242 Andie Coston, LCSWA
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/242
Haley: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke.
Today we are talking about something that may feel triggering to many of us. Indeed, both me and my guests had a hard time at different points during this conversation. Today we are talking with an adoptee who is also an adoptive parent.
We don't talk about their adopted child's story, but we do talk about the impossibility of legal guardianship in their case. So as someone who doesn't really know what I feel firmly about this situation, I invite you to come into the gray zone with me. And if you already know, like this is gonna be a sensitive topic for me, no problem. You are always welcome to skip an episode.
Am I being over dramatic? Maybe. Andie Costin is here with us, and today we're talking about how to live in the gray world of both advocating for adoption, abolition, and/ or reform, and also the fact that there are children that do need permanence now. How do we look at the systemic upstream problems that cause adoption to exist, and how do we support the most vulnerable in a timely fashion?
There are very challenging parts to being an adopted person who also adopts in the adoptee community, and there are moments where an adopted person is the only other human who could understand what their adoptee is going through. Before we get started, I want to invite you personally to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.
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 to adoptees on Andie Coston. Welcome Andie.
Andie Coston: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Haley: Yeah. Why don't you start and share a little bit of your story with us.
Andie Coston: Okay, so I am an adoptee. I am a domestic - whenever I say domestic, I know that's our lingo, but I always feel like I'm a cat, like that's what always comes, always comes to my head .
Haley: And I'm not domesticated by any means, right.
Andie Coston: Right. We are.... I run a feral family. We just moved and I just met some neighbors and I, and they actually have a kid that's also one of our kids' ages and we were, I was like, these are my children. They're feral and I was like, oh, so I've just reduced my children to that now. And he was like, great. We love feral children.
I was like, fabulous. Anyway, so I am a domestic infant adoptee. My adoption was originally closed. However, I came home with my hospital bracelet on, and so my adoptive parents knew my biological last name. And as it would have it when I was about, I think four or five, I wanna say more towards four, my mom's dad, so my biological maternal grandfather moved to my town and started working at the hospital that my dad worked at, and my dad came home and said to my mom, I think I just met Andrea's grandfather.
They didn't say anything cuz they weren't a hundred percent sure. And then six months later, my mom moved to town to live with her dad for a couple months. My parents even invited them to church and they came. I was in Sunday school. I did not meet my biological family at that point, which is actually one of my adoptive parents greatest regrets.
We talk about it all the time. But they were just scared. I mean, this was 1986, 87 and there was, there was no, no support or encouragement for anything like that. But they had been writing letters through the agency back and forth with my mom. And so there was some sort of openness. And then when I was 14, they said, now you can write her letters.
And so I, my mom and I began communicating. A very 19 century style through letters for, for those of you who you know, don't have, we didn't have the internet back then. It was letters only.
Haley: I thought you were gonna be like, there were these things called paper and pens and stamps.
Andie Coston: I, I had to, yeah. I even purchased my own, like specialized paper with my name on top. And that's where it all went, quote unquote downhill because I wrote on that special paper. It was like one of those like kits that you could order.
I found a coupon for it in the newspapers that come on Saturday. And, and they had coupons in them and advertisements for things like mom jeans that had elastic waistbands and coupons for ordering specialized paper. So I ordered my own kit and with my budget cuz my parents were, are Christian and they were into Dave Ramsey.
So I had a budget. I had to spend my own money at 14 and I used that to write my mom and then she put the pieces together and, and called her parents and said, holy bleep, I know who has Andrea. So we wrote for a couple years and a couple years later I did a, like, it's like a weekend retreat for Christian teenagers.
And on that retreat, one of my biological cousins accidentally signed up for the same retreat. And so she didn't know that I existed until the day before. She was not allowed to introduce herself until Saturday night. So for 24 hours I had this weird freaking stranger following me around, asking me questions like, what's your boob size?
Like, very personal questions. What are you into? Are you a theater person? Do you like crafts? Do you know if you're Irish or not? These are legitimate questions she asked me.
Haley: Very subtle.
Andie Coston: Very subtle, very subtle. And you know, being a teen, I was like, this is weird. I didn't catch on to subtleties. She was able to tell me that she was my cousin.
And then the next, so she was technically the first biological family member I met. Then the next day, at the end of the retreat, they do this like, you know, closing ceremony and we got done. We walked out of the sanctuary and my dad comes up to me and said, do you wanna meet your mom? She's here. And so that's how I met my mom. I was ambushed. And again, we've had to have some conversations about how to not introduce your adoptee to their biological parents. Because it wasn't just her. The entire family was there. Like people had flown in from like Chicago and the West to meet me. So it was a little overwhelming. I met my dad a year later and we met at my biological mother's house with just my parents that was a little bit more... less stressful.
