Normalizing Adoptee Feelings with Amy Wilkerson

0:00Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. This is episode 64. We're the Nelsons. I'm Lanette and I'm Shaun. In today's episode we talked to Chilean adoptee Amy Wilkerson. She is a licensed social worker and a therapist and she is an adoptee and she talks about her adoption story in this episode and then also about some of her work to help adoptees including her book Being Adopted. I think she helps us understand really clearly many of the feelings that an international adoptee

0:30may feel and also some of the benefits and maybe challenges of reunification and I loved when we talked about her book as well just creating a resource that really could benefit anyone in the adoption community. Yeah, yeah it's a fun book because it's very like simple and so I feel like the purpose of it is to give the microphone over to adoptees so as an adoptive parent if you're reading

1:03this book with your child it doesn't really have any emotion or feeling to it so that as you have these conversations it can open the door for your kids to share whatever they're feeling be it positive negative or a big mix. Yeah, yeah I thought that was really neat. So in this interview Shawn will be talking to Amy and it's a great conversation we're really excited to share it with you and after their conversations done we'll come back and just recap a little bit and share some of our favorite takeaways.

1:40We are now on the podcast with Amy Wilkerson. Amy thank you so much for taking some time to be with us. Definitely thank you for having me. We have a lot of questions for you today you have such a wealth of experience and knowledge that we're looking forward to hearing but before we jump into all that let's have you introduce yourself so we get to know you a little bit. Hi, I'm Amy and I was born in Santiago Chile. I was adopted very young I was two

2:10months old my parents went to Chile and adopted me. I grew up in Milwaukee Wisconsin. I was raised by a Jewish family. My adoption has always been at the very front and center of my worldview and just I've always saw things and I've always been really curious about things. Being a trans-racial adoptee just like a lot of race stuff too and then just like a lot of complexities in my childhood and I got my bachelor's in social work and I

2:40entered reunion at a very young age. I was closed in a national adoption but I found my birth at 15 and a year later went and got in reunion and been in reunion ever since. So I've been in reunion now longer than not. Yes. Not to age myself but I've been in reunion longer than that and it's just such a crazy ride and I got my bachelor's in social work and then I got my bachelor's in social work and I've always worked in child welfare for probably the last 15 years and then almost two years ago I went into private

3:13practice because I was getting really burnt out in the system and wanted to just really tune my care to working with adoptees and be able to get as creative as I wanted to. So what are some of your hobbies? What outside of work? What makes you? I'm married to my childhood sweetheart. I grew up with my husband. We met in seventh grade. Cute. And he's active duty military so he's in the Air Force so we've literally I always say we've moved around the world like four times. We have two kiddos. Aiden is in kindergarten and our youngest is in

3:45preschool and she's just a spitfire. She's so much energy. I love being a mom. I think being a mom as an adopted person is one of the most magical and healing things that has ever happened to me and I just value and I cherish my family above everything. I love my work and being in private practice. I don't feel like I go to work. I just get so inspired by what I get to do every single day. Pouring my heart and soul back into my community and to bring about change and healing. But aside from that, I love yoga. That's always been

4:18something that just helps me stay really grounded as a person. I love to cook. I love like the very cliche answer of family and friends. I love to read. I'm a huge nerd. So just I'm always very busy and I'm starting a DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion chapter at my son's elementary school. I'm very passionate about social justice and things like that. So just really busy like you. There are and we just have to prioritize and choose to do good things and things that promote

4:51good and help others. I love where you're coming from. Thanks. It's wonderful to get to know you. Again, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us. We're excited to learn from you. Can we just maybe have you expound a little bit and share more of your personal experience being an adoptee? Maybe tell some of your story there and then we can ask some follow-up questions. Yeah, totally. Like I said, I was born in Santiago, Chile. I was placed immediately at birth. I was in foster care at the time between birth and by the time my parents came to pick

5:24me up from Chile. I was raised in a very Jewish community in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a very predominantly white affluent area. I was one of the only people of color in my entire community. So being a transracial adoptee was something that really impacted me and something I always had many questions about. At the time growing up, I never had the language or necessarily the theory behind racism or identity development and all that stuff. But I always could just sense that

5:59I was living at this really unique intersection of being a religious and a racial minority and so that always had a really big impact on how I viewed the world. I, from a young age, found my voice when it came to being an adoptee. I did a lot of advocacy work in the state of Wisconsin and always was trying to push the envelope a little bit on challenging people's views on attachment and family and connection and all these things at the time. I didn't really realize what I

