Adoptive Quotes & Sayings

She turned back to Jace. "Do you have to be so-," she began, but stopped when she saw his face. It looked stripped down, oddly vulnerable.
"Unpleasant?" he finishes for her. "Only at days when my adoptive mother tosses me out of the house with instructions never to darken her door again. Usually I'm remarkably good-natured. Try me on any day that doesn't end in y. — Cassandra Clare

She likes the word mother and all the complications it brings. She isn't interested in true or birth or adoptive or whatever other series of mothers there are in the world. Gloria was her mother. Jazzlyn was too. They were like strangers on a porch, Gloria and Jazzlyn, with the evening sun going down: they just sat there together and neither could say what the other one knew, so they just kept quiet, and watched the day descend. One of them said good night, while the other waited. — Colum McCann

Adoption was such a positive alternative to abortion, a way to save one life and brighten two more: those of the adoptive parents. — George W. Bush

There would be fewer contested adoptions and fewer situations of loss for preadoptive parents (who have already suffered enough loss) if we made sure that each and every adoption is truly the right decision. Birth and adoptive parents aside, it is the child who is at greater risk when we do not do conscientious adoption planning. — Joyce Maguire Pavao

Alexander the Great was not worried about what other people would think if he made a deal with a woman. It helped that the woman was very smart and knew how to benefit both sides by striking that deal. Ada of Caria negotiated with the Macedonian conqueror by making him her adoptive son and her heir. She got her power back and ruled for a total of nineteen years. — Ingrid De Haas

My story ended where so many stories have ended since the Rising: with a man - in this case, my adoptive brother and best friend, Shaun - holding a gun to the base of my skull as the virus in my blood betrayed me, transforming me from a thinking human being into something better suited to a horror movie. — Mira Grant

Then one detail caught my attention. "Time (of birth), 5:57 A.M." Wow! I really was born! I wasn't an alien who was dropped down into my adoptive parents' arms. I was a real baby who experienced a real birth from a real mother at a real time of day. For me, that tid-bit of information was like a meal to a starving woman. — Sherrie Eldridge

Meredith Combs, the social worker responsible for selecting the stream of adoptive families that gave me back, wanted to talk to me about blame. — Vanessa Diffenbaugh

She fell in love with freedom. In the Sommers' home she had lived shut up within four walls, in a stagnant atmosphere where time moved in circles and where she could barely glimpse the horizon through distorted windowpanes. She had grown up clad in the impenetrable armor of good manners and conventions, trained from girlhood to please and serve, bound by corset, routines, social norms, and fear. Fear had been her companion: fear of God and his unpredictable justice, of authority, of her adoptive parents, of illness and evil tongues, of anything unknown or different; fear of leaving the protection of her home and facing the dangers outside; fear of her own fragility as a woman, of dishonor and truth. Hers had been a sugar-coated reality built on the unspoken, on courteous silences, well-guarded secrets, order, and discipline. She had aspired to virtue but now she questioned the meaning of the word. — Isabel Allende

You realize you've never walked in another person's shoes. Never have. Never will. The same is true in adoption. There are three sets of adoption shoes sitting at the end of the boardwalk. The adoptees ... the birth parents' ... and the adoptive parents'. Each is unique and each has a story to tell. — Sherrie Eldridge

My mother birthed three children and she adopted myself and another African-American son. My adoptive parents were Finnish. I grew up in a white picket neighborhood. — Michael Franti

My adoptive mother tirelessly worked most of her life to build up my self-esteem. So what happened was finding her started to shed light and destroy my mythos. So for the first year of knowing [biological mother], my mom kind of actually literally visited me in Detroit and kind of gave me a tour of my life - where I was conceived, where I was born, where she found out she was pregnant. It was amazing and very emotional. — Keegan-Michael Key

Hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organisations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. — George Orwell

There is a saying of my adoptive ancestors. Though he performs a miracle, or two miracles, if he refuses the third miracle, it is not as profit to him. I shall dine at the Court of France tonight, and in the course of that evening, acquire the royal consent for O'LiamRoe and myself to stay as long as we please. For, to be perfectly frank," said Lymond, gently reflective, "to be perfectly frank, I can't wait to sink my teeth into the most magnificent, the most scholarly and the most dissolute Court in Europe, which so lightly slid out The O'LiamRoe, Chief of the Name, on his kneecaps and whiskers. — Dorothy Dunnett

Adoption is a wonderful way of becoming a family. If being a biological parent is any better or more rewarding than being an adoptive parent, I really don't think I could stand it! — Kathleen Silber

The Heart Gallery premise is very simple. It is a special traveling exhibit of photographs featuring Los Angeles foster youth, designed to highlight the need to find loving adoptive families for waiting children. — Angela Featherstone

There's a very natural tendency (that we've certainly experienced) for adoptive parents to want to become the sole identified parent for their child right away, to the point where you want your child only to acknowledge you and your family as their own and not their birth family. Especially if the adoption process has been a difficult or contentious one, it may be that you as the adoptive parent feel a bit threatened by the continued presence of the birth parent in your child's life, even if it's as infrequent as a once-yearly visit. But as I'm sure you'll read the current thinking is very focused on the overall benefits to the child of having this process no longer cloaked in the shadows, but out in the open. — William Gregory

As for the screening process, we already do that for adoptive/foster parents. Why do we cling to the irrational belief that biological parents are necessarily competent parents - in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? — Anonymous

I should've been furious, but for some reason I wasn't. Maybe because I knew he was telling the truth. Maybe because Voron left me just like that, without the much-needed explanations. Maybe because things I had learned about him since his death had made me doubt everything he'd ever said to me. Whatever the case, I felt only a hollow, crushing sadness. How touching. I understood my adoptive father's killer. Maybe after this was over, Hugh's head and I could sing "Kumbaya" together by the fire. — Ilona Andrews

