Adoptees On

We are revisiting the topic of estrangement today. Earlier in 2021 we did several episodes that examined estrangement and what made some of us decide to break contact with our adoptive families. When I was producing that series I always wanted to have an episode where we could talk about what it would look like to go BACK to our adoptive family after a period of estrangement. Can you ever go back once you've left?

Today Ellianna shares her experiences of reunion with her birth mother, and what lead to a decade-long estrangement from her adoptive family. She talks us through her decision-making process for reunification, and I was amazed to hear the depth of how she's looked back on this and processed all the things that have gone on in her life so far.

Full Show Notes Here

• No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Dr. Richard Schwartz
• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
• Previous Adoptees On episodes about Estrangement (playlist on Spotify) or there's a list on the Adoptees On website here.

• Ellianna Javed: elliejaved [at] gmail [dot] com
• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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Adoptee Remembrance Day is commemorated annually on October 30th. This episode has a collection of recordings that listeners have submitted to the show on what Adoptee Remembrance Day means to them. Haley also shares a way you can show up for fellow adoptees during November, using #DearAdoptees.

Full Show Notes Here

• Adoptee Remembrance Day - commemorated annually on October 30th
• What is Adoptee Remembrance Day?
• Adoptee Remembrance Day Facebook Page
• RSVP to the Adoptee Remembrance Day Event on Facebook
• Adoptees Connect on Instagram | adopteesconnect.com | Facebook
• Use the hashtag #DearAdoptees throughout November
• Dear Adoption, dearadoption.com | Instagram | Facebook

Crisis Hotlines:

• Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255 In July 2022, 988 will become the national three-digit code for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, some mobile carriers already support this number. USA
• Crisis Services Canada 1-833-456-4566 24/7 (text 45645, available 4:00pm - 12:00am Eastern time) Canada
• Crisis Text Line - text HOME to 741741 (USA & Canada)
• Crisis Text Line UK: text HOME to 85258
• Crisis Text Line Ireland: text HOME to 50808
• List of Suicide Crisis Lines Worldwide
• Sexual Assault Crisis Support (RAINN) 1-800-656-4673 (USA)
• Trans Lifeline 1-877-565-8860 (USA)
• Trans Lifeline 1-877-330-6366 (Canada)

• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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Do we have to choose between our biological family and our adoptive family? What about choosing between their religions or spiritual practices? Mar shares how they are both Jewish and Catholic. We talk through how they chose adult conversion to Judaism as a way to feel permanently grafted to their adoptive family. Mar is also very open about how recovery programs have helped them to identify as spiritual but not religious.

Full Show Notes Here

• Adoptee Voices & their new E-Zine
• Adoptees & Addiction support group. You can hear Miguel talk more about it on Adoptees On episode 176

• Mar Miram: rebelliondogs (at) yahoo (dot) com | Facebook
• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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Our guest today is scholar and author Susan Devan Harness. Susan shares from an anthropological perspective about the policies in place behind the Indian Adoption Project and why Indigenous placement with white families was preferred by the government. She also shares some of the current action in the US courts to undermine and remove the Indian Child Welfare Act and why it is so critical for us to pay attention to the cascading effects this could have. We do get personal too, about what happened for Susan in her forties as she unravelled what being adopted really meant: being separated both from her original family and from her original culture.

Full Show Notes Here

• Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption by Susan Devan Harness
• Mixing Cultural Identities Through Transracial Adoption: Outcomes of the Indian Adoption Project (1958-1967) by Susan Devan Harness
• White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940 by Margaret D. Jacobs
• The Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture - Eighth Biennial Conference on Adoption and Culture, where Susan Devan Harness is one of the keynote speakers. Available virtually, most sessions were released on October 8, 2021 and there will be live Q&As October 22 & 23, 2021.
• Adoptees Off Script Book Club with Susan Devan Harness October 30, 2021

For Further Education:

• Podcast: This Land (Season Two) by Crooked Media
• Adoptees On episodes on the Canadian Sixties Scoop (Series 6): E110 with Dr. Raven Sinclair, E112 with Christine Miskonoondinkwe Smith, and E114 with Inez Cook

• Susan Devan Harness: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | susanharness.com
• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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Today's guest is Dr. Erin Heim who has spent a decade of her life researching and examining both the biblical texts in the New Testament that mention adoption as well as multiple books written from an evangelical perspective of adoption promotion. Erin teaches us what adoption looked like during the first century, and spoiler alert - it's nothing like modern-day adoption. Erin and I also put a critical lens to how adoptees are treated in the church today, and how conflating biblical metaphors of adoption and modern-day adoption is harmful and keeping churches from embracing a family preservation stance.

