Life as an adopted child
Information about adoption & shared experiences from an adopted childArchive for May, 2009
Researching adoption
When researching adoption on line I have found many different views and opinions. I have looked at so many websites giving the pros and cons of adopting a child. The website I felt gave me the most accurate and interesting information was adoption.com. This website can be very helpful for pregnant families , families looking to adopt, people looking for parenting advice, people looking to reunite with birth family members and just to find basic information on adoption. The most interesting part of this website for me was reading other peoples blogs on adoption and their stories. Reading about people who have stories similar to me was inspiring. This makes me want to write more about being adopted and encouraging families to adopt. On this website you can find out the laws of California adoption and ways to figure out whats right for you and your baby. If you cant find what you are looking for on this website there are many links to other websites that provide more information. Something I found very interesting is that you are able to choose a certain type of baby you want to adopt for example : a baby from Africa, Vietnam, Russia, a Jewish baby, a Christian baby, a Ukraine baby the choices are endless. Seeing that there are one hundred and seventy six children waiting to be adopted or fostered shocked me. They have the pictures names and ages of the children. This made me feel sad because these children need homes and I wish I could do something to help. Adoption. com shares information about adoptions in California. Adoptions from Agencies in California can be licensed public of private. The California Department of Social Services ( CDSS) can also put children up for adoption. The California Department of Social Services will help birth parents placing their child up for adoption, they will also help families looking to adopt.They help by providing assistance and educational information to the families who are interested and are in the process of adoption. Some birth parents are very insisting on who they will let adopt their child. They want to make sure their child goes to a good family who will take care of them. If the birth parents do not want to lose contact with their baby they can chose to have an open adoption. The California adoption law allows birth parents and relatives to enter into a post adoption contract agreement with the adoptive parents, this has to be approved by a court. The agreement says the birth parents/relatives can ask to receive information about the child in the future or request to be in contact with the child. I think adoption is such a great thing. Helping children who don’t have a safe home and taking them in to better their lives is so wonderful. I am so happy that there is this website to help people who are either pregnant and need help figuring out what their options are or for people who are looking to adopt. This is such a resourceful website and it helped me learn more about adoption and can be so helpful to many people.
Top 10 things to do in San Francisco, CA
The top 10 things to do in San Francisco are based on my personal opinion.
1. Travel to Alcatraz in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Alcatraz was used as a federal maximum security prison from 1934 until 1963, when it was closed due to high costs and security issues. Take the tour and travel by boat. The Alcatraz audio tour is available in 8 languages, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. The tour has been an award-winning.
2. Travel to Haight Ashbury street and see the wild and crazy outfits and the diversity of people in SF. Haight Street is known internationally as a great destination to visit in San Francisco, California. It is eighteen blocks long and beings on Gough st right near Market, it ends in the entrance to Golden Gate Park.
3. Bike the Bridge, there are many great bicycle stores in SF where you can rent a bike go on an 8 or 16 mile bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito or Tiburon. This is a great way to see beautiful scenery and to have fun while you exercise. Blazing Saddles is the most affordable and best company in my opinion.
4. Travel to Lombard st, this st is known as the most crooked street in the world. It is on a steep hill. It is very beautiful in between grand Victorian mansions and attract millions of tourists each year. It is also covered in brightly colored flowers everywhere. Make sure to buckle up for this crooked and crazy st.
5. Make sure you go to fisherman’s wharf, home of great sea food, the wax museum, many many tourist stores, a Boudins bakery where instead of using yeast they use the bacteria from yogurt to make their famous sourdough bread. Also visit pier 39, where there are many great restaurants like Bubba Gump and The Hard Rock Cafe. Make sure to cover your nose when going to see the seals they stink but it is a great photo opportunity.
6. Find your way to Chinatown, where you can see the largest urban population of Chinese outside of China. Here you can fill your belly with delicious Chinese Delicacies, going on Chinese New Years is the best time to go. There is a huge parade in the streets and great Chinese music.
7. Don’t get Chinatown confused with Japan town, here there are teahouses, great shopping centers, and wonderful theaters that honor the beauty of the Japanese culture. It is just a glimpse of the culture of Japan.
8. North beach is where 125000 Italian- Americans inhibited a square mile neighborhood called North Beach. Here there are cafes, cheese stores and bars. It is a short walk away from Fisherman’s wharf and truly a great place to visit.
