Ordinary Days and Tender Places
How We Talk (and Don't Talk) About Adoption in America
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Ordinary Days and Tender Places
Narrated by:
Rachael Warren-Allen
Pre-order Now for £12.95
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Narrated by:
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Rachael Warren-Allen
Adoption touches on some of our most vexing social questions, about race and sexuality, abortion rights, economic inequality, even foreign policy and global poverty. More than that, it prods us in tender places, reminding us of our own questions about belonging and separation, identity and alienation, our worries about what is determined by fate and what is freely choose.
Blending personal memoir, history, and broader reflection on American culture, Ordinary Days and Tender Places offers a fresh take on adoption. As an historian and an adoptive parent, Bendroth takes seriously the criticisms and the personal pain many adoptees face, but she also invites readers to take a bigger view. This book asks us to turn the mirror on ourselves and consider the peculiarities of what we consider “normal” family life.
In the end, our questions and controversies obscure a basic fact: raising children born to someone else is a time-honored human practice. In the past and in many cultures today, our modern American ideal, the two-parent biologically-related nuclear family, is an oddity. Within the long history of humanity our ideas about kinship and our beliefs about what constitutes a “normal” household are surprisingly narrow and, in the end, not all that helpful.
Bendroth introduces readers to new ways of thinking about adoption, exploring the history of American families and children as well as fascinating findings by biologists and evolutionary anthropologists about kinship practices, genetics and inheritance, even motherhood itself. This is, in other words, a book about adoption and much more. It is an invitation to readers to reflect on their own lives, to think deeply about our human need to connect, to love, and belong.
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Critic reviews
“Margaret Bendroth brings a historian’s mind and a mother’s heart to this thoughtful and searching account. Even as she acknowledges the particular challenges of adoptive kinship, Bendroth affirms families formed in the crucible of loss.”
—Barbara Melosh, author of Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption
“Bendroth has given us a thoughtful history and discussion of adoption as it has been understood in the United States, with its limitations, problems, and concerns—yes, both ordinary and tender.”
—Barbara Katz Rothman, author of Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption
“Historian and adoptive parent Margaret Bendroth is a compassionate guide through the complex terrain of adoption. Marked by emotional candor and nuanced analysis, this wise book offers companionship for adoptive parents and for anyone interested in the infinite variety of loving families.”
—Amy Gottlieb, author of The Beautiful Possible
“Margaret Bendroth blends history, personal narrative, and cultural insight to invite readers to reconsider what family means and why it matters. As a Black adoptee raised across racial and cultural boundaries and a student of transracial adoption, I felt a deep connection to this work. A powerful read for adoptees, adoptive families, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of kinship and human connection.”
—Rhonda M. Roorda, author of Torn from the Root: A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee
—Barbara Melosh, author of Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption
“Bendroth has given us a thoughtful history and discussion of adoption as it has been understood in the United States, with its limitations, problems, and concerns—yes, both ordinary and tender.”
—Barbara Katz Rothman, author of Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption
“Historian and adoptive parent Margaret Bendroth is a compassionate guide through the complex terrain of adoption. Marked by emotional candor and nuanced analysis, this wise book offers companionship for adoptive parents and for anyone interested in the infinite variety of loving families.”
—Amy Gottlieb, author of The Beautiful Possible
“Margaret Bendroth blends history, personal narrative, and cultural insight to invite readers to reconsider what family means and why it matters. As a Black adoptee raised across racial and cultural boundaries and a student of transracial adoption, I felt a deep connection to this work. A powerful read for adoptees, adoptive families, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of kinship and human connection.”
—Rhonda M. Roorda, author of Torn from the Root: A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee
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