I knew I was coming, it was fine. But yeah. Anyway, that's my story. So, yeah. Now I have a relationship with my dad. We are at opposite ends of the spectrum politically. So, there's some relationship there. We'll be seeing him in a couple of weeks. He's the greatest. I love him. He's very accepting, very chill. I take a lot ...we, we, I take after him more than I do my mom. So we get along much better. My mom and I are no longer communicating. Which I now am fine with. Therapy for a while for that, but that's, that's where I'm at.
Haley: Okay. That there's a lot there. Wow.
Andie Coston: There's, yeah. Right. That itself is a podcast and we're done. It's a wrap.
Haley: Wow. Well, I, I didn't say anything when you said people flew in, but my face was doing a lot of work at that point, but that doesn't help the audio. Yeah.
Andie Coston: Whew. Yeah.
Haley: Okay. Mm-hmm.. Yeah. That's a lot.
Andie Coston: That's, it was, it was a little much. It was a little much.
Haley: So now, fast forward, you have gone through school to become a social worker and therapist. You have four children, and you did something that in the community, in the adoptee community could be deemed controversial. .
Andie Coston: Little bit, little bit.
Haley: Let's, let's go there. What, what did you do?
Andie Coston: People don't have opinions about it at all.
Haley: No, no opinions.
Andie Coston: I, I, as an adoptee adopted.
Haley: Mm-hmm.
Andie Coston: I like how we both just had to like take a drink after that to like ground ourselves.
Haley: Listen we, I fully feel like this conversation is going to be triggering also for me, like so.
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: Just so you know. So we're just.
Andie Coston: Yeah.
Haley: Hopefully we won't just go activate each other back and forth. But I've shared this before occasionally, but growing up I always thought I was gonna adopt. Like I thought I owed it, like I owed it to the world.
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: To "pay back" in quotation marks...
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: ...this "good thing that was done for me". All air quotes please. So did you ever have those thoughts when you were younger?
Andie Coston: Oh, for sure. That's how it all started.
Haley: Okay.
Andie Coston: And I've, I've talked about this on my Instagram, so like this is all out there. I, I've been as transparent as I can about this. But when I was younger I knew I, I wanted to adopt for the same reasons. Like, I even verbally said "I want to save the children" at points because I'd been saved by such a great family. So I needed to do that for kids out there who didn't have that. Which is funny because I was able to recognize that even at that age, and I'm talking like eight guys, not like in my teens or twenties.
Like I, it was always kind of assumed and maybe other adoptees will understand this for some reason, it's just like assumed like that's what we're gonna do. Cuz it was done for us because, like you said, we owe it. We have to be grateful enough to do exactly what was done to us.
Haley: Mm-hmm.
Andie Coston: But I was able to pick up that not all kids got what I got. And so that's kind of where already I was starting to like lean into like the dissonance of what I have. And, and that's the thing I was, I was adopted by the quintessential adoptive parents. I literally was adopted by a doctor and a teacher. Like that's what they told, that's what Georgia Tann would tell people, like they're a doctor and they're a teacher.
Like, it's so cliche. And I, you know, I had a, I had a pretty decent adoption besides ambushing me to meet my biological parents. But already I was able to recognize that what I had received, you know, I, I felt that I had to be grateful for that because other kids didn't get it. So that's, what you describe is exactly kind of where it started.
Haley: Okay. So I'll share part of my story then too. So when my husband and I were, you know, the first few years of our, not first few, maybe like maybe five years in, I don't know exactly. We went to like foster training classes and that was sort of the route we were kind of thinking of going and it was so strange because all the people in the room, like I was like, this is an interesting bunch of folks, and all the questions.
Andie Coston: This, that's as a former foster parent that sums up foster parents so well.
Haley: Now, this is a stereotype, but like so many of the questions were with regards to money.
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: And what they were going to get.
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: And I was like, I feel like that is the wrong reason to be here. So that was pretty hmm. The disillusionment was real in that moment. And then when we were considering adoption. I, we also went to training for that. And so like the full, however many, two day, 10 hour something for the first step and the way they discouraged older child adoption.
Andie Coston: Oof.
Haley: They just kept pushing for younger and younger and then like, because of all the trauma. And so if you get an infant, there's less. And if you adopt from, well, I'm in Canada, if you adopt from the United States, like you can get a younger baby and like freshly born. You know, like, like..
Andie Coston: Freshly born!
Haley: I literally sat in those classes and I was just like, wow. So there's all this need. And this was from a Christian adoption agency, of course.
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: There's all this need supposedly for older child adoption, but there's no money in it for them. And so they're pushing you towards using their infant adoption program.
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: And it was just so upsetting. And so that was like the piece of the puzzle that I was like, I don't think this is the right thing. Like, I just do not. So, okay. There's my thing now. How about you? Where did you come to it when actually it's terms of things are starting here now?
Andie Coston: Yeah, it's, I wanna say it's, it's sort of similar. It's, I, I wanna come back to that like commodification piece that you're talking about. You know, it started for us, I, my husband and I got married. He knew from the beginning that adoption was something I wanted to do. You know, my views were changing a little bit towards, you know, they were moving away from saviorism to, I just want to provide a home for, you know, a child in need, but I still wanted to adopt.
