ARE THOSE KIDS YOURS?"" American Families with Children Adopted from Other Countries

Moving personal experiences and informed advice on adopting and raising children from other cultures. Register is white midwestern American; her two adopted daughters were born in South Korea of Korean parents. ""Are those kids yours?"" is a question asked by rude strangers, and also a launch point for more penetrating questions that parents and childdren like the Registers must ask themselves. The soul-searching begins with an examination of the conditions in other countries that lead governments to the painful decision to give up even a few children to foreigners. Then the would-be parents must explore their own motives: rescuing a child--""doing good""--is not enough. The commitment to a multicultural family demands personal resources that a warm feeling of virtue cannot sustain. Among the challenges: providing children with a proud sense of their birth culture and history; preparing them to deal with racism and ethnic slurs, to answer the bureaucratic question ""what are you?,"" to believe that their birth parents relinquishing them was an act of love. Blending her own experience with interviews, Register offers pertinent advice and adds an extremely useful list of books and relevant organizations, with addresses and phone numbers. An unromanticized view of cross-cultural adoption that nevertheless illuminates its extraordinary rewards.