Joyce Maynard is no Angelina Jolie, gives up internationally adopted children
Writer Joyce Maynard has always been known for having a love affair with J.D. Salinger. Now Maynard may be best known for adopting – and then giving up – the two children she adopted from Ethiopia.
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Maynard as the single woman who adopted two girls from Ethiopia and gave them up 14 months later. Three years ago, at the age of 56, the writer journeyed to Africa and adopted two Ethiopian girls, ages 11 and 6, whose mother had died from an AIDS-related illness.
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In an article she wrote for More Magazine, Maynard described how “happy, happy, happy” she felt having adopted her daughters and declared her joy at “bringing them to the ocean for the first time and watching them chase waves.”
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About eight months after the adoption, Maynard’s joyful proclamations halted – finally, in April, she wrote a letter to her fans acknowledging that “there was no shortage of love or care – and despite some very happy and good times – the adoption failed.
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“I made a promise, when I went to Ethiopia to bring them home, that I would make sure they had a good life in America,” Maynard continued. “I still took m promise as a firm commitment. But part of honoring it meant finding them two parents – a family with other children, and a big, wide net of a support system that I could not give them, myself.”
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Some applaud Maynard for letting the girls go when she realized they didn’t have a good future together. Others criticize her harshly: Why didn’t she evaluate her situation before she adopted the girls?
What do you think: Was she right to give up the girls or should she have stuck it out?
Photo: Marin Magazine
