Every November, organizations, families, advocates, All About U Adoptions, and communities across the United States recognize National Adoption Month. You may see adoption stories shared on social media, events honoring adoptive families, information about children waiting for families, and resources for people whose lives have been touched by adoption. What is discussed less often is how National Adoption Month began and why November became associated with adoption in the first place.
The history of National Adoption Month stretches back several decades and began with a much narrower purpose than the observance has today. Its origins are closely connected to efforts to find permanent families for children in foster care. Over time, the observance expanded, and so did the national conversation surrounding adoption.
Understanding that history matters. National Adoption Month can be a time to recognize families formed through adoption, but it can also create space for birth parents, adoptees, adoptive families, and adoption professionals to talk honestly about what adoption means throughout a lifetime.
National Adoption Month Started as Adoption Week
The observance that eventually became National Adoption Month began in Massachusetts in 1976. Governor Michael Dukakis announced an adoption-focused week to bring attention to the number of children in foster care who needed permanent families.
The idea soon gained national attention. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the first National Adoption Week, encouraging communities across the country to recognize adoption and the need for permanent families for children waiting in foster care.
National Adoption Week continued through the following years as awareness grew. By 1990, adoption advocates and government officials were looking for ways to expand the effort and devote more time to education, recruitment, and public awareness.
National Adoption Week Becomes National Adoption Month
In 1990, the observance expanded from one week to the entire month of November. President George H.W. Bush issued a proclamation recognizing National Adoption Month and highlighting the importance of permanent families for children who could not safely return to their families of origin.
That history is important because National Adoption Month was not originally created as a general celebration of every type of adoption. Its primary purpose was to raise awareness about children in foster care who were waiting for permanent families.
Foster care adoption remains an important focus today. Thousands of children in the United States are in foster care at any given time, and some are legally eligible for adoption after reunification with their parents is no longer possible.
Over the years, however, November has also become a time when people discuss domestic infant adoption, international adoption, kinship adoption, adoptee experiences, birth-parent support, open adoption, and ethical adoption practices.
National Adoption Day Became Part of November
Another adoption-related observance was added to the calendar in 2000 with the creation of National Adoption Day. Courts and communities began setting aside a day in November to finalize foster care adoptions and bring additional attention to children waiting for permanent families.
National Adoption Day is generally observed on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Courthouses in communities across the country may hold special adoption finalization events, and families often mark the occasion as an important milestone.
The day remains closely associated with foster care adoption, reflecting the original purpose behind National Adoption Month. Its growth has also helped make November the month most Americans associate with adoption awareness.
The Meaning of National Adoption Month Has Expanded
Adoption has changed considerably since the first adoption week was recognized in 1976. The conversations surrounding National Adoption Month have changed with it.
Earlier public messages about adoption frequently focused on adoptive parents opening their homes to children. That perspective remains part of the story, but it is no longer enough to describe adoption only through the experience of the family adopting a child.
Birth parents are part of adoption. Adopted people are part of adoption. Biological siblings, grandparents, extended families, foster families, social workers, counselors, and adoption professionals may all have roles in an adoption story.
Modern National Adoption Month conversations increasingly make room for those perspectives. That broader approach creates a more complete understanding of adoption and recognizes that the impact of an adoption extends well beyond the moment a child joins a family.
National Adoption Month Is Not Only a Celebration
It can be tempting to treat November as a month devoted entirely to positive adoption stories. Adoption can certainly bring tremendous joy, love, connection, and family. Those experiences deserve to be recognized.
Celebration, however, should not require ignoring the complicated parts of adoption.
For many birth parents, adoption involves grief alongside love for their child. An adoptee may feel deeply connected to an adoptive family while also wondering about biological relatives or experiencing complicated feelings about identity and belonging. Adoptive parents may experience joy in becoming parents while recognizing that their family was formed through circumstances that also involved loss.
None of those experiences cancels out another. Making room for the full range of emotions surrounding adoption creates a more respectful National Adoption Month than insisting that every adoption story fit neatly into a celebration.
