120 Dear Adoption,
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/120
Haley Radke: This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to AdopteesOn.com/partner.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 120, Dear Adoption, I'm your host, Haley Radkey. Dear Adoption is joining up with Adoptees On again today. Reshma McClintock, founder of Dear Adoption, is back, and she brought us another letter that we are sure most adopted people will relate to.
We also talk about a recent trip to Washington, DC that Reshma was a part of to ensure adult adoptive voices were represented in the conversations. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, AdopteesOn.com. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Reshma McClintock. Welcome Reshma.
Reshma McClintock: Hi Haley. Thanks for having me again.
Haley Radke: I'm so excited. We are gonna do another deep dive into a letter to Dear Adoption and we're gonna do little update on an event you were involved with about a month ago. So let's start off with our letter. Why don't you read it for us?
Reshma McClintock: Excellent. This was an anonymous piece submitted recently and so we won't obviously disclose the author, but I am really honored to get to read this today. Dear Adoption, hello, hello Adoption. Remember me? How quickly you turned away from me and from the truth. You dotted the I’s crossed the T's, collected your payment and erased me from existence, metaphorically, literally.
You didn't ask me how I felt. You didn't comfort me. You didn't check on me, you didn't see me, you didn't preserve me. I am half a person. I only half exist despite what you see. You see the beautifully crafted exterior I was forced to create. You celebrate who you think I am, who you think I am because I am adopted.
You don't grieve with me. You don't feel the loss that lives inside my bones. You miss entirely that I am a hollow shell. Who I am is void all of the things that matter most. To you I am a success story, a beautiful tale of the betterment of one's life. You don't know me. You didn't then. You don't now. I am only half a person and all of me is hollow. Hello.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Wow. It's right. Okay, so you first get sent this piece. What are your thoughts when you get this in your email?
Reshma McClintock: I have to tell you, this piece struck a chord in me, and I typically get really emotionally involved with every Dear Adoption piece. Uh, rare is the occasion that I don't relate on some level, and then there's obviously some that resonate even more with me than others.
But for the most part, I find a connection to every piece as you find a connection to every guest, no matter their story and how different their circumstance might have been. There is this, you know, common thread that we share in adoption. No matter where we are in the, you know, stage of coming out of the fog or wherever we are with whatever we've experienced, there's just this bind that ties us together.
So this one though, again, really, really struck me. And, um, in my interactions with the writer, we had fairly similar stories in that the author of this piece really didn't come out of the fog until adulthood, well into their thirties. And, um, had kind of had this, what most of society would view as a positive adoption experience, but, um, had kind of these feelings beneath the surface for most of their life.
And then realized later in life that there was, there was all this, all, all these issues, all these unresolved, I don't even know, unresolved emotions really, and unacknowledged emotions. So this one was just a while for me. And, and struck me in a, in a multitude of ways. I, I wanna know what you thought the first time you read it.
Haley Radke: Well, once again, I was, um, it's like poking a little too close to some of my own feelings and, you know, when that happens I just, I get very uncomfortable. I'm like, I feel like we're on the same wavelength. I feel upset that someone else had a similar experience. And, just living with that, all of that unacknowledged grief, you know, comes so through, comes through so strongly here.
Um, just some really powerful lines and the one that popped out to me right away was, you didn't preserve me. And, you know, that word preserve is so critical because, you know, you and I are really passionate about family preservation, you know? And even when we talk about, you know, well, we're not anti adoption.
What we are is for family preservation and choosing that language of preserving, just to talk about, that's my personal stance on adoption. It's for family preservation. So to hear you didn't preserve me, um, was really cutting it close for me.
Reshma McClintock: Yeah because so often we don't even go back that far in our own personal thoughts and our own personal stories, because being an adopted person, for many of us, again, I don't speak for all, but for many of us, our story starts the day we were adopted.
And so it's even difficult, I think, for us to go back that far to before we were adopted. And that would've been the point of one of, well, frankly, one of many points of preservation, right? And so when, so I, I hear what you're saying when you say you didn't preserve me. So there was much of the time there is actually an opportunity for us to be preserved, and there are many different opportunities that come up throughout our lives to preserve our biological ties, to preserve our heritage and our culture.
Um, even just the physical mirroring, all of those things, there's lots of opportunity for that. But the reality is preservation and being preserved, frankly, has no place in adoption. And I think that's why you say that word, it just doesn't even come up much of the time. And so I think it jumped off the page at me too. I've never heard anybody say that that way you didn't preserve me. And I thought, what a simple and profound way to describe adoption.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. Yeah. I, same. I had never heard it phrased that way. And so I think that's what, what jumped out to me. What about you? Any other lines that really spoke to you?
Reshma McClintock: Well, early on the writer says you dotted the i's crossed the t's collected your payment and erased me from existence metaphorically, literally. And this gets me on a whole bunch of levels. Um, when is that…
Haley Radke: when you, when you read, collected your payments? I'm like, dang.
Reshma McClintock: Well, I know. And you know what's interesting?
This is, that's one of the parts that makes. Adopted people who aren't out of the fog. Uh, just people in society who aren't outta the fog and, and adoptive parents makes them so uncomfortable is when we talk about adoption as a payment for services or, you know, commodity, right? Rendered right? So we're paying for something.