Then lo and behold we struggled for three years with infertility. And we both knew we wanted children. He comes from a family of nine. Both of my adoptive parents come from very large families too. And so I was like, I'm gonna have six kids. Which now I laugh hysterically at having only four. So we knew we wanted a family and we tried.
We tried, we did. We knew we also could not afford things beyond natural options because we were still, we were still poor. Which is really funny because we're, we literally went to a class with a very large Christian organization, introduction to adoption. We started filling out the paperwork and it's, I sat. We were poor.
Like, where did I think I was gonna get $40,000.
Haley: At the time... and now with inflation.
Andie Coston: Right!
Haley: Where are you gonna find 60?
Andie Coston: 60, even 70.
Haley: Mm-hmm.
Andie Coston: Like, where, where did I think? But this is, this is, I just wanna pause here for a second and say that this is, because the way, what I was thinking and the way I approached it was very much because of the social rhetoric that we are taught in the Christian community about adoption.
And I can see that now. And I can give myself a little grace for that now. But, you know, 1000% I was still in that Christian way of thinking. And so, long story short, we ended up having three children biologically. The doctors are still not sure how, by the way. We would joke about that all the time. Like, I don't know how you people got here, but here they are.
After our second was born, we had a family friend who was fostering and, and we decided, we went to like the intro class and we decided this is something we can do. My husband was working full-time. I was home with the littles. I was like, I have the capacity to be a foster parent. We have the space, let's do it.
And so that's kind of where things started to change because at that time we lived in Michigan, and Michigan had just become a trauma state, meaning they were integrating trauma education into their foster care system. And that was changing how they did things. Supposed to. I don't know, it was supposed to.
So part of my story is we were in these classes and one of the social workers had legitimately just gotten back from a training on trauma with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. And they're like, oh, Heather just came back. Let's have her come in and tell you guys about trauma. Like this is the new thing, right? And so she walked in and she did this very quick five minute rundown on what trauma was and what it does to the brain.
I mean, she even got out her hand model. I wish you guys could see me. If you don't know what the hand model is, just Google brain hand trauma. And, and she showed how, you know what happens when our lids flip and something inside me broke. I was listening to this. I'm gonna start crying guys.
I'm sitting in a class with six other families. This is northern Michigan. We don't talk about our feelings to northern Michigan. We go hunting. As she's describing this, something within my soul broke and I started sobbing uncontrollably. Not just like little crying, you know, with like tears, and you're dabbing them away. I mean, like audibly hyperventilating, sobbing.
And my husband had to like put his arms around me and he's like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I can't. I can't talk. They had to pause the class. I had to regain myself. And I just simply said, that's me. That's what's wrong with me. And I think it was that moment where everything inside me shifted, where I realized I wasn't saving children. I wasn't helping children, I was tearing about apart families like mine had been torn apart.
And I was able to sit and feel the trauma that I had been hiding for 27 years. Actually, I think it was like 30, 32 at this point. And I think that's where every thing changed. That's where I started. What, you know, coming out of the fog, even though we hate that term. That's what I, it's the best thing I have to describe it.
And so, you know, we still, we still fostered, but our motivation behind it changed. It went from we're here to adopt, to, we are here to help families stay together. And we were placed with our now child shortly after that. We had fostered several other children who ended up either going into kinship care or one of 'em had, you know, one of our children had to move homes for different reasons unrelated to anything, but it was they ended up being adopted by that family.
But anyway. We were, we were placed with the child who's now our child. Fast forward to, we are still fostering. How our child came to be with us is not something that I'm going to share. I'm willing to tell y'all the details about my own story, but that's, that is our child's story to tell.
We ended up adopting through foster care because there was no other option. Our child was going to be placed and it was either us or someone that we didn't know. I, if you guys know anything about foster care, you know that they put children up on a website and people can browse the catalog to choose a child. And we did not want that either. And so yes, we ended up adopting through foster care because there was no other option.
I think. I think it's at this point, Haley, I already talked to you before we even started about this, but when... this is where I really had to sit with myself and it was hard. Because part of me was happy the case was over. Foster care is hard. It is difficult. It is even harder when you are either a former foster youth, a child who's experienced trauma, or an adoptee yourself.
You are bearing witness to your own story, playing out in a family that you care about. You are bearing witness to the system treating families unfairly. Manipulating them. Being coercive. Intentionally doing harm to foster families in the name of helping children. So it's very difficult. And, and so I really had to sit with myself and I came upon, I, I'd heard this quote before, but I came upon the, the Desmond Tutu quote.
"There comes a point where we need to stop pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in."
And this quote's been used a lot in the foster care and adoptive system that we gotta figure out what the root problem is. What, what's really happening here? And having walked through being a foster parent, having gone through a master's program and social work, and learning about policy and learning how these policies came to be and what their intentions really were, you know, I could kind of see where the root of the problem was, and I could see how I, I started to believe that we, we don't need to be doing this.
