Sam hears about Brad’s childhood in Arlington and what it was like growing up with older sisters. Then they dive into Brad’s adolescence and ask questions about how much the wilder experiences people sometimes have in those years should impact our own parenting. The majority of this episode focuses though on Brad and his wife’s parenting journey with their three children - including one with autism and one that was an international adoption that didn’t play out the way anyone could have expected.

Some of you might need a warning around the transparent and difficult nature of Brad’s sharing around the general issues families can face with international adoption and the specific challenges his family faced. He shares about the family dynamics that began to quickly fall apart and the abuse of his biological children by his adopted child. Finally Brad talks about the decision he and his wife had to ultimately make to move their adopted son out of their home and what their relationship is like with him now. If there’s any reason you wouldn’t want to listen to that section, it starts about an hour and a half in. I hope as many of you as can will try to make it through though. It’s a heartbreaking but powerful story.