I mean, there is a transaction that takes place. It makes, frankly even me uncomfortable because I was the purchesee, is that a word? I don't know. But, you know, so it can make us uncomfortable and so it often really irritates people, you know, collected your payment. But I love that the writer pointed that out. I love, you dotted the I’s cross the T’s because a lot of what we hear about adoption is, ah, the paperwork. You know, there's adoptive parents who are,
Haley Radke: What's the T-shirt? What's the t-shirt rush?
Reshma McClintock: I know. Pregnant on paper.
Haley Radke: Paper pregnant.
Reshma McClintock: Yes, exactly. And there's you know, a whole bunch of variations of that. But we hear about that from adoptive parents who are dominating the narrative about all the paperwork. And, and you know, most often it's said with this additional message that they're saying, you know, it's not that we're complaining about the paperwork, it's that we want to give this a child a home that much quicker, and the paperwork bogs us down.
And so, but I also think, you know, I, I heard about that. I had great, great adoptive parents, but I heard a lot about the paperwork. I heard a lot about how much work it was, how much things, how many things they sent back and forth. And what so many people don't realize is that is very burdensome for us.
It's very burdensome to think about the paperwork or the all, all that went into this transaction, so to speak, collected your payment. So, so going back to what the writer saying, We did all these things, right? We did the paperwork, paid and then erased me metaphorically, and literally. And I think, whew. That is a heavy, heavy statement. And there's two things I wanna point out. One is a lot of adopted people that I know would say, this resonates very, very close to their heart. This is something that they could have written, that they would say, this is articulated in a really concise, beautiful, devastating way.
But I also wanna say that for people who think, oh my gosh, like, are you seriously, you know, talking about payment or we didn't no, but you weren't erased from existence. The second part of that that's so important is this is how this person feels. This person is saying what you need to read here, this person is saying, I felt erased, metaphorically and literally.
And so, Whether you like the way that that describes adoption or not for this person, even if it is this one person, which I can tell you that it is not, but they're saying, this writer is saying, I was erased. And that is something that we should really sit with and that's the problem with a lot of conversations surrounding adoption, is we don't allow someone to say something that bold, or that shocking.
However, someone, you know, whatever ears are, you know, falling on, however they would describe it. Whoa, that's bold. Whoa, that's shocking. I've never heard that before. And then sit with it and think about what it means for a person who wrote this anonymously, by the way, for a reason, because they did not feel that they could share this and connect their identity to it. This person feels erased. We have to sit with that.
Haley Radke: How uncomfortable does that make you feel to sit in that?
Reshma McClintock: It's terrible and so critical that we do it, and I think I, I don't wanna get too far, of course, but it's one of the things that is very frustrating about having these conversations about adoption that are so tough is that it's really just about acknowledging those feelings of adopted people who have been affected the most by adoption, who didn't have a voice or a choice, and have been spoken for, for most of our lives.
Many of us. It isn't that people that, that it isn't even, and you can read because I feel this, this piece, although it's very bold and very direct, I also feel a real tenderness about this piece. And I, I really can't read, I mean, frankly, most of the pieces at Dear Adoption without crying, but, but this one really, I feel those waves of emotions really, you know, rising up.
But I think that's the point. This isn't about writing, you know, you know when you get angry and they say, oh, if you get angry at someone, write a letter and then throw it away. You know? And that's how you get out your angry feelings. You know? That's not what Dear Adoption is. Dear Adoption is not the opportunity for someone to come write a letter to adoption and say all the things that they wanna say.
Write out all their aggressions, take everything out, and one fell swoop, and then crumple up and, and throw this away. We publish these for a reason. That's not the intended purpose for these letters. The intended purpose is for listening. The intended purpose is yes, to provide a platform so that this, this adopted person right here can come and say, I feel erased.
I feel that adoption erased me. And for us to sit uncomfortably or devastated or angry or confused, whatever emotion that evokes in any one of us. To sit with that for a minute, but to keep going back to the focus that there is a person here, a human being who is saying, I felt erased and that is important.
So this is not a throwaway letter. This isn't a get out all your anger. This person actually doesn't sound enraged to me. There's this softness about the letter that is so gentle, but it's truth, and sometimes the truth is hard to hear. And it, this wasn't hard for me to, to be clear, this wasn't hard for me to hear.
I relate to this. There was a part of me that felt a little exposed in reading it and you said that too, that you said, I felt like, oh man, this one's close to home and we do that when we hear other adopted people's stories and we think, oh, I'm, I'm not sure I could have said that out loud or, I felt that, but the feelings never actually been articulated.
Um, I couldn't formulate the words surrounding this feeling and I love that. That's why I love Dear Adoption. That's why I love the different way that other people articulate. You know, that, that binder I was talking about earlier, that we have this thing that binds us all together as adopted people. And even if our experiences may be incredibly different, there's this thing that kind of, this like one tone, right that we all hit. So anyway. Yeah. It, it's hard. That silence, even just between you and I was rough. But so important.
Haley Radke: I was going to leave it even longer and then I thought, I can't, I can't have to say something.
And I'm usually good, like, you know, in a lot of interviews, I mean, you guys don't hear this cause it gets cut out. But I will wait, will wait and wait and give somebody space to like, you know, are you finished your answer, are you gonna think of something else? And you know, if somebody gets uncomfortable enough with the silence, they will fill it and sometimes some truth really comes out in there.
Reshma McClintock: Yeah and I think that that's the mistake we all make. I'm guilty of this, so this is not me looking to point the finger at, at anyone, at, at adoptive parents or society or anyone. It's the mistake we all make is not sitting with what someone is telling us.
