Reviews for Pat Johnston’s
Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families

Buzz continues to build about this January, 2008 book

May 28, 2009: Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families won the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award presented to the best 2008-published book in the field of Self Help by the Independent Book Publishers Association at the 2009 Book Expo America, America’s largest book industry convention.

June, 2009

In Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families, Patricia Irwin Johnston repeatedly states that her book is not a “how-to guide” to adoption. After reading the book, however, I would assert that Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families is a “how-to guide”—how to do adoption right—ethically, purposefully, intentionally and in a child-centered manner.

Although primarily written for couples who have experienced infertility, the author states that the book can be useful for anyone who is experiencing challenges in family-building, including singles and same-sex couples. In the first portion of the book, she suggests a plan for working through the decision-making process, she dispels many myths about who can adopt, she provides a wide range of resources to facilitate people in doing their own research into the world of adoption, and she discusses how adoptive families can gain a sense of “entitlement” to their places in their new families. In the last portion of the book, Johnston guides families through the anticipation of and planning for homecoming, the adjustments of the first months together, and how to deal with adoption-related issues in the world in general.

From her admittedly opinionated position, Patricia Irwin Johnston has filled the book with questions, hard questions, that folks contemplating adoption should ask themselves as they move through the process of deciding whether to adopt, whom to adopt, and what path to take to adoption—questions like the following:

“How would I (and my partner) rank the losses for the “family-challenged”—loss of genetic continuity, loss of a jointly-conceived child, loss of the physical and emotional expectations of pregnancy, loss of the opportunity to parent? Have we fully grieved the loss of the ability to build our family in the ‘normal’ way?”

“Could I (and my partner, and our extended families/social circle) love and accept a child of another race? What are our ‘secret’ biases? What race(s) could we accept, and what could we not?”

“How much risk am I (and my partner) willing to take in choosing a path to adoption? Can we handle the chance that a birthmother might change her mind? Are we willing to risk unknown medical problems or delays in child adopted from an orphanage in another country?”

“How ethical is the path to adoption that I (and my partner) am considering? How honest are we willing to be in the home-study process? How much are we willing to ‘turn a blind’ eye in order to have a faster process? How will we explain our choices to our adult child one day?”

Through the use of many vignettes, as well as confessions from her own journey as an adoptive mom (she and her husband have adopted 3 children, all of whom are now adults) the author gives an honest portrayal (sometimes brutally) of all that adoption entails. As an unabashed advocate for child-centered, ethical practices, she encourages all adults in the adoption process, would-be parents as well as social workers and agency staff, to make sound choices for the protection and in the best interest of every child.

For anyone considering adoption, I highly recommend this book as a guide for “how to do it right.” For those who are already parents through adoption, I also recommend the book, with a warning. During my reading, I found myself very convicted and sometimes embarrassed by my past choices. If I (and my partner) had been more intentional about our adoption, if we had asked ourselves some of those hard questions, if I had been in less of a rush to “get my baby,” I think I would have been better prepared to meet the needs of my first child. Reading this book made me realize that I did not take the time or give the attention necessary to fully grieve the loss of the “assumed child” (that child that we imagined would be jointly conceived). I did not face and deal with the painful, humiliating loss of control that IF treatments had brought into my life, and into my relationship with my husband.

The author writes that many infertile couples feel that “family building challenges are a punishment of some sort or a message that they wouldn’t be good parents anyway. Some fertility-impaired people react by believing that they are somehow less competent than they were before infertility was discovered.” Such beliefs can lead to a victim-mentality, a mentality that I now realize I assumed. Those beliefs were a barrier to my ability to parent my first child with confidence and effectiveness, and those barriers made her difficult transition into our family all the more difficult. For that I feel a sense of guilt. While guilt for its own sake is not productive, this book forced me to take a hard look at my choices, and think about how I will explain myself to my child, if she ever asks me those hard questions.

Teddi Tate, MS.Ed., Adoptive Mother
for A4everFamily.org

I learned just about everything I know about adoption from Pat Johnston. Before we started down our path to adopting our son 7 years ago, I read the earlier version of her new book Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families. Johnston, an adoptive mother of 3 now grown children and wife of an adoptee, is an adoption educator and publisher (Perspectives Press) of books about family building. Her new book fills a big void in adoption literature.

Before all the decisions about domestic or international, same or different race, agency or private, Johnston counsels families – single, same sex, hetero–to take a structured approach to the process of making the decision to adopt. Forget all the other stuff. This decision-making experience will come in handy if you decide to pursue adoptin and you are faced with all the choices & decisions that will flow from this early decision-making process. No fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-at-midnight choices when you have a process, a framework for your decision-making about adoption and family building.

