Adoptees On

Today we are joined by Melissa Guida-Richards, author of What White Parents Should Know about Transracial Adoption: An Adoptee's Perspective on Its History, Nuances, and Practices. Melissa is a late discovery adoptee, accidentally finding out at age 19 that she was adopted. She shares with us how she's since reconciled with her adoptive mother and how they now navigate open conversations about rac...

Today I'm talking with Jan Beatty, poet, professor, and the author of the recently released memoir, American Bastard. We talk about how Jan wants to disrupt the traditional narrative, what she calls the "whitewashed" view of adoption. What happens when you publicly name your hockey-famous biological father, even after he denies your paternity claim? We even get to hear a reading from American Bast...

I'm honoured to introduce you to Lisa Olivera today, one of my favourite therapists to follow on Instagram. Her gentle and compassionate presence feels like just what we need in this time. The title of Lisa's new book, Already Enough: A Path to Self Acceptance, is the perfect description of the message she wants to share with us today: we're already enough. Full Show Notes Here This podcast is for...

Today Leah Cooper shares how listening to hours and hours and hours of adoptees, birth families, and adoptive parents sharing their stories lead her to what she calls her "volcano of grief". Leah was a part of a team that created a play called In My Heart: The Adoption Play Project, which has been transformed into a graphic novel. We discuss how the impact of unpacking her adoption experience has...

Free preview Patreon episode with all the details of our 2022 Book Club: Adoptees On(ly) Book Club 2022 Announcements Check out our Adoptees On(ly) Book Club picks to add to your TBR pile: https://www.adopteeson.com/bookclub Join our private community: https://www.adopteeson.com/community Connect With Us Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Adoptees On: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook Subscr...

Today we are talking about celebrations with Pam Cordano, MFT because we are celebrating 200 episodes of the Adoptees On Podcast! Pam and Haley talk about how celebrations can often feel scary for us as adopted people because feeling joy or happiness can be disorienting (upper limit problem anyone?). Pam shares a few different reasons why we may feel that way, teaches us steps towards feeling happ...

Today we welcome back to Adoptees On, Brian Stanton. Brian shares with us how the pandemic morphed his script for a play into his fantastic new film @GhostKingdom. We talk about how relationships can shift for us as adopted people: building relationships with people we may believe are genetic relatives until it's confirmed they aren't, and how his conception story that Brian and his mother believe...

I'm thrilled to bring you today's guest, Andrea Ross, author of Unnatural Selection: A Memoir of Adoption and Wilderness. Andrea shares how a health crisis lead her outdoors, and how a decade of spending time in the wilderness brought her a feeling of groundedness. We discuss the loneliness that adopted people can face and how we've both seen this theme of reconnecting with ancestral landscapes po...

Today we're back in the spirituality series and we are taking a look at cults and high-demand groups. My guests have both been impacted by cults and they have a theory that adopted people may be more susceptible to these types of groups. Donna and Sara have extensively researched cults since they got out and have a ton of knowledge to share with us. They both tell their personal stories of how the...

Today we welcome Jack Dermody to the podcast. We talk about family secrets in adoption and the impact it has on all the parties when they are revealed. Jack also gets personal and tells us what happens when you start closely examining your adoptee experience in your seventies. We talk about family preservation and adoptee support, and how that looks like community showing up for each other on a la...

We are revisiting the topic of estrangement today. Earlier in 2021 we did several episodes that examined estrangement and what made some of us decide to break contact with our adoptive families. When I was producing that series I always wanted to have an episode where we could talk about what it would look like to go BACK to our adoptive family after a period of estrangement. Can you ever go back...

Adoptee Remembrance Day is commemorated annually on October 30th. This episode has a collection of recordings that listeners have submitted to the show on what Adoptee Remembrance Day means to them. Haley also shares a way you can show up for fellow adoptees during November, using #DearAdoptees . Full Show Notes Here   Recommended Resources Adoptee Remembrance Day - commemorated annually on Octobe...