6:30was talking about that I was a little social worker in the making but that these were always things that I really was curious about and really pondered over. I think it also really impacted my worldview and things like nature versus nurture and what it means to not only be a daughter in a different family but be a daughter in a different culture and what kind of expectations and pressure that comes along with. So being an adoptee not only just impacted me as a person individually, it impacted my career choice and my views on being a

7:02parent now. I don't think that this is an experience that has an expiration date. I think it's something that impacts you throughout the lifespan and always be with me. I'll always be part of the evolution of being me. Yeah, you answered one of the questions I was going to ask. What of your experiences being a transracial adoptee have led you to be where you are today? Would you add anything to that? I think I just have such a deep heart for social justice and

7:32I think it just comes from that experience of being raised outside of my race and what that grief and loss has felt like for me when it comes to not being just being raised in more of a racial isolation. Many of the people that listen to the podcast are prospective adoptive parents and so as a transracial adoptee having lived the experience that you have, what are some of the things that you would hope they would consider before adopting transracially and maybe what advice would you give them? Yeah, so I think that

8:03I'll probably say something that's not super popular but I don't think that transracial adoption is for everybody just like I don't think adoption is for everybody. I think when we have really when we adopt in general I think we have to be really honest with ourselves about what our capacity is and what we're able and willing to bring into our lives because at the end of the day what we don't want to have happen is have a placement that blows up or that parents are so overwhelmed that they're not able to meet the needs of their kids and part

8:33of doing that to be able to stay regulated and to be able to meet our children's needs is to be really courageous and brave and to be honest with ourselves about what our own triggers are and what our own capacity is and what we're able and willing to take on. Raising an adaptive child is a different experience than raising a biological child and I think it's okay to have that conversation if we're just really honest about that and so what that looks like nuanced with the transracial perspective is what does it mean to live an anti-racist lifestyle? What does it mean to be in the pursuit

9:04of always challenging narratives that push us towards more equitable spaces, more access to resources for all kids, being able to stand up to family members that might not share that same belief as you and to create that space of safety for your child. I saw a really cool quote recently that diversity is what enters the room but inclusion is what you do with it and I really loved that quote because I think that a lot of times we think that oh we understand the experience of being a person of color because we're in proximity to people of

9:35color like my husband's black or my child is Latino and my son is Asian but that doesn't mean that we can embody that experience of what it's like to be a person of color and so really being able to pump and flex that muscle of empathy. Are you willing to move to a community that's more diverse and more inclusive if that's not what your community looks like? There's a lot of things I think that you need to ponder and be honest about before you open your home up to adoption especially with the nuance of transracial adoption.

10:06Wonderfully put. I can tell that you've thought about that a lot. So maybe thinking about maybe social workers or other adoptive parents, if you could go back in time to some of those people that played roles in your lives, what types of things would you hope that they would know? I think that to this day what boggles my mind as somebody who's an adopted person who's devoted their entire life to working with the adoption community is it's still really perplexing to me how so often it is still like this huge light bulb that

10:37goes off for people that adoption is trauma and that all adoptions are rooted and begin in trauma and just a really thick layer of grief and loss and what that does to the system. My perspective and belief is that so much of who we are and how our worldview is impacted is based off of our own attachment and our own ability to have access to our own senses of safety and so what I wish that people really understood more of was just what adoption trauma really is and the signs of attachment, neurobiology. I think these are all really important

11:11things. A lot of times I think caregivers or workers or social workers look and label a kid as maybe being a bad kid or misunderstood or they're acting out or they're being so manipulative and I look at that those children and I think while they're living their life from such a place of protection rather than a place of connection and their nervous systems are actually doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing to protect them because the very thing that they need which is connection has also become their biggest trigger based off of their

11:45worldview and their lived experiences of losing their primary caregivers and so I think there's not enough talking space on that and what attachment really looks like and what that looks like and lived experience and what adoption trauma really is. I think that's something that unfortunately gets overlooked and that's at the crux and heart of what adoption really is. Yeah I think for us it took a while to realize that even though we have open adoptions, even though we have

