It’s a Long Way Home

In It's A Long Way Home, Brighid O’Shaughnessy gives voice to adoptive mothers whose journeys reveal the hidden, and often unsettling, realities of adoption. Through raw, ethnographic storytelling, O’Shaughnessy—an adoptive mother, social worker, and seasoned documentary theatre creator—shares true accounts that confront the public's happily-ever-after perception of adoption. These stories explore challenging themes such as physical violence, self-harm, lifetime disabilities, and systemic failures in education and healthcare that continue to let families down. Yet, amidst the darkness, the book offers hope, providing practical strategies, resources, and hard-won paths toward healing.

Ideal for courses in social work, trauma studies, family counseling, disability studies, public health, education, and criminal justice, this book engages both students and professionals, providing valuable insights for educators, healthcare providers, and community leaders.

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• Content warning
• Introduction: Read this as responsibility—Story, lineage, and our work ahead
• Prelude: Lives before they became stories
• 1 Recognizing early warning signs: When something doesn’t feel quite right
• Learning objectives
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Introduction
• Betty
• Supportive research:
• Therese
• Supportive research:
• Lynn
• What do you notice after reading Lynn’s story in terms of early warning signs?
• What caught your attention?
• Supportive research:
• Early warning sign noticing guide:
• Family narrative study: A call to shared responsibility
• Heidi
• Supportive research:
• Conclusion
• 2 What the body remembers: Adoption, early trauma, and prenatal exposure
• Learning objectives
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Introduction
• Betty
• Supportive research:
• Julie
• Supportive research:
• Isabella
• Supportive research:
• Family narrative: A call to shared responsibility
• Stacy
• Supportive research:
• Support this family
• Conclusion
• 3 Seeking mental health treatment: When love isn’t enough
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Introduction
• An interlude: Before the system
• Supportive research:
• What happens when you are already inside the crisis system
• Therese
• Supportive research:
• When crisis repeats
• Supportive research:
• When the system still doesn’t fit
• Supportive research:
• Pause to reflect
• Family narrative study: A call to shared responsibility
• Lynn
• Supportive research:
• Support this family
• Conclusion
• 4 Navigating the school maze: Racism, disability, and the politics of belonging
• Learning objectives
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Christina
• Light window: When schools see the whole child
• Listen to the kids
• Conclusion
• 5 The cost of being seen: A black boy in a white world
• Learning objectives
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Introduction
• Therese
• 6 Too complicated to hold: When people pull away—and when they step closer
• Learning objectives
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Introduction
• Christina
• Stacy
• Julie
• Betty
• Lynn
• First with family Christina
• Therese
• Lynn
• Next, how friends showed up
• Isabella
• Christina
• Here’s how support showed up within systemsHeidi
• Therese
• Isabella
• Lastly, let’s hear from Julie. Her story is a living example of how systems can respond before there is even a crisis to begin with.
• Julie
• First look at the patterns within the stories:
• Next, look at your own patterns. Think of a family you work with or a “family” within your own personal life of which you are a part:
• Finally, look at the institutions or systems of which you are a part:
• Conclusion
• 7 This is not the life I imagined: The long arc of adoptive caregiving
• Learning objectives
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Introduction
• When Julie, mother of two adopted boys, was asked about the impact of caregiving on her, she shared this:
• Christina talks about what her body and home feel like now as her adopted son nears 15:
• Stacy talks about the impact of parenting her middle school-aged adopted son, Riley:
• Stacy’s story names the collapse of partnership, the normalization of harm, and the necessity of drawing an unthinkable boundary to survive.
• Heidi shares about the ripple effects on her marriage:
• Heidi articulates what prolonged stress can do to intimacy and partnership—when exhaustion becomes chronic and the couple’s relationship slowly converts from romance to triage.
• Therese shares about the toll parenting her son has had on her:
• What Therese describes is not a single crisis but a slow accumulation: Years of caregiving that settle into the body as insomnia, hypervigilance, panic attacks, and feeling like she is in a constant PTSD state.
• Hear from Isabella on being Sofia’s mom:
• Isabella highlights how she engages in compartmentalization as a survival strategy and how complex caregiving realities have kept her from seeking companionship and intimacy with a life partner.
• Finally, Lynn shares how parenting a child with mental illness has impacted her 33-year partnership:
• Lynn amplifies how living in survival mode has taken a significant toll on her marriage and how even with deep therapeutic support, things still feel fragile.
