Songs For Adoption

I don't share many details about my life here. I never envisioned this as a "dadblog" -- there are way too many acute observers of either gender of parenting and family life on and off the Internet for me to feel like I could add anything significant to the conversation.

Having said that, at the risk of turning this into a Very Special Episode of Zooglobble, I think this post deserves a bit of an introduction.

On November 18, 2006 families across the United States will celebrate National Adoption Day.

For the first time, our family will be among those celebrating.

Although the day is specifically designed to raise awareness about adopting children from foster care, the day and month -- November is National Adoption Month -- are used to celebrate adoptions of all types.

Our family has two children -- one is a "bio" (short for "biological") child of ours, as the phrase goes in the adoption community, while the other came into our family via adoption. Both children are a blessing to us. Because we've experienced both ways of adding a child to our family, the notion of an "adoption" song is a little odd to me. I view it as a method, one with serious implications to be sure, but still a means to an end. But there are tons of songs about the birth of a child -- why shouldn't there be a few songs about the adoption journey?

Which brings up the point that everybody's adoption journey is a little bit different. A song that may perfectly capture the feelings of one family's adoption journey may be completely alien to another family. And, hey, that goes for childbirth, too.

Here, then, is a short list, which I've generally tried to restrict to very adoption-specific songs. I've cribbed from a few sources. If you're looking for more songs, try here or there. Many of the songs were certainly not written with adoption in mind and could just as easily be sung to a lover, but that's the beauty of music, isn't it? You never know what songs people will find strength in. I've also left off songs that are more about giving a child up for adoption. That's really for older kids, not the audience I'm aiming for here.

If you've got more, leave 'em in the comments.

"Happy Adoption Day," by John McCutheon (off his Family Garden CD or his Supper's on the Table... best-of)
"From God's Arms to My Arms to Yours," by Michael McLean
"The Red Thread," by Lucy Kaplansky, off the album of this same name
"Cartwheels and Somersaults," by Justin Roberts, off Meltdown! -- OK, this isn't really about adoption, but it is all about the joy of adding another child to a family and it spoke to our family's situation wonderfully.

Comments

[John Carlin]

Hey Stefan,Just thought you might be interested - the National Adoption Foundation ( nafadopt.org ) is going to release a CD soon entitled 'Songs of Adoption', which will include my song 'Not Alone', from the CD 'First Time For Everything'. And believe it or not, Levon Helms's studio is putting it out. Oh, and congratulations! ~JC

[Katy Lloyd]

This is really great info. We just had dinner last night with our older daughter's godparents, who are awaiting "the call" for their first child. They're constantly quizzing us about all aspects of parenting, including quality kid's music (or maybe it's more that I'm constantly barraging them with suggestions). Thanks for bringing up a great topic. God bless the child(ren).

[Paul Godwin]

Hey Stefan,

Thanks for posting this. Don't know if you knew but The Sippy Cups include not one but two adoptive families among the band members. Sounds like its time for an adoption song to find its way to the next album!

Our international adoption was the greatest single event of our life!

Best,

Paul

[Paul Simkins]

I thought I would mention Steven Curtis Chapman has a song about adoption on his album Declaration. It's a beautiful song called "When Love Takes You In". He and his wife have adopted a few children in addition to their "bios". My wife and I adopted three children and could not be happier.