Single Adoptive Parents Paperback – July 26, 2012

Informative

I wish I had this book when I was contemplating adoption, and now that I have been a single adoptive parent for several years I can see myself in the pages. If you ever wanted to know what the experience of being a single adoptive parent is like on a day-to-day basis, Single Adoptive Parents: Our Stories is the book for you. The authors, Sherry Fine and Lee Varon, are social workers who have devoted their lives to this topic, both professionally and personally, and they have filled a long-awaited niche with this book. As single adoptive parents themselves, Lee and Sherry have spent decades running support groups on single adoptive parenting – and creating media on the subject. They compiled much of the information for this valuable book by sending a 15-page questionnaire to nearly 100 single adoptive parents who had adopted prior to 1995.What makes this book unique is that it discusses single parent adoption from the perspectives of the parents themselves. It looks at relevant topics for those considering adoption, such as the roles of friends, family, and support networks; career; finances; and dealing with special needs. Both the joys and challenges are considered. It is also helpful to hear the words of the children who have been raised by single adoptive parents.Single Adoptive Parents is a down-to-earth book for anyone who is contemplating single parent adoption, anyone who works in the adoption field, and even for single parents and their children who want to see themselves in the pages of the book.

Despite being written from an American perspective with data from a couple of decades ago it is a useful account of the ups and downs of adoption which is helpful when thinking through thr decision about whether to adopt.