Representation Matters with Allison Olson

0:00I think it comes down to being confident in yourself, understanding that everyone goes through their different emotions and feelings around their situation, and that all of those are okay. And as long as you are always open arms to come into, then you're doing a good job as a parent. Welcome

0:34to the Open Adoption Project. This is episode 123. We are the Nelsons. I'm Sean, and in today's episode, Lynette has a conversation with Allison Olson. We have interviewed Allison in the past. She is both an adoptee and an adoptive parent. And if you want to catch up on the previous conversation that we had with her, go ahead and scroll back to episode 80. We had a great conversation with her before. In this episode particularly, We

1:06are talking to Allison about some of the children's books that she has recently created that aim to offer authentic and balanced narratives for adoptees. And I love this conversation with Allison because it focuses on representation of adoption in media in books and movies and television that we need to be more sensitive about the adoptees experience. And I think that this episode will

1:36resonate well with those of you who are hoping to create a space for adoptees to be better understood and better represented. So we'll just jump straight to that conversation with Allison and Lynette. We are here on the podcast with Allison Olson. Allison has been on the show before. Welcome

2:07back, Allison. Thanks for having me. We're so happy to have you back. Can you introduce yourself a bit to our listeners who might not have heard your last episode? Sure. I am an adoptee, an adoptive parent, and an award -winning children's adoption book author. My adoption was closed. It was 1979. That was very common. Our daughter's adoption is open, but outside of that we have very, very similar adoption terms. So infant

2:38domestic adoption through an agency. And so those are some of our similarities, but the major difference being closed adoption and open adoption. And I think preparing for her adoption is what made me realize I needed to write children's books for, you know, to have the perspective of an adoptee, like that lens in the book. And I know we, I believe we talked about this last time, but I can actually tell when I pick up a children's

3:10book about adoption, if the person that wrote it is an adoptee, an adoptive parent. or really is outside of our adoption community and just a well -known author that was interested in the topic. That's fascinating. How can you tell? Because of the different perspective that they're writing from, it's pretty evident to me when I pick up a book, you can take the cover off of it and whatever, and I can still be able to

3:42tell you. If someone is not touched by adoption at all, just a famous author that's writing about it, they usually are pretty far separated from some of the current positive adoption language. Even have, I know we talked about it last time, but the lucky narrative that I'm working so hard to move children's literature away from for the adoption narrative. And then I would say from

4:13the adoptive parent standpoint, they tend to be a little unbalanced, where it's a lot of we love you so much, you know, and the birth mom struggled instead of we loved you and we struggled with infertility and the birth mom loved you and she struggled. Like it just tends to not be as balanced, which again was like my focus and in my first book, Surrounded by Love, was to have a be all of the love that surrounds from both sides. Yes, I love you are addressing that

4:46that's so important, so needed and your voice as an adoptee and an adoptive parent is really unique and I think offers so much. Thanks. Yeah, so tell us about what you're working on now what your current projects are. Ah, so I have two new books releasing this fall. I'm very excited about them. They launch on the 21st of October. The e -book comes out a few weeks before that at the end of September, all releasing on Amazon.

5:19It is actually both of these both of these books are two different renditions two different versions of my first book my first book is surrounded by love and open adoption story and I wanted there to be representation what I was realizing as I was Reading the books that were out there in the market and especially the highly recommended easily defined, you know, you just Google adoption, you know, children's adoption books, right? Or

5:49best books to, you know, get for an adopted child or, you know, any of those kind of Google searches. And I was noticing that there were actually not that many that highlighted the LGBTQ community. And I thought that was interesting considering that of that community as parents, there's a high percentage of them that are adoptive parents. And I found that actually between the two, there were even fewer with the two adoptive moms being

6:22represented. So I just, yeah, and I just felt like it was so important. Because again, my whole goal with all of this, my passion and my mission is to change the adoption narrative from the lucky child to the loved child. And I want adoptees to grow up feeling confident, having strong self -esteem around, I'm adopted, I've seen representation that mirrors my story at least in these books.