Once I started thinking about adoption, all kinds of choices, information, stereotypes, and, yes, fears came at me all at once. Would we be too old to adopt? Could we afford it? where, when, how? The first thing I learned, from Johnston, and from this book, was that choosing adoption to build your family, my family, and choosing the kind of adoption that is right for my family, was and is all about education.

The topics and discussion in Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families aren’t usually discussed on the internet, in blogs, discussion forums, magazine article, or any How-to-Adopt book. Johnston cautions prospective parents that adoption topics aren’t neatly wrapped up in 500, 1000, even 5000 words. These are important topics and Johnston took several hundred pages to give the reader everything she/he needs to know about making decisions around adoption.

As an adoption educator and adoptive parent herself, Johnston doesn’t have any rose-colored glasses on. But she knows that the reader does. She often pokes at those glasses with to-the-point examples and discussion. If you don’t decide that adoption is the right choice for your family, you can end up agreeing to adopt a baby with less than a couple of weeks to prepare. And preparation is key to a successful adoption process — not for the parents to be — but for the child.

You may remember when I announced my pregnancy. It was a big step for me to publically announce you have made the decision to adopt and begun the process, Pat Johnston may be the only adoption educator who advocates treating the waiting period like a pregnancy, nesting and all. Prospective parents who don’t take the time to prepare find themselves are overwhelmed by the new child and parenting all of a sudden.

Is this book long? Yes. Are you going to like it? Maybe. Johnston doesn’t always tell you what you want to hear. She tells you what you need to know, before you are knee-deep in an adoption process faced with decisions about choices you never thought about until that very minute…. Once you’re in the swamp, you’re going to want those waders.

Is it worth it? No; it’s essential — if you and your partner are thinking about, wondering if, adoption is right for your family, you’ll want this book on your shelf.

Stessa Cohen
Mothertalkers: Rants and Raves on Modern Motherhood blog

Raising a child who isn’t biologically related to oneself as one’s own is a task that only a few are up to. Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families is a complete and comprehensive guide to the practice adoption, with advice on whether it’s right for a given set of prospective parents. Tackling all the issues and problems that commonly come along with adoptions and adoptive families, Adopting is truly a must-read for anyone who is honestly considering adopting a child. An essential pick for community library parenting collections.

Midwest Book Review’s California Bookwatch, July 2008
 

This book is perfect if you’re seeking answers and if you’re open-minded to hearing about different ideas in adoption. Personally, I am seeking answers and am open to gleaning advice anywhere I can take it, therefore, I thought this book was extremely helpful. I’d recommend it to anyone starting the process or anyone who is emotionally bumping into walls in the process. It is a strong, solid book–well-written and very thorough. You may not agree with every bit of advice, but for me, the mark of a good book is one where I walk away having underlined a few things. And my handwriting dots the margins throughout the whole book.

snipped from a review in “Found Poetry” on the blog
Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters

Pat Johnston, a well known adoption publisher and advocate, has long been a force in adoption education. Her lengthy discourse on adoption proves her to be an able and thoughtful writer, as well. Based on an in-depth knowledge of adoption history, theory, and practice, plus years of interaction with all members of the adoption triad, this is a book that is sure to engross anyone interested in adoption. Sometimes controversial, oftentimes wise, your understanding of building families through adoption will be greatly enhanced by consideration of the important issues raised in this seminal, wide-ranging tome.

One of the unusual features of the book, Adopting, is that it is extremely helpful for all types of adoption: private, direct, agency, foster-adopt and public; inside the United States and International; babies, toddlers and older child adoption; and same or different race/culture. The breadth and depth of this book is tremendous; it ranges from a discussion of infertility, the realities of adoption and whether it is the right option for you; through the emotional journey and practicalities of the adoption process; and into many aspects of being an adoptive family. Bonding, your child’s health, emotional journeys, pitfalls, history of adoption, adoption ethics, media and public views of adoption, school concerns, raising confident children, race, and many other key issues are just some of the important topics covered in Adopting. Highly recommended, this is a book that is sure to be referred to by both adoption professionals and adoptive parents for years to come.

Reviewed by Alison Martin
Comeunity.com

In Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families (Perspectives Press; $26.95), her newest addition to adoption literature, Patricia Irwin Johnston tackles the tough questions prospective parents must ask before deciding whether adoption is right for them.

This informative, densely packed book guides those who are married, single, gay, or lesbian through four distinct phases of thinking about adoption. The first is about resolving personal issues, including infertility, before deciding to adopt. The second is about understanding that raising a family formed by adoption is inherently different from raising a biological family. The third is about making educated choices about the type of adoption to pursue. The final phase is understanding what will happen during the adoption process and after the child arrives.

Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families is not a how-to guide for adoption, but it compiles the wisdom Johnston has accumulated in her 30 years of experience. With real-life vignettes and ample resources in each chapter, the book is a must-read for those who are just beginning to think about adoption, or who are in the early stages of the process. It will help parents navigate the emotional and practical aspects of an adoption, and help them understand that adoption is a lifelong issue for children, parents, and extended family alike.

Reviewed by Sue Gainor, who serves on the national board of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (FRUA) for the March/April Issue of Adoptive Families magazine.

From infertile heterosexual couples to same-sex couples to single parents–anyone who has struggled wit barriers to family-building faces similar losses and similar decisions about their next steps. But what should those next steps be, and is adoption the best way to go? Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families was written to help those who find themselves “family-challenged,” as it explores the adoption process within the context of deeply personal and emotional obstacles and encourages readers to actively address, examine and puzzle out the process before adoptive parenthood begins.Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families is not a “how to” guide for the adoption process, It does not specifically detail the nuts and bolts topics such as which adoption agencies to contact or what paperwork is required. Rather, its goal is to serve as an experienced, compassionate guide through the hard questions that must be addressed and examined before any realisitic decisions about adoption can be made. It also provides support and practical advice that readers will need after they make their own decisions about adoption.

This is a book that explores the process of adopting an emotional journey that begins with [a family challenge] and takes the reader through the decision making, preparation and experience of adopting. This book does a great job of looking at the deeper issues and acknowledging the complexity of feelings and experience that are all part of adoption today. If you are not infertile or if you are a single parent, don’t be put off by the focus on couples communication and the grief of infertility in the first section; the other sections are well worth the read.

Pat is a good writer and well organized as she addresses the issues faced by adopting families. No one speaks more clearly or directly to and for this group. Required reading for waiting Pact families.
Reviewed by Beth Hall
Fall/Winter 2008 Pact’s Point of View
Pact an Adoption Alliance
Oakland, CA

September, 2007

Pat Johnston has the unique ability to understand the feelings of a person struggling with infertility and has once again shown why she is the authority on infertility and adoption resources. Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families is a wonderful tool that will help many people trying to make the transition from the emotional burdens of infertility to adoption. I would recommend this book for my infertility patients, regardless of where they are in the treatment process

Jeffrey L. Deaton, M.D.
Reproductive Endocrinologist
Premier Fertility Center, North Carolina

Having placed my son for adoption almost a decade ago, only through Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families have I come to know and respect the dragons faced by my son’s adoptive parents. Underlying this book is a great how-to guide for communication in marriages and partnerships, whether the issue faced is infertility or who cleans what when! Through Pat Johnston’s insight, expertise, and personal experience in the fields of adoption and infertility, she brings knowledge and understanding to a diverse audience of readers from infertile couples and singles to their children, to supportive family members and friends, to parents considering placement and birthparents who stand on the other side of the adoption process, to the media and general public. Certainly, a “must read.”

Courtney Lewis
Birthmother and Adoption Advocate

Kathie G. Stocker
Adoption Social Worker, Adoptive Parent
NACAC state rep and board member of Northwest Adoptive Families Association (NAFA)

As I finished reading Pat Johnston’s new book Adopting Sound Choices, Strong Families” I felt as if I had just found the ”Adoptipedia”. Johnston leaves no rock unturned as she takes readers through a journey which begins long before people even know or realize that they may have an adoption journey. She examines every single issue mentioned in adoption literature; I found each page filled with valuable information for those individuals considering adoption. This well integrated piece of work is a ”must read” for anyone thinking about adopting; it should be mandatory reading for all professionals who work within the adoption arena. Johnston illuminates issues well beyond those typically addressed in pre-adoptive training.This will become a handbook for those exploring adoption and for those working with them. I highly recommend this book!

Gregory C. Keck ,Ph.D.
Founder/Director of the Attachment & Bonding Center of Ohio
Co-author of Adopting the Hurt Child and Parenting the Hurt Child

Mark T. McDermott, Esq.
Adoptive Parent, Adoption Attorney
Past president of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys

I didn’t think it was possible to improve upon Adopting after Infertility, but Pat has done it again. Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families has incorporated the wisdom of her prior books and expanded them to include updated material and current adoption professionals’ thinking on virtually every imaginable aspect of adoption.

This is the quintessential book for those considering adoption and those who are already adoptive families. It is also a must-read for those facing any genetic or gestational loss, as she guides singles and couples through the grief process, helping them to make wise and considered family building choices.

Thorough and clear, this book is simply excellent. I will be buying it, gifting it, lending it and reading it for many years to come.

Carole LieberWilkins, M.A.
Marriage and Family Therapist

Jayne Schooler
adoption educator and author/co-author of The Whole Life Adoption Book and
Telling the Truth to Your Adopted and Foster Child.

Jane M. Page, LCSW
Clinical Director of Adoption
The Cradle, Evanston, Illinois

Return to homepage