This book aims to provide a broad framework within which to think about adoption as a whole system, so that everyone involved will learn to feel some empathy for the other members of the adoption process. The book, written by a family and adoption therapist who was adopted as an infant, describes predictable developmental stages and challenges for all adopted people, organized by age level and drawing on real-life stories. Examples of stages and challenges include how and why daydreaming is a normal strategy for adoptees, how particular academic subjects may create pain for adopted children, and why so many adopted adolescents experiment with the "wrong crowd." The book argues that all adoptive parents, as well as teachers and therapists and all those who work with children, must come to understand these developmental stages as normal for the adopted child. The book also covers the "birth rites" of both biological and adoptive parents: how adoption does not cure infertility, but childlessness; and healing rituals for birth parents who must give up the parenting of their child. The book's chapters are: (1) "Parental Rites: The Birth Parent"; (2) "Parental Rites: The Adoptive Parent"; (3) "The Adopted Child: Birth to Eight Years"; (4) "The Adopted Preadolescent (Eight to Twelve Years) and Early Adolescent (Twelve to Sixteen Years)"; (5) "The Adopted Adolescent and Young Adult"; (6) "Keeping Connections"; (7) "Epilogue: Adoption 2002." Includes a glossary of adoption terms. (EV)