Full Show Notes Here

• Adoption in Galatians and Romans: Contemporary Metaphor Theories and the Pauline Huiothesia Metaphors by Dr. Erin M. Heim
• Dr. Erin M. Heim's chapter "The Inward Groaning of Adoption (Rom 8:12-25): Recovering the Pauline Adoption Metaphor for Mothers in the Adoption Triad (You can find that within the book Making Sense of Motherhood: Biblical and Theological Perspectives ed. by Beth Stovell)
• Growing God's Family: The Global Orphan Care Movement and the Limits of Evangelical Activism Book by Samuel L. Perry
• On Script episode interview with Erin Heim: Adoption in Galatians and Romans

• Dr. Erin M. Heim
• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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I am thrilled to bring you Barbara Sumner today. Her literary memoir Tree of Strangers is one of the best books I read this year (and I'm including my non-adoption-related reading in that). Barbara and I talk about some of the painful experiences she recounts in her book. We also talk about some of the issues facing the adoptee community today, including Barbara's perspective on adoption reform vs. the complete abolition of adoption.

Full Show Notes Here

Share your voice for Adoptee Remembrance Day

• Tree of Strangers by Barbara Sumner
• Connecting with adopted people, Barbara mentions this Adopted Adults of NZ Facebook group
• Barbara's Newsletter
• Barbara's book club episode for Patreon supporters

• Barbara Sumner: Instagram | Facebook | www.barbarasumner.nz | Barbara's Newsletter
• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Share your voice for Adoptee Remembrance Day

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Today's guest is brilliant poet Tiana Nobile whose recent collection of poems Cleave is an exceptional exploration of transnational adoption. Tiana shares her story with us from the deeply personal struggles to her in-depth research on the problematic history of adoption. Tiana also teaches us about contranyms and you'll be in awe of the perfection of the title Cleave when she unpacks that for us.

Full Show Notes Here

• Cleave by Tiana Nobile, Spirit of the Staircase by Tiana Nobile
• Henry Goldkamp's interview, "Disrupting Lexical Expectations in "Cleave"
• Surviving the White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll
• Find out more about Tiana's upcoming workshops on her events page tiananobile.com/events

• Tiana Nobile: Twitter | Instagram | tiananobile.com
• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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We're celebrating five years of podcasting with a special Ask Me Anything episode. Listeners submitted questions for me (Haley) from "what are your plans for the coming season of Adoptees On?" to "where would you invest a million dollars to help the cause of adoptees?" I also share a bit about this amazing leaf-teardrop hybrid painted by JS Lee.

Full Show Notes Here

• My story way back in season 1
• Barbara Sumner's book - Tree of Strangers
• Episode 32 - How to choose a therapist
• Adoptee therapist directory: https://www.growbeyondwords.com/adoptee-therapist-directory/

• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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We're coming to our summer break! What better note to end on than this encouraging episode with Dr. Liz DeBetta. Liz has been on the podcast before and shared her story of coming to her late thirties before examining the impact adoption had on her life. Today though we are strictly diving into one of her areas of expertise which is using writing as a tool for healing. Writing is accessible, it has physical, emotional, and mental health benefits. Writing can help us create a new narrative for ourselves. Liz recently lead a group of adoptees through a transformative writing group and she shares some tools we can use to start our own writing practice.

Full Show Notes Here

• Rudd Adoption Virtual Conference 2020-21
• Dr. Liz DeBetta's presentation and the participant's videos (shortand long)
• Liz's first appearance on Adoptees On E118
• Adoptees Connect - now planting new groups
• Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo
• Waitlist for the new writing groups https://forms.gle/iX6Ru8fcyHfFupkf7

Just note "No, I am not available for all sessions" to skip to the "I am interested in future opportunities" part of the form.

• Dr. Liz DeBetta: www.lizdebetta.com | Facebook
• Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
• Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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