Often enough, and I am a parent. You're a parent. I do it every day with my own daughter. She'll tell me a feeling or tell me something that happens and I immediately go into, well, it depends. I mean, frankly, if it's something that I feel is a critique or a criticism of me, I might go into defense mode. If it's something where I feel like she doesn't understand the situation, I go into explain mode.
If it's something where I feel like she's hurt and I don't want her to feel that way, or she's angry and I don't want her to feel that way or left out, and I don't want her feel that way, I immediately go into, you know, explaining away those feelings. No, I'm sure that's not what they meant. I'm sure they weren't really angry with you.
Oh, I'm sure you misread the situation. Right? We go when we, and, and, and that's, there's a, there's a quote out there that circulates, uh, you know, on different memes and things all the time that talks about, you know, listening, listening to respond versus listening to hear. And I run into that all the time, right?
So I'm listening to what my daughter has to say and with, and already formulating my response and I don't sit with it. So when we read this in a Dear Adoption piece, you know, I essentially to that one paragraph and this person is saying, I was erased. I feel erased as a parent, as a friend, we might, you know, if we were in conversation with this person, immediately go into, but you weren't.
But look at who you are and look at all you have at, right? We go into explain away or encourage or whatever with really good intent. But the reality is, and, and especially in adoption in these situations with these really difficult, emotionally complex conversations that we need to be able to sit with what, when someone is saying.
And so if I tell my Dad, I love you and I'm so glad I'm in this family, but I also wish I wasn't adopted. It's okay if we just sit there in silence for a minute, right? And he doesn't have to say, oh, but you're our daughter, or whatever. Whatever he might say, right? It's okay for him and I to just sit with that and for that statement to just sit out there, even if it's uncomfortable.
Haley Radke: Are you worried I'm gonna leave a long silence now?
Reshma McClintock: No, like tapping over here. Okay.
Haley Radke: I love it. Quick, Haley. Think of something to say. Yeah. Um, okay. Yes. Wow. So I mean, just that, that one line alone is, um, worth the really paying attention to. Um, the next line that you highlighted to me was, I only half exist despite what you see.
Reshma McClintock: Yes. In correlation with the next line, which says, you see the beautifully crafted exterior I was forced to create. So this resonates crazy deep with me because I was the adopted poster child. I was given this wonderful life with this wonderful family and, um, what the, the, the most important thing I think in, in these conversations that we have about adoption is same as what we said before.
As, as someone's talking and or talking about their adoption, and we're immediately kind of coming up in our own head with what our response would be. This is one of those important times where someone will say something and then the response is, yeah, but I know adopted people who don't feel that way.
Or I, you know, or my adopted children don't want to meet their birth families or my adopted children, you know, feel like one of us, or, or whatever that statement may be, right? It could be any one of a million things. I'm that adopted kid. I was that adopted kid. I'm now an adopted adult. We have to stop with the infantilizing of ourselves even.
So I think that's really important. You see the beautifully crafted exterior I was forced to create because so often with adopted people, we know what the answer is that somebody wants from us and so we give them that. We give the people what they want and they want to hear that we're grateful, that we're happy, that we're content.
They want to hear that we feel loved. They want to feel, hear that we feel we belong. They want to hear that we aren't missing something that we don't have. Sure, that's true of all parents. For adopted people, it's an extra burdensome thing. And so you see the beautifully crafted exterior was forced to create and I just think that's really, a very good description of the experience for many adopted kids.
Haley Radke: I was on Twitter today as I often am, even though I don't post much, I am reading, I promise. And a couple of different people were sharing in a thread, and one told about how when she experienced abuse in childhood, her adoptive parents didn't believe her. And then several adoptees responded saying, I didn't even tell mine because I knew they wouldn't believe me. And that hit really hard for me because I think that goes along with what you're just saying here and what this writer says, you see the beautifully crafted exterior I was forced to create. And I think there's something to that being the perfect adopted child, gotta live up to those expectations, gotta make it worth that paperwork we filled out.
And I feel so sad for that child that didn't feel safe enough to really just be themselves. And felt they had to put on the exterior in whatever manner that looked like. Maybe it's being perfect all the time so we, you know, earn our spot in the family or hiding things that we don't think will be believed on. I mean, it could be a variety of things, but that's what that brings up for me. Reshma McClintock: Yeah, I hear you on that and I think that it's so interesting to me as a parent, it's easier for me to understand some of the challenges and, and how so many of these things just cross over into parenthood in general, right. But we're talking about, you know, children who've been traumatized by being separated from their families. And so that's, you know, obviously that's really important, but I'm, I'm not an adoptive parent. Of course my daughter is, uh, my biological daughter. But I think that it is difficult to not speak for our children.
And you and I have had a conversation about this before, but I cringe when an adoptive parent says to me, my kids feel, or my kids don't, or my kids do, or, I've never heard them. Well, no, not that. I guess. I guess it's all those assumptions that are made because all, many of the things that my parents could have and did, you know, say about me, there was something beneath the surface for me.
And we have to be so careful not to do that, especially with adopted people. And it isn't just kids, right? As an adult, we still do this for other adults and I have family and friends who will say, you know, still to me, even after kind of all the work that, that I've, you know, kind of been doing and the different things that they've seen and will still say, well, I know an adopted person who would say they weren't traumatized at all.