This is harmful. Something has to change. But also there are children who are in the river now. And we have to, I feel like the best way I can describe it is I'm a person who is actively working to figure out what's wrong at the top of the river. That's my job as a social worker. It's, it's in my code of ethics.
I need to be doing that. But also, I can't ignore in both my job as a therapist and my job as a mother, that there are children currently in the river. There are adoptive and foster families suffering right now, and they're raising children who need our help now. And so that's kind of, kind of where I've come to in our adoptive journey.
I wish, with everything inside me, every single day that there had been a better option. I wish I, again, I can't, I don't wanna share my child's story, but I wish we had been offered other options like guardianship. Foster care doesn't like guardianship.
This system, they will, if you say, I wanna choose guardianship, they will fight you. And they will tell you all the horror stories of how it's gone wrong to get you to not do that. But we were not even given that as an option. And I've, I've done a couple other podcasts talking about guardianship and all those other options, so I'm not gonna get into that.
But there's, there's not a day that goes by that I don't sit with the both/ and the nuances of how much I hate adoption and how much I've gained from it. And how I every day have to make choices for the betterment of my child where I lose. And I, and I'm okay with that because I'm an adoptee. I'm okay with that.
But I think that's why I'm so passionately working in this environment, in this community, because I see the top of the river and I can use my, I, I can, I can see the top of the river and I'm living in the river and I'm pulling people out of the river all at once.
It's a really, it's, it's, I know people legitimately hate me because I've adopted. I have known people who can't follow me, who can't participate in my work, who can't have anything to do with me because it triggers them, and that's okay. I understand it. I've been, I have experienced, we know social media on the internet.
I've experienced many, many, a, a bully, many a, a person who is triggered by me who says hurtful things. And after a lot of of work, I'm able to sit here and say like, that's okay. It's okay if you're listening to this podcast and you have to turn it off if, if it triggers something in you. I mean, Haley, you and I were just talking about how it's, it's gonna trigger stuff inside of us.
It's such a hard topic. It's such a difficult thing.
Haley: Well, one of the things I wanted to talk with you about, and I feel like I'm like poking a little bit. So, it's so awkward. It's so awkward.
Andie Coston: That's okay. That's okay. You, you can, you can poke, you can poke it.
Haley: So I've had guests come on the show before and right before we record, they'll be like, oh, and off the record, I'm also an adoptive parent, but don't ask me about that. I don't wanna talk about that. And I'm like, oh. Okay.
And so publicly on their online life, no one knows that they're also an adoptive parent. And I think it's probably for those reasons that you just shared about. The online trolling and such.
So here's the thing that's at the poke. I feel like for some of us, we might think, oh, well there's like levels of okayness. Like, okay, in Andie's child situation, maybe there was no other option. But what about the adoptees that literally go through the infant adoption process and are participating in the for-profit system. Or choose to adopt also trans nationally, so they, there's no chance that their adoptee's family will come knocking and you know, like all of the, like, there's like these levels of acceptability or not.
Andie Coston: Yeah. No, I, I know exactly what you're saying.
Haley: Do you have thoughts on that? Because I feel like I have some thoughts on that, but I not sure if I should say them out loud. Do you know?
Andie Coston: Yeah, I, I do know exactly what you mean. Yeah. And I mean, full transparency. I think I skipped this part and I did not skip this part on purpose. It's just when you're sitting here talking, your brain is running a mile, a million miles an hour. But we originally pursued, oh, I did say that we had pursued infant adoption. But we pursued infant adoption enough that we did a fundraiser and that's where it ended. Like we did that fundraiser and I, I actually canceled the fundraiser.
Cause inside me I was like, this is, no, this is no bueno. And we ended up doing it cuz I felt there, like literally the people at my church came to me and were like, no, we want to give you money for this. Of course you do. Of course you do.
Anyway, so, you know, that is part of my experience and I think it was because so much was happening in my life with the trauma work that it all, just, that portion of my life stopped right there, for the reasons of the commodification that comes into play.
But I, I do wanna go back and I, well first I wanna say like, I don't speak for anybody else's story but my own. But also I have seen themes in, in speaking with other adoptees who adopt. I've, I've seen a lot of, a lot of common themes that, you know, why? Because a lot of adoptees ask adoptees who adopt? Why? Why would you do that?
And what I see most of the time is that adoptees who have adopted, number one, are still very much in the view, the POV that adoption is love and adoption is helping. And adoption, like they had wonderful adoptions and they're grateful, which I validate those. Like I had great adoptive parents. Not perfect, but so that's, I can understand it where they're coming from. I did understand it at one point. I just told you that we were pursuing that type of adoption.
