Book Review: Creole Son : An Adoptive Mother Untangles Nature and Nurture E. Kay Trimberger, with Andrew Solomon

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook from LSU Press, via Edelweiss Plus, free of charge, for review purposes on this blog. No compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it, all opinions are my own

Creole Son is the compelling memoir of a single white mother searching to understand why her adopted biracial son grew from a happy child into a troubled young adult who struggled with addiction for decades. The answers, E. Kay Trimberger finds, lie in both nature and nurture.

Synopsis:

When five-­day-­old Marco is flown from Louisiana to California and placed in Trimberger’s arms, she assumes her values and example will be the determining influences upon her new son’s life. Twenty-­six years later, when she helps him make contact with his Cajun and Creole biological relatives, she discovers that many of his cognitive and psychological strengths and difficulties mirror theirs. Using her training as a sociologist, Trimberger explores behavioral genetics research on adoptive families. To her relief as well as distress, she learns that both biological heritage and the environment—and their interaction—shape adult outcomes.

Trimberger shares deeply personal reflections about raising Marco in Berkeley in the 1980s and 1990s, with its easy access to drugs and a culture that condoned their use. She examines her own ignorance about substance abuse, and also a failed experiment in an alternative family lifestyle. In an afterword, Marc Trimberger contributes his perspective, noting a better understanding of his life journey gained through his mother’s research.

By telling her story, Trimberger provides knowledge and support to all parents—biological and adoptive—with troubled offspring. She ends by suggesting a new adoption model, one that creates an extended, integrated family of both biological and adoptive kin.

Review:

This was a bit of a tough read for me. From the beginning I realized I did not relate to the author at all, when it came to adoption, that our view points going INTO adoption were vastly different, and we held different expectations. That last part is where many people have issues with adoption- they don't account for biological and cultural factors. but having said that, I have friends who have cross-race adopted WITHOUT all the issues the author had. Different time and place? Maybe, or again, they had better education and knowledge BEFORE adoption. I feel for the author and her son, in that the lack of knowledge ultimately caused issues for their relationship. But I felt like she selected studies to back up reasons for why there was failure in their relationship, versus studies about how HER chosen lifestyle may have created some of the base issues, and then tried to use psychology to state why these type adoptions really won't work. Yes, you can't get away from your biology, but you CAN learn how to cope with the issues you have. Even her 'new model' is not the one my friends and I have, we have kids who go against her study- because they all may have the same biological issue, but they all have DIFFERENT life experiences. And that is the danger in basing future plans on a set group of people with varied life experiences- you can't. Every adoption is UNIQUE- it has it's own issues and needs for the CHILD. Things the author very much missed in Marco's childhood. For those with issues like the author, maybe they will find hope and reasoning in the book, but I would urge those in different situations to look elsewhere for adoption advice.

About the Author:

E. Kay Trimberger is professor emerita of women’s and gender studies at Sonoma State University and an affiliated scholar at the Institute for the Study of Social Issues at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The New Single Woman, among other books, and writes the blog Adoption Diaries for Psychology Today.

Andrew Solomon is a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center and the author of the New York Times bestseller Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, among other books.