And I always say, great for them, that's, but, but the truth is you don't know anything because the one thing I do know as an adopted person is that we are very careful about what we say and when we say, and sometimes those feelings just haven't come to the surface and whatever. And I'm not trying to impose a situation or a story or a feeling on anyone, but I'm just saying we have to be open to those things, to those other experiences. And so often I think, again, with good intent, although, you know, we know what the road to, you know, what is, you know, paved with good intentions. But, um, or you know, where I should say with good intent, you know, people say, well, my kids don't feel that way. Or, and I think the truth is you don't really know how your kids feel and I don't really know how my kid feels about many things because we're their parents. So on one hand we know them very, very well and on the other hand, it's innate for them to want to protect us. And for adopted kids, it is like next level protect your parents, protect your family, do what you have to do to survive, to keep all that in place.
And again, and, and I'm not trying to get too far away from this piece and make it about me, but just as far as where this fits with me, I grew up in your ideal, safe community. Safe home, safe family. There was not abuse. There was not isolation. I was as safe as you get and I still felt an incredible burden to protect and preserve my family relationships.
And I did not wanna talk about adoption because I did not want to bring up the fracture, right? I didn't want to point out that there were things that, you know, that we weren't all together from the beginning and maybe weren't all supposed to be together all the way from the beginning. That there is something here that I did lose something in order to join this family.
I was terrified to bring those things up in the safest environment one can have. So if you can imagine any, you know, as you kind of remove layers of safety that different people have experienced, that different adopted people have experienced, of course they would want to protect their family.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, you know, we talk about like trauma kids and this, if we haven't worked on this in ourselves and we, we have this constant state of vigilance and we know when it's safe and when it's not safe to share that information. Um, so this is very understandable. I was gonna say understandable behavior, but it's very understandable that we would hide things to protect ourselves and protect our, um, adoptive families. Okay. Um, is there anything else that you want to share about this particular letter?
Reshma McClintock: Um, the last couple of things, just, um, the next couple of lines after the portion we just talked about you celebrate who you think I am, who you think I am because I'm adopted. You know, this is just a really, a tricky thing in adoption and that a lot of adopted people deal with is the celebration surrounding adoption and how much is missed when we celebrate. And I'm not saying like, you know, we should have funerals well, you know what? Maybe I am, maybe I'm saying we should have funerals.
Haley Radke: Well, you see, you see celebrate and I see the gotcha day party.
Reshma McClintock: Yes. Well, exactly. Okay. And I was kind of making a joke when I, you know, when I'm saying it's not that I'm saying there shouldn't be any celebration and that we should be having, you know, going to that extreme, a funeral, but the reality is there, there is this immense loss and death of a life of a person, of maybe what was intended to be.
And for whatever reason, and, and I'm not getting into whether someone should have been adopted or not. Every search circumstance is unique and I don't know even the circumstance of the person who wrote this, but I will say that is such an important thing. You celebrate who you think I am, who you think I am, because I'm adopted.
And in those celebrations, so much can be missed. I'm not saying it is every time. I'm not saying that a family, there might not be families out there who are celebrating and grieving together. I don't know what that looks like for every family. I'm just saying as a society we tend to celebrate.
And, and that's what, um, one of the conversations the writer and I had about this was that society just wants to celebrate adoption. And the quote from the writer and one of the emails I received was, and I am just tired of those celebrations because for me it brings up all the loss. So yeah. So I joke about, you know, maybe we shouldn't celebrate and should have a funeral, but metaphorically, that's how you know what it feels like, right?
Like maybe, you know, we are grieving, which goes to the next line. You don't grieve with me. You don't feel the loss that lives inside my bones and you and I have had this conversation many, many times, those two portions go together. You celebrate who you think I am because I'm adopted, and you don't grieve with me and feel the loss that lives inside my bones.
That one, ugh, that one really, really hits me because that loss is everlasting and the grief is ever present. So when everyone else is celebrating and not acknowledging the grief, not speaking about the grief, ignoring all the things that came before adoption day or whatever, whatever day the day you came home, the day, you know, whatever those, you know, birthdays are those celebratory days.
You know, we're feeling the loss. This person is saying, you don't grieve with me. You don't feel the loss that lives inside my bones and, um, that's another profound statement that needs some time to sit with and, and let resonate, that kind of loss, that degree of loss. As a society we're so fixated on certain losses, you know, and, and then when it comes to adoption, we're so quick to celebrate.
And I think, you know, in, in some sense, sometimes to me it just feels like a giant cover up. These celebrations, like we're just trying to cover up that there was ever anything, you know, and quick, quick, quick, quick. Make it better. And, um, the reality is it's just a terrible, terrible way of going about the process of having the loss of family and biological inherent, you know, cultural layers.
It's just a really, could not be a worse way really to go about it than to celebrate and ignore the grief.
Haley Radke: It's so confusing, right? Like, so this line about feeling it in your bones is so visceral. And even as you were reading it, I'm like, cold. I'm feeling like tingles in my arms, like you know, getting like the goosebumps and uh, then I'm picturing the party when, you know, internally we're like, this is so confusing. What's happening to me? Where is my family and here's a party. Like, get it together. It's time to pretend like it's very, it's very upsetting to think about that and thank you for articulating that so well.
