Estrangement in adoption is a complicated topic. As a co-facilitator at Adoption Mosaic, I’ve been part of the Navigating Estrangement class for adoptive parents for three years. Adoption Mosaic also runs an adoptee-only estrangement group, Adoptee Beacon. Both are offered once a year, usually in the spring. Adoption Mosaic’s We the Experts program had a great adoptee panel on estrangement.
In fact, Lora Alegria,one of the panelists, is one of the editors of a new anthology on estrangement, along with Sullivan Summer. Both are adoptees and writers, and they describe the anthology as a collection of “creative nonfiction work exploring the theme of estrangement, written by adoptee authors.” You can find more iinformation here. You can email them at adoptee.estrangement@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2025.
I hope many adoptees will consider submitting their essay to this important anthology. Please spread the word about this!
Supporting the voices of adoptees is vital. I would feel remiss if I did not mention “Lions Roaring Far From Home: An Anthology by Ethiopian Adoptees.” I am honored to be a co-editor. I am deeply grateful for each of our adoptee writers. All revenue from sales of the book goes to help Ethiopian adoptees. Thanks.
From her first post: “…I am Aselefech, proudly Oromo from the Oromia region of Ethiopia. Mother, Daughter, Auntie, Author (Lions Roaring Far from Home), family preservationist, and Black clinician—a title I hold with pride, as we make up only 4% of the field—and the owner of Stillness Therapy.”
Aselefech will be focusing on adoption, on neurodivergence, and on eating disorders and recovery. Her Substack is titled “From Stillness to Storytelling,” She will be writing primarily about three areas: adoption, eating disorders and recovery and neurodivergence. Aselefech has lived experience and extensive professional training in all three areas.
She notes “I’ve found deep connections with others whose paths to self-understanding have been anything but linear. I’ll share reflections, resources, and community voices that honor the diversity of our brains and experiences.”
Please read, subscribe to, share, and learn from this new Substack writer.
In full disclosure, Aselefech is my daughter. I could not be more proud of her. She brings a knowledgeable, compassionate heart to her writing and her work.
We are proud of our book, Lionss Roaring Far From Home: An Anthology by Ethiopian Adoptees” for many reasons. Its sales have greatly surpassed the majority of independently published books. On Amazon, it has a 4.8 Star rating. Revenue from sales goes to Ethiopian adoptees; we’ve contributed close to $2000 to GoFundMe and similar to help cover school costs, pay rent, pay medical bills, contribute to homeland travel, and more.
We also have a 4.8 Star rating on Goodreads, which is wonderful. We have 15 ratings and 3 reviews there.
Many thanks to everyone who has bought, read, shared, left stars, and supported our groundbreaking book.
Thank you as always also to Ethiopian artist Nahosenay Negussie for the brilliant cover art. We are so grateful to our Ethiopian community.
It’s an amazing book. Please share it with others!
Over the years, when adoptive parents are asking other adoptive parents for advice about adoption, I’ve recommended that they ask adult adoptees. I am reconsidering this approach.
My lens here is as a white adoptive parent of (now adult) Black children, two born in the US and two born in Ethiopia. In an international adoption group, questions like this have been posted: Would Europe be a safe, less racist place than the US for my Black son to live? Should we send money to our children’s birth family? My adopted child (a young adult) is feeling anxious about the current immigration-ICE events: what should I tell them?
We white adoptive parents tend to default to other white adoptive parents as sources of information about adoptees. Often this is because the parents live in an almost completely white space with few racial mentors and few adoptee mentors. Also, it may feel safer to ask our familiars these questions, than to do the work of developing friendships with, say, Black or Asian people. We may not know many (or any) adult adoptees, or may feel insecure about asking them questions. Sometimes adoptive parents feel they should know all the answers, as we are often held up as exemplary merely because we adopted.
Often in Facebook groups and in other settings, I suggest adoptive parents talk to adoptees to get answers to their questions. Why do I say this?
Adopted people are the experts on the lived experience of being adopted.
Adoptive parents need to stop defaulting to the safety and comfort of other adoptive parents as experts. Sure, they can be one source, but
For far too long, adoptive parents have dominated many adoption spaces, and were seen as the best and sometimes only people who should speak about adoption.
This one’s more nuanced: my implicit hope is that adoptive parents have done work to incorporate other adoptees and people of color (besides their children) in their lives because the parents are white and not adopted, and their children are not white and are adopted. They should have at least a few adult adoptees to talk to in person. “Should” is of course a tricky word.
®Maureen McCauley. Foggy street, fog in adoption.
Our adopted children might be good sources of information, and we adoptive parents also ought to make the circle wider. I have had many adoption-related conversations with my four children, now all in their late 30’s. Each has a very different perspective on adoption. I got to know many adult adoptees during the process of editing our book, “Lions Roaring Far From Home: An Anthology by Ethiopian Adoptees.” Those adoptees had been raised in the US, Canada, France, Sweden, Australia, and the Netherlands. I also follow groups such as Ethiopian Adoptees of the Diaspora, Ethiopian Adoptees Foundation, the podcast Ethiopian Adoptees Unapologetically Unfiltered, and more. I follow many adoptees on Instagram and on LinkedIn. There are lots on TikTok of course; I am not a frequent TikTok user.
