You love your children deeply. You're doing your best to raise them with care, intention and heart. And yes - adopting or raising children of color has changed you in profound ways. But love alone doesn't erase the deeper patterns we've inherited. And when we parent with unexamined bias, our childre...

Raising children of color as a white parent is a beautiful, soul-stretching journey. And depending on what generation you're part of, your starting point might be very different — from “colorblind” ideals to TikTok-level racial analysis. Let’s have some fun unpacking how Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennia...

Melvin Hawkins Is Our Rock

There are some people who change your life just by showing up. Melvin is one of those people—for my son, and by extension, for me.

My son needed something I could never give him. Not because I didn’t love him. Not because I didn’t try. But because some things can’t be ta...

We often hear about adoption as a story of rescue. A hopeful solution for families who can’t have children of their own. A win-win. A happy ending.

But that version of the story is missing entire chapters — and the most important voice of all: the adoptee.

Organizations like Adoption Mosaic have b...

What I Learned from Blindly Trusting a Black-Owned Counseling Practice

I believe deeply in supporting Black-owned businesses.

As a white mother raising Black children, I know representation matters — not just in books and movies, but in the people who surround and serve my kids. Especially in the ...

Adoption, Fear, and Loving Through the Unknown

When the phone rang, I said yes.

The adoption agency told me the birth mother had used “some drugs, not much.”
I had just turned down another situation where the expectant mother had used substances daily. So when they said “not much,” I believed them...

Why So Many Kids Are Misdiagnosed and Misunderstood

You’ve taken your child to the doctor. To therapists. To neuropsych evaluations.
You’ve walked out with acronyms: ADHD. ODD. Mood Disorder. Autism Spectrum.
Maybe none of them feel quite right.
Maybe your gut says something deeper is going on.

If...

What Every Parent Needs to Know About Prenatal Substance Exposure

If you're parenting a child with confusing behaviors, learning challenges, or emotional volatility—and nothing seems to work—it might be time to ask a deeper question:
Could this be FASD?

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) affe...

Why “I Have Black Kids” Isn’t the Flex You Think It Is

Let’s just say it:
If your go-to defense against racism is “I have Black kids” or “I have a Black friend,” you’ve missed the point.

Yes, I’m a white parent of Black children.
And I’m telling you: that doesn’t give me a free pass.
It doesn’t me...

It might look like a tantrum.

A slammed door. A disrespectful tone.
A total refusal to brush teeth, go to school, or follow rules that “should” be simple.

But sometimes, what you’re really witnessing isn’t a child misbehaving.
You’re watching trauma rise up through generations.
And land, screaming...

Parenting is hard. Transracial parenting? It’s a whole different level of navigating love, loss, and learning. White Awake Parenting was born out of my own humbling, heartbreaking, and ultimately life-expanding experience of raising Black children in a world that wasn’t built for them—and of waking ...

When my beautiful, Black children came to me through adoption, I thought love was enough. But very quickly, I realized it wasn’t. Not in a country still deeply scarred by racism, systemic injustice, and unequal power.

If we white parents don’t do the work — if we don’t face our own whiteness, unlea...