Book Review: The Adoption Reader

I read The Adoption Reader, edited by Susan Wadia-Ells.  It’s a collection of essays written by birth mothers, adoptive mothers and adopted daughters.  I found many of the stories very touching, but I was disappointed that the essays by the adopted daughters barely mentioned their adoptive parents–except in one essay when she talked rather disparagingly about her adoptive mother.  Instead, pretty much all of the birth mother and adopted daughter essays were about finding each other or not finding each other and the pain/joy/disappointment surrounding that event.  The adoptive mother essays sort of sat between the two other collections, dividing them.  what a poignant representation of why open adoption is a better way to go.  Then, no one has to spend so much of their life energy wondering and searching.  Instead, they know.  Or at least have some idea.  And can spend their life energy working on some kind of a relationship.  Or not.  But not wondering, wishing, pining, and regretting.