12:15connections to biological family, it is still a traumatic thing for all of our children. We intentionally do a lot of things to foster connection and provide the right opportunities and right scenarios for attachment but still it's a challenge and you have to be really intentional and thinking about that all the time in this role as an adoptive parent so I'm glad that you can highlight that from the other side and help us. I want to go to the experience that you had you mentioned in your introduction that you are in reunion. Let's go back

12:46to some of the feelings thoughts experiences you had leading up to your reunification. What was the drive? What was the impetus to want that connection or some of the feelings and thoughts around wanting to connect? My reunion story still boggles my mind a little bit after all these years. Growing up I was very much in denial about my adoption. I did not like talking about it. I hated when people would bring it up. I never wanted to talk about it. Now when I look

13:16back on it I realized that I just didn't have the language to really conceptualize what my adoption meant to me and I just was really scared of that internal experience. I wasn't ready to face that grief and loss and that trauma. It was just it was so overwhelming to my system that the way I dealt with it was by not dealing with it. I don't know what caused me to do this but one day I was sitting in Spanish class in high school and the bell rang, class was over and I

13:46walked up to my teacher. No idea till this day where this came from and I asked him I was like hey I'm looking for my birth family if I find them will you help me translate? And he was so excited he was like I would love it. It sounds amazing like anything I can do to help. And I left the classroom totally confused not knowing why I said that, not knowing where that came from, just feeling completely out of body experience and I didn't think about it again. And then another year went by and his wife started working at our school and he

14:16would often he no longer work there he would often come back and do like lunch with her and I was leaving home to go home that day I was feeling under the weather and I saw him and I was like hey I'm still looking for my birth family if you find them like will you help me? Yeah I've been thinking about you and wondering if you'd ever follow up and that day I went home I wasn't feeling the best and I had this teeny tiny folder in my room and it had two pieces of paper with my adoption stuff on it was literally two pieces of paper and

14:47back then like the internet was very fresh and new and I just remember like googling the essentially the white pages of Chile and I found a matching address on that that I did on my paperwork and I called my teacher and I said I found a number let's call and so it happened insanely fast I didn't really think a lot of it through it was very impulsive the number that we found turned out to be my grandma's house we explained it that I was a you know student from the

15:17United States and he was a teacher and this student he was working with was really curious about interviewing that family and getting to know this family better and you could tell my grandma was like this is clearly a wrong number like we don't have we don't know anyone in the United States and before we got on the phone call I just told my teacher I was like I have no idea how they're gonna respond to this or receive this so if there's anything that you can relay I just want you to tell them that I'm doing okay and that I love them and I

15:50have absolutely no hard feelings and that's it if there's anything that I want my birth mom to know is that I love her and that I'm okay and my grandma put two and two together because he dropped my birth name which is Alejandra and then another woman came on it was my aunt and the long story short they were like Amy's mom does not live here anymore but we'll see her this weekend call back in exactly one week and we'll give you an update we'll inform her that Amy's trying to make contact so we called back one week later and my mom

16:20wanted to meet me and then two days later I talked to my birth mom for the first time and we were on the phone for probably about six hours together and my teachers generously just gave all his time to translate for us and I remember my mom saying to me that night because I have another brother and sister that were born after me and she said tonight's the first night in 15 years I'm gonna go to bed knowing that all my children are safe and then exactly one year later on winter break I flew down with my adoptive mom and I lived a whole

16:50month with my biological family in Chile and then ever since then I've been in Reunion Wow that is an amazing story and a lot of probably unexpected quick connection yeah yeah I think a lot of times in the adoption world we hear I'm sure you've heard the word that the phrase like coming out of the fog mm-hmm and I don't like that terminology and I defy against that terminology because it just doesn't feel right in my body I think as adopted people whether we

17:20realize it or not we hold so much of that trauma that preverbal trauma in our bodies it's stored there and it just makes its way out in the way it needs to when it needs to come out but because adoption is such an evolution and it's such a process that never ends I think coming out of the fog implies that we're gonna meet this magical moment where everything just comes together and we have everything figured out but reunion is one of those examples that it's not a happily ever after it just takes the journey in a different

17:52direction of exploration of questions of curiosities of healing of trauma just because you're in your union doesn't mean it's always like unicorns and rainbows some of the deepest wounds and the biggest heartaches I've ever had is because of things that have been exposed or bumps in communication from reunion and because adoption is rooted in so much trauma and because adoption is layered so thick with so much grief and loss it's it makes sense that everybody

