Six When He Came to Us: A Memoir of International Adoption

"Motherhood doesn't come with a handbook, but psychologist Parker (contributor to Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul, 2008, etc.) brings her professional knowledge to bear in her account of her family's early years together after adopting 6-year-old Dima in 1993... [Her] refreshing candor sheds light on the personal aspects of a subject often laden with overarching sentimentality, sensationalized headlines or dry research...An incisive memoir."

-Kirkus



It didn't take long to realize that parenthood was not going to be anything like what I'd imagined. I knew it on that very first day when my newly adopted son stretched out his fingers in front of him, in the cold Moscow air, to show me that he had no gloves on his hands and I realized I had left his brand new gloves on the plane. We watched together as the plane taxied down the runway, leaving with his new gloves still aboard. He looked at me with disappointment, reached for the packet of adoption papers that I carried under my arm and wordlessly took it from me. He didn't know exactly what it was, but he knew it was important and that, clearly, I was too careless to be trusted with it. From then on, he insisted on carrying the packet himself. The tone of our relationship was set.



Ellie Porte Parker is a licensed psychologist with a Ph.D. in cognitive/ educational psychology. She writes accessible, often humorous, material and is a contributor to the Chicken Soup books.