Um, in your last thought there, I just think it is something we really do need to consider and you know, so many parents do the gotcha day thing and I've asked several times in polls and you know, on Twitter or on Instagram about how people feel about gotcha days. And my listener representation, most of my listeners really hate that. They hate it, they hated it. Um, then they hate it now. They hate it when their parents call them and say, oh, it's your, you know, like, still some celebrated into adulthood and, and they feel really angry about it. And, um, of course that's not all adoptees. I've heard from some that do enjoy that celebration and I didn't experience that. We didn't do that. It wasn't really a thing at my house, but I, what I watch now is the Instagram ones, you know? Yes. It's very uncomfortable.
Reshma McClintock: Yeah. And what's interesting is, You know, we, we didn't do it either growing up, I actually didn't even know the day that I came home, the, the day that I came over from India. I didn't even know any of that until we had started planning the documentary and then I looked at my paperwork. So I didn't know until I was well into my thirties, um, when I left India, when I got home, or the day that, you know, I officially was adopted in the U.S. But I think that, yes, I would say, I feel like I can comfortably say that for the most part, most adopted adults who are out of the fog are not fans of Gotcha day.
Or, celebrating it in that sense. You're right, though, it is confusing because, uh, and not for everybody, but for some people, I mean, some people are just a firm, no, you know, we're not celebrating, there's no confusion here for me, right? Like, many people feel that way. Like I'm not confused about whether I wanna celebrate this or not.
But there are people where, who it is, where it's confusing and it isn't that I don't like a party, it isn't that I don't want to be celebrated. Right. Or, and it isn't that again, you know, we go back to the same word every stinking time. But it isn't that, I'm not grateful. It isn't, you know, it has nothing to do with that.
It's mostly that it's so ignored that the grief and the loss are ignored and all, and then there's this big, you know, party and celebration and this glorifying of adoption and glorifying of adoptive parents and all of that minimizes an adoptive person. And so, that's, you know, in this piece, you know, saying, I love how just direct it is.
You celebrate who you think I am, who you think I am because I'm adopted. You don't grieve with me. You don't feel the loss that lives inside my bones. Now I'm obviously putting my own expression into that, the way I read that. And you can read it in multitude of ways, but I think that, you know, I read it that way, that time intentionally because it is somewhat accusatory. Adoption, you are, you know, have this big old party and, you know, society's representation of adoption is that it's glorified and this, you know, really great win, win, win, win, win. And you know, all the while totally missing our losses. And that's the part, it's like just, I mean, minimally acknowledge them, right?
Minimally acknowledge them instead of, you know, leading the way. Is this party, this gotcha day? You know, all the gains of the adoptive family. There was a quote that I put out on Dear Adoption over the summer that said, your gains are our losses. You know, and I think that's, that's, that's how I feel so much of the time about adoption.
And, you know, I had a great conversation with a dear friend of mine who's an adoptive parent who's really out of the fog. And she had gone to her kids after we'd had lots of conversations about gotcha day and said, you know, do you, should we stop using gotcha day? And she came back to me and she said, well, you know, I get now that it's problematic, but my kids are like, at the time, I think like six and nine.
And she said, but they like it now like it's become a part of our family. And so it's comfortable and familiar to them. And so in that regard, you know, I think it's just we would, I would probably go back to, you see the beautifully crafted exterior I was forced to create, right? We are comfortable with what we know that our parents, like, we know you guys want the party, we know you want to celebrate the day I came into your family.
We know that it's difficult for you to acknowledge what we lost or that we weren't born to you. Right. That doesn't mean we shouldn't still work on that. That doesn't mean we shouldn't still work on moving further away from this, you know, celebratory party and moving, you know, more toward acknowledging the grief and the loss of an adopted person.
Haley Radke: And my last thought on this line, you don't feel the loss that lives inside my bones is, I read that and then I think you can't feel the loss.
Reshma McClintock: Absolutely.
Haley Radke: I'm laughing cause I hear a, I was just gonna say,
Reshma McClintock: I know why you're doing that. They're edging or something. I dunno what he's doing or leaf flowing.
Haley Radke: You know what, it's real life. That's what's happening in the background. We're not always pristine. No problem. Um, okay. Have I sufficiently mind your thoughts on this piece?
Reshma McClintock: Absolutely. I, you know, thanks for giving me the opportunity to share this. I did share with the writer that we would be discussing this and they were very pleased but I wanted to tell you the one thing that did come up in our email conversation was they said, I wish I could be brave enough to do it myself.
To go because you and I have talked about that, about bringing a writer on, who isn't anonymous. Right. And um, and I just said, it's okay. You know, you do what you can. It's brave enough that this person was able to articulate those incredible, incredibly profound thoughts. Um, they have opened the doors for so many other people to also be brave and share their thoughts.
So I just wanted to mention that I think this writer is one of the bravest people I have ever been able to have a conversation with. This is, you know, Dear Adoption is bravery at its core. And I'm so, I'm so proud of my community and, and this person who's, who will be listening, um, you are the bravest and, um, I'm so, so proud and I'm so, so thankful. Just on a personal note for what this piece has done for me and the doors that it's opened for so many people that we'll never even know. So this is beautiful bravery on display.
Haley Radke: Well said. I started crying as soon as you said that because there's a cost to, you know, sharing your picture publicly or your voice publicly or your name publicly. But there's a cost to writing these words down even when your name's not on it. So I know that price has already been paid.
Reshma McClintock: Thank you for acknowledging that. Absolutely. I agree. It, the pieces that are anonymous are not less than. They're not less impactful. They're not, uh, they don't take any less to write.
