Things are hectic around these parts.  Between family, writing and teaching gigs, and micro-blogging on Twitter (from my personal account and for CoParenting101), I don’t post here very much.  But when I do, I try to share some good news and thoughts about my journey.  So I was especially appreciative when Cynthia who blogs at Knowledge Maven stopped by with birthday wishes and to let me know that she’d nominated this blog for a Liebster award.  “Liebster” means “beloved” in German, and the award is meant to bring more attention to blogs with fewer than 200 followers.  The award comes with a request to pay it forward, which I will gladly do in a sec.  First, many thanks to Cynthia, and I’m glad to point to this fellow mama-writer’s blog with its wonderful reflections on faith, family, and culture.

As I mentioned, this award comes with a few duties:

1. Show thanks to the blogger who gave you the Award by linking back to them. [CHECK]

2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment at their blog. [WILL DO]

3. Post the Award on your blog. [[CHECK]

4. Enjoy the love of some of the most supportive people on the Internet!  [WOOT!]

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I’m not exactly sure how many followers each of my 5 Lieber nominees has, but they are all blogs that I appreciate and that I hope will be read more widely than they currently are:

Second Chance: http://kizzypreston.blogspot.com/

My Polar Opposite: http://mypolaropposite.com/

Carolyn Edgar: http://carolynedgar.com/

Soulstainable Living http://www.soulstainableliving.com/

Bernadette Davis http://bernadettedavis.wordpress.com/

Happy reading!

Many thanks to The Pittsburgh Foundation for awarding me an Advancing the Black Arts in Pittsburgh grant, in support of my YA novel!

From Publisher’s Lunch

Deesha Philyaw and Michael Thomas’s CO-PARENTING 101: Advice from a Formerly Married Couple on Parenting Across Two Households, the first book co-authored by a divorced couple for whom co-parenting is central to their daily lives, providing expert advice, practical tips, and tried-and-true tactics developed from real life co-parenting experiences, to Melissa Kirk at New Harbinger, for publication in 2013, by Danielle Chiotti at Upstart Crow Literary(World).

Bonus: I was in the car with TechBooHusband on a rare mid-week stay in Maryland when I got the news. So thrilled to be able to share such an important moment.

This story is developing. Stay tuned for details. In the meantime…

Sing it with me now!

Why Not Adopt a Black Child?

by Deesha Philyaw

“We have many clients seeking to adopt, but none of them are waiting for a Black child.” The woman’s voice on the phone was at once unsettling, moving, and life-changing.  A caseworker at a local Christian adoption agency, she had received a call from a Black mother in a neighboring county who had just given birth and sought to place her daughter, Marissa*, for adoption.  The agency of course had a long list of White couples waiting to adopt White newborns, and some who would consider adopting a biracial child. But none of their existing clients were open to adopting a Black child.  So the caseworker had thought of my then-husband Mike and me: a Black couple experiencing secondary infertility that had come into the agency a month earlier to gather some information about adoption.  Would we consider adopting this little girl?

I remember the caseworker’s words sometimes when I see White parents and their Asian or Latino children, families who appear to have been brought together by international adoption.  Or when I read about African adoptions by American celebrities, all high drama, with whispers of preferential treatment and duped birth parents.  Even speculation that a pop princess might adopt internationally is grist for the tabloid rumor mill.

With all due respect, I’ve wondered, Why? Why are White Americans traveling abroad, wrangling with foreign bureaucracies, and spending the equivalent of college tuitions to adopt Chinese or Russian children, when there are children in this country in need of adoptive families?

Why, for every White child available for adoption in the U.S., are there at least 200 families waiting two to three times as long as they would if they adopted a Black baby,[1] leaving thousands of Black children to grow older, and therefore “less desirable”, in foster care?

The first answer that came to my mind was also the ugliest: racism. What distinguished a Black American child from a Guatemalan or Korean child but skin color and this country’s troublesome racial landscape?

However, I know first-hand that there is another distinction: the sometimes-uncertain process to terminate parental rights and the prospect of a birth parent changing her mind.  Two days before we were due to bring her into our family, Marissa’s birthmother decided against placement.  This scenario is less of a concern, or a non-issue altogether, in other countries.

