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...

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...

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...

Let’s be honest: the world is full of coaches. Life coaches. Parent coaches. Trauma coaches. Mindset coaches. Nervous system coaches. (Guilty—I’ve worked with several.)

So how do you know who’s right for you—especially when your life includes adoption, trauma, grief, race, identity, and the messy j...

Even thinking of yourself as a “rescuer” assumes someone else needed saving.

That someone else had misfortune. That you’re offering them something they didn’t have.

And the heartbreaking part is - your children feel that imbalance, even if they don't yet have the words for it.

They life in a worl...

When my twins were toddlers, I remember being called out about their hair.

Strangers—Black strangers—would approach me in the grocery store or at the park with comments that, at the time, I interpreted as criticism.

“You’ve got to moisturize their hair.”
“Whew, they’re dry, mama.”

In my head, I w...

I’ve learned there are two kinds of pain:
The pain you expect, and the pain that catches you off guard.

The pain I expected? Sleepless nights. Toddler tantrums. The challenge of parenting children with trauma-impacted nervous systems.

The pain I didn’t expect?

That came from family.

The Obitua...

When my children were toddlers, I remember a moment in the grocery store—an older Black woman looked at my kids and said something about their hair. She was kind and gentle but I was taken aback. Defensive. Embarrassed.

Inside, I thought, Why are you criticizing me? I was doing my best. At the time...