Sons of Other Fathers: A Memoir of Adoption, Identity, and the Relationships That Define Family

Adoption is often described as a journey―but for Rick Parks and his wife, Joni, it was a full-throttle emotional ride marked by hope, fear, heartbreak, and grace. In Sons of Other Fathers, Parks recounts the deeply personal story of building a family through adoption in the late 1980s and 1990s, a time when laws, social norms, and expectations around adoption were very different from today. Through vivid scenes, candid reflection, and lived experience, he brings readers inside two profoundly different adoption journeys―one closed, one open―revealing how each shaped his children, his marriage, and his understanding of fatherhood. This memoir is not a guidebook or a checklist. Instead, it is an honest, compassionate exploration of what it means to love a child fiercely while navigating uncertainty, loss, and questions that have no easy answers.