18:22impacted by it has a tremendous amount of healing that they need to sort through in their own systems and sometimes they just don't connect at the right time so a reunion isn't necessarily a magical answer it's just another opportunity for us all to grow and continue our evolution I think looking at it as a turn in the path that we were on or another step that maybe we weren't anticipating being there not being the happy ever after but just a

18:53new chapter a new experience I think it's good to illustrate it that way because there are a lot of unknowns and there's a lot of relationship building and a lot goes into that what would you maybe any advice or recommendations that you would give to those who are searching for their biological families I would want people to know that it is a hundred percent in their birthright to be curious about search and reunion a lot of times I hear about adoptees being shamed or minimized or abandoned or rejected because they have those

19:28curiosities so first and foremost I think it's natural that people want to know and have those connections and that's a hundred percent within your birthright there we can't always know what how that's gonna be received nobody has a crystal ball I'm sure all of us wish we did have a crystal ball that would be a lot of these situations a lot easier a lot easier but I think that there's something really beautiful about the the process of this because it helps us really get a deeper sense of who we are at the core of our hearts and our

20:01souls and what we need and what our triggers are and so it can be really hard but I think that it's really meaningful and it's important work to do so I was just saying that we don't know how that's gonna be received and I will I want people to know that it's within their capacity to be able to work through whatever is thrown their way when you are in active search and reunion I would say do your very best to build up your support around you because there's gonna be a lot that you need to process and being adopted already can

20:32feel like a very isolating experience and so making sure that you have people in your corner to the best of your ability that and hold space for you that aren't minimizing that are validating and affirming and I would say that figure out what your expectations and what your boundaries are again to the best of your ability always leaving room for that to be flexible and to shift if it needs to so that you can also set boundaries if when you enter reunion things aren't feeling emotionally safe or things aren't feeling like you're

21:05being attuned to in a way that you need to knowing that's also within your boundary to set to protect yourself as well just leaving room for flexibility I always tell people just let your heart lead you because you're not necessarily gonna know what you need until you're in that moment and there's never any shame and whatever comes up and whatever is curious for you you're a person who went through a tremendous loss and so it makes sense that your system needs to do what it needs to do to reconcile that so having a support group giving yourself a little bit of grace with how whatever feelings you're experiencing in

21:39that moment and leaning on your heart I love those recommendations you alluded to this that your adoptive mother went with you to Chile can you share with us just a little bit about the support or their attitude toward your search for reunification and how that played a role and how you felt as I shared my reunion search was very short and it was very fast and it was very I didn't really give myself or anybody else time to process that this is what I was doing but I'm so thankful that my parents have always been so open and supportive they

22:10have always been the type of people that do their very best to grow alongside me and not away from me and that's one of the greatest things I think about my parents my at the time that I found my biological family there was a lot of other adults in our community that questioned my mom for quote-unquote letting me find my family there were other adoptees and our little group of friends and I remember at a brunch we were all at together another adoptive mom

22:41was like I can't believe you let her do that I can't believe like how could you ever let her know that and my mom said and this is like one of the moments that will always stand out for me for the rest of my life was my mom just stood up and said you know what it's my job as Amy's mom to make sure that she has access to everything that she needs to the best of my ability and if her needing to know her biological family is what she needs then it's my job as her mom to make sure that's what she has and it was the single most profound moment

23:15of advocacy that I've ever experienced in my life for me and I knew that my mom had my back and then when we went to Chile the goal or the original plan was for me to stay in a hotel with my adoptive mom and then we would do day trips with my birth family and then when my mom saw me and how I just hugged my birth family and how interconnected I was with my siblings right away she said on the hotel ride home or the ride home from the airport to the hotel she just

23:46said hey do you want to stay with them instead this trip so I think that my mom's ability to not center herself and just really center being in the moment and letting again my heart lead trust my nervous system that it was doing exactly what it needed to do to heal and work through whatever I needed to heal that when she had feelings of being with her own rejection and her own trigger stuff that she was mindful to do that away from me so that she could hold the space

24:16for me that I needed in that moment and so I think that reunion in that moment went as best as it could my moms were able to hug each other and embrace each other and that's something that I'll never forget yeah I'm incredibly just so honored that that somebody loved me enough to allow me that type of healing your mom sounds like she has really high emotional intelligence so she can read the situation read the room and provide for you what you need I also love just