A lot of adoptees also will not challenge that idea because to walk out of that is to break their safety net, is to. Now, I'm speaking as the therapist. A lot of adoptees cannot acknowledge that adoption is anything other than love because then they would have to feel the feelings that they have been hiding, that they have been ignoring, that they have been in, they have been storing in their hippocampus and their amygdala, and have not allowed to enter the prefrontal cortex.
It is a safety coping skill. And I, I really want people who are angry at us to hear that it is a coping skill. Is it a good one? I don't know, but it's, it's, it's no different than any other coping skill. It was developed as a protection mechanism for their infant selves, their toddler selves, to feel safe in a situation where their body was telling them they weren't safe.
That's basic trauma. I mean it's not basic trauma. That's basic trauma lesson.
So that's one aspect that I find on, on why adoptees adopt is because they wanna replicate that feeling. And if they can replicate what has occurred to them positively, then they can feel okay with what happened to them. That's what I've seen both online and in therapy.
Now another common theme I've seen is, I would say somewhat similar to mine, where who better to raise an adoptee than another adoptee? And I know a lot of people think that's a justification, but it's not. Because why are we all here? Why do we come onto podcasts?
Why do we speak out against what happened to us? Because it hurt. And no other person is gonna be able to see my child the way I see them. AS an adoptee, because I can, this happens daily, my husband cannot see things because he's not adopted. And he, we will be struggling in a normal child struggle and a normal daily thing that children get upset about. And I will say, Uhuh, that's not why, that's not why they're mad. They're mad because... and he'll be like, how do you know that? I'll be like, because that's why I'm mad.
And, and so again, it's not a justification for adopting, but going back to the river, who, who is better equipped than those of us who have been through it and done our own work? I think that's key. I I, there are many, many people adopted, parents, adopted or not, who haven't done their own work. And I think it's key that if you are an adoptee who has adopted to really be self-aware. And to have boundaries in your own life. There are certain points of parenting that I cannot do with our child.
It is an open discussion. There's therapy involved for all parties. And so I think, I think I put in the, the, the email to you, Haley that I wanted to talk about like even if you've adopted as an adoptee, there's good things and there's bad things. There's still the both and there's, there are things that I can see, things that no one else can, but there's also, I get triggered by things that no one else gets triggered by.
And my child wound gets triggered by things that aren't their fault, but are simply, that happened to me and, and now we're actively trying to parent it.
Haley: Well, when you were talking through some of those different reasons or the places where people come from, I remember talking to another adoptee who had adopted. She'd adopted internationally and she had already had adult children. And so now they were raising this adopted child together, her and her husband and. I asked her on two or three separate occasions, like if she felt any sort of differences in parenting or sort of, you know, I was trying to get at that. And that question just never connected for her. Because I really think she literally didn't think of herself as an adoptive parent.
Like, like she could not connect those two. And she was very outspoken and very critical of adoption and, and all of those things. And I was like, wow, you're really not putting it together.
Andie Coston: Yeah. And, and I think that's, that's so hard to, that's, that's difficult. I think people here, you know, being an adoptee who has adopted, my primary lens will always be as an adoptee. That's my story. That's how I came to be like my, my brain formed as an adoptee. The trauma formed my brain.
However, I am an adoptive parent and you know, we talk about this in adoption all the time. With that comes a power dynamic that's uncomfortable for our, for ourselves. It's uncomfortable for people around us. I would say there's a, there's a core group of us in, in the community, just like my online community. People I've found who were, were pretty good at sitting in that both/ and, but we really struggle with adoptees hate us cuz we adopted. Adoptive parents hate us because we mirror to them how they need to parent. What they need to change.
And, and, and we actively call them out and hold them account and you know, first parents are uncomfortable with us cuz we're both. So I think it's, it is hard to acknowledge that you're holding these two different titles. These two different roles. How do I, like, you know, daily, I have to say, yes, I'm an adoptee.
But my, the majority of my daily life has to be focusing on that I'm an adoptive parent. Because I'm, I'm raising a child. I'm responsible for that. I'm accountable for that. One day my child's gonna grow up, probably write an expose. You guys will all buy it. It's gonna be great. I'm gonna read it. I'm gonna support my child. I'll be at the book signing and it's gonna tear me to pieces I'm sure.
But I can't wait for that day as well because I want my child to be empowered as a, I want them to be able to talk about that. And that's where I focus on. I'm the adoptive parent and that's where I have to do the work. That's my job at daily. But yeah, it's, it's definitely hard to connect those pieces.
I don't know if that answered the question or the, the poke you were going for.
Haley: Well, here's my last thing before we go into resources. And again, you don't have to answer for someone else's bad behavior. So I'm just gonna give you a little, little story time. So.
Andie Coston: Oh, I love story time.
Haley: I used to co-host on adoptee support group and it's still going. My friends are running it, but I just didn't have capacity anymore. And, it was an adoptees connect group. So you always start out, you give the, like, we keep things confidential, all the support group things, right?
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: If you're more, if you're a member of more than one part of the constellation, this group is for your adoptee hat only, right? Adult adoptees support. So groups are confidential. I'm gonna share this part of a story because this person broke confidentiality.