• Pause to reflect
• From Julie about being Miles’ and Xander’s mom:
• Now hear from Cristina, Robert’s mom:
• From Stacy on being Riley’s mom:
• From Heidi on being Clara’s mom:
• From Therese on being James’s mom:
• From Lynn on being Will’s mom:
• Finally, from Betty about being Harlan and Hailee’s mom:
• Pause to reflect
• Conclusion
• 8 Fears for the future: Lifelong care in a system built for short-term intervention
• Learning objectives
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Introduction
• Consider Christina, a single adoptive mother to a 14-year-old international adoptee, Robert:
• Hear from Julie who has different fears for her two boys who are both still under 12:
• Lynn expresses her concerns about her domestically adopted son Will:
• Isabella is in her mid-70s and is an adoptive mother to 35-year-old international adoptee Sofia. She articulates her own worries:
• Lastly, hear from Heidi, whose adopted daughter Clara is nearing the end of high school:
• Pause to reflect
• Conclusion
• 9 Healing without illusion: What hope actually requires
• Learning objectives
• Chapter-specific content warning
• Introduction
• Consider Therese, a single mother whose 17-year-old son James was adopted internationally from Haiti:
• Listen to Christina, a single adoptive mother to 14-year-old international adoptee Robert:
• Consider Heidi, a married mother whose daughter Clara is 16 and was adopted internationally from China:
• Listen to Lynn whose journey has sent her in surprising directions
• Lastly, hear from Betty, whose journey reflects what finding a way forward can look like when a child reaches adulthood and continues to struggle:
• Pause to reflect
• Conclusion
• 10 Reflections, analysis and implications
• What it meant to be seen
• The arc of the book mirrors the arc of parenting in crisis
• The hidden cost of caregiving
• Parents have become the de facto system
• This is a public health and systems issue
• Ethical implications for adoption agencies
• Ethical implications for professional training
• The cultural myth of adoption as resolution
• Centering the voices of adoptees and birth parents: An ethical requirement
• What collective care might look like
• From understanding to action
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Early warning sign noticing guide (as discussed in Chapter 1)
• Works cited
• Index
• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• Content warning
• Introduction: Read this as responsibility—Story, lineage, and our work ahead
• Prelude: Lives before they became stories
• 1 Recognizing early warning signs: When something doesn’t feel quite right
  • Learning objectives
  • Chapter-specific content warning
    • Introduction
    • Betty
  • Supportive research:
    • Therese
  • Supportive research:
    • Lynn
  • What do you notice after reading Lynn’s story in terms of early warning signs?
  • What caught your attention?
    • Supportive research:
  • Early warning sign noticing guide:
  • Family narrative study: A call to shared responsibility
    • Heidi
  • Supportive research:
    • Conclusion
• 2 What the body remembers: Adoption, early trauma, and prenatal exposure
  • Learning objectives
  • Chapter-specific content warning
  • Introduction
    • Betty
  • Supportive research:
    • Julie
  • Supportive research:
    • Isabella
  • Supportive research:
  • Family narrative: A call to shared responsibility
    • Stacy
  • Supportive research:
    • Support this family
    • Conclusion
• 3 Seeking mental health treatment: When love isn’t enough
  • Chapter-specific content warning
  • Introduction
    • An interlude: Before the system
  • Supportive research:
    • What happens when you are already inside the crisis system
    • Therese
  • Supportive research:
    • When crisis repeats
  • Supportive research:
    • When the system still doesn’t fit
  • Supportive research:
    • Pause to reflect
  • Family narrative study: A call to shared responsibility
    • Lynn
  • Supportive research:
    • Support this family
    • Conclusion
• 4 Navigating the school maze: Racism, disability, and the politics of belonging
  • Learning objectives
  • Chapter-specific content warning
    • Christina
  • Light window: When schools see the whole child
    • Listen to the kids
    • Conclusion
• 5 The cost of being seen: A black boy in a white world
  • Learning objectives
  • Chapter-specific content warning
  • Introduction
    • Therese
• 6 Too complicated to hold: When people pull away—and when they step closer
  • Learning objectives
  • Chapter-specific content warning
  • Introduction
    • Christina
    • Stacy
    • Julie
    • Betty
    • Lynn
    • First with family Christina
    • Therese
    • Lynn
  • Next, how friends showed up
    • Isabella
    • Christina
    • Here’s how support showed up within systemsHeidi
    • Therese
    • Isabella
  • Lastly, let’s hear from Julie. Her story is a living example of how systems can respond before there is even a crisis to begin with.