24:46what a great example of advocacy she is give your mom give your mom a hug from all of us because that's awesome yeah she's pretty she's amazing she definitely doesn't give herself enough credit but she is my purest example of unconditional and I love her with my whole heart you have brushed on these questions but I may ask just a little bit so we can dive a little bit deeper and then we're gonna talk a little bit about the children's book that you just recently wrote before we transition to that thinking of being an international

25:20adoptee what has your family done to help you connect to your culture and I know you were you had a reunification a little bit younger than some do and that may have helped but is there anything that your adoptive parents did before you had a reunification that embraced the culture that you came from yeah where I grew up there was a dot and they're no longer there but there was an adoption agency that did a lot of adoptions from Chile and then the summers the group

25:51there was like a big group of us and we would meet every summer and just got a giant picnic and celebrate like these families created that the adoption process from Chile and over the lifespan of my life I've kept in touch with some of them penpals and we've all moved away we've all went our separate ways and probably around 11 years old or so we all fizzled out I really was in denial about my adoption and didn't want to do a lot of stuff it wasn't until that I was in reunion that I really wanted to learn my language and then after my mom

26:25helped me figure out a way to really study and learn Spanish so in Milwaukee I did a I went to Spanish immersion school after high school so I would go to school and then every day Monday through Friday I would go to a Spanish immersion school that was technically for adults but we told them my story and how motivated I was to learn to speak and they let me in at 16 years old and I went like another four hours a night and just studied Spanish so I could speak with my family cool I love that what great support and I'm glad that was a

26:59resource in your community too that was an option for you regarding international adoption again thinking of adoption education what do you wish adoption education look like regarding international adoption international adoption is messy because not only are we talking about oftentimes transracial adoption we're talking about different cultures and that complicates reunion we're talking about different languages which is difficult with search or even

27:29traveling back to home country and then we're talking about different laws and different governments and different systems a lot of times people will tell when people don't really have the answers and and they it comes from a well-meaning place but it can be really harmful people say things like your birth parents loved you so much and that's why they gave you up for adoption but when we look at international adoption a lot of times adoptions happened because children were physically stolen from their

28:01parents in my country there is a group of children called the children of silence and I am NOT a child of silence but the majority of kids that were adopted from my country are and as a result of poverty high rates of poverty in my country during the 70s and 80s the ghost of Pinochet who was the dictator at the time this really was encouraging overseas adoptions and so there was a very corrupt system of nuns social workers doctors lawyers that were

28:32literally and physically stealing children from poor impoverished country or communities in the middle of the night or when children would give birth doctors were telling them that their children died and they were being shuffled off and parents were giving no death certificates or being told what happened to their children and then they were being adopted to Europe or the United States child trafficking is a thing and when we look at adoption from an inter-country perspective we have to really be honest too about what that

29:03looks like and what other trauma that's added to these our families and our communities I don't think that gets enough airtime either I don't think people talk about that the reality is of what international adoption really looks like a lot of times yeah if there were a thing or two that you could change or influence to change regarding international adoptions what comes to mind I just think that I don't know I went through a phase of my life where I

29:33was totally against international adoption because not only do children have to lose their their families now we're asking children to endure a lifetime of losing their culture and their language and everything that you know creates their whole identity I don't think I have such a rigid stance on that anymore because I've I just I don't think I have such a chance anymore but I think that if we are inviting children in our home that come from other countries we have to be really open and supportive of what does that look like

30:07if they want to go back to and live in their birth country would you be supportive what would it look like if they want to go and identify by their birth religion or a name from their birth culture or their name that they were given at birth would that be something that adoptive family would be supportive of it comes with more complexities and so for parents would that be something they'd be supportive of and would they be able to uphold that so that child could integrate that into their identity formation yeah there we've spoken with

30:38several international adoptees and I feel like this sentiments are very similar to what you're expressing that it's so complicated and not only are we creating trauma in the situation separating a child from their biological family but culture and religion and language and region of the world all of those things change and can create quite the void yeah I lived in Mexico in college for a little while and I did an internship there getting my bachelor's

31:11of social work and my internship was at an orphanage in Mexico actually and my main job was to do some therapy and daily living skills with these two young children I had a little boy and a little girl one was seven and one was five and I remember thinking it was just like it was such an interesting dynamic for me as an adopted person because I felt like we each had components to what the other person was missing at the time I had a very I still do have a very loving adoptive family and I was in reunion with my biological family I still am so

