Adopting Fatherhood

When you talk with new parents, they always talk about how exhausting the first few months of their child's life was, and reverently talk about the first night their child slept through the night. We never experienced that, because The Kid was already eight-months old and sleeping through the night when we first met her. What we are experiencing now are the sleepless nights no one warns you about, those that happen when your two-year old discovers they can get out of bed whenever they want to and wander over to your bedroom. A few days after my mom was watching The Kid for us on date night, and our daughter demonstrated to Grandma that she knew exactly how to get out of the crib, we decided it was time to change her crib to a grown-up-girl bed. We didn't want her to get hurt by tossing herself over the side of the crib, so off came the side of the crib and up went the bed rail. Sleep and I are not always on good terms anyway, but The Kid's new-found freedom has comp...

Gladys and I occasionally field questions from friends curious about adopting. They are questions we welcome, because there are a lot of places people can get started and not many places where people are forthcoming with answers. Here are some of the common ones we hear.  1. Why did you adopt through the foster care system?  The first answer is cost. We heard horror stories of how much privately arranged adoptions could be, and we decided that wouldn't work for us. Our costs were for fingerprinting, court filing fees and extra copies of The Kid's new birth certificate. All told, the direct financial costs were under $300.  The second answer is we felt it was the right thing for us to do. There are plenty of kids in metro Detroit that need a home, and according to MARE , there are approximately 3,000 kids available for adoption each year in Michigan. I've also wondered out loud why people are inclined to adopt internationally over adopting locally , just in cas...

There is more to the hair debate than just white women wanting to touch my daughter's hair . And no, it's not just tousling her hair, it's the full-on groping that I am leery of. Three pieces of content have resonated with me lately. An article about the scrutiny Beyonce and Jay Z have found themselves under over Blue Ivy's hair caught my eye. It reminded me of the day The Kid came home from daycare with ponytails in her hair for the first time. I was upset because I took it as an employee at daycare thought we didn't know how to take care of our kid. After reading this, and many other articles about the reaction to natural hair on a black kid, I'm inclined to think I was right in my assessment. Anyway, Americans of all races are oddly fascinated by the hair of a black woman. This video series is a fascinating look at the reactions of people to a film project aimed at letting people touch the hair of black women. If you are new to the discussion, take the t...