“…And they lived happily ever after.” It’s a trope you’ve likely heard over and over and over again. Happy endings and fairytale stories surround us in American culture from the moment we’re born. From Disney movies where the heroine conquers her fears and dares to be different, to action movies where the bully is overpowered by his past victims on a quest for revenge, to romantic comedies where the unpopular girl finally wins the guy of her dreams and defeats the queen bee - all happy endings. This is the way a lot of people view adoption, too Adopted kids are considered “better off” and their adoptive parents “saviors” because society is certain that life elsewhere would surely have been horrid and unbearable. But this is a false certainty which breeds false sentiment. No one knows better than the adopted, the plain and simple truth, that life with their birth family in their birth country may very well have been good or even better, then life where, and with whom, they ended up being. On this episode, Juliana talks about how we should all let go of these stale and inaccurate tropes and let everyone define their own “happily ever after” on their own terms.