What adoption related books have been the most worthwhile for YOU?

Question

However you are effected by adoption, first parent, adoptive parent, prospective adoptive parent, adoptee etc. What have been the most worthwhile adoption related books been for you?

Answer 1

Anything by Betty Jean Lifton. I also like "The Other Mother" and "The Girls Who Went Away" to help me understand the natural mother's perspective.

"The Adoption Reunion Survival Guide" and "Birthbond" helped me with my feelings surrounding searching and initial contact with my  family. And last but not least I really enjoyed "Ithaka: A Daughter's Memoir of Being Found" and "A Single Square Picture" for offering me an insight to a different adoption experience then what I had.

Answer 2

The girls who went away.

i sobbed the entire time. now they need an updated version on the propaganda of "open" adoption and how devastating this lie is and its misuse. i think of it as, "how to steal a baby". this does not include all AP's. i am thankful to the ones who take in children who have lost their family and are in foster homes. now that the truth of what has been happening is out, i would think that those with any kind of concious at all, would stay away from such a barbaric practice.

i feel like it's just a matter of time before reforms are set into place so that this no longer happens.

Answer 3

As an adoptee, Lifton's Journey of the Adopted self was THE book for me--the one that let me know my feelings of shame and never fitting in despite being very much loved and accepted were not pathological or unique to me.  Wow.  I carried that stuff around for twenty years wondering what was wrong with me, how I could be such a bad person....

Answer 4

As someone who adopted internationally, the book "Are These Kids Yours" by Sheri Register is the best book I have read.  It really goes deeply into the affects that loss of culture, language, not having family, friends, or neighbors that "look like" themselves have on international adoptees.  I would make it required reading for international adoption.  I get frustrated with other parents who have adopted internationally who didn't like it or didn't finish reading it because it was "too depressing."

Answer 5

honestly the bible

it helps get anyone through the hard and chalanging times

it can help you make life changing questions also

Answer 6

The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler

The Journey of the Adopted Self by Betty Lifton.

Answer 7

When I first started searching, 'Lost & Found' by Betty Jean Lifton was a beacon to this lost, adopted person it was life-altering and affirming.

Her newer book, 'Journey of the Adopted Self', is fabulous--  page after page of validating information and other adoptee experiences.

I also found healing in Alice Miller's 'Drama of the Gifted Child', and Harold Kushner's 'When Bad Things Happen to Good People', and M. Scott Peck's 'People of the Lie', which are not adoption books.

'The Girls' Who Went Away' helped me get rid of the last ember of anger I had for my mother.  I know now there was nothing she could do but surrender her child.

What a great question, Gershom!

Answer 8

Primal Wound

The Girls Who Went Away

Adoption & Loss - The Hidden Grief

Looking forward to reading Unlearning Adoption - A Guide to Family Preservation and Protection and The Stork Market. I think these will be important in understanding the history of adoption and how the US came to be the adopting fiend that it is.

Answer 9

I have five adopted children, from birth, now adults.  I never read a book regarding adoption and I never read a book on how to bring up children.  I instinctively new what to do and what not to do.  Every book has a different opinion of what you should do under certain circumstances, no two books are the same, regarding any subject.  

My children are now parents themselves and I have 12 wonderful grandchildren.  If you have love in your heart and go by that gut feeling, you cannot go wrong.  My personal beliefs only.

Answer 10

The Primal Wound and The Girls Who Went Away. Both are insightful conpelling reads. Hard as he ll to read though. I had to put them down and read when the willies went away. Both made me cry, for all the pain and sorrow so many of us feel. For what we were never told, and for the lies I believed so long ago.

Answer 11

"Twenty Life-Transforming choices adoptees need to make" by Sherrie Eldridge.

I found this book to be awesome, it goes through the feelings that some adoptees have and things we can do to get past them. Or at least put our feelings into prescriptive.

I couldn't help reading it and thinking wow someone finally understands me.

I'm hoping to get around to the other books. I want a well-rounded view of adoption. I believe this will help me in understanding where my birth mother came from.

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Julie R: I have to agree with you, this question is just about what books we read. So, I'm thinking too that all those that ask those questions and accusing us of being anti-adoption are scared for people to have a well-rounded view of adoption.

Answer 12

Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother by Jana Wolff

Dear Birthmother by Kathleen Silber and Phylis Speedlin

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Adoption, Second Edition by Christine Adamec

  

Open Adoption Experience: Complete Guide for Adoptive and Birth Families - From Making the Decision Throug by Lois Ruskai Melina

Answer 13

Primal Wound - Nancy Verrier

Adoption & Loss: The Hidden Grief - Evelyn Robinson

Adoption & Recovery: Solving the Mystery of Reunion - Evelyn Robinson

Journey of the Adopted Self - Betty Jean Lifton

Adoption Healing - Joe Soll

Answer 14

I think the only one that I found actually helpful was the Primal Wound, because it helped me identify my abandonment issues and part of the reason of why I had them.  To clarify I am an adoptee, although I plan on adopting one day.

Answer 15

The book that spoke to me most as an adoptee was Lifton's "Journey of the Adopted Self."  

But the book that was most worthwhile in terms of understanding the mechanics of separation on the psyche and the brain was Verrier's "Primal Wound" because her references led me to my work in researching the effects of separation and infant brain development, etc.

The best book on the market today (for laymen) that explains brain development and early relational effects on adult behavior is "A General Theory of Love" by Lewis, Amini, & Lannon.  This book would help anyone (adopted or not) to understand their behaviors in adulthood based on their relationships with their parents/caregivers.

I have also found the Alice Miller Library to be of immense help with regard to understanding the impact of parenting style on adults and their subsequent parenting styles.

EDIT......

I am in absolute hysterics about the thumbs down so far in response to this question.  The name-callers  and instigators of inflammatory questions are making themselves known here with their thumbs down, as this is a subjective question and, while some may agree with answers, cannot realistically disagree.

Answer 16

Admittedly, "Journey of the Adopted Self" and "Primal Wound" are both still sitting on my stack as I read through "Birthright."  So my answer may change in the next month.

But at this point, I'd have to say "Being Adopted."  Has been the most worthwhile.  I needed something a bit more...  analytic?...  to help me process and make sense of some of the feelings I'd had for a long time.  Reading the words of other adoptees, as well as the synthesis by the authors was incredibly helpful to me.  It was also difficult, at times, as it kept hitting too close to home.  I could only read a chapter or two before having to put it down for a break.  I would recommend it to any adoptee.