270 Sara Easterly
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/270
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] 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. Sara Easterly is back with us. She's the author of Searching for Mom and the founder of Adoptee Voices. Today you are talking about how Sara became friends with an adoptive mother and a birth mother in order to write a book called Adoption Unfiltered.
It's a hard conversation because when I got asked to endorse this book, I had to say no to a friend who I value and deeply appreciate for her contributions to the adoptee community. So we got together to talk about it. We address the power dynamics when interacting with adoptive parents. We talk about whether or [00:01:00] not adoption really is always going to be around and what adoptive parents need to be doing now that they know that they participated in a terrible system.
Before we get started. I want to tell you I have a puppy! And you might hear little puppy snores in the background. I'm excited, but, you may hear him showing up from time to time. And if you want to see him he's on my Haley Radke Instagram. He'll probably be on the Adoptees On Instagram stories too.
Anyway, he's a very cute little pug named Spencer. And sorry about the snuffles, but He's sleeping right here. I also wanted to invite you 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.[00:02:00]
I'm so pleased to welcome back to AdopteeZone, Sara Easterly. Welcome, Sara.
Sara Easterly: Haley, I'm so glad to be back here again.
Haley Radke: I love seeing your face. This is your fourth time on the show, I think.
Sara Easterly: It is. Yeah. Although one was with my Adoptee Voices crew.
Haley Radke: Yes.
We'll link to all of your previous appearances on the show in the show notes for folks. But if they want to go back to 143, that's It's when you really share your full story. And we talk about your memoir, Searching for Mom. And that was in 2020. And we're like reflecting on oh, it's pandemic times.
We're both scattered. And I'm coming to you today with a new puppy, very tired. So also feeling a little bit, it's like, when does Sara get my best? I don't know.[00:03:00]
Sara Easterly: You're at your best all the time, even through all the chaos. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I believe.
Haley Radke: So we're fellow adoptees, of course, and you have a book that is now out called Adoption Unfiltered.
And two of your co authors have a very different adoption experience than you. Can you talk about that and how you guys came to connect and be friends and do the work you're doing together?
Sara Easterly: Yes, I'm happy to and I appreciate you having me on to talk about it. Just want to say that. Thank you so much. So we met. I met Lori in January of 2020 when I was in Denver for a book event for Searching for Mom and she attended and introduced herself to me and that was lovely. We even took a picture together and, I met lots of people and in. Many of whom [00:04:00] I actually have still have relationships with today, which is fantastic.
Just a nod to in person events and how those things go. And I ended up doing a little bit of writing for Lori on her blog. She often was she and she still does elevating working to elevate adoptive voices. So having adoptees right on her blog and I pitched a couple of things to her and she took them and posted them and.
Haley Radke: And this is Lori Holden, who is an adoptive mother.
Sara Easterly: Thank you for the background. Yes. And and so we, just built an online relationship and it was later in that year, I remember seeing as you and I both know Haley, just there can be some contention in these spaces when you're out there in adoption advocacy work.
And she was taking some heat and I just. Because I had a relationship with her, I reached out and just said, Hey, are you okay? It just, it was, I don't even remember the exact details around it, but it was really like a [00:05:00] very, I felt just harsh reaction, the kind of thing someone wouldn't say in person as happens all the time online.
And we ended up hopping on the phone together and. We were like, why is it so hard to talk to each other and we get keep getting misunderstood and we kept having these realizations in this conversation and I think I just kind of cheekily said we should write a book together and she's okay, and it's one of those things you put out there and we put it out there and then we were like we want a birth parent and who would that be?
And we just kind of have this conversation going for maybe two months. And then we were both at a conference. We didn't even know, like we weren't really close friends still. This was just kind of a, those things you say. And then we were both at an online conference again, because the pandemic and we saw Kelsey presenting.
I saw that Lori was there and I chatted her, Hey, Hey, hi, good to see you. And then we were both in a presentation that Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard was [00:06:00] presenting and Lori and I both chatted each other, the birth mom we want because she was so articulate and she'd been doing work. She'd been looking at adoption in a really great deep way.
That struck us both immediately. And I already knew that Lori had been for many years. She way preceded me to the adoptions at advocacy spaces. And so we just reached out to Kelsey and she did not even know who we were. And she said, yes, I'll write about, basically sure. And then the next, we were meeting weekly and having it took us that was January 2021.
So a year after Lori and I met, and then it took us another few months to figure out what are we going to do together? What would a book look like and start envisioning it? We did some practice writing together. We took some heat for some of the things we, some, some things we wrote.
And so we learned from that of, okay, what are, how does this work with communicating between the three of us as a team, as co [00:07:00] writers, and then so that people can hear what we're trying to say and that we can get points across and hopefully by this unique configuration model, what it's like to work together across aisles to take advantage of power dynamics.