And, arguably, if anything, if you feel the need to be anonymous and you can still put this out there, that's. Incredible.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. Okay, I'm gonna get myself together. Rashma, one month ago from the time this episode's gonna go up, you were in Washington, DC for a really special event, the Department of State's Intercountry Adoption Symposium.
Now, I know lots of this is top secret. Did you know, did you guys know that Russia's, like in the, like, tops, she had to sign stuff? I've been watching Jack Ryan. It's like, like spy level stuff, right? No, I mean, I, she's not allowed to say it's okay.
Reshma McClintock: I mean, I had a badge. I'm just saying, so if you're, if you're questioning my legitimacy, I had a badge with my name on it.
Haley Radke: So she's not gonna confirm or deny anything. Uh, but, um, all joking side. This was a really important opportunity and I just wanted to give you a chance to kind of share with us what you can maybe about some of the adoptees that you met when you were there, what was kind of happening, kind of give us the gist of it and then, um, we'll point you to some other posts. You can read about it a little bit more about, um, what was talked about there. So why don't you go ahead and share a little bit of what happened at the Department of State's Intercountry Adoption Symposium.
Reshma McClintock: Well, it was a real honor to be, um, asked to attend. There were a few of us, uh, intercountry adoptees who were invited, uh, Linnell Long, who is the founder of ICAV, which is Intercountry Adoptee Voices, kind of, she's, she's based in Australia.
She's a Vietnamese adoptee, who was raised in Australia, but she's been just working, I don't know, I mean in the trenches for decades now, doing incredible work. I am incredibly honored to know her and she's kind of worked to rally some of us in the United States because of some contacts that she had.
And so there was a group of us that were invited, and I'll be really honest, uh, part of the title says, uh, you know, talked about the improving the future of intercountry adoption. And I thought, well, hmm. Does that really align with what I'm out here doing? Am I looking to, you know, I mean focusing more on that word future, um, because I personally would like to see, you know, more family preservation, much less adoption.
Although the future regarding ethics is a very important to me. This was the first time adopted people had been invited to these conversations.
Haley Radke: Oh, that, yes. Don't gloss over that. Say that again.
Reshma McClintock: Yes. Yes. This is the first time that adopted people were invited to these conversations at this particular meeting. Right. Yeah.
Haley Radke: That’s shocking.
Reshma McClintock: It's great. Yeah and, extraordinary. So, I'll tell you really honestly, I first received the invitation. I was like, I am not going to that. That sounds awful. And I don't mean that disrespectfully, even though I kind of said it disrespectfully, but I, don't mean it disrespectfully.
I just was like, oh no, this is, this is not for me. And, I hadn't read everything about it yet. Um, I hadn't really heard exactly what it was about, but I thought, no, that sounds like less, you know, my wheelhouse than what's, um, you know, than what, what I'd really like to focus on. However, it did not take me long to read the description about really what the intent was, who would be attending, that adopted people had not been at these meetings before.
To realize that one of the hard things, I guess, about life in general is, and, and advocacy specifically, is that we're kind of out here. And I've been out here for the last in adoption land for about five years. Yeah. And I've been asking for a seat at the table, right? A lot, a big part of my message has been less adoption professionals, less adoptive parents, um, you know, kind of dominating the narrative and more adoptee voices, so it doesn't really make sense to then finally, what, five years later, receive an invitation saying, we would like to hear from you and say, no, I think I'll go ahead and sit this one out.
Right? So it felt, like I said, my initial instinct was, oh my gosh, this is so not for me. And, and very quickly followed by, I absolutely have to go. I need to be there. There's a lot of people who would love to have this opportunity and the right thing is for me to take this opportunity, and to advocate.
Whatever I, to whatever extent I can for adopted people and our voices to be heard. So it was a really extraordinary group of people. I would love to list their names, except that because of my own shortcomings, I'll forget someone and then I'll feel terrible and I won't sleep for like six to eight weeks.
So, I'm not going to list their names for that reason only. But I did post a photo on Facebook and they're all tagged, so we can check that out if you want. Anyway, it's, it's just my own memory, and it's not that I don't know who they are, but, basically the conversations, the first day it was a three-day event that we were a part of.
Uh, the conversations the first day were really difficult. A lot of adoptive parents and adoption professionals and adoption service providers is what they call them, ASPs. And so, and a lot of the ASPs are also adoptive parents. And so the first day of conversations was really challenging. I did not feel seen the first day.
I did not feel heard. The first day. I felt like what my initial response was when I thought, I shouldn't go, this isn't the space for me. I thought, oh my goodness, I'm not really sure why I came here. Um, this is all very much, a lot of the conversation was centered around like deregulating, intercountry adoption.
Like let's have less procedure, less rules. And this is not from the department of state. This is just from people who are attending saying, you know, we need to make this quicker. We need to make this easier and we need to make it more affordable, intercountry adoption. And I'm thinking, no, no, no, no. To all of those things.
So, the first day was challenging. That being said, I'm asking people to listen to adopted people, even when what they're saying is difficult to hear. I also have got to be willing to do that. And the biggest takeaway from the hard parts of the adoption symposium for me were that I too need to be listening to some extent just to know what we're up against. Right? It's really important to know what the intent is of adoption service providers in the United States, what the, you know, oftentimes on both ends. You know, adopted people, adopted adults who are advocates have been demonized and, to a certain extent, many organizations and agencies have been demonized and kind of grouped in with this over zealous desire to, you know, take babies out of the arms of their mothers right.