A full accounting of adoption as an option would not underestimate its emotional challenges - the grief and loss for birth mothers, the uncertainties for adoptive parents operating under a patchwork of state laws. — Nina Easton

The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so; as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are. — Lord Chesterfield

The truth is, the very act of adoption is built upon loss. For the birth parents, the loss of their biological offspring, the relationship that could have been, a very part of themselves. For the adoptive parents, the loss of giving birth to a biological child, the child whose face will never mirror theirs. And for the adopted child, the loss of the birth parents, the earliest experience of belonging and acceptance. To deny adoption loss is to deny the emotional reality of everyone involved. — Sherrie Eldridge

Post-placement Honoring the role of the former caregiver(s) Some toddlers transition directly from a birth family to their adoptive family, while others transition from interim care to their permanent home. If a relationship has formed between a child's caregiver and the child, regardless of whether that person is a birth relative or not, it is essential to continue to acknowledge the importance of that person in the child's life. — Mary Hopkins-Best

It is the concern of every immigrant that their offspring will grow to embrace their adoptive culture at the expense of their natural heritage. — Guillermo Del Toro

Adoptive parents often say about adoption day: "It was the happiest day of our lives!" While most of us are happy to be adopted, our own hearts tell us that adoption day was the most painful day of our lives, for the person with whom we shared deep intimacy suddenly disappeared from our world. — Sherrie Eldridge

The older kind of Socialist, who had been trained to fight against something called 'class privilege', assumed that what is not hereditary cannot be permanent. He did not see that the continuity of an oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organisations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A — George Orwell

Cindy and I are adoptive parents. We know what a treasure and joy it is to have an adopted child in our lives. — John McCain

My mother is a realist, and she's had biological and adoptive children, and she said it's no different: No matter what, they're putting a stranger into your arms. You don't know them yet. — Katherine Heigl

He did not see that the continuity of an oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organizations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. — George Orwell

I was a sickly baby, and after two sets of adoptive parents took me home, they returned me to the orphanage because of a serious respiratory infection. But as they say, the third time's a charm, because my mom and dad adopted me and took me into their home where I was raised in a family full of love. — Rodney Atkins

Adopting means opening your home, and heart, to a life you've never known. But there is nothing as richly rewarding as being an adoptive parent. — Michael Gove

Would-be adoptive parents have to struggle for years through a bureaucratic obstacle course at an average cost of $30,000. — Foster Friess

An observation that people who live permanently in an adoptive country tend to progressively generalize the bad and particularize the good, that is, attribute the bad traits in people they encounter to the national trait of the natives, and the good things to the individual.
This holds equally well for French people living in the U.S. as it does for Americans living in France. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

All anti-abortion protesters should be presented, on the spot, with an application to sign up as foster parents. They should also be given the names of children in their area in need of adoptive parents. And if they won't sign or volunteer, they should shut up. — Kurt Eichenwald

Meeting your adoptive baby is like being set up on a blind date with someone you will have to spend the next eighteen years with. You care about looks, because you desperately want to fall in love with the stranger who will be your child. — Jana Wolff

I have much more power and protection than Salman Rushdie, because I'm an American citizen, but yes, I live in terrible fear for my life and for the lives of my children. My whole family has been threatened, my adoptive parents had to sell their house and move out of Washington, D.C. because of death threats caused by my work and activism. — Kola Boof

Alec watched them through the half-open door, Jace leaned against the sink as his adoptive sister sponged his wrists and wrapped them in a white gauze. "Okay, now take off your shirt." (Isabelle)
"I knew there was something in this for you." (Jace)
~pg. 329~ — Cassandra Clare

To allow same-sex couples to adopt children and then to label their families as second-class because the adoptive parents are of the same sex is cruel as well as unconstitutional. Classifying some families, and especially their children, as of lesser value should be repugnant to all those in this nation who profess to believe in "family values." — Stephen Reinhardt

Adoptive parents are taking on enormous responsibility, both emotionally and financially. Quite frankly, they need as much disclosure as possible about the child's background and health to assure the best fit and be prepared. — Pat Robertson

What many black and biracial transracial adoptees were not prepared for was that the societal realities they faced were the same as those facing other people of color. The information that white transracial adoptive parents needed to give their children did not exist in the white world; these parents would have to interact with black America in order to understand the problems most likely to trouble transracially adopted children. — Rhonda M. Roorda

Very few people who met my adoptive mother in the last 20 years of her life could abide her, while many people who have seen my play find her fascinating. Heavens, what have I done?! — Edward Albee

I believe one of the most sacrificial acts of love adoptive parents can do is to give up their preconceptions and agendas about what their child's views "should" be and be open to hear the conflicting emotions and thoughts their child often experiences. — Sherrie Eldridge

The adoptee benefits because his collective parents are permitted to grow secure in their particular roles in his life. His adoptive parents are not unwittingly encouraged to compete to possess him. Nor are his birth parents punished and banished from a place in his life. — Kathleen Silber

As an adoptive parent myself of foster children, I have seen firsthand the glaring problems of the system currently facing this Nation. — Dennis Cardoza

'The Girls' tells the story of Rose and Ruby Darlen, who are not only literally but spiritually attached for eternity. Born joined at the head in 1974 to a feckless teenage mother who abandons them, and reared by a delightfully open-minded adoptive couple, the Darlen girls are darling girls, indeed. — Stacey D'Erasmo

The reality is that most gay couples don't want to adopt a child. Those who do, though, are often prepared to devote themselves entirely to their adoptive child. — Jens Spahn