    • Julie
  • First look at the patterns within the stories:
  • Next, look at your own patterns. Think of a family you work with or a “family” within your own personal life of which you are a part:
  • Finally, look at the institutions or systems of which you are a part:
  • Conclusion
• 7 This is not the life I imagined: The long arc of adoptive caregiving
  • Learning objectives
  • Chapter-specific content warning
  • Introduction
    • When Julie, mother of two adopted boys, was asked about the impact of caregiving on her, she shared this:
    • Christina talks about what her body and home feel like now as her adopted son nears 15:
    • Stacy talks about the impact of parenting her middle school-aged adopted son, Riley:
  • Stacy’s story names the collapse of partnership, the normalization of harm, and the necessity of drawing an unthinkable boundary to survive.
    • Heidi shares about the ripple effects on her marriage:
  • Heidi articulates what prolonged stress can do to intimacy and partnership—when exhaustion becomes chronic and the couple’s relationship slowly converts from romance to triage.
    • Therese shares about the toll parenting her son has had on her:
  • What Therese describes is not a single crisis but a slow accumulation: Years of caregiving that settle into the body as insomnia, hypervigilance, panic attacks, and feeling like she is in a constant PTSD state.
    • Hear from Isabella on being Sofia’s mom:
  • Isabella highlights how she engages in compartmentalization as a survival strategy and how complex caregiving realities have kept her from seeking companionship and intimacy with a life partner.
    • Finally, Lynn shares how parenting a child with mental illness has impacted her 33-year partnership:
  • Lynn amplifies how living in survival mode has taken a significant toll on her marriage and how even with deep therapeutic support, things still feel fragile.
    • Pause to reflect
    • From Julie about being Miles’ and Xander’s mom:
    • Now hear from Cristina, Robert’s mom:
    • From Stacy on being Riley’s mom:
    • From Heidi on being Clara’s mom:
    • From Therese on being James’s mom:
    • From Lynn on being Will’s mom:
    • Finally, from Betty about being Harlan and Hailee’s mom:
    • Pause to reflect
  • Conclusion
• 8 Fears for the future: Lifelong care in a system built for short-term intervention
  • Learning objectives
  • Chapter-specific content warning
  • Introduction
    • Consider Christina, a single adoptive mother to a 14-year-old international adoptee, Robert:
    • Hear from Julie who has different fears for her two boys who are both still under 12:
    • Lynn expresses her concerns about her domestically adopted son Will:
    • Isabella is in her mid-70s and is an adoptive mother to 35-year-old international adoptee Sofia. She articulates her own worries:
    • Lastly, hear from Heidi, whose adopted daughter Clara is nearing the end of high school:
    • Pause to reflect
  • Conclusion
• 9 Healing without illusion: What hope actually requires
  • Learning objectives
  • Chapter-specific content warning
  • Introduction
    • Consider Therese, a single mother whose 17-year-old son James was adopted internationally from Haiti:
    • Listen to Christina, a single adoptive mother to 14-year-old international adoptee Robert:
    • Consider Heidi, a married mother whose daughter Clara is 16 and was adopted internationally from China:
    • Listen to Lynn whose journey has sent her in surprising directions
    • Lastly, hear from Betty, whose journey reflects what finding a way forward can look like when a child reaches adulthood and continues to struggle:
    • Pause to reflect
    • Conclusion
• 10 Reflections, analysis and implications
  • What it meant to be seen
  • The arc of the book mirrors the arc of parenting in crisis
  • The hidden cost of caregiving
  • Parents have become the de facto system
  • This is a public health and systems issue
  • Ethical implications for adoption agencies
  • Ethical implications for professional training
  • The cultural myth of adoption as resolution
  • Centering the voices of adoptees and birth parents: An ethical requirement
  • What collective care might look like
  • From understanding to action
  • Conclusion
• Appendix: Early warning sign noticing guide (as discussed in Chapter 1)
• Works cited
• Index

Brighid O’Shaughnessy is a Licensed Social Worker, documentary theatre artist, and writer whose focus is on sparking personal, communal, and social change.  She is currently a doctoral student at Simmons University pursuing a DSW.