Opening up about her decision to adopt a teen girl in 2014, the 'Unforgettable' actress discloses that she has planned to bring older kids into her family since she was only five years old.

• Dec 15, 2018

AceShowbiz - Rosario Dawson was inspired to adopt an older child after finding out her father wasn't her biological dad when she was five years old.

The "Sin City" star became a mum to her teenage daughter Lola in 2014, when the girl was 11 years old, and explains it was always her plan to bring an older child into her home, because of the unconditional love she experienced in her own family unit.

"My dad is not my biological father," she tells Us Weekly magazine. "So when I was younger and they (her parents) let me know that I wasn't blood-related to that whole side of my family, I was, like, five."

"Growing up in the neighbourhood that I grew up in, I was like, 'Oh, so then I could be like some of my friends who have single parent households. Like, that could be me.' So I remember I told my mum at five that when I got older I was gonna adopt and I was gonna adopt older (kids)."

Finding out that the man who had raised her since she was a baby wasn't her biological father made Rosario start to think about how things could have turned out had he come into her mother's life when the actress was older.

"He was the first person to meet me that wasn't blood family when I was only a couple weeks old," she shares. "And they got married when I was one year old. So I didn't know any different of him being my dad, but it occurred to me, like, 'OK, I was a cute baby when you decided to do that. What if it was right now? What if all of these years mum and I had been on our own? Would someone wanna come in now and be my dad?'"

Dawson is now sharing that same kind of love with Lola, but she admits it is difficult to see her grow up so quickly.

"I talked to a lot of social workers and stuff, and they say that's one of the most difficult things about adopting an older child is that you missed out on those younger years, so you really... I mean, for any parent that I speak to, they say it goes by (so quickly)," she says. "Especially if you get your child at 11, it really does go like this (in a snap). And so it's alarming. It's like, 'You're eye-level with me (in height).' This is a lot."