6:54And that was just really important to me. And so I worked with my illustrator who I love, she's amazing, Darlie. She goes by Happy, Happily. is evident in all of her illustrations that she's very happy. But she helped me to kind of be able to pull together these two additional families. And we also changed out the birth mom and the adoptee so that it was representing these separate

7:27different families. But we kept the same element. I know we talked about this last time. It's my Easter egg that I only say in podcasts. So in the book each of the characters has a main color and then she makes sure that the young adoptee as they grow up they have each color represented on them. So that is consistent across all three books. I love that so much and I love how child -centric your thought process has been in approaching

7:57this project and in seeking more representation. So I would love to hear your thoughts on why you feel representation matters for adoptees. I think representation matters for everyone. And I've started to notice this. So I remember when I was younger and we had like, I don't know if it was a career day or something, but it was in my grade school where we were talking about different careers. And I had asked some different

8:28questions. And a teacher spoke to me only about a few careers. And they were the more traditionally female -held careers. But this was in the 80s. And so I was seeing all of the boom of the shoulder pads and the, you know, who's the boss? You know, the Cosby show with these really strong women characters that were in business. And I thought, oh, interesting that she's suggesting these careers.

8:58but I see myself like these TV characters doing something different like that. And it's just been shown over and over, like representation and seeing yourself, whether it's like on TV, in books, it validates feelings internally, like I can do that. you know having a doctor that that looks like you in whatever way that is right looks like you or you can you can have a similarity

9:29between them you're like maybe i can become a doctor you know so so it's it's part of that so with adoption there is there's a lot of feeling different There's a lot of feeling different and there's a lot of books that I don't think we talked about this last time, but I have a weird thing other not all adoptees have this, but I have a weird thing with imagery and books of animals and cross species adopting cross species.

10:05I just I have a hard time with it because we're already like labeled as different. And it's like, oh, let's just highlight that even more in books that like you look different. So you must be different and you must act different in your family. And we already feel that we actually just want belonging and we want recognition and like a pride around our differences, you know? And so so my thought was to have that representation. And does it look like every single person in

10:37every single adoption situation? No. It's only three different books with these different types of representation. But I tried, you know, and I think that it's important to have something that, you know, if you're growing up with two dads and you have a birth mom, that you have something, you have a book that... looks like that and that you're able to, if a friend doesn't

11:08fully understand, you're able to like open up this book and say, but look at this book. Like my family's like this family. So that's where the representation is coming in. It's like a subconscious feeling of being seen and represented. I really love how you've incorporated your own experiences to offer. options and better media for children and adoptees and their families

11:39in the future. I think that's really powerful. Thanks. So for me, as an adoptive parent, I feel like finding media that approaches adoption in a sensitive way that also feels balanced, like leaving room for whatever the feelings are, it can be really challenging. And so I'm wondering, with your added perspective as an adoptee, What do you look for in children's media and books and movies that? What do you? Yeah, basically,

12:11what do you look for? How do you approach this with your family? Yeah, well, obviously differs by age. So when they are really, really young, you want to make sure that the and I'm going to focus on books because, you know, when they're at a certain age, they're not even really watching TV yet. So when you're talking about books for infants, infants, babies, toddlers, I suggest

12:43buying the e -book first. Buy the e -book. It's a lot cheaper. Take a look. Take a look through it. Make sure that it meets your values. Make sure that it gives your child a sense of, okay, This represents my situation. I can still feel all of my feelings. I would say also research who wrote it. If it was written by an adoptee,

13:13that's a really good sign. If you're looking for suggestions, by the way, I have a blog on my website because I read all the books, all of the adoption books. So if you ever want suggestions, I'm the place to go. My website is ouradoptionbooks .com, and I have a particular blog where I highlight adoptee written children's adoption books. Awesome. We'll include that in our show notes. Awesome. Awesome. And then I have another blog that's

13:44just kind of my top picks. I think the last time I updated it, it was like my top 14. I don't try to make it a perfect number. If I like the book, I'll add it. And if it's not on there, feel free to... direct message me to find out why. Because, you know, I'm doing this as a passion project. It's important to me to get the word out that, you know, for the right angles of where to go. Because you're exactly right. Perspective

