Here’s an insider’s look at the challenges of adding a step-parent into your life. Many children navigate this in our society, but when you’re adopted, this adds an entirely new layer of complexity.

Show Notes

Topics We Discussed

Peggy is adopted from Korea at 7 months old
As a young child her adoptive parents divorced, and her father remarried quickly thereafter
Peggy and her brother stayed with her adoptive mother at first, but due to an injury she wasn’t able to care for her kids and so she gave custody to Peggy’s adoptive father and stepmother
Her natural inclination was to be the perfect adoptee, “blend in and not cause any problems”
They had a family meeting pretty soon after they moved back in with her adoptive father and stepmother and her Dad asked Peggy and her brother to call their stepmother “mom”
The switch over to living with a religious family (Seventh Day Adventist)
The new dynamic when her stepmother and adoptive father adopted a new baby from Brazil
The complexities of having multiple cultures represented in a family
Peggy was off to boarding school for her sophomore year of high school and then returned to her adoptive mother for her senior year
How their relationships have shifted in their adult years
Deciding how she wants to parent her own children, and the work she’s done on herself