Like many working mothers, I worry about feeding my children the right foods, juggling play dates, work and school schedules and getting a few hours of sleep each night.

But unlike most of my friends, I’m also focused on "my" children who live far away.

As chief executive officer for Hawaii International Child, I share the responsibility for developing new adoption programs at HIC with my colleague, Kristine Castagnaro. Currently we are working in West and Equatorial Africa, as well as Japan, China and Hawaii. Recently we’ve been to the Ivory Coast, Uganda, China and Japan. In each of these places, we meet and fall in love with children we will never forget.

The tradition of adoption reaches back to the beginning of recorded time. Here in Hawaii, adoption was a natural way for families to help one another. Prior to the 1950s, adoption in the U.S. was a matter of shame and secrecy.

After the Korean War, Americans began adopting orphans from Korea, heralding the start of intercountry adoption. The Vietnam War brought Operation Babylift. Perestroika saw the rise and subsequent fall of adoptions from Russia and China.

Since 2000, Guatemala, Vietnam and Cambodia programs were shut down by the U.S. government due to ethical concerns. Most recently, Africa has come forward as the continent most willing to engage in seeking adoption solutions for its millions of orphans.

A recent commentary in The Wall Street Journal questioned why so many Americans go overseas to adopt children when there are children in the U.S. in need of permanency. About 400,000 children nationwide— including 1,400 in Hawaii — are in foster care. Whether they are eligible for adoptive families or are stuck in a cycle of multiple foster homes and reunification meetings has to do with the prevailing philosophy of local government.

In Hawaii, we value kinship, so most children in the system are not eligible for adoption so long as they have one living birth parent, or known kin. Families with room in their hearts and homes are not encouraged to attempt adoption through the state system, though there is always a need for good foster families. Most local adoptions occur when pregnant wom-en contact agencies such as ours and undertake careful adoption placement plans.

In my 20 years of globetrotting for children, I’ve been humbled, overwhelmed and inspired. I know that once I meet and hold a child, once my nurture instinct is exposed, it’s very hard to walk away without needing to effect positive change for that little one.

Of course, it’s not as simple as saying that every child in need should be taken away from what he knows and placed in a good home somewhere else. I believe that children belong with their birth parents first, when appropriate; in their countries of birth, in permanent families as a second option; and with an adoptive family in another country only when nothing else is good enough. That said, I believe adoption works.

November is National Adoption Month; Saturday was National Adoption Day. Since 1975, Hawaii International Child — see http://www.adoptionhawaii.org/ — has been finding families for waiting children, and has placed more than 3,000 children for adoption.