I have probably overstepped fairly often, injected myself into conversations that were not mine to enter, and unintentionally leapt over boundaries. Mostly people have been kind to me about that.
Like any group, the perspective of adult adoptees will vary. That, to me, is why having a variety of folks to talk to can be so important.
Still: I believe we adoptive parents must accept that, while adoptees can be excellent, valuable sources of information, they have no obligation to talk with us. Some adoptees who are active on social media have no interest in talking with adoptive parents, their own or anybody else’s.
Others are more open to working with adoptive parents. Transracial adoptees Isaac Etter, Angela Tucker,Patrick Armstrong, and Cam Lee Small come to mind, for example. Same race adoptees Joyce Maguire Pavao, Jennifer Dyan Ghoston‘s podcast “Once Upon a Time in Adopteeland,” and Haley Radke’s podcast AdopteesOn all provide amazing resources. I’d be remiss if I did not mention the incredible, valuable programs of Adoption Mosaic, for whom I am a co-facilitator and consultant. The “We The Experts” programs are thoughtful, challenging, and community-building. The adoptee-centric workshops require that non-adoptees do not ask questions or otherwise comment; we are meant to listen and learn.
When we connect with any of these folks, and there are many more, we adoptive parents should consider the professional training in which many of the adoptees have participated. Buy the books. Pay for the classes. Leave a positive review. Do not partake without giving back in some way.
Consider also the value of lived experience and the notion of emotional labor. The essays that are in “Lions Roaring” are an example of that. Some of our writers shared stories that are haunting and painful. They wrote from their hearts, and the rest of us are fortunate to read their words. Some of the writers do not want to read their own words ever again, because offering that gift of writing was soul-draining.
Some adoptees thus have no interest in performing any emotional labor, especially for adoptive parents. It’s too heartbreaking for them. We adoptive parents need to be mindful of that, and not expect that all adoptees can or ought to share with us. Ask first; respect boundaries without judgment. Express gratitude.
I continue to learn, including now from my grandchildren, who are not adopted yet adoption affects them too, as the children of adoptees. I believe fully in listening to adoptees, in asking questions while first asking permission, and in respecting those who may not want to talk whether because of deep trauma or a headache or whatever: no reason has to be given. I will do my best to answer questions as well, if asked, and to hold myself back from offering my insights if not asked. I genuinely hope we can all continue to learn from each other, to heal, to grow.
Recently she interviewed two adoptees who are very special to me: Aselefech Evans and Kassaye Berhanu-MacDonald, my co-editors of the first anthology by Ethiopian adoptees, Lions Roaring Far From Home.
Kassaye is a dear friend, and Aselefech is one of my beloved daughters. One is in Canada, one in the U.S. Both are strong, smart, talented, wonderful people.
Both also are powerful writers and speakers on the subject of adoption. Their two-part interview discusses the anthology, as well as their perspectives on adoption, past, present, and future. They don’t hold back, and that is among the reasons I love them so. In keeping with the ethos of the podcast, they are unapologetically unfiltered..
There are some 15,000 Ethiopian adoptees in the U.S., and many thousands more in Canada, Australia, and Western Europe. I am proud of the Lions Roaring anthology for sharing some 32 voices of Ethiopian adoptees, in all the depth and breadth of their experiences. Lidet’s podcast shares adoptee voices in another genre, and the rest of us are better for it. May we continue to listen and learn.
Yesterday was Adoptee Remembrance Day, and tomorrow is the start of National Adoption Awareness Month in the US. It is a fitting time to learn more about adoption, or better understand the experience of being adopted, or hear a variety of perspectives on what “being adopted” means.
The book includes essays and poems by 32 writers, ranging in age from 8 to over 50, and raised in six different countries (Canada, France, Sweden, Australia, the Netherlands, and the U.S.). The perspectives on adoption vary, and that is one of the strengths of the book.
It is the first (and currently only) anthology by Ethiopian adoptees.
It received advance praise from Lemn Sissay, Nicole Chung, and Shannon Gibney, all acclaimed writers who are also adoptees.
The stunning cover art is by the incredibly talented Ethiopian artist Nahosenay Negussie.
We are grateful to the folks who have read the book, and those who have shared a review and stars on the Amazon site.
We hope more folks will read it, talk about it, and share it with others.
It is a groundbreaking book, reflecting the hearts of our writers and the realities of adoption.
Please help us get the book into the hands of Ethiopian adoptees, other adoptees, Ethiopians, adoptive parents, adoption agencies, adoption therapists, and others.
To publicly mourn and honor adoptees who have died;
To raise awareness of crimes against adoptees by adoptive parents;
To raise awareness around adoptee suicide; and
To recognize that some international adoptees, through no fault of their own, do not have US citizenship, and that some have been deported.