14:14adoptive parents are like, okay, I want to do what's right by my child. They Google and there's all these lists and there's a lot of them that if you read them, they're a little cringe -worthy and so I would say you know save save the the hardcover purchase money get yourself the ebook read it see if it meets your criteria you know kind of do do some um some behind the scenes maybe maybe find an adapti so like how does this

14:46sound uh but definitely if it's adapti written um it's it's gonna have a the right kind of flavor that should sit better with your child. But that's when they're really young. And then they get a bit older. And then they're watching movies, TV. Then let's even add in your own adult friends are watching movies and TV. Then let's extend to your kids teachers are librarians. This is

15:17where it's really tough. Obviously, you know, the Instagram social media, like, you know, the people that pretend to be perfect parents that are the influencers of like, this is what you got to do. I'll give you that kind of advice and I'll give you the real advice. So that kind of advice is like, you know, if you can watch the movie first, then you know what to anticipate and you know what to like address or not address or like if this, you know, movie meets your criteria

15:48or not. then reality advice is I don't know any parent that has time to watch every movie or show before their child does. You also never know when it's gonna pop up. And it may even pop up and not be an issue with your child. Or something smaller could pop up and be a huge issue. So it's just more about how you react in the moment. around it. One thing though to

16:20know is that it has, we have been misrepresented a lot in movies and TV. So especially if you're taking some older movie, it can even be a current one, I mean just very misrepresented for quite a long time. Nowadays, they're doing a much better job. So like Angela Tucker, who's a very, very famous adoptee and works in the industry, very

16:51well known. Her book is amazing. Go out and get it. You should be grateful. that she actually helped with This Is Us. They hired her to help with the writing to make sure that every adoption story, right, where the guy was finding his birth father and then the birth mother and then they were gonna adopt and then the sister was gonna adopt it, infant adoption. So a whole bunch of

17:21different situations and she guided that through. So that is one that is To me top -notch for adults obviously you're not telling your seven -year -old to go out and watch this is us But I would say keep it in mind because it is it is everywhere so And I actually get friends that ask me my opinion about different movies So it was interesting my my one friend asked me. What do you think

17:52about? little orphan Annie Like the musical that became a movie in the 80s, what do you think about that one? And I said, ooh, nobody's asked me about that one. And I said, that's really interesting. I myself, thoroughly support it. And here's why. Because Daddy Warbucks, as soon as, you know, he decides, ah. love Annie she's amazing I want to adopt her goes in gets the

18:23paperwork already didn't talk to her about it you know that's obviously taboo but then he does and as soon as she says no I have a family he rips up the paperwork and he's like I'm gonna help find your family And then he stays with her through the process. He grieves as, you know, he makes his sacrifice as she goes with this, you know, family, and I'm using quotes. and then only to find out it's not the situation. He comes

18:54back in and still loves and takes care of her. So to me, it's lovely. The only thing there that's off is that we no longer have orphanages in America, right? And I have to say that because you'd be shocked at how many people I meet that are unaware of that. I was just explaining to a neighbor girl last week. that we do not have orphanages any longer in America. And actually, most countries do not. It is very rare that there are orphanages.

19:25But there are several countries that still have them. So there's that movie. And then there's other movies since. And the one thing I will say for adult movies, for a very, very long time, we were often the villain. So the Joker. Right? And now it's going to escape me all the movies. But oftentimes, the Grinch, right? The Grinch came from an orphanage. And so it's like this

19:59misnomer that because of the situation that happened to us, that then that's an acceptable character to become evil. And so that's a piece I When talking with adult friends, I make sure that they recognize how that's being represented and what that says. Obviously, my kids are not at the age yet where they're watching those movies, but we have watched like Cruella. Cruella is

20:30one where, sorry to spoil it, it's been out for several years. But it's a good one. It's really good. It's got Emma Stone. And basically this young girl, her mom dies in this tragic way. And then only to find out later in the end of the movie that her nemesis throughout the movie

21:01is her birth mom. And it's a lot of different things. It's her realizing that She was not very similar with the mom that raised her. And then she has a lot of traits similar to her birth mom. But then she turns bad like her birth mom. So it's so could have some mixed emotions. And the first couple of times we watched it, we had lots of discussions after we watched it. But