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm.
Haley: So this person came to the group also as an adoptive parent. And she came looking for support parenting her child.
Andie Coston: Hmm.
Haley: And that is not the point of the group. And so, two or three times I had to say. Okay, but we're putting, put our adoptee hats on like this. We are not helping to give advice kind of thing. Anyway, so, so they left the group having had a really terrible experience because they came for parenting advice, not as an adoptive person. They came as an adoptive parent.
And so now this person publicly shares on all these podcasts about these angry adoptees and how we traumatized her and we told her we all wish we had been aborted. And just, just all of these things that, like fake news. Fake news. That is not what happened. Fake news.
Andie Coston: Yeah.
Haley: And so when you say we all need to do our own work, I mean that is the kind of person who's out there teaching other adoptive parents how to parent their child when they clearly have not done their own work, are somehow delusional because that is not the event that occurred. So what, what are we supposed to do with that? What are we supposed to do with that Andie?
Andie Coston: I don't know! I, you know, I think I can understand, like I said, I can understand adoptees who hate me and, and first parents. Like I, I get it. I, I can understand. I gained from adoption. I hold the power dynamic. I have a very difficult time, and this is my humanity showing, understanding adoptees who adopt, who aren't doing their work.
How do you wake up in the morning, like? I know this sounds, so this is not my therapist hat , but truly, this is my human hat. How are you like, how can you parent an an adoptee, being an adoptee yourself without doing your work? You are actively choosing to hurt your own community and your child's community.
I do this work both in my off, like in therapy myself. I do this work in my home as my business as my job because I am accountable to a child in my home, and I, I want to make it better. How I, like, I I don't know how to answer that question because I don't know what to do with that because I don't know how they cannot.
Haley: Well, here, here's something that I'll share that I really respect about you. Because I also know that woman's child's story. I could write a book about it because of how much she's disclosed. And she'll say things like, we're not allowed to tell our, our child's story. You know, it's, we have to keep them private and then goes on to spill all the tea.
Andie Coston: Oh, that's my favorite.
Haley: Yeah. So, but you have, I hope, demonstrated to folks like you can hold back personal details of something that is not your own. I hope you're modeling, I think you are. I think you're modeling the way and the both, and like sitting in it like, it's uncomfortable.
It's uncomfortable for me to talk about with you that you adopted. I'm my head. I'm like, oh my gosh, I wish we had another hour. Like, what do you think about abolition? Like you are part of the foster care system. And like, why? Like without getting to story, like,
Andie Coston: Oh I got opinions.
Haley: Yeah. Why, why is there even someone out there that says that parent can't parent this child properly according to this state.
Andie Coston: Who decides that?
Haley: Who exactly. Who decides that? So I know we, I
Andie Coston: and i, I know who decides it. I've seen them do it, and I'm like, why are you the person? Why am we ? Who said you were? Like you mm-hmm, you have a hard time getting your car oil changed. Why are you deciding who stays and who goes?
Haley: Mm-hmm. But I think, I think one of the most helpful things that you shared today is something that you kind of wrote a little bit about on one of your Instagram posts, you said, "somewhere deep within myself, I subconsciously believed if I became the rescuer, then I could fix that wound within myself."
And not to psychoanalyze every single person who's adopted, but I think there's real ring of truth to that for many.
Andie Coston: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Haley: So, I don't know. Bringing that to light hopefully will help. Ya'll stop bullying. Stop, stop sending these harassing messages. Like, it's done. It's done. Like, I don't, underst I don't understand.
Andie Coston: Yeah. I, and I think that it's, I wish every day that my adoption had never occurred. I wish every day that my child's adoption had never occurred. It shouldn't be this way. I think we hear that phrase a lot in adoption in this community. It should not be this way. And that makes me angry.
I'm an angry adoptee. I'm gonna just, I don't know if you guys know this, but adoptees can be anger, angry and it can be healthy. Anger is healthy. So when people call me an angry adopting like, thank you, that means a lot to me. Anyway I think that right now, why I'm here on this podcast, knowing that both you and I will get flack, knowing there will be both positive and very negative feedback, is because there is not a space for adoptees who adopted to wrestle that. To deal with that.
There's not a space for potential adoptive parents who are adoptees to sit and feel comfortable talking about it. That's why I'm here today is because we need to talk about it. We need to create that space so that adoptees can answer that question before more harm is done. So that we can say, without having to hide in the shadows, because so many of us do, like you said, I, I don't think there is a week that goes by that somebody doesn't message me and say I'm an adoptee, but I also adopted, I'm scared to let people know. And they have every right to be.
I have been called disgusting. I have been called evil. I have received death threats. I have received threats to find me and my family so somebody can take my child and save them from me. That's not okay. And that's why I'm here is because I want there to be a space for adoptees who either considering adoption, considering foster care have already done it, to answer that question within themselves. To, to face that reality of the, the quote that you just shared.
