National Adoption Month. Many communities and agencies have events in honor of National Adoption Month to bring the urgency for families to adopt into the public eye. The events of the month bring awareness to everyone about the hundreds of thousands of children still in foster homes waiting for a permanent family.

Each year, the president of the United States makes a proclamation in support of National Adoption Month. As President George W. Bush stated in his most recent National Adoption Month proclamation, "During National Adoption Month, we recognize the compassion of adoptive and foster families and renew our pledge to finding loving and stable homes for children in need."

We are pleased to share three stories that give different perspectives on the adoption experience.

A Birth Mother's Search fo Self Revisiting the past to heal the spirit.

Learning to be Chinese in America Together a family learns about cultural heritage.

Life as a Korean Adoptee