Birth Parents Belong in the National Adoption Month Conversation
Birth mothers have not always been given a prominent voice in public conversations about adoption. Historically, many women who placed children for adoption were encouraged to keep the experience private and continue their lives without discussing what had happened.
That expectation has changed significantly. Birth parents increasingly share their experiences, maintain relationships with their children through open adoption, advocate for ethical adoption practices, and help others understand what placing a child for adoption can actually mean.
National Adoption Month provides an opportunity to listen to those experiences. Birth mothers may feel pride, sadness, peace, grief, confidence, uncertainty, or several emotions at the same time. Their stories should not be reduced to the idea that they either regret adoption or view it as an entirely joyful experience.
A woman who chooses adoption remains part of her child’s story. Recognizing her role is essential to understanding adoption as a lifelong relationship rather than a single event.
Adoptee Voices Matter Too
Adopted people have also challenged older ways of talking about adoption. For generations, adoption stories were often told by agencies, adoptive parents, and other adults who made decisions while the adoptee was a child.
Adult adoptees have added perspectives that were missing from many of those conversations. They have spoken about identity, birth-family relationships, medical histories, original birth certificates, cultural connections, race, grief, curiosity, and the experience of growing up knowing—or not knowing—their biological families.
There is no universal adoptee perspective. Some people have overwhelmingly positive experiences with adoption, while others have difficult or complicated feelings about it. Many hold several feelings at once.
National Adoption Month is more meaningful when adopted people are allowed to describe their own experiences instead of being expected to represent a particular message about adoption.
November Can Also Be a Time to Talk About Ethical Adoption
Awareness should involve more than encouraging people to adopt. National Adoption Month creates an opportunity to ask what responsible and ethical adoption should look like for everyone involved.
Expectant parents considering adoption deserve accurate information about their options and legal rights. They should be able to ask questions without being pressured to make an adoption plan. Counseling, transparency, informed consent, and appropriate support before and after placement are important parts of ethical adoption practice.
Prospective adoptive parents also have responsibilities. They should learn about grief and loss, understand the importance of a child’s history, prepare for openness when appropriate, and recognize that becoming parents does not erase the child’s relationships or experiences that existed before adoption.
Adoption professionals have a responsibility to keep learning as well. Practices that were once considered acceptable have changed because birth parents and adoptees spoke about their experiences and asked the adoption community to do better.
What National Adoption Month Means at All About U Adoptions
For All About U Adoptions, November is an opportunity to recognize the many people whose lives have intersected with adoption throughout our more than 20 years of service. That includes children, birth parents, adoptive parents, extended families, and the professionals and community partners who have supported them.
It is also a time to educate.
Someone considering adoption today may have an understanding of the process based on stories from decades ago. She may assume adoption means choosing strangers to raise her baby and never seeing the child again. Another woman may believe contacting an adoption agency means she has already made her decision.
Modern adoption can look very different. An expectant mother can ask questions without committing to adoption, participate in choosing an adoptive family, create a hospital plan, discuss the type of openness she wants, and receive support throughout the process.
National Adoption Month Is a Time to Listen
The meaning of National Adoption Month has expanded considerably since Massachusetts first recognized an adoption week in 1976. What began as an effort to bring attention to children waiting in foster care has grown into a national conversation about adoption in its many forms.
That conversation continues to evolve. We know more about the importance of openness, birth-parent support, adoptee perspectives, ethical practices, and lifelong relationships than adoption professionals understood generations ago. There is still more to learn.
November gives us a reason to talk about adoption, but meaningful awareness requires listening as much as speaking. We can celebrate families while acknowledging loss. We can recognize the love involved in adoption without pretending that love makes every part of the experience easy. Most importantly, we can make room for the different people whose stories make adoption what it is.
If you are pregnant in South Dakota, North Dakota, or Nebraska and wondering what adoption might look like for you, All About U Adoptions is available to answer your questions. You do not need to be certain about adoption before reaching out. Learning about your options is simply a place to begin.