31:45I had this void that they had a family and then I remember looking at this five and seven year old was so profoundly jealous because they had their culture and I remember one day it was Dia de los Niños and they were explaining to me at such a young age what Dia de los Niños was Day of Children, what the Day of the Children is, how they celebrate and why that's so important in Mexican culture and I remember thinking wow they're five and seven and they already have such like this beautiful understanding of their culture I never had that for Chilean

32:19culture but I had the family component and so it is a different layer of grief when you pull somebody from from their country as well. Thank you so much for sharing so much of your personal experience and I'm sure that has shaped what we'll talk about next the children's book that you recently published and entitled Being Adopted we've read this together me and Lanette we've read it with our kids and on a high level I would just describe it as a

32:51great description of the dichotomy of what adoption might look like for those who haven't read it yet basically it paints the picture of your situation or experience may look like this or it may look like this and just really normalizing whatever the experience has been and for us it's a great it's a great conversation starter with our children so I want to talk with you about that and help us learn a little bit more of what led you to to writing it and

33:21what got you there so maybe let's start with that what brought you to the point to want to write a book and what was your ultimate goal in doing so yeah thank you I'm so excited that you guys have read the book and you found it helpful that's like the goal right when you put something out there in the universe that somebody out there finds it helpful and useful that's great and that makes me really happy I've always loved to write and I've always loved to be really creative and I've always wanted to write a book I never thought that it was gonna be a children's book but here we are I wrote it because when

33:55I was thinking about ways to support my community I was thinking back on what would be helpful for me as an adopted person and when I was a little adoptee there were hardly any books out there on adoption and so I thought that this would just be like a really fun and great way to be creative and give back to little adoptees I'm working on a series and this is the very first book I wanted the first book to just normalize adoption in general yeah so I did I was

34:27really mindful about not using tons and tons of language and trying to keep the pictures as representative as possible without being with also being as simple as possible because my goal was that anybody touched by the adoption experience could open it and somewhere in the pages be like I identify with that being an adopted person can feel so isolating for so many different reasons and in a lot of different ways and I wanted little adoptees to have a tool to be able to say yeah I identify with that because if anywhere else in the

35:01book or in a character that can feel really cool right like when we identify with with certain characters and there's not a specific character in my book but I wanted them to be able to open it in somewhere somehow see the different I also see themselves in it I also tried to challenge certain narratives like when I first talked about transracial adoption typically what we see are white caregivers with BIPOC children and in my book I had BIPOC caregivers with white children and I wanted just to flip the script a little bit on that because one

35:32just to challenge a system that I think is so systemically racist and that BIPOC communities can raise their children as well but I also just wanted to just to give power to looking at things a little bit differently than we're used to and then I think the social worker in me always wanting things to be a tool I wrote a caregivers guide in the back yeah I want to talk about that parents and other caregivers and how they can just talk to their kids about adoption yeah I think we'll get to that and I really appreciated that you included

36:02that and maybe some of the questions I'm about to ask coincide with the caregivers guide but what would you say are some of your top tips for talking with kids especially adoptees about traumatic experiences and feelings my number one tip is be honest keep it real 100% because a lot of times we try to find like the perfect word with most magical intervention the perfect little phrase to comfort but here's the reality when you're an adopted person you

36:35already know that something traumatic happened you're just trying to get more clarity on what that is a lot of times we don't have access to the truth we just have access to stories or somebody else's version of what happened and that can feel really discomforting when we regardless of how difficult it is to talk to somebody the truth is always better than the unknown because the unknown can literally be anything anything and the truth even if it's so

37:05scary at least it's a tangible place to begin and from there we can start beginning some more identity development I know this is really hard what does that feel like for you because the unknown could even be scarier than what the truth actually is youth is always better a lot of times I hear I see all the time parents or clinicians or other workers totally panic about how I have those hard conversations but it's okay to say I don't know and it's okay to say hey what do you feel about that and it's okay to say I know this is really hard

37:38this would be hard for me too the more that kids can feel our authenticity it gives them permission to be authentic with their own stories and so I want the biggest the biggest tip is be honest I guess the second one would be just allow kids to be curious about their stories if something that they say that they're curious about triggers you that's something that you need to work on but it's within their birthright to have questions and to seek clarity because

