JT,

In your adoption journey, do you feel somewhat "less than" others for not being raised by your bio parents, or that you are essentially homeless? Do you believe it was a mistake for them to have given you up? Obviously this is a very personal journey for you with strong emotions. I am curious if upon finding out the whereabouts of your natural parents, if you can imagine going through what Gatto's daughter did or anyone else who forsakes their adoptive family entirely for their bio family.

Do you also feel, as Gatto seems to, that adoption agencies of the state are deeply flawed, with noone's best interest at heart?

Sally, great people can still have feet of clay. Einstein and Gandhi are just two examples of men that made outstanding contributions to the world, but who were very poor husbands and fathers.

Nancy

I agree. I'm actually not trying to be argumentative, just curious at this point. My bigger issue is how to go about integrating many of the ideas in Mr. Gatto's or any other unschooler's books or rhetoric that seem to be contradictory, and I'm using personal decisions as a starting point. But to be really fair, I'll just stick to what they've written.

Is Mr. Gatto wholeheartedly against adoption, as he is compulsory schooling? I'm not sure by what he says in his books.

There are certain aspects of John Taylor Gatto's writing that I find incredibly inspiring. On the other hand, as a perfectly happy, openly gay adoptee, I don't jive with everything he says. In my situation, I was lucky to have been adopted, and I love my family so strongly. I'm also a gay person, which many of the people here seem to see as a new, government-imposed phenomena that distroys the family. People, I hate shatter your non-reality, but gay people have existed in every culture, and yes, we have families. We have children. Yes, you read that correctly. Gay people have children. And we also come from somewhere - we have parents. And we are just as happy about all of this as a straight person would be. We're actually people, just like you! Crazy, huh?