Adoption Uncovered

When I started out as a parent, I knew adoption was always one way I wanted to build my family. How it would affect the children or me I would bring into the world or into our home was something I could never fully imagine. Now three of my five children have reached adulthood. They have thoughts, feelings, and memories of their own that offer insight into our version of a family touched by adoption. For this episode, I was actually able to find a moment in their busy schedules when they were all able to get on a call with me and talk about adoption and the role it has played in their lives. I didn't advise them about what to say ahead of time, just encouraged them to honestly answer the questions I posed to them. While I had talked to them about adoption issues before, I wasn't sure where they presently stood on many of these topics. Their thoughtful responses and openness to offer their view to the world are the focus of this episode.

Adoptees can struggle in many ways. Beyond complicated emotions around belonging and identity, they may find that their legal identity is also in jeopardy. The citizenship they took for granted growing up sometimes doesn't exist. This is one of the many types of legal issues that Gregory Luce helps adoptees face. He founded the Adoptee Rights Law Center to help adoptees navigate legal struggles they may encounter. In addition to assisting adoptees with their individual legal cases, Gregory also provides information regarding state and national legislation that can affect adoptees. Access to original birth certificates is something that adoptees have desired for decades. States have slowly been approving better access, but there are still far more that limit this right than grant it easily to adoptees. There is also national legislation that would allow international adoptees who have fallen through the cracks when it comes to citizenship to be able to gain it more easily. A version of this bill has been introduced year after year without being passed. We can support this work financially as well as by speaking to our representatives to show support for legislation that can give adoptees safety and security.

Anne Moody did not start her career with a focus on adoption. She grew up in an age when orphan stories were common and superficial. As she got more involved with adoption, facilitating connections between mothers and adoptive families, she saw the trauma, stress, as well as corruption and mishandling of this fragile process. Anne did her best to understand the needs of the mothers who came to her with the desire to place a child with a family. She respected the intricacy of the process and, over time, became aware of those who desired to take advantage of it. Discover what Anne found and how she would like to change the process of adoption to be fair for everyone involved in this episode.

Dr. Adam Anthony began life as an adoptee from foster care. After getting his education, he centered on the importance he saw in the relationship of a mentor. He had benefitted from being connected to mentors over the course of his life. Now, armed with his own experience and all he has learned, he seeks to bring that support to other young men in foster care. He hopes that with the system of mentorship he has put together, he can help young men succeed in life after foster care. Learn more about what Dr. Anthony has learned and experienced in this episode.

The world that seemed normal to Angela Legg as she grew up didn't look normal to the society that surrounded her. She didn't realize this until she was much older. In her life, she had two loving female caregivers and two brothers who gave her the appropriate hard time for being their little sis. She knew she was a different race from her family and even much of her community, but she didn't see this as something that kept her from being loved, having friends, playing sports, and growing up to be a successful adult.

She did eventually connect with her birth family. She found people who had so many similarities to herself and were incredibly welcoming. At the same time, they didn't have the same resources that she grew up with. Their lives had difficulties that Angela's didn't. Angela understands that every family has stresses, disagreements, and challenges. She feels blessed that even with the challenges she faced growing up, she was surrounded by love. She feels a mission to make sure she honors the memory of the strong women who sacrificed to show her love and give her the life she now has. She acknowledges that they were forging a path forward at a time when society didn't understand the relationships her family was embracing.

In this episode, I introduce you to who I am and what my adoption and foster care journey has been like. It has taken me quite a while to reach the point where I was ready to put my background in the spotlight for a few reasons. I was incredibly eager in the early days of Adoption Uncovered to learn from others and start creative discussions about ways to make foster care and adoption better for everyone involved. Focusing on the insight I could gain from others and talking about aspects of foster care and adoption I had no personal experience with seemed far more urgent than talking about myself. It also took me some time to sort out which pieces of my story were mine to tell. My story doesn't just belong to me. It belongs to my adopted kids and everyone else in my immediate family who have been part of the ride. I have journaled about this topic, read articles related to it, and consulted with family members like my husband and my adopted son, who is now an adult. They have given me their blessing to invite you to get to know us better. Welcome into our family, and my life touched by adoption and foster care this time on the podcast.

As adoptive parents, we often try our best to do our research to find a program to adopt through that seems ethical. Sometimes we find out later that the situation our adopted children were in was far more complicated than we initially thought. Marjie Alonso adopted two young boys from Paraguay. The boys were not related, but were four months apart in age. As the boys grew, Marjie found herself seeing behaviors she didn't understand from her adopted boys. Therapists didn't give her the advice that she needed. When she finally took her boys back to Paraguay at their request the interactions she had with their first families caused her to rethink her views on international adoption and how to define a good life. Learn more about her story and her thoughts in this interview.THIS EPISODE CONTAINS MENTIONS OF SUICIDE

Parenting is not an easy task. Bryan Post, an adoptee and Therapist, used his own experience as well as research and training to develop a technique that involves what he calls a love-based approach to parenting. This technique considers the attachment children have toward their caregivers, but even more so, centers on the bonding experienced by parents toward the children in their care. Rather than concentrate on changing the behavior of children to conform to adult expectations, Bryan tunes into the stress and trauma parents have experienced that can affect their interactions with their children. Bryan details how stress leads not only to negative behavior in children but also to poor reactions from parents. Love and patience are important keys to connecting and guiding our children. This technique encourages us as parents to breathe and be slow to choose our reaction to our children. Learn more about Bryan’s life and how that has influenced his approach to parenting on this episode.

When Lynelle Long wanted to connect with other international adoptees like herself as an adult, she had a hard time finding them. She decided that there should be a better way for adoptees to connect, so she built it. Now her organization, Inter Country Adoptee Voices, offers a refuge for adoptees all over the world seeking community. Not only does Lynelle seek to connect adoptees so they can support each other, but she also encourages adoptees to educate the rest of us. Lynelle speaks out for adoptee rights and fights for adoptee access to information. She has been influential in encouraging the government of Australia, the country where she currently lives, to reform its role in adoption to include support not only for adoptive parents, but also for adoptees. Learn more about Lynelle’s important work and her ideas about how we can all support adoptees better in this episode.

There is a lot of debate that centers around women who relinquish their children. We talk about who they might be and why they might be making the decisions they are, often without any insight into the reality of their experience. One of the reasons we guess is that there isn't a lot of readily available scientific research to shed light on who these women are beyond anecdotes and assumptions. Gretchen Sisson has done a great deal to close this gap in our knowledge. She is a sociologist who has chosen as her focus of study to look into abortion and adoption-related issues. After hundreds of interviews with women who have chosen to relinquish their children for adoption, she has written a book about her findings. Gretchen is doing her part to introduce us to the lives of these women and help us understand what they are thinking. We can see that these women tell us stories not only about themselves and their families, but also about society and how our systems interact with women in the vulnerable position of an unplanned pregnancy. Get ready to challenge some of your beliefs about adoption in this conversation with Gretchen Sisson.