And ship them overseas. And so we kind of paint this picture and I have to tell you, it's not really easy for me to say this. I'm just gonna say that too, cause I'm super, totally very human. I was surprised to, from many of the conversations I had with adoption service providers who, yes are encouraging and hoping for there to be more adoptions, but to hear from them that they really do feel like they have a narrow lane that they need to stay in.
That they are not eagerly swooping in wanting to take babies and separate them. That many of them, and I'm talking individual people, not agencies as a whole. Okay. Cause it is an industry. It is a business. These people do lose their jobs if, you know, the commodities decrease. So there, you know, that's just a plain fact of the matter.
But that there were many people who work in the adoption service industry in the adoption service provider industry who are saying in their offices, among their coworkers, wait, wait, wait, that is not our area. We need to only be looking at children who we are, certain are orphans, who we are certain, you know, need families.
And while there's a lot of gray area there, and I still don't totally agree with many of it, I still personally wouldn't work for those agencies. I still personally wouldn't partake in those things. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see many people who are trying to do something, who are trying to create an ethical shift in intercountry adoption. So take that for what you will.
Haley Radke: Okay. So that sounds positive.
Reshma McClintock: Yeah and I'm a little bit ping pongy about it. You know how I like to say ping pong. Um, I ping pong back and forth between feeling like, wait a minute, is that possible? It's some, you know, somebody joked with me like adoption ethics, that's an oxymoron.
Right. And I agree to with that to a certain extent, but I also just like what you said earlier in our conversation, we are for family preservation, we are for children. And, there may be a circumstance in which the absolute last resort does need to come to place. And in that circumstance, there does need to be strong ethics.
If an, if a child, if, if we exhaust every resource and every family member and everything we can, then there has got to be ethics in place and regulations in place to make sure that we really, truly have exhausted every resource. So, I would say that for me, that was the positive takeaway. I felt like I listened and I felt like I learned, and that doesn't mean that I felt like I was schooled.
I don't feel like it, I was like, oh, whoa, I've been wrong this whole time. No, no, no. I still stand, I, I still, I walked away from the meetings standing by and more firmly attached to my personal convictions of family preservation, adoption as a last resort. I feel more firm about that than ever, but I also feel like there is some positive headway.
Haley Radke: Did you feel, at some point you said the shocking first time adopted people have been invited. Did you feel that adoptee voices were listened to?
Reshma McClintock: So, on day two, there were many opportunities for adopted people to really share. And I mean, if I'm being really honest, you could look around the room and just by reading faces, although this isn't, you know, a perfect science, but just by reading faces, you could tell who's listening and who isn't. When an adopted person is sharing even, if their view isn't controversial, even if what they're saying isn't controversial, you can kind of get a baseline just by looking at the body language and the facial expressions from people who's listening and who isn't.
For the most part, I walked away feeling heard, for me personally, so I wouldn't speak for the other people there, although I know some would say that as well. I felt like the members of the Department of State who were there did hear me, what I had to say. When I had the opportunity to address those, attending the symposium, I said, there is a group of us here representing intercountry adoptees all over the United States.
We want to be heard. We need to be heard. My, you know, biggest statement was, we are the most valuable and most untapped resource on adoption. And that we're here and you need to hear from us. So, um, I think that was really important for me to have an opportunity to convey. And I did feel heard, I have received emails and responses from adoption service providers and from other people who attended saying, we did hear you.
We want to hear more. And I feel like that's the reason I went. And so overall, I feel like it was a really good decision to go. I feel like it's, it is difficult to accept those invitation. It was emotionally exhausting. It was physically exhausting. It was costly. We all paid our own way. It was, you know, a lot on every level.
However, it was worth my time to be there. And, you know, and not everybody gets the opportunities all the time to do these things. So next time it may be someone else and not me, and I'm excited about that because we need to keep having new people come up and, and get involved and find other ways and other people have a, you know, different ways of articulating and expressing themselves.
And I think that's really exciting to kind of see our community build and grow. And so that's one of the things we're kind of coming out away from the symposium that we're hoping is that, those people who do wanna get involved with these different areas that we're trying to address adoption ethics and intercountry adoption, adoptee citizenship.
That's a really, really important one. Um, post adoption services, that's really important. And then there's all these adoptees online in adoption land saying I wanna be involved. And, um, we're hoping, we have ICAV U S A now, which is a Facebook group, and we're hoping that people will come and join and we can kind of direct people and make these opportunities more visible. To more adopted people so that people can really get involved and we can be a part of the, you know, this transformation that we hope to see.
Haley Radke: That's awesome. We are gonna link to that Facebook group. So if what Rush has been talking about is kind of lighting your fire, go ahead and click through the show notes so you can join that group and figure out some ways you can get involved.
And I will also link to, there's two blog posts that kind of expand a little bit more about the symposium and what happened there. Um, so Linnell Long wrote one and you can find that at Intercountry Adoptee Voices. And the title of that blog post is Adoptee Activism in America. And then MJ of Beyond Two Worlds wrote, privileging The Voice of Adoptees and in her summary of that event.
So I will link to both of those in the show notes. Thanks for giving us a little taste of what that was like. I appreciate that and I was just so excited to kind of, you know, watch your travels over there since I was just in DC earlier this year and gosh, that is just a really special place to be and I'm Canadian. I'm Canadian, so, you know, that’s saying something.
