Parenting Different

What if one of the greatest opportunities to build trust with your child has been hiding in plain sight? In this powerful conversation, Anna sits down with Tamekia Swint, founder of Styles 4 Kids, to unpack why hair care is so much more than learning the right products or mastering a braid. It's about identity. It's about dignity. It's about helping children of color feel seen, valued, and proud o...

What happens when you spend nearly five decades wondering where you came from? In this powerful conversation, Anna Bernacki sits down with transracial adoptee Michael Gaither, a retired educator, former principal, executive coach, and adoption advocate. Michael shares his deeply personal journey of growing up as a Black child in a White family in 1970s Nebraska, navigating identity, race, belongin...

Dr. Danisha Keating joins Anna for a raw conversation about trauma, survival mode, parenting, and healing. From homelessness and raising her siblings to earning a PhD while battling severe anxiety, Danisha shares what it really means to overcome without pretending it was easy. Together, they discuss trauma-informed parenting, accountability, nervous system healing, and helping kids move beyond sur...

In this raw conversation, Anna and Isaac unpack the moment everything shifted for him. Not because the mission failed, but because something deeper inside no longer fit. This episode dives into the identity crisis that comes when your success no longer feels like truth, the grief adoptees carry but rarely name, and the quiet pressure to perform, achieve, and prove your worth… even when it’s costin...

In this insightful interview, Dr. Adam Anthony shares his personal journey as a Black adoptee, the complexities of identity and belonging, and his impactful work in mentorship and advocacy within the adoption community. Discover how lived experience fuels empowerment and how to support adopted children and youth effectively. Dr. Adam Anthony is an educator, speaker, and leadership development stra...

This conversation delves into the challenges of parenting children with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and the systemic issues surrounding the lack of understanding and resources for this condition. It highlights the emotional toll on families, the impact on relationships, and the need for greater awareness and support for adoptive parents dealing with RAD. The conversation delves into the pro...

What happens when an adoption doesn’t go through? No one really talks about what comes next. In this deeply moving conversation, Valerie Marble shares the story behind the launch of Beyond the Match Foundation, a groundbreaking initiative created to support families navigating the heartbreak of failed adoptions. From the financial devastation of lost funds to the emotional toll that often goes uns...

Adoption is often painted as a beautiful, selfless act, but what happens when we look beneath the surface? In this deeply honest and eye-opening conversation, Anna Bernacki sits down with birth mother advocate Jessie Mattos to unpack the ethical complexities that many families never see coming. From hidden coercion to overlooked birth mother support, this episode challenges the narratives that hav...

Simon Benn spent most of his life believing he had a “good” adoption story. Raised in a loving home, he didn’t carry the obvious wounds many adoptees describe. But at 40 years old, a simple revelation that a childhood teddy bear came from his birth mother shook something deep inside him. What followed was a painful question many adoptees quietly carry: If she loved me… why didn’t she keep me? Year...

Melissa Smallwood’s story is layered with resilience, heartbreak, healing, and deep commitment to children from hard places. Removed from her home as a child and placed into foster care, Melissa aged out of the system as a teen mom, never imagining that one day she would become both an adoptive parent and a trauma therapist working in child welfare. In this powerful conversation, she shares how he...

When racism makes headlines, transracial families feel it at home. What others may dismiss as politics often lands as something deeply personal for parents raising children of color. In this candid conversation, Julie Etter and Isaac Etter explore how racial incidents impact identity, trust, and family dynamics. They discuss the pain of community silence, the responsibility of white parents to spe...

The foster care system feels massive. Broken. Overwhelming. And if you’re a foster or adoptive parent in the thick of it, it can feel like your voice doesn’t matter at all. In this powerful conversation, Kat Momen shares how she went from overwhelmed foster mom to grassroots advocate knocking on legislators’ doors, testifying at the state house, and fighting for children to have legal representati...

What happens when an adoptee becomes an adoptive mom? In this deeply honest conversation, Dolly Regier shares what it means to live on both sides of the adoption triad. Adopted from South Korea and raised in a multi-racial adoptive family, Dolly grew up hearing the beautiful parts of her story but not always the grief underneath it. When she felt called to adopt herself, the process unexpectedly r...

