Comments on: Adoption Family Trees

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:07:57 +0000

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. A family tree can be a wonderful opportunity to explore our heritage. We all come from somewhere. Be creative. I LOVED my son’s solution, a 3D family tree. One tree had adoptive family. The other had everyone else from foster parents, to biological parents, to social workers. If these persons aren’t known this tree could have an orphanage, or a country, or a culture.

See the picture at
http://5fortheroad.blogspot.com/2009/02/family-tree.html

By: Kiy

Kiy — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:04:39 +0000

This is exactly why I struggle with putting our daughter into school. I have to agree, the traditional nuclear family is a thing of the past – a true rarity. I would be hard put to find one family in my circle of friends that somewhere in their ‘family tree’ there isn’t an: adoption, divorce, remarriage, dad/mom walked away from their family, taking the sister’s kids in, etc etc etc.

I know we are going to run into this, and dread it. Thank you for the resources, I made a list.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:10:57 +0000

Mara, I think it is awesome that you fought that hard for your son and against the assignment. It obviously was not a fair one.

This is part of the reason I stopped doing the entire autobiography assignment…as 7th graders it just wasn’t good. However, if the assignment had been required I would have offered the alternatives, something that I believe teachers MUST do if there is a requirement in the curriculum (or change the curriculum, which is what I did, BTW).

By: Mara

Mara — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:51:17 +0000

I’m an adult adoptee. When my son was given a family tree assignment last year, I asked the teacher for an alternative. She offered NONE and kept sending the damn tree home to fill out.

I complained to the school board where several members yelled at me when I asked for alternatives to be offered or the assignment to be removed from the curriculum. (How can the state of California seal my birth certificate and then insist that my children do family tree assignments?) This is DOUBLE DISENFRACHISEMENT, DOUBLE THE DISCRIMINATION.

My kids suffer because I was adopted!!!! They don’t know their family history either and neither will my grandchildren at the rate California is going on this issue. Actually most California politicians think this is a “non-issue” and have responded to me that I could get my “non-id” and that I could petition the court for my birth records but that I must show “good cause”. Good cause? My good cause is simple, but obviously wont be good enough for a judge participating in the current corrupt system: IT’S MINE AND I WANT IT.

All family history assignments need to be eradicated from all public schools.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:40:00 +0000

Here is another site that has templates for adoptive families and step families. Even includes the birth family.
http://www.familytreetemplates.net/category/nontraditional

I have one similar to these in my daughter’s baby album. But when it comes time for her to make one I think I’ll help her make the tree with leaves or hearts.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:44:11 +0000

This is great. I’ve been trying to figure who to do our daughter’s family tree. I’m going to look at some of these links. Thanks