I have a biological son and two adopted Asian daughters and have been intimately involved in the care of all three. Two of the important lessons I have learned are these: While adoption is usually presented as a joyful event to celebrate - and it is a process within which there is much joy and celebration - every adoption amounts to the immigration of a war refugee. At the heart of every adoption is tragedy. The family of my Chinese daughter attempted to keep her as long as they could. Because she had at least two older siblings, the time in her life, about five years old, arrived when her parents accepted that unless they abandoned her in the hope that she would be found and adopted, the child would be denied education, health care, the right to own property, sign contracts, and maybe even employment. Emotionally none of that matters to the child. What does matter is the knowledge that her own mother rejected her, creating a life-long stain of worthlessness, of being unlovable. The second lesson I learned was that I had very insight into how life felt and seemed to an Asian girl growing up in white, caucasian Minnesota. How much love and empathy I could deliver was limited however much attention and effort I put into being a parent. That insight extended to include my white son as well. I was born to upper middle-class, white parents in 1951, which might have been the most fortunate year to be born ever. While my son was also born in relative economic comfort and white in a white majority state, I know that my insight into how his life feels to him is also very limited. The beginning of his adult life was disrupted by two great economic failures, an epidemic with a badly botched government response, rising fascism, a botched response to global warming, and careening wealth inequity. The history and prospects of all three of my children are very different from mine, which limits my ability to understand their lives and their ability to trust that I know what I am talking about.