Customer Reviews

Questions Adoptees Are Asking: ...about beginnings...about birth family...about searching...about finding peace

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This is the book is part of what I call "The Eldridge Trilogy"*.
As an adoptive parent do you ever wonder what is going on in you child's mind as s/he stars into space seemingly in another world. Maybe it's a temporary trance (you know, the one we all get once in awhile) but it could likely be that you child is thinking about her/his beginnings, about birth parents, about the numerous "whys" that pop up in his/her daily life. Not merely abstract existential questions but practical, "real world" whys- why I think about my birth parents (do they think about me?), why others don't understand me, why I get angry so easily, why I'm embarrassed or afraid about talking about adoption, why I feel terrified of rejection, why all of my questions seem unquenchable and in many cases unanswerable. Sherrie Eldridge discusses more than 22 "whys" in this book. Each chapter covers a specific "why" question. And, at the end of each chapter she includes two sections: "Discussion Questions for Support Groups or Personal Reflection" and/or "Digging Deeper for Answers to Our Adoption Questions". The second section is more religious based. This book is packed with information covering a broad range of Q/A, with practical illustrations from the author's life and from the thousands of adoptees and adoptive parents she has interacted with for years. This book is one that you can return to over and over, choosing the why question you or your child may be experiencing at the moment. The author's religious leaning is in the book but it does not detract from the content. If anything, it adds an affirming tone in dealing with why questions that many adoptees are asking.

*I highly recommend "The Eldridge Trilogy" which consists of "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew ; Questions Adoptees Are Asking (about beginnings, about birth family, about searching, about finding peace)" and "20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed (Discover the secrets to understanding the unique needs of your adopted child- and becoming the best parent you can be)." These should be required reading for every adoption counselor or social worker involved in adoption, every adoptive parent, and when age appropriate, every adoptee.

"I can now see my adoption experience through God's eyes" resonates with the truth I have come to learn by working through Sherrie Eldridge's wonderful book "Questions Adoptees Are Asking." You will want to read other fine works by Sherrie Eldridge, as well as connecting to her wisdom through her website and her blog: [...] and [...] Thank you, Sherrie, for giving voice to what I know is true in the innermost part of me in your description of "THE BEAUTIFUL BRAID OF ADOPTION...Long ago in eternity past, God determined that He would make a beautiful braid, and He called it Adoption. The braid has four ribbons: red for the adoptee, green for the birth parents, purple for the adoptive parents, and the golden strand for His Sovereignty that weaves our lives together...God planned who my birth parents would be and who my Mom and Dad would be. Both influences, plus His, are needed to help us become all that He created us to be."

I read Sherrie's books before when my children where younger, and I felt that they gave me insight that I would possibly need in the future. Well that time has arrived. My daughter is 10 and is full of questions and emotions related to her adoption. I have reread the books, and am so thankful for Sherrie's thorough research and her transparency about her own journey. It is uncanny to me that the thoughts my daughter is having are exactly those raised in this book. I am grateful that I can share with her that she is not alone and that it is OK to think through things. I believe that Sherrie's books have helped me feel comfortable with my daughter's thoughts, and helped me to not feel threatened in any way by her questioning the "Why's" of her adoption. No one person reacts in the same way. Every journey is different. I am just thankful that Sherrie's books have prepared me and given me a little window to my daughter's soul at this important time in her life.

This may very well be a good book on the experience of adoption. But I'm too offended to read it. I couldn't even flip through a few pages without being inundated with Bible verses and passages about God. There was nothing whatsoever in the description of this book that would lead one to the conclusion that it is religious.

Shame on the author for not presenting science-based knowledge to the public.

Perhaps the most serious error the author makes is promoting the myth of "primal wound/rage". This is the unfounded belief that newborns are aware of being abandoned by their birth mother. Proponents of this belief claim that the child's attachment to its mother begins *in utero* or at conception -- and hold your hat -- even before conception when the ovum supposedly picks up the unique "vibrations" of a someday-mother (according to Nancy Verrier at presentation at the Attachment Center at Evergreen 2000).

Eldridge begs the questions: Is the fetus telepathic? Does language acquisition occur in utero?

And of course, there is the obvious allure of such suggestions to the anti-abortionists.

In fact, infants do not even begin to understand the concept of *individual people* until months after birth. That is when attachment for a caregiver(s) begins, i.e. at approximately 7-8 months of age.

This nutty belief of primal wound has caused all sorts of grief in the adoption community. For one thing, it has fueled the anti-adoption movement.

There are legitimate reasons to be anti-adoption, as demonstrated by Eldridge's promotion of the unvalidated and abusive fringe psychotherapy "Attachment Therapy/Parenting." Adoptive and foster children have been subjected to this torture for decades, and no authorities have stepped up to close it down.