Parenting honor, for first time, goes to adoptive pair
Rocky Mountain News
Published July 15, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated July 15, 2008 at 12:33 a.m.
Photo by Chris Schneider / The Rocky Mountain News
Kari Grady Grossman, left, plays with Grady, 8, while husband George tickles Shanti, 4, at their home in Denver.
George and Kari Grady Grossman went to Cambodia looking to adopt a son seven years ago and wound up adopting a country.
On Sunday the Fort Collins couple was named the American Family Coalition's Colorado Parents of the Year, the first time the honor has gone to an adoptive couple in Colorado.
The Grossmans are parents to Grady, now 8, whom they brought from Cambodia, and Shanti, 4, whom they adopted in India. The couple also started a nonprofit called Sustainable Schools International, which tries to help Cambodian villages build and maintain schools through economic development.
On Monday, they talked about parenting and adoption. Here's an edited excerpt.
* What's the secret to being good parents?
Kari: I don't know if we have any secrets other than for us in our situation with kids who were adopted from another country . . . understanding the loss that goes with losing your country and your birth culture. Meaning that we share the story with them. We talk about the truth of the stories. . .
George: There was a woman we met a long, long time ago, way before Kari and I were married. And she said the only thing you can really give your children is a happy childhood. We have always remembered that . . .
I think that would be my one advice for all sorts of things: Try to give your children a happy childhood. It's not about money. It's really about spending time with them and doing things with them and finding out what they're interested in and kind of playing with them at that level.
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July 15, 2008
8:47 a.m.
Suggest removal
vudumom writes:
When are so called parents going to adopt American children? Usually it costs many thousands of dollars to adopt designer babies overseas. Couldn't that money be well spent helping the many children in the U.S.? The old saying "parenting begins at home" is true. It's getting really old to see people heralded for adopting overseas children when the children in the U.S. have it just as bad.
July 16, 2008
11:24 p.m.
Suggest removal
picklesforbreakfast writes:
vudumom is your issue that the Grossmans adopted orphaned "non-americans" or is it the fact that they adopted children that are not white? Would you feel different if they had adopted african-americans or hispanics born in the USA? My cousin went through IVF twice to have biological babies and it cost a fortune.
Over population is stressing the earth resources and poverty breeds terrorism so why not find a family for all the orphans, regardless of nationality?
I doubt an orphan kid would ever say "hey you in America come adopt me I'm designer."