Is your adopted child embarrassed to have older parents? If your child is a toddler then the realization has not yet set in, so think about tweens and teens. Last week, an older parenting friend shared a story with me about her adopted children. She has given her children permission to call her grandma when they are in public, but told them that they will be in big trouble if they call her that at home. Apparently, this was the result of her children becoming embarrassed at a restaurant recently when they noticed people staring at them whenever they called to their mom. She is in her late sixties and her youngest child is about five.

Michael and his husband reside in California with their two adopted sons. Michael dedicates time to writing a family blog and occasionally contributes pertinent information on adoption issues on several websites and groups.

Women are better parents. Women are better at nurturing children than men. Men are incapable of being good parents. From the perspective of a father, a dad, a daddy, these stereotypes are alive and not so well. It is time to give dads a shout out! If you read my personal blog post, "My life as a stay-at-home dad", you would understand the inspiration for this blog.

Michael and his husband reside in California with their two adopted sons. Michael dedicates time to writing a family blog and occasionally contributes pertinent information on adoption issues on several websites and groups.

Not too long ago, I shared only part of our first adoption experience in my blog “The Not So Pleasant Side of Adoption - Being Scammed”. The actual events that led to our first placement, and the events that followed, go well beyond the one scammer. If you remember, the scammer was the first “expectant” mom we met. Though we tried to remain unbiased during both adoptions, we could not shake the feelings that we associated with that experience. Fortunately, for us, our determination to continue building our family through adoption was strong.

During our first son’s adoption finalization process, we discussed pursuing a second adoption with our agency. Once his adoption became final, we began the paperwork. The benefit of having adopted once before – assuming that you use the same agency, and not much has changed – is that you only have to “update” your information to what is current. For instance, instead of the required four state-mandated homestudy visits, the social worker only visited twice to “update” our homestudy to include what life was like with our son. The questions posed on the paperwork asked us to describe what was different or new and asked how we would handle two children. Within three months, we were ready to match.

Last week, the television show The Secret Life of the American Teenager introduced a gay couple who is hoping to adopt the unborn baby of Amy (played by Shailene Woodley). One of the men works for Amy’s father, so Amy has known the couple for a long time.

I tried to put myself into Amy’s shoes and think about how I would feel about this couple adopting my baby. While other hopeful adoptive couples were mentioned, the gay couple were the only “candidates” that the audience met in this episode, which (I am guessing) means that they will likely be the couple to adopt the baby if Amy ultimately chooses adoption for her baby.

On the pro side ... These men have been a couple for a very long time. They are financially secure and could actually retire already if they wanted to, but they choose to contine working because they enjoy their jobs. They really seem to want to be parents, and they appear to be very responsible and have the ability to raise a child well. Amy’s family has known these men for several years, so she knows that they are “good people.”

On the con side ...