Conversations About Adoption

Valerie is an adoptee with a LOT of life experience, and I just don't mean age, which is a bit of a mystery.

She's had a lot of adventures and shares some of them in our conversation! We talked about SO much! There was laughter and tears (On my end) and some silliness in this conversation.

She wrote a book called Mystic Masquerade: An adoptee's search for truth, which should be out sometime in August.

http://www.valerienaiman.com

Instagram@valnaimanauthor 

Facebook@valnaimanauthor

Barbara Raymond is the author of one of the most important books (In my opinion) because it kept Georgia Tann from fading into history. If Barbara hadn't stumbled across Georgia's story while working on an article she thought was going to be about an adoption reunion in the 1990s, Georgia could very well have faded into obscurity. Thanks to her diligence and excellent investigative skills, she uncovered the truth behind Georgia Tann and her crimes.

Georgia Tann was born and raised in Hickory, Mississippi. Her father was a judge. She wanted to be a lawyer, they wanted her to become a concert pianist. She learned law, but her father forbade her from attempting to become a lawyer as that wasn't suitable for a woman at the time, so instead she became a social worker. Georgia ran the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children's home society from the 1920s-1950 when she died from cancer.

During that time, she ran a massive black market child trafficking business. She saw wealthy people as above poor people, and decided that if you were poor you could not raise your children properly. She began stealing babies and children from the poor, selling them to the wealthy and famous, and using them to manipulate law-makers. She popularized adoption by running ads for children in papers all across the country. Approximately 500 babies and children died while in her "care". Unfortunately she died before she would face justice.

Georgia Tann is the mother of modern adoption in the United States.

Buy a copy of "The Baby Thief" for yourself to learn more about the mother of modern adoption.

The podcast Criminal is one of my favorite podcasts, and they did an excellent episode about Georgia Tann with Barbara called "The Baby Snatcher".

What this podcast is about.

Lisa Elaine Scott is a writer and filmmaker. She is a Baby Scoop Era California adoptee and the director of the upcoming film “All You Have Is Love: Demand, Deception and the Infant Adoption Industry.

An activist, comedian, director, and middle school theatre teacher, CJ Miller aspires to do everything he can to change the world for the better. A holder of degrees in both Theatre and Aerospace Technology, CJ is also a military veteran, an actor, and an outstanding dramaturg (even though no one knows what that is). 

CJ can be found on Tiktok as @childlessparent speaking out against the legalized human trafficking system in the United States known as “adoption”

Speaking of adoption, eight years ago CJ’s daughter was adopted away from him against his wishes. A traumatic story steeped in racism and white

The adoption agency was more than willing to assist in separating a black man from his child for the sake of one white woman’s selfishness and

Today I am reading this article.

ABSTRACT:

Borchers, D. (2003). Families and adoption: the pediatrician’s role in supporting communication. Pediatrics, 112(6 Pt 1), 1437–1441. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.112.6.1437

Permalink (You may not be able to access it unless you are a student, or have access to the database via subscription. )

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=mdc&AN=14654626&site=eds-live&scope=site&custid=wliberst

Because Mother's day is complex when you are affected by adoption, and people in my groups had started talking about mother's day feels in various groups and other platforms, I decided to open up a zoom room and have a Mother's day chat. I invited people in from all the platforms that I remembered while spontaneously putting this together yesterday. (TikTok, FB groups, Instagram, and twitter.)

I really didn't expect anyone to show up with such short notice, but there were 9 participants, and it was a nice mixture of perspectives from the adoption community.

I may try to make this a yearly thing. We'll see if my ADHD brain remembers next year. (Hint, I might need reminded.)

As always this is an unedited, raw, organic conversation about adoption. And typical to zoom, there were some minor connection issues here and there, and audio issues.

I hope if you listen, you will get something out of this conversation.

If people leave some feed back about this episode, I will do a mini episode where I read them all.

I finally graduated from university, so I am going to be able to produce more episodes in a consistent way. I already have some planned for this week!

If you are interested in being on the podcast, email me at [email protected]

I have a Facebook group for all affected by adoption called Conversations about adoption.

And a Facebook group for adoptees only as well.