Exciting progress for non-traditional families

There is some exciting progress on the non-traditional family-building fronts. A national coalition is now in formation to enable greater discussion about how to protect our children's rights as curious eventual-grown-ups with medical history needs of their own. I'll keep you posted on that progress here over time.

I'm also happy to report that I'm getting more serious about strengthening the Choice Mom community. There is now an official team of supporters to help me build more educational resources than I can do on my own, with a line-up of guidebooks, podcasts, sponsored seminars and more in 2007 and 2008.

The misconception about the Choice Mom community, of course, is that we are selfish women who don't think men are important in our childrens' lives. And that families built with donor conception or adoption are selfishly short-changing its children. I can spend a lot of time trying to correct that perception....or simply let it go and focus on enriching and educating the parents who truly are building loving, nurturing families, while also responsibly and strongly pointing out what I've learned from our children over time.

I choose the latter. It's more productive. It's more aligned to the truth. And it recognizes that the majority of people understand that families and love are built in many ways, and that the goal is simply to support the ones who "get" that and hope that the ones who don't will eventually see what they don't right now.

There are serious issues to be addressed: the need for support networks, male role models, updated genetic background, open-identity donors who can satisfy our kids' curiosity as it arises. But there are wonderful families being created, and I want to collect and communicate more about what parents are doing RIGHT so that we can all learn from them.

So, stay tuned to all the good news that I'll be writing about here in the coming months...

Mikki