Because I think if we're gonna create change, if we're going to pursue abolition and adoption, if we're gonna rewrite the system, if we're gonna, you know, fix it, it's gonna take every single one of us.
Haley: Well, I really appreciate you sharing with us and , it's, it's heavy. Even as you said those things, I was like, well, no, but they shouldn't be considering adoption. Just like,
Andie Coston: Right. Right.
Haley: So, you know, like I, in my head I'm like, oh no, but we're not doing that anymore. So we all have very different views. But we can be civil and look, we had a whole conversation, you know? I've talked before, like, we could do it. It's possible.
Andie Coston: It's po It's not easy.
Haley: No, it's not.
Andie Coston: It is not easy. And it definitely triggers us. Like, I know full well after this I'm gonna go, I don't know, take a nap or something, whatever my body decides I was gonna process the, the trauma triggers.
Haley: When, when I post the social on this I am. I'm gonna feel unwell. So hopefully, yeah, you'll just behave yourselves. We don't please, you know, if you disagree. I don't, I don't need to know about it. Neither does Andie, frankly.
Okay. Let's talk about our recommended resources. So I have learned so much from your Instagram. You are one of my favorite follows. I don't know if people know this, but on Adoptees On, like I follow quite a few accounts, but I don't really check too often cuz I know ever want to replicate or steal someone's work inadvertently. It's kind of one of those things, that's why I don't really watch too much. But if I see an Andie story? Click!
Andie Coston: Well, let's be honest, there's a lot more humor in that there is education sometimes.
Haley: Oh my gosh, that's my, like, that's the best part. So anyway, if you're not following you make, gotta make sure you follow. And there is a lot of education and for those of us who are not interested in talking to adoptive parents or teaching them anything, you're picking up a lot of that slack and taking that on and really doing work that I literally cannot. I have rules on my page. I don't engage because it's not for me.
So I'm really thankful for people like you who are able to sit in the both/ and teach people what they need to know. Call them out on what they need to be called out on.
Andie Coston: That's always a fun time.
Haley: But the other cool thing that you're a part of, and I actually have you can't, you're not gonna be able to see them. But the POST Resource boxes, do you wanna tell us a little bit about that?
Andie Coston: So, POST resource, oh gosh, it's, there's so many ways I could like describe it or it came together. How it started was I met this lady online, Claire. She, she, her handle is _project_dawn, another adoptee.
And we got to know each other online and one day, we had not met yet. I got this text and she's like, we're gonna do this thing. And I'm like, I don't want to do this thing. I don't have the energy for it. That's why I felt internally, I feel like that's still some days, especially like as we're pushing to get things done.
But in a matter of 15 minutes we developed this idea and it literally only took 15 minutes because it's exactly what we needed as kids. And it is a business. We're very upfront about that because you're gonna pay us for our work and our lived experience and, you know, I got a degree. We're very upfront about that.
We are not a nonprofit. We are, we don't give these things out for free, but it's a connection. We started with this connection box and the connection box is this gorgeous box that we designed and had made, and it's a physical object that an adoptee or foster youth can have and hold and put in things that are important to them that they have, you know, relating to their adoption or anything that's just important to them.
The idea being then we provide you, we just started a subscription service where we provide the adoptive parents literal templates and activities with step-by-step how-tos based on age development and abilities that they can either share with biological, first parents. They, then it creates the relationship where we're learning about each other, we're sharing things.
If you're in an open adoption, you send these back and forth. Adoptive parents pay for everything. They send it or send the link with our subscription service. It's all downloadable. We specifically designed this for every single type of adoption and foster care and kinship placement and guardianship.
It is applicable to adult adoptees, to former foster youth. And really what it does is it is, if it's an open adoption, it, it encourages that connection because we believe connected families are stronger families. That's literally our motto. If you are in a closed adoption, it is a tool that adoptive parents can use to help encourage the adoptee to develop their identity to process.
We created it so therapists can take it and use it in therapy room to again, help with identity processing and developing like life storybooks. So there's, it can be used in so many different ways and we, with our subscription, we've adjusted all of the wording and all of the instructions so you don't have an excuse.
We hear a lot that adoptive parents are like, oh, well I don't have any, I don't have this tool. I don't have that resource. I mean, I grew up in the eighties, we didn't have anything. We're literally making this so that 20 years from now, if an adoptive parent says that, we can say, no, no, no. It was there and you, it was there.
So it's a no excuse tool for adoptive parents, foster parents, guardians, kinship, to create that relationship, to do the work. We provide journal entries and education that continue to educate and challenge the adoptive parents, and we provide tools and activities for the, the kids and/ or adopted people to continue to process their identities.
Haley: I bought them when you first launched them to support adoptee business, and I'm keeping all of my, Hmm, all of my adoption paperwork and genealogy history that I've printed off and emails I've printed off from both sides. I, that's, it's sort of like my treasure box. So that's how I'm using it.