Eating struggles in foster and adoptive homes are rarely about food alone. In this powerful and deeply affirming episode, Anna sits down with Madison a registered dietitian and adoptive mom to explore how trauma fundamentally reshapes a child’s relationship with eating. From food hoarding and extreme pickiness to fear, control, and shame at the table, this conversation names what so many parents e...

In Part 2 of this powerful conversation, Janelle Basham and host Anna move deeper into what adoption looks like over time when children grow up, technology changes everything, and honesty can no longer be delayed. Together, they explore open adoption, boundaries, and the importance of centering the child even when relationships are complicated, messy, or painful. Janelle shares why adoption is bui...

What does it really mean to choose adoption, and how does that decision stay with you for life? In Part 1 of this deeply honest conversation, Janelle Basham shares her story of becoming a birth mother at 17 and the love, loss, and courage behind making an adoption plan. With vulnerability and clarity, Janelle takes us back to the beginning, navigating pregnancy, racial tension, limited support, an...

The holidays can bring warmth, traditions, and togetherness, but for adoptive families, they can also surface grief, trauma, sensory overload, and big emotions that don’t fit neatly into picture-perfect expectations. In this episode of Parenting Different , Anna sits down with adoptive mom Melinda Martin for an honest, compassionate conversation about what adoption and the holidays really look lik...

In this powerful and deeply vulnerable episode, Lainey Hartley shares her extraordinary journey from childhood neglect, foster care, and kinship care to becoming a foster mom, adoptive mom, author, and advocate. She opens up about the moments that shaped her, being pulled from her mother’s arms as a toddler, surviving homelessness, navigating an abusive relationship as a teen, and learning to rais...

In this powerful conversation, Valerie Marble opens up about the winding, emotional path that led her into the world of adoption, first through heartbreak, then through unexpected connection, and ultimately through profound transformation. Her story begins with infertility and the longing to become a mother, then pivots dramatically the night she met a 16-month-old boy in the ER who would one day...

In this powerful episode, Abbey Ramirez shares the winding, vulnerable, and hope-filled road that led her to motherhood through embryo adoption and eventually to welcoming twins through domestic infant adoption. After years of unexplained infertility, repeated losses, and the emotional weight of uncertainty, Abbey discovered embryo adoption, an option she barely knew existed. Her story takes us in...

In this powerful and deeply vulnerable episode of Parenting Different , host Anna Bernacki talks with Julie Etter, teacher, mom of five, and adoptive parent trainer, about the silent grief that so many women carry after infertility and pregnancy loss. Julie shares her decade-long journey through medical dismissal, chronic pain, and nine heartbreaking losses before discovering the truth about her e...

In this episode, we explore the reality of international adoption through the powerful story of Jodi Slein’s journey to adopt her son from Romania. Host Anna Bernacki sits down with Jodi, a parent coach and adoptive mom, to talk about the moment she first learned about Romania’s orphanage crisis, what it was like to walk inside an institution where infants had stopped crying, and how she navigated...

Host Anna Bernacki welcomes Parenting Different founder Isaac Etter to break down the biggest misunderstandings adoptive parents have and what truly helps adoptees thrive. From trauma-informed parenting and race, to curiosity, grief, and identity, Isaac explains why adoptive parents don’t need perfection, they need tools, community, and humility. Packed with insight and actionable wisdom, this epi...

In this powerful and personal episode, host Anna Bernacki sits down with her adopted brother Jon DeWitt for their first-ever honest conversation about what it was like growing up adopted in the same home. Together, they revisit childhood memories, talk about attachment and belonging, and reflect on how adoption shaped their identities in different ways. With honesty, humor, and deep empathy, they...

Host Anna Bernacki sits down with adoptive mom and advocate Alice Refauvelet to explore the messy, meaningful work of transracial parenting. Alice shares her journey through infertility and adoption, how she’s learning to raise a Black daughter in a white world, and why doing better starts with being willing to learn. A candid, hope-filled look at the power of reflection, repair, and community in...