The Family of Adoption: Completely Revised and Updated

As an adoptive mother, I have read and collected a shelf full of books on the subject of adoption. Joyce Pavao's well researched and thoughtful book, The Family of Adoption, is one of the very best. It's the first book that I recommend to anyone interested in or touched by adoption. Joyce Pavao, herself adopted, encourages the reader to look at adoption from all perspectives. She shows us that understanding the important connections that exists between birth family, adoptive family and adoptee is essential to appreciating the complex emotions that accompany these bonds. Her careful explanations helped me to understand that although our daughter's birthmother is half a world away, she has always been a very real part of our family. Pavao uses poignant examples, selected from her years a therapist, to illustrate how adoption effects all members of the triad. Her use of real life scenarios brings much needed clarity to some very complicated concepts and makes this book very readable. Included in the chapters devoted to the adoptee at various ages, is useful advise on how to talk to your child about adoption in age appropriate ways. She also gives simple, understandable advise for parents to help their children process information and feelings in different ways at different developmental stages. She helps the reader understand how each new developmental stage presents a unique set of challenges for the adopted person and how some seemingly troubling behaviors can result. In The Family of Adoption, Pavao presents a very complex subject in a very straight forward and understandable way. She also provides useful and practical advise in a book that that is ultimately informative and very readable.

As a mother of a 8 year old, foster to adopt daughter, this book is so helpful to know what her feelings are of her birth parents. Even though she is old enough to remember and honesty state where her parents went wrong, she still loves them. This book helps me to understand the value of her being connected to her birth family. That the connection is not broken with the legal signing of adoption papers. That she will always have the connection and that I had better do my part in helping her understand what it is all about. I met Joyce Maguire Pavao last Nov. when the State of Maine Dept.of Human Services had her as a guest speaker to celebrate National Adoption Month. I thought she knew her stuff, then. She didn't have her book for sale that day like most speakers do, it wasn't until recently, while in a local book store that I saw it. I grabbed it and couldn't put it down. Now, I'm buying several copies for others, that I know who have adopted. The book really covers the issue of national and international adoption. And the feelings of all involved. It really is simply the best book I've read on adoption,(and I have enough books on adoption to start a small library!!!)

This extraordinary little book, with its carefully chosen anecdotes and clear, direct message, is the best book available about adoption and being adopted. It changed the structure of life in my family, and I give it to family members, teachers of my adopted children, and anyone else who is looking for clarity in the complex world of adoption. When you finish reading you will understand loss in adoption, you will understand what Dr. Pavao means by the "Family of Adoption", you will know how to listen better to your adopted children so that you can really hear what they are telling you, and you will be a better parent, teacher, grandparent, or friend. Buy this book and treasure it! I have read almost all adoption books published in the last ten years in the USA, and this is without question a beautiful, powerful and poignant work, and one of the best.

Joyce Maguire Pavao has been a familiar speaker at adoption reform and adoptive parent conferences for many years. Her wisdom, gentleness, and skill as a master story teller have enlightened many through the spoken word. It is a real joy to finally have her work in writing. Emily Dickinson said "tell the truth, but tell it slant". That is exactly what Dr. Pavao does in her stories and anecdotes of adoptees and adoptive families in therapy, and in her pioneering work in open adoption. Rather than boring us all with theory, she lets the lives of her clients speak for themselves, and teach many lessons about the value of openness and honesty in adoption, and the healing power of truth and love. This is a book that is easy to read--I read it through in a few hours--but one you will come back to again and again if you work with members of the adoption triad, or are yourself a person affected by adoption. As an adoptee herself, and a long-time activist for adoption reform, Dr. Pavao brings a special empathy to her work with adopted children and families, and with adult triad members. Unlike a previous reviewer here, I would take Dr. Pavao's writing over the pompous, empty platitudes of David ("I Am The Walrus")Brodzinski any day!

Pioneering therapist Joyce Maguire Pavao's book should be read by all persons or pairs who wish to adopt. It examines the perspectives of all adoption triad members: birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted individuals. It contends that adoption is about finding families for children, not the other way round. The founder and director of the Center for Family Connections (Cambridge/New York), Dr. Pavao says she employs case studies because they pack emotional wallop and yet instruct. This is certainly the case. Within the first 30 pages, opportunities for tears abound - and so do clear descriptions of the hearts and minds of participants in the adoption process. With 20 years' experience as a provider who 'gets it' and a lifetime as an adopted person, Dr. Pavao has certainly earned the right to write on adoption (as few others have), and her language is intensely felt. The Open Door Society's ODS News calls this work "truly the most insightful and healing book on the adoption shelf." For anyone who offers professional services to a member of the triad, this book is a necessity. Dr. Pavao's inclusive, accessible style of writing makes The Family of Adoption especially successful. New England's Adoptive Families Together, Inc. (member of Adoptive Families of America and winner of a 1999 North American Council on Adoptable Children/NACAC award as Outstanding Parent Group) acquired copies for each of its support groups' libraries - I know, since I facilitate one such group! I'll say it once more: For anyone who offers professional services to a member of the triad, this book is a necessity.