Andie Coston: Yeah. That's kind of what we wanted it to be. A treasure box. We specifically designed it, it's look so that you did, it could be on your bookshelf and you wouldn't really know what it was because we do know a lot of first parents don't have the safety to share that part of their story and a lot of adoptees don't either.
And so we wanted it to be something that was gorgeous and beautiful and honored their story, but also was safe. To, to be able to use just like that.
Haley: Lovely. Okay, so where can we find those and where can we connect with you online?
Andie Coston: You can, POST Resources just postresource.com. You can read more about us. There's a way better explanation than what I just gave because I tend to get too wordy when I'm talking on podcasts. So you, and you can always email us. There's a link to contact us if you have any questions. We also do something at POST Resource called sponsorships where if, if you're any part of the constellation and you want to provide that for someone who can't afford it, we do not ask adoptees or first parents to pay.
We want to be able to one day be working with agencies so that all of this comes, you know, free to the adoptee and, and to the first parent because it should not cost us, should not cost them. So you can do a sponsorship and we have a list of people waiting and we will send them the whole kit.
So if you have any questions, there's a way to contact us there. I can be found andieink.com or AndieInk on Instagram.
Haley: Perfect. And if you wanna hear more from Andie talking about trauma and those kinds of things you have one season of a podcast called Trauma Informed Everything. We'll link to that.
And you've got so much of your writing and work is available online and linked on your website. So hopefully folks will check that out. Thanks so much for sharing with me. And yeah. I really appreciate talking about something really difficult with you. Thank you for spending your resources talking about.
Andie Coston: I'd like to say it was a pleasure.
Haley: Oh, really? Which part? When I told, when I told this story about the adoptive parent who was slandering me online. That hurts.
Andie Coston: Oh my gosh. I just, people anyway, that's why I became a therapist. But, but I think, you know, I, I wanna just say thank you to the people who did make it this far. The podcast. I know that this is not an easy topic. I know that there are, you know, where you live in a society that wants like black and white answers, it doesn't come often in adoption, and I'm sorry that I can't give black and white answers.
I wish I could and, and I know that any answers I give to some people are going to sound like excuses, and I acknowledge that it. You know, they're gonna sound like justification. I acknowledge that. So thanks Haley for sitting through it. I, I know it wasn't easy for you. It's a pleasure, right? It's a pleasure.
Haley: It was a pleasure. Can't wait. Thank you. It was a pleasure talking with you, Andie.
Andie and I chatted a little bit after our conversation here that was on the record, and she let me know that she will be announcing in the future a possibility of a community for adoptees who are also adoptive parents. So if that is of interest to you, make sure you're following her on Instagram and she will put updates up there as it's available.
You know, this was a hard one, and it's one of those episodes that I am going to feel a little nervous when it goes live. I think talking about the complexities of this, it's very easy for me to sit here and say adoption is never the right thing to do when I have absolutely no experience personally with children that need permanence.
And I am really, really hopeful that as more of us advocate for family preservation and kinship care and the importance of legal guardianship and access to our original records and identity preservation, meaning that our birth certificates are not altered in any way, that there is no secrecy about our genetic origins...
I think the more times and ways we're able to advocate for those and are successful, that, that is the way we wanna move forward, in my personal opinion. And I think probably there are a lot of folks that would agree with that. And I don't know in the time we're recording this in 2023, if that is too idealistic. I don't know because I don't have personal experience with how all the systems work.
The other piece that we really didn't get into, we just briefly mentioned, was the abolitionist movement and with specifically in regards to the foster care system or as the abolitionist groups may call it the family policing system.
And if you're not familiar with those terms, I hope that you will do some looking around Google and read some books on the topic because I think there is a lot we can learn from the abolitionist movement. And so many groups have very, very strong opinions about participating in the system at this time detracts from the abolitionist movement, right?
So once again, we're back in the gray. So I look forward to learning more about this in the future. And also being mindful for myself that talking to adoptive parents is hard. But once they become your friends and you see them and you see the heart behind it and you see we tried to do all the ethical things and, and, and... it's a lot easier to see the other side.
So I don't know. Am I talking outta both sides of my mouth? Believe me, I , I see it and I see the complexity and I still hope there are no more adopted people created in this world because I don't wish the pain of being separated from our original families on anyone. And yet there are very, very, very few cases where children need to be protected.
And I think that's the way that's, that's the argument so many people will come to and it is such a tiny percentage of adoption situations present day. So I will keep that in mind too.
Alright, my friend. Thank you for engaging in this, really looking critically at adoption from an adopted person's perspective. And yeah, go out there and be a good human on the internet. Thank you for listening.
Next week, , we are gonna have the start, part one of a two part back to back, very, very exciting interview with Deanna Shrodes. I can't wait to share it. Her story is amazing. So come back next week for a part one of my two-part interview with Deanna Shrodes and thanks for listening.
Well, let's talk again next Friday.