Do we have to choose between our biological family and our adoptive family? What about choosing between their religions or spiritual practices? Mar shares how they are both Jewish and Catholic. We talk through how they chose adult conversion to Judaism as a way to feel permanently grafted to their adoptive family. Mar is also very open about how recovery programs have helped them to identify as sp...

Our guest today is scholar and author Susan Devan Harness. Susan shares from an anthropological perspective about the policies in place behind the Indian Adoption Project and why Indigenous placement with white families was preferred by the government. She also shares some of the current action in the US courts to undermine and remove the Indian Child Welfare Act and why it is so critical for us t...

Today's guest is Dr. Erin Heim who has spent a decade of her life researching and examining both the biblical texts in the New Testament that mention adoption as well as multiple books written from an evangelical perspective of adoption promotion. Erin teaches us what adoption looked like during the first century, and spoiler alert - it's nothing like modern-day adoption. Erin and I also put a cri...

I am thrilled to bring you Barbara Sumner today. Her literary memoir Tree of Strangers is one of the best books I read this year (and I'm including my non-adoption-related reading in that). Barbara and I talk about some of the painful experiences she recounts in her book. We also talk about some of the issues facing the adoptee community today, including Barbara's perspective on adoption reform vs...

Today's guest is brilliant poet Tiana Nobile whose recent collection of poems Cleave is an exceptional exploration of transnational adoption. Tiana shares her story with us from the deeply personal struggles to her in-depth research on the problematic history of adoption. Tiana also teaches us about contranyms and you'll be in awe of the perfection of the title Cleave when she unpacks that for us....

We're celebrating five years of podcasting with a special Ask Me Anything episode. Listeners submitted questions for me (Haley) from "what are your plans for the coming season of Adoptees On?" to "where would you invest a million dollars to help the cause of adoptees?" I also share a bit about this amazing leaf-teardrop hybrid painted by JS Lee. Full Show Notes Here   Mentioned Today My story way...

We're coming to our summer break! What better note to end on than this encouraging episode with Dr. Liz DeBetta. Liz has been on the podcast before and shared her story of coming to her late thirties before examining the impact adoption had on her life. Today though we are strictly diving into one of her areas of expertise which is using writing as a tool for healing. Writing is accessible, it has...

I'm honoured to introduce you to my new friend Megan Culhane Galbraith today. Megan's brand new book, The Guild of the Infant Saviour, is out in the world and is getting rave reviews, especially from fellow adoptees. Today we talk about the challenges of building a relationship after the first moments of reunion are finally realized. Megan shares how she views the patterns of silencing adoptees fr...

Today I'm excited to introduce you to Lora K. Joy. Lora tells us she always knew she didn't fit in with her adoptive parents, and that she made promises to herself that she would do things differently. Lora recounts a transformative moment where she grieved her adoption loss that intrinsically changed her forever. We also unpack some of the things that lead to her decision to become estranged from...

Today Sharon Stein McNamara, Ed. D. is with us, sharing some of her personal story intermingled with her expertise as a psychologist. Ever wonder if therapists and psychologists are being taught about relinquishment trauma? Have you heard of how helpful Dialectical Behaviour Therapy can be for adopted people? Sharon even reveals the surprising impact reunion had on her romantic relationships. Full...

I'm happy to introduce Paul Kimball to you today. Paul shares his story of search and reunion and how the joy of music intertwined him with his first mother. Paul shares deeply with us about his grief from both rejection and death. Family, music, and nature have brought so much delight into Paul's life, he challenges us to make sure we're choosing to experience all life has to give and not get stu...

I am excited to introduce you to Gregory Luce today, the attorney behind Adoptee Rights Law. We get to hear some of Greg's personal story today, including the five-year court battle it took for him to receive his records. We talk about some of the typical arguments adoptee activists hear from legislators against original birth certificate access and what impact DNA testing access has had on OBC le...

Marta Isabella Sierra, LMHC, is back this week! We are still talking about estrangement and today looking at the question - is loyalty a trauma response? Marta teaches us about "fawning" and that many of us will choose to be loyal to others before ourselves. Full Show Notes Here Recommended Resources Marta's first appearance on the podcast was episode 69 which teaches about the Internal Family Sys...