Reshma McClintock: Yeah. There is something about Washington, DC it's just, you can feel it in the air, the, you know, I dunno, I dunno what, how to even describe it. The power almost right. Something powerful about Washington, DC that you can feel?
Haley Radke: Yes, definitely. Okay. Let's do our recommended resources. Why don't you go first?
Reshma McClintock: Well, mine is ICAV, Intercountry Adoptee Voices. Um, again, founded by Lynelle Long. Their website is IntercountryAdopteeVoices.com. Lynelle has, you know, put together a plethora of resources and different adoptee perspectives and stories, and there's just a lot of really good information there, and there is a lot to glean from that online space.
There is so much to learn. I'd encourage you to go there to read the different articles and blog posts, to look at the different resources and take a minute to pause and, you know, sit with them. It's an extraordinary community that Lynelle has created and it's just, it's really exciting. It was wonderful.
That was one of the great things was to get to meet in Washington, DC so many of the people who contributed to ICAV and that also, you know, really made it worth the trip. So if you specifically, if you are an intercountry adoptee, this is a great community for you to be a part of.
Haley Radke: Absolutely and I am cheering from the sidelines since that's not my experience. So happy to highlight it and I won't invade the space cause it's not my place. Okay. So mind y'all, if this is gonna feel a little bit self-promo E um, I don't know how to say this, Resh. I got asked to be a guest for the hundredth episode of Damon Davis's podcast. Oh my, really!
Reshma McClintock: It was so good!
Haley Radke: So it just feels funny to be that, to be my recommended resource, cause it was me. But you know what? It's really not about that. I wanna say a big congratulations to Damon. Um, you know, when this airs, it'll be, you know, like a month ago since he posted his show. But a hundred episodes, no jokes. So much work and highlighting adoptive voices.
So a big congratulations to Damon and Resh. You were actually a guest on my hundredth, um, show as well. So I just, I remember that milestone and, um, just kind of special to be a part of it. So I was really honored to be Damon's guest for that.
Reshma McClintock: Okay, and I'm gonna hop in real quick, if not supposed to. It is, this interview is so good. Um, and I just wanna quickly say because, uh, to the people listening who love the Hailey Show and love Haley. Haley is a, I am a fan of the show, and I consider Haley to be one of my absolute dearest friends. And she shared things I didn't know. And it was, it felt really, I mean, frankly, really honored just to hear so many of those parts of your story.
And Damon did an incredible job interviewing you. Um, I really appreciate him and his work. The interview is extraordinary. It is worth your time. Everybody go find it. Hailey, you were just lovely and I really appreciate you. So thank you for doing that interview. I know that was outside your comfort zone, but I'm so thankful that you did it.
Haley Radke: Thank you, Resh. I didn't care to say that. No. Um, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing another great letter to adoption with us and you can check out Resh all the places. Tell us where can we connect with you online?
Reshma McClintock: When you call me Resh, then ever other people call me Resh. Could you use my first and last?
Haley Radke: When you email Resh, make sure you call her Resh and don't say Reshma, you just say Resh and just double down cause of us.
Reshma McClintock: Oh, bet it'll become a thing. Yeah, I'm teasing you. Um, see, this is why we shouldn't do interviews together because I just, there's too many sidebars for you.
Okay. Yes. You can find me on Facebook, Reshma McClintock, and I'm on Instagram as well. Um, my website is ReshmaMcClintock.com, which kind of links you to the other areas that I'm involved in as well. Of course, Dear Adoption is DearAdoption.com and there's a lot of really extraordinary letters coming out over the next few months, so I'm really excited about that. So thanks Haley, for your platform and for sharing it with people like me and I love coming together. It's just my favorite thing.
Haley Radke: So fun. Thank you.
I am so grateful that there are adoptees writing about their experiences, sharing them on their own blogs, writing Dear Adoption pieces, just micro blogging on Instagram. That has been a whole thing. Are you following other adoptees on Instagram? You really should be. Some people have been sharing some really insightful things lately, and on Twitter.
Oh my goodness, there's so many ways you can be connected and be sharing your story in your own way with your own platform. I'm so grateful for each one of you that shares, shares your story. One way you can really help the podcast to keep going is to share this episode with just one adopted person that you know, maybe you heard the letter and you thought, oh my goodness.
I, this is the first person that came to mind and I'm gonna share this episode with them cause I think it will really impact them. I think that would be a really nice thing to do for someone and then you can have a conversation about it and how adoption has impacted both of your lives. I love it when people tell me that the podcast has become a conversation starter.
And, I've heard some of you are using it in your support groups. You'll listen to an episode and then you'll talk about it next time. I love that, any creative ways we can engage in conversation with each other is just I think it's so healing and so helpful and I also just wanna say a giant thank you to all of my monthly supporters.
I wouldn't be able to do the show without you guys. And I know I say that every single week, but it's so true. It's so very true. So if you wanna be a partner and make sure the show keeps going, you can go to AdopteesOn.com/partner and there's a link there and details to all the ways you can support the show.
And yeah, I had Reshma on an episode of Adoptees Off Script this Monday. Um, and that was just for supporters of the show and we had a good time and also some laughs and shared some things we wouldn't share on this public episode. So if you need to hear more from Reshma, she is, often a co-host over on Adoptees Off Script, AdopteesOn.com/partner.
Okay. Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
