Hey Y'all:
Welcome to another Adoption Wednesday post. In this post you'll find out why this topic is so important to me and the reason why I've dedicated a weekly blog post to it.
My mom is the adoptive parent of eight children, five of which are biological siblings. My family consists of nieces, nephews and cousins all who have been legally adopted into our family.
This trend began a long time ago in the Black community and continues on. It happened during slavery time when parents were sold off to other plantations and left their children behind, when parents went off to find better employment opportunities in bigger cites and left there children behind and in very rare cases (like my children's great grandmother) children were given away to family members who didn't have there own offspring.
In our case it began when my mother raised her five younger siblings. My grandparents were getting up in age and my mom decided to take on the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings, offering them the education and lifestyle they may not have had if they remained with their parents. Although she was working full time she needed financial assistance so she placed her siblings in kinship care.
After my aunts and uncles grew up and moved out, both Mommy and I knew that we had enough love in our hearts to give to children who truly needed it so she continued in foster care, her first foster child was Ebony.
Ebony was a sweet little girl who I fell in love with immediately, I was overjoyed to have a baby sister. Because it was foster care we knew the odds of keeping Ebony were slim. Her family got themselves together and took her home. It was really emotional for both my mother and I but we didn't give up on foster care.
In November of 1980 my mom and I welcomed Lawrance into our home, then came Royal, Vanessa, Katrina, Randy, Nicole, Tawana and the final addition to the Bennett crew was Edquan added in December of 1991! We have had many challenges, countless ups and downs, bumps and bruises but we've also experienced so much laughter and combined memories that I could never imagine my life as an only child. My brothers and sisters are just that... they aren't my adopted brother's and sister's they are my siblings who I'll love forever regardless of what we go through.
So this is the reason for my dedication to adoption. It's needed and since it's National Adoption Month it's really important to me that you, my readers know the importance of domestic adoption, especially foster to adopted familes!
Until next time...
MUAH!
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