38:10all they're trying to do is understand themselves a little bit more and so allow children to be curious and make sure that you're keeping it 100 with them how would you address an adoptive parent who wants to be really transparent with their child even at a really young age doing so age appropriately the first thing to remember is if a kid is asking about it regardless of how old they are they're ready for an answer don't assume that just because they're 18 months old that they're not curious about their story

38:42kids are wildly perceptive and kids who've dealt with attachment trauma are hyper vigilant about all these things because their system is trying to make sense of why they're not with their primary caregivers if a child is asking at two years old they're ready to have a conversation you don't have to say it in adult language what happened but there's always like a way to say it even if a kid's not asking letting kids know for whatever reason it might be like this might be an example I'm not saying this every example something you could

39:14say is my job is to keep you safe and sometimes parents have a hard time making choices that are always safe and so I'm I came to help support you and your parents so that we can all make sure that everybody was just being a little bit safer finding ways to talk to your child in a way that doesn't minimize or lessen the dignity of their birth parents but keeps it real and lets

39:45kids have an understanding of why they were not able to stay in that family unit I really love and appreciate that response thank you let's talk a little bit about the the caregivers guide in your book what was your hope and intent maybe you can for those who haven't read the book maybe you can describe what that looks like sure at the end of the book I just threw in a caregivers guide which is just a couple pages of some helpful tips of how to have conversations or just talk about adoption in general with your child

40:18keeping things honest affirming kids validating kids honoring their curiosity things like that I just wanted it to be a tool because adoption is a really messy thing at the core of what it is and I'm a mom and I don't like it when my kids are uncomfortable and I don't like it when my kids are going through hard things I think it's a human instinct and reaction to try to protect people when they're going through hard stuff and sometimes we do things to try

40:52to sugarcoat or minimize or water down because we hate being uncomfortable as humans and we hate when people we love are uncomfortable but I wanted to remind parents and caregivers that this is uncomfortable and just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean that we have to run from it and we can still stay present in these conversations and by us being able to do that we model for kids how to stay present with themselves in this it's not ever about changing the

41:22story or the narrative it's about widening our capacity to hold the story and that's what I work I try to work with kids on and with parents on and that was just a little bit of the hope that I have with writing the caregivers guide maybe I'll just read through these so our listeners have an idea and you mentioned almost all of them but to listen validate honor answer questions with honesty which you've talked about with us today don't take your adoptees feelings personally and processing your emotions away from your adoptee I think

41:52that you illustrated that last one with your mom where yeah it's hard to process some of those feelings when reunification happens or when there's a connection between your child and their birth family and maybe seemingly that's a deeper or stronger connection in the moment or something but I really love that last one just to make some space for yourself deal with it you need to talk about it with someone and eventually probably talking about it with your adoptee in a way that is not harmful to your relationship just to

42:26keep that authenticity and honesty yeah totally I love that again we really like this book and it's really simple but it is a great conversation starter with our adoptee children and one page may have no relevance to them or in the moment at least and five years from now maybe that page has a lot of relevance to them and so I think it's one that we can go back to to prompt some conversation to make sure that we're really connecting with our adopted children in meaningful ways

43:00and that we're supporting them and providing what they need yeah love that thank you I love the intentionality that you have about creating moments to just have these conversations it's really awesome yeah I think we've learned a lot doing the podcast but I think that's one that has been really just sticking with you making space to intentional time to just talk with our kids and process some of their feelings and if need be they can talk with somebody else if they need to have a therapist somebody who's a third party who's not mom or dad who

43:30needs to help them talk through that what would you share as far as experience or recommendations around therapy for adoptees so I'm a therapist I'm always gonna say it's a good idea I think that all of us adopted or not child or not adult or not can benefit from therapy the more that we can get in touch with who we truly are the better off everyone in our lives is including ourselves the more we don't run from our internal experience and we can go back to

44:02expanding our capacity to sit with our stuff and running from our stuff everybody benefits for adopted children I think normalizing for them that you might have some big feelings and that makes a whole lot of sense however I can support you or whatever you need to do with those big feelings I am your ally and I'm here to work with you on that and if it's not me if it's somebody else let's give you a village of people that are in your corner that are affirming and loving and unconditional you've shared so many great things and I

