Adult Adoption and Creating the Family I Need

Katie Klabusich

For me, considering going through the adoption process as an adult is about having the right to configure my family the way that’s best for me—a right we should all have.

The word adoption is synonymous with babies and expectant parents, joy and dreams come true. For most, it’s about families becoming complete and children becoming a permanent part of a legally recognized household.

My story is more complicated.

Recently, I found myself in the atypical and unexpected position of discussing adult adoption with the woman who became my roommate two-and-a-half years ago when I desperately needed a safe place to collapse and recover from a lifetime of trauma. We were strangers who became fast family; she was the perfect big sister and, after understandable initial trepidation about opening her home to a stranger, her extended family and friends have become my family and friends.

Last year my childhood stocking hung on the fireplace and there were gifts under the tree for me—the first time I’ve had a family Christmas since my adopted mother decided I was gay and told me not to come home for the holidays in December 2011.

It hadn’t always been that way. Growing up, my adoptive parents would tell me the bedtime story about how I was wanted, desperately, for the ten years they waited for me. They loved me before they even knew me. While I still believe the sentiment to be true, I have learned over the past 38 years that loving someone does not a healthy environment or nurturing relationship make.

It’s also become clear to me that the caregiving contract between parents and children hardly ends at age 18—especially at a time when we are watching our social safety net be dismantled piece by piece—and it flows in two directions. Unless you are in a family with wealth and security spanning generations, concern about whether the kids will be able to land a good enough job (or jobs, let’s be frank) to support themselves and whether parents and grandparents will have enough in their retirement for their elder care has only increased over the past few decades. (snip-go read it, it’s great info)

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Exclusive: Hope Walz Never Planned for TikTok Fame. Now Her Platform Inspires Change.

Grace Erwin

The daughter of Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz didn’t start posting until after the 2024 election—and she’s starting to become a leading young political voice.

Hope Walz had no intention of becoming a social media sensation when she first whipped out her phone to shoot a video with her brother, Gus. A few months ago, the Walz siblings—children of former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz—were headed back to their home state of Minnesota. Their father and his running mate, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, had just lost the 2024 presidential election. And Hope Walz wanted to post an update.

From the front seat of a car, the pair described what it was like to drive without a Secret Service detail for the first time in months.

“We’re finally free,” Gus said from the driver’s seat.

“I would not describe it like that,” Hope replied. “It is a little weird, but it does feel freeing.”

“We’re going to be okay everyone,” she added, before posting the video to TikTok.

After spending months on the campaign trail with her dad, and watching Donald Trump and JD Vance clinch the White House, Walz was ready to return to her everyday life in Montana, where she’d settled after graduating college in 2023. Instead, the video she posted in the aftermath of the election quickly amassed more than 400,000 views. And her next video, breaking down her post-election thoughts, garnered 1 million. Now, Walz is navigating her newfound public platform while trying to map out a future career in public service—a decision inspired by her time on the campaign. (snip-go read the rest of this one, too!)