9. The Mission district is a great place to go to experience the Latin culture. Every ten years the Latin population doubles in S.F. this is where to find the flavor of great Latin Food. There are taquerias, pupuserias, Salvadorian Bakeries , used book stores,auto repair shops all available by foot.The Dolores St. and Valencia St is the hipper section and has great night life.
10. Before leaving SF, riding a cable car is necessary. Sit back , or stand and relax as you travel up and down him on beautiful handcrafted themed vehicles.It is such a different way of traveling and is truly a blast. There is even a karaoke cable car with someone to help get you started singing your way through S.F.
Information on Adoption
Being an adopted child is not easy. As for being a parent who adopts a child, this can be even harder. There are many legal requirements and laws about adopting children. It is very likely the birth parents will change their minds, and they have the right to. When My Mom was going through the process of adopting me my birth mother actually threatened her that if she didn’t pay for everything she wanted she would take me back. My Mom set her up and recorded the phone conversation and took it to the FBI. My birth parents were actually criminals trying to basically “sell” my sisters and I to get things she and her boyfriend needed. This is why my life was going to be a t.v. movie and the script was already written. Luckily for me my parents didn’t go through with it and I’m glad. Adoption goes back to 18th B.C. Birth parents had to have consent for their child to be adopted. Some exceptions were temple slaves, they had no rights over their children and their consent wasn’t needed. The adopted children were legal herd of their adoptive parents. If somehow the adoptive parent had a biological child , the adopted could go back to his/her birth parents but the adopted received a part of the adoptive parents land. If an adopted wanted to return to their birth parents they either had to have their eye cut out or tongue cut off. If you wanted to adopt you didn’t have to be a couple, both men or women could adopt, single or married. Today their are certain requirements for being able to adopt a child such as :
- Marital status: easier for a married couple to adopt than some one single. It depends on how the birth parents feel.
- Length of marriage: A common requirement for adoptive parents is that they should be married for at least three years.
- Age of adoptive parents: The legal age for adoptive parents is 18 to 40 years of age. Some agencies will consider older couples.
- Maximum age exceptions for international adoptions: age and maturity are considered an advantage in many foreign countries where children are available for adoption.
- Health issues: Prospective parents must be in good health. Some agencies will prevent adoptions based on weight, whether it’s underweight or obesity.
Celebrities adopting right now, is the hot new trend . Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have adopted three children; Zahara Marley a girl from Ethiopia, Pax Thien from Vietnam and her first adopted child Maddox Chivan, from Cambodia. No doubt that these children will have great lives and probably won’t ever have to worry about money but I wonder how they feel. They were not just babies when Brad and Angelina adopted them. Pax was actually three years old. I wonder if they miss where they came from and they probably will always wonder how their lives would be if they hadn’t been adopted. I don’t think celebrities adopting children is wrong. I just feel if they are taking them away from their previous parents when they are not at a young age it could be very difficult for them growing up.
Being adopted as a baby
My name is Chloe, I live in sunny North California. I am a senior in high school. I was adopted from Laguna Beach, CA when I was 2 hours old. Being adopted is not something many people can talk about, because they don’t know what it is like. When I was six years old I found out that I was adopted, my mother sat me on my bed and told me, at the time she was crying and until I fully understood what being adopted meant I had no idea why she was crying. My Mother had told me that my birth Mother and birth Father didn’t have the money to take care of me and they wanted me to have a good life, something typical that a Mother with an adopted child would tell them. I believed this for ten years of my life until I stumbled upon my adoption papers in my Mom’s closet. Since this was part of my life I thought it would be fine for me to take a peek. Quickly I locked my Mom’s door and started rummaging through the papers. I found all sorts of things including a script for a movie written about my adoption. At the time I didn’t understand what this was but I would soon find out. I also found out that I have two sisters that I didn’t know. I only knew their names and their birthdays. Brianna and Amanda .I didn’t know what to do or what to think. This gave me a headache and I went to the person that I haven’t been close to throughout my teenage years, my Brother who is 4 four years older than me. I cried and cried and I told my Mom that I knew. She didn’t know what to say she was in shock that I found out before she was going to tell me on my eighteenth birthday, which is in three months.
Being adopted is not easy. Finding out I have two sisters was so hard, because I knew I would probably never meet them. To this day I realize that if I want to find part of my family I need to start looking. I have already lost 17 years of my life that I could have been with them and I don’t want to lose anymore. Someday I will find my sisters, I have to believe that and tell myself that otherwise I will have no hope or drive. I don’t know how but I will find them.
