Adoption Is a Family Affair!: What Relatives and Friends Must Know Paperback – March 15, 2012

“Adoption is a Family Affair by Patricia Irwin Johnston” is a remarkable book written with compassion, professionalism and a finely honed sense of adoption-attunement. While the book is written to address the questions and knowledge gaps of the extended family and friends of an adopting family, this book has a great deal to offer adopters as well.Johnston addresses the adoption journey with such great depth, wisdom, and practicality, that it is sure to assist all who explore its pages. Adoption practice has evolved considerably in the last twenty-five years yet much of the advances in understanding and methods have not flowed yet down to the general consciousness of our culture. This means that adoptive families will find themselves slamming headlong into outdated beliefs and assumptions that have little understanding for the complexity that comprises the adoption journey.While their agency, adoption professional of DCF worker may prepare parents, it is essential that parents also prepare their family and friends. Parents will be wise to teach them how to be a part of the essential support system. Inform them of the unique parenting strategies that will govern your family. Help them to understand the why and how adoptive parenting differs from parenting children born and raised by the family who gave birth to them. Parents will benefit from Irwin’s excellent explanation for establishing, holding and respecting privacy boundaries.This gem of a book provides a wonderful way to educate oneself, family, and friends. Irwin is herself an adoptive parent, has been an adoption advocate for decades, and has written books that are classics of adoption literature. This book should be on every adoptive family’s shelf. The adage that “It takes a village to raise a child,” is never more true than in a family touched by adoption. They need a supportive team of committed family and friends who will understand, support and not criticize.As an adoption coach, an adoptive parent and former foster parent, I HIGHLY recommend this exceptional book. —Gayle H. Swift, author of “ABC, Adoption & Me: A Multicultural Picture Book.”

I was very concerned about some of the reviews of this book, it was either loved or hated. I kept coming back to it and decided to give it a chance. I am so glad I did! This book was insightful not only to the recipient, but to ME! If taken in stride, it needs to be understood that we (the adopters) need to consider where/how and why the feedback is being presented. It might not be packaged nicely and we might be a little sensitive hearing it - but this book worked magic for us. It was just what I had been searching for and did the trick. Everyone is different - I suggest giving the book a try, with an open mind. The content is great, easy to read and contains many informative sections - not presented in only one format or style. If one method does not get through the other does. I loved the scenarios given at the end about the stupid comments people can make - so true! Bless all of you adopters and your family - this is just one more step in our paper pregnancy!!!! Enjoy.

As others mentioned, the audience this book is intended for is more the reluctant family member who doesn't support your decision to adopt. Much of it does feel like it's chastizing and the message is "shame on you for not being supportive." That said, we gave it to our family and close friends with the preface that we know they support us but there is a lot of good info in the book, and they all enjoyed it. My mom said it's made her think about a lot of things she had never considered. I think as long as your intended readers know you don't think they need to be chastized, this is a really great short book packed with a lot of info that will get some conversations started.

I bought this book for many of our relatives after getting really hurtful reactions from some but lots of joy from others. In retrospect, I should have just got the book for the supportive people because they are the only ones who read it. It was nice to read it for myself too because at least I can answer the ones who didn't read it with many of the items found in the book. The way I see it, the adopters and all the people who support them will be better prepared to answer the questions of rude/inconsiderate/unsupportive people. However, it is not a miracle worker and people who are already antagonistic might find the book condescending.

I gave it 4 starts instead of 5 because a lot of the book is referring to the adoption of an infant or an international adoption. Very little applies to older children or foster children. This was a required reading for my adoption agency and we are adopting from foster care so some of the topics are not relevant to me/family. Adoption of an infant vs. an older child who has experienced trauma should be two separate books in my opinion.

Great for families and friends of those adopting! I'll recommend it for our closest loved ones, although they can skip the sections about adoption since they dont need to know the whole process. The best part was telling them stupid things people say and what they shouldn't!

we gave this book to my parents after we announced we were adopting. my parents voiced a lot of concerns/misinformation about adoption and i thought the book introduced verbage to them that was more sensitive and accurate. it brings family members up to speed in the adoption world. when we first announced we were adopting to family, they had a lot of hesitation and my husband and i were hurt. we then realized that they hadn't been doing months and months of research like we did. i really think this book helped my parents embrace adoption. it does not introduce any genius concepts, but like i said, it really helped introduce words/language that is more accurate and sensitive.

Bought this for my family as we are adopting and it brought up some very useful discussion points...and gave the family a good insight into the world of adoption. It is written by an American so does talk mostly about the US system - however, the author does mention the UK system too.

Purchased this to share with my parents and in-laws. It was a decent book, hit some of the points that I wanted to make with our families but it was pretty blunt and patronizing so I decided not to give it to our families in fear that they would be offended by some of the wording or think that this is how I feel about them personally. I was particularly unimpressed by the section about how they should be giving us money to fund our adoption and baby gear - even going so far as suggesting to give us our inheritance early! OMG!While not a bad book, I highly recommend pre-reading it to make sure that it is a good fit for you and your [extended] family.

Great book