This week I’m giving away THREE copies of my friend, Jennifer Grant‘s book, Love You More. Jennifer is the author of two books of nonfiction and is a contributor to Fullfill, Sojourners‘ God’s Politics blog and Christianity Today’s her.meneutics blog for women. She is currently at work on two new projects: Disquiet Time and 12: A Daybook. For more than a decade, she wrote features, columns, restaurant reviews, and even – for a time – the police blotter (reporting on stolen garden gnomes, possession of drug paraphernalia, and other shenanigans) for Sun-Times Media papers. She is a promiscuous reader who (usually) finishes what she starts, but is just as likely to be found reading Dinosaur Bob as Kate Chopin. Released in May 2012 from Worthy Publishing, MOMumental: Adventures in the Messy Art of Raising a Family was featured in Publishers Weekly and The Christian Science Monitor. Grant is a graduate of Wheaton College (IL) and received her Masters degree in English literature with concentrations in fiction writing and critical theory (Go Derrida!) from Southern Methodist University. She lives with her husband, four children, and a wise and affectionate mutt named Shiloh outside of Chicago, Illinois.
I recently had the chance to ask Jennifer a few questions about her book:
Margaret: What three things have you learned about God, yourself, and adoption since Love You More was published?
Jennifer: It’s been about 3 ½ years since Love You More came out. Since then, my kids have been catapulted into adolescence, I’ve written a few books, and I’ve entered more decidedly into what I must concede is midlife. (I’m 46.)
So, it’s truly a challenge to name only three things I’ve learned, but I’ll try.
1. Parenting teens is harder – and more delightful – than I expected. People who know my family often say: “Wow, all four of your kids are so different from each other.” It’s true. I have to laugh when someone pulls me aside – sometimes after I’ve spoken to a parenting group – and says, “Tell me the truth. Is your adopted child more difficult to parent than the others?” I appreciate the honest question, but I have to admit that I don’t understand (or misunderstand) my daughter Mia any more or less than I do the others, especially in this tricky phase. All of my kids have gone through enormous growth spurts (physically and otherwise) in early adolescence and all have had social, academic, and/or emotional glitches that have utterly confounded me as a parent. They also continue to bloom into delicious young adults whom I admire.
2. Backlash against adoption can be meaningfully addressed by transparency and efforts to promote ethical adoption. Throughout Love You More, I directly address the concerns of those who oppose adoption. Chapter 7, for example, is called: “Adoption: A Crime, a Necessary Evil, or a Miracle?” The so-called “haters” who railed against my book when it came out accused Love You More of being all sunshine without acknowledging the evils some people have committed in the name of adoption. Clearly they didn’t read the book.
I’m grateful for organizations such as “Both Ends Burning” that are strong advocates for ethical adoption. They don’t let negative press knock them off track. I love Both Ends Burning’s declaration that “Growing up in a family is a child’s most basic human right.” I completely agree.
I have friends who are parents to children who were quite literally dying in their countries of origin and who would not be alive today had they not been adopted. These parents sometimes receive reproachful comments from people who say these children would be better off back in the country in which they were born. It’s unthinkably callous and misinformed.
3. My faith and my efforts are enough. I don’t need to second-guess whether the work I’m doing is making a difference in the world or whether I have “enough,” or the right kind of, faith. I need to remain spiritually open, dedicate my efforts to God, and let my work be used, read, enjoyed as it will. There’s a freedom in that, in doing one’s best work, and then just letting it go. I’m just learning to do that, after a number of failed attempts to do so.
What has been the greatest encouragement in your writing experience?
There have been many stunningly encouraging moments and people – including the support and friendship of writers I greatly admire, including you Margaret. (I thank you for that!)
But what first came to mind are a few recent email messages I’ve received from readers of Love You More. One was from a man whose wife had longed to adopt for many years, but who didn’t feel that it was a good choice for his family. He wrote to me in a very raw and moving way about his conviction that God used my book to nudge him toward adoption. (He says he tells people that, “Jesus and Jennifer Grant made me adopt”!) He and his wife fostered and then adopted an older child who has been home with them for more than a year now. She is a joy and he feels incredibly fortunate to be her father.
That kind of letter absolutely slays me – I feel humbled and grateful that God used my story to bring a child who didn’t have a family into a very loving one. The same week that I received that man’s note, I got two similar emails from others who had read the book and later fostered and then adopted children. As you might imagine, I was a grinning, weepy mess after reading these emails.
What was the most difficult thing about sharing the process of adoption through your writing?
Both in writing Love You More and the second book I wrote about my family, MOMumental (which came out several months after Love You More and is a sort of sequel to it), my biggest challenge was to tell real stories about the pain and joys of family life without compromising my kids’ confidences. In MOMumental, there were personal anecdotes that my kids asked me not to include – and I didn’t.
At the moment, I struggle with this, as there is so much to say about parenting adolescents. I know, however, that my first job is to be my kids’ mother. In order to be an effective and loving one, I can’t write about all the issues that come up with them. (I’ve even considered using a pen name – some of the stories are so tantalizingly good – and horrible. Maybe I’ll write about parenting teens later.)
What do you hope will happen in the reader’s heart and mind when they finish Love You More?
I hope readers will better understand what friends and families who have adopted have gone through. Adoption is such a long, arduous, and vulnerable journey.
I hope they’ll also understand what it means to be an advocate for orphans and other vulnerable children, regardless of whether they ever become adoptive parents.
Although, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve learned that Love You More has nudged a lot of people toward adoption, I have also heard from a number of people that reading it made them comfortable choosing not to adopt. And that’s okay with me.
In Love You More, I write:
“What orphans need are families who love them. Period. To be adopted into a family and kept at arm’s length or seen as a charity project in what should be your own home sounds disastrous to me. And tragic. …What I hope all people have in common when they decide to adopt is a desire for a child, a hunch, a yearning, a growing desire to have someone else in their lives. To crouch on the sidewalk and look at the bugs. To offer lessons about the proper method for eating Oreos. To deal with the inevitable problems and stress that will happen in the life of every family, regardless of how it was created.”
In other words, I’m not an “everyone should adopt” kind of person.
But I do think everyone can – and should – look at ways to help orphaned or otherwise vulnerable children.
Check out the trailer for, Love You More.
(RSS Subscribers, click here to view.)
**For National Adoption Month, Grant’s publisher is offering the e-version of Love You More for only $1.99. Available from Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Google, Barnes and Noble, and CBD.
To win ONE of THREE copies of Love You More, enter a comment on the original post at MargaretFeinberg.com. Winners will be selected and announced on Friday.
Congratulations to the winners: Mindy, Kathryn, Catherine S
In what way has God touched your heart when it comes to helping those in need?