21:34then there's other ones that you know, you think are gonna have a big impact and then they watch it and it's like not a big deal. I will tell you, I get emotional over Tarzan. I get emotional in both ways. As a birth, you know, sorry, as an adoptive parent and as an adoptee. So when I watch the beginning and she loses her child to the tiger. and then she happens upon the human

22:04house where the parents were attacked by the same tiger finds the baby isn't necessarily going to like take the baby and take care of it until she the tiger starts trying to attack the baby and then she grabs the baby and takes it to safety you know i'm like a balling mess like let's save this baby uh make sure it's safe and okay from this tiger and then there's the adoptee side of me growing up and he keeps putting mud on his face and he can't do the same things as as

22:36them and he looks different and he just wants to see someone that looks like him and when he first sees a human and puts his hand up to her hand and stuff like that so so there's a lot of that but that one to me um you know they're just all of them i think the bigger thing is Be open for all the feelings and emotions. All of the feelings and emotions. Like in our household, very much my youngest daughter has two moms.

23:09And she has siblings on the birth side. And so we talk about them just like an extension of our family. And so that is really important to have that conversation. But I am as prepared as I can be for in the future, you know, when she's a teenager or even a preteen, you know, there might be times where it's, you know, I don't like you. I love my other mom. And that

23:42stuff can be hard. But it's also what teenagers do and what they say. And so I think it comes down to being confident in yourself. I think it comes down to understanding that everyone goes through their different emotions and feelings around their situation and that all of those are OK. And as long as you are always instead of like an open door, but like open arms to come into. then you're doing a good job as a parent.

24:16And that's the one thing, like the reason I come on these podcasts is to talk about that by even listening to this podcast, to try to learn and understand how to be the best adoptive parents like we all can be, that already says you're a good adoptive parent, because you're trying to learn, you're trying to understand. Have the confidence when these things come up That all

24:47of the years you have spent Loving and caring and listening and and and teaching and guiding and you know putting the band -aids on the owies That all has a huge impact on that child and nothing can take that away additional relationships and additional love does not take away existing love. And so that's the biggest thing to kind of remember in all of this. So I think just being an open door, because even if you're super protective,

25:19you can only watch this and this and this. And I have to see it first before you watch it. They will reach an age where they're going to be in somebody else's car, in somebody else's house, on some device. and they're gonna see something or even not see it, but hear about it from a friend. And it's more around how do they handle and process what they've heard and what they've

25:49seen? Do they feel comfortable coming to you to tell you about it? And then kind of how you react from there. I love that you have so much wisdom, Allison. So I love, you talked about being open to feeling all of the emotions, being confident in your role, understanding the process of working through these challenging emotions and figuring out, like letting your child have that space to figure out how they feel about things, validating those feelings and having

26:19open arms. Is there anything else that you want to share today about adoption, about your books and about supporting our kids? Thanks to everyone that has been listening. This is an amazing podcast. It's one of my favorites that I listen to it as well. And yeah, thank you for helping to support the book launch. And both of the books, they're surrounded by love, an open adoption story, two adoptive moms and two adoptive dads versions. And they come out on the 21st of October. Alison,

26:49thank you so much for being here. Thanks, Lynette. Well again we want to give a huge thanks to Allison for all the work that she is doing in the adoption community to help each adoptee fill representation and are grateful for her efforts in doing so. If you're interested in her books please check out the show notes to this episode we have links

27:21to her website and also some of the blogs that she mentioned during the conversation with Lynette. Allison, thank you so much again for your efforts. We really appreciate you. To all of you listeners, we have several more episodes coming out over the next several weeks and are always looking for individuals that we can interview and... Considered to have on the podcast so if you have anyone that you would recommend to be on the podcast Please send them our way they can message us at open adoption project at gmail .com or

27:54on Instagram at open adoption project Thank you all so much for being listeners, and we are just grateful to be a part of this wonderful community We love that we get to elevate adoptee voices and are grateful that you're a listener of the podcast Thanks so much, and we'll see you next time

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