Review of Labours of Love by Deborah Brennan
Insight into the Experience of Adoptive Families Across Canada
Feb 11, 2009
Breaking the stereotypes and perceptions surrounding adoption in Canada is the goal of Labours of Love: Canadians Talk About Adoption [Dundurn Press, 2008]. From taking a leap of faith through a pastor’s connections to dealing with prejudices associated with being a two-dad family, the latest adoption book for Canadians focuses on how people have adjusted to their destiny as an adoptive family.
Unlike other adoption books that focus on a particular issue or the process of adopting, Labours of Love is a celebration of adopted people and their families. Based on honest interviews, Brennan is able to reveal the hard emotions at the root of adoption and the inspiring stories of each family’s unique journey of finding each other.
Adoption Journey Inspires Book
An easy read that pulls at the heartstrings, Labours of Love gives a snapshot of an adoptive family in each chapter. Complete with photographs of the highlighted families, the book talks about the forming of each family, including the experience of the author.
Brennan wrote this book because she noticed a need for information on Canadian adoption when she and her family began their journey. She wanted to read books that talked about the experience of being an adoptive family rather than the challenges of the adoption process itself. Labours of Love successfully fills that gap.
Canada’s Adoptive Families
Twenty families are profiled: some are large with both adopted and biological children, some families adopted their children internationally and many navigated the domestic process to find their child. One family discusses what life is like adopting a special needs child, and single parents, as well as same sex couples talk about their lives as a non-traditional adoptive family. Brennan also interviews some notable Canadians in her book including Jeff Healey, Steve Shields, Sonja Smits and Hayley Wickenheiser.
Open adoption is very prevalent in many of the stories and the discussion of contact with members of the birth family is a common theme throughout the book.
The Challenges of Adoption in Canada
Brennan is able to ask the tough questions about adoption, while also giving the reader a feeling that despite everything, adoption was still a good thing for the family. She acknowledges infertility and failed adoptions, but keeps the focus on how the family was formed. Many of the chapters however, give the basics of the adoption constellation but leave readers wanting to know more about the families such as how they dealt with issues of loss, experiences of being different and living as an adoptive family day-to-day.
Readers will gain a sense of the structure and bureaucratic process of adoption in Canada in the chapters that Brennan talks with adoption professionals. In these seven interviews, she is able to highlight the challenges of the government processes and the lack of statistical consistency.
The book concludes with a poignant letter from a birthmother and also the script of the entrustment ceremony the author’s family had when they adopted their daughter. Also notes are added to the end of some chapters giving an update on the family such as the addition of a child or the status of a relationship with the birth family.
Aside from wanting to hear from more adoptive families in Canada, readers will be satisfied Labours of Love captures the realities of adopting a child, while celebrating adoption overall. As anonymously quoted in this inspiring adoption book, “He needed them and they needed him, and their finding each other seemed to be destined,” sums up the sentiment of the families from coast to coast.
Labours of Love: Canadians Talk About Adoption by Deborah Brennan is published in Canada by Dundurn Press (2008), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-1-55002-845-4.
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