Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

An Adoptee's Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging


Listen Later

Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

Join our discussion with an adult adoptee about her search for her birth family and her identity. We will talk with Julie Ryan McGue, a domestic adoptee and an identical twin. She is the author of Twice a Daughter, which explores her coming to terms with her adoption and her search for her birth parents, and Twice the Family, which explores more of her relationship with her adoptive family.

In this episode, we cover:

  • Tell us your adoption story.
  • What role did adoption play, if any, in your childhood?
  • Feelings of needing to be perfect.
  • Fantasizing about birth family. 
  • When did you begin to search for your birth parents? 
  • Was searching for your birth family something you knew you would do from a young age?
  • After considerable effort, you located your birth mother. At first, she said she did not want contact. How did that leave you feeling? 
  • After you had phone calls and met, you didn’t want to tell her much about your adoptive parents. 
  • How did your mom (your adoptive mom) react to your search and when you found your birth mother? 
  • How do you wish she had reacted?
  • What happened with your search for your birth father?
  • Did you feel the same sense of shame, embarrassment, and rejection? 
  • Your birth mom’s reticence to help you find your birth father and your continued search caused a rift in your relationship. How is the relationship now?
  • The tension between the birth parents’ right to privacy vs. the adoptee’s right to know. 
  • Your experience with online adoptee forums. 
  • The primal wound.
  • Importance of adoptee support groups.

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

  • Weekly podcasts
  • Weekly articles/blog posts
  • Resource pages on all aspects of family building
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship CareBy Creating a Family

  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7

4.7

287 ratings


More shows like Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

View all
Focus on the Family with Jim Daly by Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

4,793 Listeners

Read-Aloud Revival ® by Sarah Mackenzie

Read-Aloud Revival ®

3,355 Listeners

Calm Parenting Podcast by Kirk Martin

Calm Parenting Podcast

1,408 Listeners

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler by Everything Happens Studios

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

5,058 Listeners

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey by Blaze Podcast Network

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey

20,101 Listeners

Raising Boys & Girls by That Sounds Fun Network

Raising Boys & Girls

1,794 Listeners

The Bible Recap by Tara-Leigh Cobble

The Bible Recap

35,342 Listeners

Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry by Lynn Lyons LICSW, Robin Hutson

Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry

450 Listeners

Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark by Turning Point USA

Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark

12,753 Listeners

The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma} by Robyn Gobbel

The Baffling Behavior Show {Parenting after Trauma}

244 Listeners

Good Inside with Dr. Becky by Dr. Becky Kennedy

Good Inside with Dr. Becky

4,381 Listeners

Financial Feminist by Her First $100K | YAP Media

Financial Feminist

6,282 Listeners

The Best of You by Dr. Alison Cook

The Best of You

798 Listeners

Therapy and Theology by Lysa TerKeurst

Therapy and Theology

1,906 Listeners

Practice Makes Parent by Focus on the Family

Practice Makes Parent

105 Listeners