44:37know we've kept you for a long time already but as we begin to wrap up maybe any last or parting words that you would share addressing some of the challenges that the adoption community faces whether you're an adopted person or an adoptive parent please take care of your mental health this six this experience of being an adopt connection or connected to the experience of adoption does take its toll and it makes sense we all come with our own traumas we all come with our own distress we all come with our own worldviews and this

45:08experience can trigger a lot of that different things for all of us impacted across the lifespan so please just never stop being courageous and brave and bold to stand up for yourself and placing yourself as a priority on your mental health knowing that even if it doesn't feel like it in your home or in your community there is an adoptive community out there that is here for you and believes in you and you belong and we will always hold space for you there are

45:42people who are always cheering you on and for our adoptive parents I would say the same thing never stop doing your own work so that you can help your children do their work this is a lifelong commitment to a child this is not just till they're 18 years old this is a forever thing and so the more that you can show and prove unconditionally to your children the more healing that you are ultimately bringing yeah I would just say always keeping a pulse on your mental health I think it's also important Amy you have shared so many

46:15great things with us and I feel like our listeners are going to just soak up everything that you've shared you're very well spoken and I can tell that you've put a lot of time and a life worth of intention to making our community better so thank you so much for being willing to be with us and sharing all that you have yeah thank you so much for having me this is really fun where can our listeners learn more about you and your book I'm on Instagram is where I'm like most active at grow he'll blossom I recently started a podcast

46:47called adoptees dish with my really good friend Marcela who's also an international transmission adoptee from Colombia and so we're only like five episodes in we're like super new okay that's why I have a mic yeah literally have the same mics my book can be found most people get at Barnes and Noble or Amazon but you can also go to your local bookstore and order it from there I know people have done that too if they want to support local okay wonderful we'll share that information in the show notes and make sure that people know how to

47:17connect with you and also how to find a book yeah thank you okay thank you so much thank you again so much for your time we really appreciate this is really fun thank you I loved this episode so much thank you so much to Amy for talking with us and for teaching us I feel like this is a really useful episode and just so what's the right word so practical right there's just so many takeaways I got from

47:51it I loved how she talked about making sure we talk about biological parents in a positive light we don't want to take away any of their dignity and how we speak about them or how we discuss these hard topics where maybe there's something challenging going on but we still help our kids feel that love and connection and respect with their first parents too yeah I I mentioned this during the conversation with her but I just loved the example that she gave of

48:23her mom advocating for her and we've said this a hundred times on the podcast but at the end of the day adoption is about the adoptee and we need to help provide for them the experience and give them the tools that they need to succeed or to be happy or to have the answers that they need and I just loved that example that she gave her mom really advocating for her and I think that for me as an adoptive parent it helps me gain a different perspective and I see a

48:55little bit more of my role more clearly yeah I see something to aspire to right you want to be that kind of advocate for your child I loved that so much and I thought it was so interesting just talking about all of these different heritages where she has her biological heritage as a Chilean her adopted heritage being raised in a Jewish family and finding this balance with all of these different cultures intermingling through adoption yeah and it's it is a

49:26challenge to balance all of that and to help provide for the adoptee what they need and it takes a lot of work yeah yeah and yeah just such a great conversation I feel like she is this fantastic resource where she's very honest and also very open and compassionate and yet just loved the conversation I feel like it was so helpful for me and so valuable for me and I imagine it will be for many of our listeners too for those of you who are

49:57listening to this episode as it comes out on December 5th at 12 noon Mountain Time we have a special event coming up we're going to be doing a live zoom chat it's gonna be kind of like a book club but we're gonna be talking about the movie elf with Malena she's been on our podcast before she's an adoptee she's from Columbia she is fantastic we absolutely love her and she'll be leading this discussion and so if you would like to join us for that you can find information on open adoption project org where we'll share the link

50:30where you can RSVP to that yeah I think that this is the beginning of maybe a series of conversations that we're going to have around adoption in movies or in the media yeah and just talk about the pros and cons of the way that adoption is portrayed in different settings yes we're so excited about it and we will have that here on the podcast we'll transfer it into an episode from the live audio but so yeah if you can't come you'll be able to hear it eventually but we're really excited about that yeah and the more people that we have there the

51:03more perspective we'll hear and maybe the more questions we can answer too yeah yeah we're really looking forward to it so that's on December 5th you can find more information on open adoption project org thanks so much again to Amy for being willing to meet with us and to share her experience and story with us and thanks to each of you for being listeners to the open adoption project

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