From the Adoptee Remembrance Day Facebook page: “We are opening October 30th to be our day of truth, transparency, and remembrance for adoptees all over the world.”
Lions Roaring Far From Home: An Anthology by Ethiopian Adoptees is dedicated to Ethiopian adoptees like Hanna Williams who died at the hands of their adoptive parents, as well as to Ethiopian adoptees who died by suicide: they include Amanuel Kildea, Ashkenafi Jitka Lom, Fisseha Samuel, Gabe Proctor, Kaleab Schmidt, Tadesse Söhl, Mekbul Timmer, Seid Visin, and all those who have left us too soon. The book also has an essay by Mike Davis, a deported Ethiopian adoptee,
May they rest in power and in peace. May their memories be eternal; may their memories be a blessing. May their friends and families find peace and healing as well.
Today is National Poetry Day in the UK. While poetry can (and should) be celebrated all year round, we thought today might be a good day to celebrate our “Lions Roaring” poets.
Here are some excerpts.
Andi Tarikua Cass from the US wrote about being a “Warrior of the Lion:”
“i come from a place of fighters, warriors, brave people who never backed down from what they believed in…”
Hana from Canada wrote a “Brave Family Song:”
“We have one family that is in Ethiopia, Ethiopia.
And one family that is in Canada, Canada.
I love this FAMILY so much.”
Helen Rose Samuel from the US shared a poem she had written in memory of her beloved brother Fisseha: “The Art of Goodbye.”
“Who taught you, of knots and ties, to sever?
Who taught you the art of goodbye?
Who failed to teach you the art of goodbye?
Perhaps, then, your goodbye wouldn’t have been forever.”
Australian Tamieka Small‘s poem is “Waiting For When the Sky Won’t Fall:”
“You don’t know what it’s like
To look at the people who love you,
Expecting to see a reflection.
But you see nothing at all,
a blank canvas, a ghost, a wall.”
Heran Tadesse, raised in the Netherlands and now repatriated to Ethiopia, wrote about “Home:”
“Home is where my soul finds healing
And my being becomes whole
Living my dream
And witnessing the unseen
Dance through life
Synchronise to rhythm
Seek and find
Home within.”
Deep gratitude to each of these poets for sharing themselves in the powerful words of their poems.
Frew Tibebu, who arrived in the US from Ethiopia as a refugee from the Derg via Djibouti in 1980, is now a successful realtor and social entrepreneur in California. Here’s what Frew had to say about our book:
“As someone who was a frequent attendee of Ethiopian Adoption Camp at Scotts Valley. California, in the mid 2000’s, I thought I knew enough about Ethiopian adoptive families and Ethiopian adoptees.
After reading Lions Roaring Far From Home, I realized how little I knew about the diverse experiences of the Ethiopian adoptees.
I consider this anthology by Ethiopian adoptees to be an enlightening, ambitious undertaking, a missing voice to the Ethiopian transnational adoption and to the Ethiopian diaspora experience in general.”
In addition to getting the book to Ethiopian adoptees and the greater Ethiopian community, we also want to get Lions Roaring to other adoptees. Our writers were raised in six different countries: Ethiopian adoption is global. There are some unique differences for Ethiopian adoptees, and some overlap with the experiences of other adopted people.
Cover art by Nahosenay Negussie
We also want adoptive parents to read the book. For those folks who live in isolation from Ethiopian adoptees, the book is an opportunity to hear from 32 Ethiopian adoptee writers, with a variety of perspectives.
We have heard about adoptive parents reading the essays along with their children, then talking about them together. There are some great conversation-starters in the book.
We love to see the book being read by folks with no connection to Ethiopia or adoption: everyone can learn a lot from the amazing writers, who range in age from young children to adults in their 50’s and older.
In less than two weeks, we will be presenting at two Ethiopian heritage camps, one in Oregon and one in the Washington, DC, area. We are working on additional outreach in a variety of places and groups. Thank you for purchasing and reading the book, and for sharing info about the book.
“…Reading these stories has helped me feel less alone and more connected to a community of people who share similar experiences…” ~Kiya Herron-Sabi Goura
Equally important are the reactions and reviews of the writers themselves as they have read the whole book. We recently heard from Kiya Herron-Sabi Goura; she is Kiya Herron in the book.
It’s comforting to know that there are others out there who understand what it’s like to be adopted and the unique challenges that come with it. Reading these stories has helped me feel less alone and more connected to a community of people who share similar experiences. I appreciate the honesty and vulnerability of the writers and the effort put into creating this book. It’s an important contribution to the adoption conversation and I hope it reaches many others who can benefit from it. Thank you again for giving adoptees a platform to share their stories and be heard.
That is an absolutely beautiful comment, Kiya—thank you so much.
We also want to note that Kiya has started a business: Gelane Hair Oil, specializing in Ethiopian hair oil and butter. You can learn more about it on Etsy, and also on Facebook. We love the fact that Kiya is an entrepreneur, and that she is connecting with the beauty of Ethiopian culture.
We are, of course, proud of all our writers, and there is a special joy in sharing their accomplishments outside of our book.