But anyway, who was I to question or judge someone else’s motivations?  After all, I had considered my own limitations and preferences before adopting.  Already an at-home mom of a “spirited” preschooler, I wondered about the impact of a second child, particularly an infant or an older child with special needs, on my embryonic freelance writing aspirations.  While we didn’t rule out the possibility of adopting in the future, we had decided to table the discussion indefinitely.

Then the agency called, and all my prior objections and concerns about adoption faded; they now seemed minor and selfish in the face of an actual child.  Not a cute picture among hundreds of cute pictures and short, broken life stories trapped behind clear plastic in a photo album, but a real, live baby that needed us.  After Marissa’s mother changed her mind, the agency placed our profile on its national online database.  Within 24 hours, three Black expectant mothers/couples expressed interest in communicating with us.

A couple of months later, Thanksgiving 2003, we gave thanks for our daughter who had been born a few weeks earlier.  Nearly five years later [Note: I wrote this article several years ago--dp], I still marvel at the chain of events that brought my youngest daughter into our lives, and at the reason we got that call from the adoption agency in the first place: Nobody was waiting to adopt a Black baby.

While the decision to adopt is a personal one, it is not made in a vacuum.  It is possible to respect individual choices while also examining the larger social, political, and cultural context in which those choices are made.  So, I decided to pose the question to adoptive parents: “Why not adopt a Black child?”

Please do yourself a favor and check out the latest addition to my blogroll, For Harriet. The site’s tagline says it all: Celebrating the fullness of black womanhood.  The content is smart, thoughtful, and edifying.  I don’t come away from it feeling like, “Heard it all before…” or “We need to do better…”  I come away from the articles challenged, encouraged, and informed.  There’s no shortage of folks talking about and at black women; For Harriet is the conversations we have with ourselves, our best selves.

First up…

Tonight at 9 EST, I’ll have the pleasure of joining two awesome gents, WiseMath and Inkognegro, on their show The Black Odd Couple to discuss my webinar, Write Your Damned Book Proposal Already!

And…

The March issue of StepMom Magazine goes live today, and in it, I talk about long-distance love, marriage, and stepparenting. Subscribe today and check it out! You’ll also get a gem of an article from Friend of CoParenting101 Tara Eisenhard on patience, creativity, and commitment to her modern family. Enjoy!

You can read it here.

In Write Your Damned Book Proposal Already!, you can expect 6 weekly group web teleconference calls covering the key components of a successful non-fiction book proposal. The calls will be led by Deesha Philyaw, owner of …the last word. LLC.  Each week’s call will include a mini-lecture, practical strategies to get you from concept to completion, and a Q&A period. Topics covered will include:

• Why a book proposal is necessary
• What agents and publishers look for in a book proposal
• What should be included in a book proposal
• The role of research in the proposal writing process
• Determining the audience/market for your book
• Building your author’s platform
• Your proposal is complete…now what?

Additionally, you will receive:

• A reading of your completed or partial proposal plus two (2) 30-minute individual consultations with Deesha (via phone or chat), all scheduled at your convenience prior to, during, or within 6 months of completing the webinar

• A bonus 7^th week “Ask the Agent” teleconference event with Danielle Chiotti, formerly a senior editor at two notable publishing houses, and currently an agent with Upstart Crow Literary agency

• Feedback on your completed or partial book proposal from Danielle Chiotti via a one-page checklist (within 6 months of completing the webinar)

• A complimentary e-book, Get Published and Get (Well) Paid!, by Yvonne Bynoe, founder of Soulful Affluence, a resource for “starving artists” who desire to become financially thriving creative entrepreneurs

So if you, or someone you know, has a non-fiction book idea and need help getting started, join us!

Multi-tasking stats: I managed to get this site launched while also prepping to present co-parenting workshops at the National Head Start Association’s Annual Parent Conference this weekend, spending the long Thanksgiving break with TechBoo and all the kids, wrapping up my Master of Professional Writing class for this session, and making a valiant effort to finish my young adult novel (didn’t finish, but I sure knocked the dust off).