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Pennsylvania
Adoptive & Foster Families

Taproot issue 49 - May 2005

A Gift Only Adoptees Can Give

By Sherrie Eldridge

I’ll never forget sitting next to an adoptive mom at an adoption carnival where I was speaking. At the end of the day, the children gathered on stage to show their parents an adoption art project they had been creating.

When all the kids were in place, one therapist yelled, “Who’s adopted here?”

Everyone’s hand flew up and squeals of delight burst forth from the little ones. “Me!” they yelled in unison.

The mom leaned over and said, “I’ve never seen that expression on my daughter’s face. Look at her! When she said ‘me!’ her face absolutely glowed!”

What caused such happiness? The excitement of being with other kids? Pride in her artwork? Love of the spotlight.

I don’t believe so.

I believe the little girl positively glowed because she had been given a brand new beautiful gift – the gift of fellow adoptees. We are a gift to one another! As adoption experts David Brodzinsky and Marshall Schechter put it, for adoptees, these connections “are like food to a starving man.”

Many adoptees are starving for a sense of belonging akin to the bonds shared in close-knit birth families. Fortunately,

Sherrie Eldridge is President of Jewel Among Jewels, Adoption Network, Inc. (online at www.adoptionjewels.org ; e-mail: mail@adoptionjewels.org) and the author of Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew. Her latest book, Twenty Life Transforming Choice Adoptees Need to Make is in bookstores now.