Adoption Wisdom: A Guide to the Issues and Feelings of Adoption (Paperback)

by Marlou Russell (Author) "Adoption forces people to embrace a certain set of beliefs..." (more)
Key Phrases: many triad members, reunion relationship, many birth parents, Adoptee Adoptees, Adoptee Some, Adoptee Adoption (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Insight and understanding of adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents. A book for anyone who wants to know more about the realities of adoption.

About the Author
Marlou Russell, Ph.D. speaks and writes on issues of adoption while maintaining a private practice in Santa Monica, California. She is an adoptee in reunion with many relatives from both sides of her birth family.

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Broken Branch Production (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888511125
• ISBN-13: 978-1888511123
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,402 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #19 in	Books > Parenting & Families > Adoption
  #44 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Social Work

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Must" Read, September 2, 2003

By A Customer

I am just finishing "Adoption Wisdom". It is probably the best I've read.
It should be required reading for all members of the triad. Since my son
found me last year, I have read about 20 books and this is one of the few
that reaches all of the members. I certainly wish I had read it years ago.
Thanks.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful book!, August 19, 2003

By A Customer

I am a birthmother who just found my 21 year old daughter. I was deperately seeking a book that could help me understand all the emotions that I'm going through, and the chain-reaction of events that has happened as a result of my search. I picked up this book, read it from cover to cover at one sitting..unable to put it down. It contains a wealth of information, incredibly well-organized, well-written, and through the view point of all members of the adoption triad. It is neither preachy, text-book like, or self-serving...rather, an honest, heart-felt account of people, who have lived through the pain, joy, confusion and every other emotion that being touched by adoption brings into your life. i highly recommend it!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Instructive, and soothing, April 16, 2006

By	Alyssa A. Lappen (Earth) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Although an adoptive parent for 10 years, I found many new bits of information and sensible comments in this book, compiled by an author and PhD. in family issues who is herself an adoptee.

"When I was growing up in the 1950s," she said at a recent adoption conference, "families did not discuss adoption." Children made fun of adoptees, and the notion of looking for birth parents was completely foreign, and taboo.

Now, of course, the entire adoption scene has changed radically. Families routinely adopt children and stay in touch with the birth families, allowing their children to communicate and visit with birth families as they grow.

For children adopted internationally, of course, the situation is much like it was in the 1950s for Marlou Russell. Particularly for girls from China, the likelihood of ever finding their birth parents is practically nil. So the children grow up with a hole in their hearts, forever wondering about the family they came from, and why they were abandoned.

The wonderful thing about this book is that it contains the perspectives, fears and emotions of all three members of the adoption triad-children who were themselves adopted, adoptive parents and birth parents (mostly mothers, but the occasional birth father as well).

It makes eminent sense, and it is important for all to know, that all three members of each triad have lost something and gained something.

The child has lost their birth family, and the comforts of belonging to a group with whom they share looks, likes and characteristics as well as culture, race and religion. But they have gained a family that can better care for them, ideally one far more stable than the one that was unable to do so. The birth parents have lost the joys of caring for and loving and raising their own, but gained the independence and lack of parental responsibility that their economic and marital circumstances may require. The adoptive parents have (usually, but not always) lost the ability to bear their own biological children, and gained the ability to love and raise another's child as their own.

Each one of these triad members carries lifelong wounds, which although they can heal, never disappear. For anyone in the triad who has never thought of adoption from the point of view of the others, this book is a must. For therapists and child-care workers, it is also essential reading.

For most participants in the adoption process, it is never possible to "close the door" completely to the pain they suffered. They can heal, certainly, but the loss they suffered that required adoption never goes away. It's like suffering a death in the family. The survivors live on, very often fruitfully, but they never forget.

It's my hope that this book will help my adopted child deal with his pain, just as it has helped me cope with mine.

--Alyssa A. Lappen