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Not personally – I really mean adoptive parents of whom you might have heard.
I’m not sure you should call them role models, but they’re Been-There-Done-That and they’re famous.
- Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, who has held every “serious” passing record in the NFL, founded a chain of restaurants and a foundation for autistic children, and who adopted Niki in 1998 and Lia in 2001. He is a hero.
- Senator Sam Brownback, the Kansas Republican who’s currently running for president, a recent convert to Catholicism and father of (among other kids from other places) Jenna, who’s from Shantou. He’s on MySpace, too.
- Writer & entertainer Julia Sweeney you might remember as overweight and androgynous “Pat” from Saturday Night Live, or from singing the song “Just Because I’m Irish” with Jonathan Richman on Conan O’Brien, or from one of her monologues, which include God Said, Ha! about surviving cancer, Letting Go of God which is (as a contrast to Sam Brownback) about her converting from Catholicism to atheism, more or less, and In the Family Way, which is about her adopting a daughter from China whose Chinese name really was Mulan. She’s got a blog over yonder which tends to be more about what she’s working on than what she’s doing at home (but that’s pretty interesting, too).
- CBS anchorwoman Cindy Hsu adopted Rosie (named for Cindy’s mom, Rosemary) in 2004. She has won a few awards for her TV work in The Big Apple, including three Emmys and a New York AP Broadcasters Award. She’s also a competitive Dragon Boater, which rocks.
- Actress Meg Ryan you’ve probably already heard about. She got to smooch Wolverine and make indecent noises with Miracle Max. She adopted Daisy True in 2006 and spent some time out of the limelight, which seems just about right. (Daisy, by the way, is super cute in her latest pictures.) She no longer calls me late at night, so I think things must be going well.
- Astronaut Leroy Chiao goes into space for a living. That’s pretty cool. He’s a Ph.D in chemical engineering and has lived aboard the International Space Station. He speaks Mandarin and Russian as well as English, and is Chairman of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute User Panel. He’s also got a regularly updated blog and a pretty website, so check him out. He also seems to be pretty darn cool with kids in person (scroll down until you see his picture).
- Author Jeanne Marie Laskas has written quite a few books as well as columns for the Washington Post and features for GQ, Esquire and Ladies Home Journal. Her adoption story was featured in Good Housekeeping in 2000.
You can read more about all these folks and many more adoptive parents of renown in adoption.com’s Celebrities pages.
Dan Marino. Well, whaddya know. He’s a hometown football hero for my area (born in Pittsburgh). I didn’t know that about him. Thanks for the heads up!