And educate in a different way, so it took another year, basically, like that we started in January 2021, and we weren't even ready for the book to be out there pitched for another year, so it took a full year full calendar year by December, I think was when it, October, maybe October, November, December.
I'm trying to remember exactly. But when we finally we're getting it out and then we got the book contract, we got an agent, we got a book contract, and then I had to write the book and now it's out as of December 1st.
Haley Radke: Out in the world. I only talk to adoptees and occasionally I'll talk with first parents and I have a really hard time engaging with adoptive parents.
[00:08:00] Because most of the engagement I get from adoptive parents is trying to correct me, and I don't appreciate that, and it's hard for me to dialogue with folks who are not able to listen and understand my perspective. Especially because I'm a grown adult and I've been doing this for a long time now and we were just kind of joking before we got on like how many hundreds of adoptees, right?
Both of us have spoken with over the years and so it's I don't think you're going to change my perspective at this point. And what's the point of me trying to change theirs? How has it been navigating these relationships with Lori and Kelsey? Like you guys getting along all the time?
What's going on there? It sounds hard to me.
Sara Easterly: So glad you asked this question. Yeah. I mean, [00:09:00] I am so lucky. I mean, we were the three of us were just talking yesterday because. We really didn't know each other that well, and we, you just don't know, and we feel like we each, I think, feel really lucky for the ways the people that we are, that we, because I've never felt like Lori or Kelsey have ever tried to talk me out of anything or tried to change my mind.
I'm just really lucky. And I, I know exactly the people you're talking about because I've had them in my DMs or a Facebook post or whatever, and or in conversations and it's so activating and I feel really thankful that's not what happens. They're both really good about centering adoptees.
They're both really great about not asking me to do emotional labor for their personal situations. We never really had to say here's my boundary and you can't cross it because they already kind of they already had an awareness about that because they were already [00:10:00] in these spaces. For so long that they've done enough work to know this is how you do and don't interact with an adoptee and a fellow human being, some of the way people interact, it's kind of to the point I was saying earlier when you when I felt bad for Lori, it's like I feel bad for you, Haley for the stuff that people drop in because they wouldn't say that. Maybe some of them would say it to your face. As it's coming out of my mouth. I've had that.
Haley Radke: You know what? I would love that. That would be really interesting. I get to know who I really am if they said it to my face. Yeah. Okay.
Sara Easterly: But, all that being said, I mean, We've had some hard things. It's been hard. Like it's not like super easy.
We've had hard, we've had some challenges to work through.
Haley Radke: Can you tell me one topic that was super challenging and that you guys batted heads on?
Sara Easterly: I'm, I can tell you one topic [00:11:00] in the book and then I can also tell you one just way of working together. Yeah. But the topic that was challenging was on attachment.
And Lori had written a chapter on attachment and of course, I I say, of course, the listener hasn't read my book yet but my whole kind of focus of study since becoming a parent and since looking at my own adoption is all about attachment and looking at attachment and studying attachment dynamics and how we relate to as people, how we love, how we grow, how we trust, how we, how vulnerability affects us and our emotional responses to separation.
And so that is my entire section is about attachment minus my chapters on classism and racism and religion, but everything else is all about attachment. And so Lori had a chapter on attachment and she hadn't read yet my chapters. [00:12:00] And because we had different working styles and so my work style is to wait until the deadlines right in front of me and then with that pressure I will write and Lori we found out has a different style where she was drafting she had I think all the framework for all of her chapters drafted before Kelsey and I had even started. So
Haley Radke: That's unrelatable. I don't understand that either. Sara. This is how I work like you work. There you go.
Sara Easterly: What was so interesting about this whole thing there's so much I could talk about just on that whole thing alone too because you've got the adoptive parent As the adoptive parent already drafted and she's waiting on me for my feedback, but I can't give feedback to her because I need to get my own thoughts out before I'm looking at her content because I don't want that influencing me.
And so there was that whole dynamic at play. And then when I turned my head to look at it, I'm like wait a minute this [00:13:00] doesn't make sense for you to have a chapter on attachment when my entire everything I'm going to write is about attachment. And what you're saying about attachment is kind of different from my view of attachment.
And I see what she was doing, but I have a different perspective. And so that was our first interaction with collaborating in our writing. And I read it and I got to tell you, I didn't react in a way that was like real attachment friendly. I sent this long email and I was like, I disagree with this. I disagree with this. I disagree with this. I had red lines all over. And I said, in fact, I feel so strongly about this. If this is not, if this stays in the book, I can't be a part of it. So it was kind of like a, that adoptee, it was my adoptee. Like I see the exit doors and I'm out, and I also felt really strong.
I also knew I [00:14:00] have a pretty clear boundary on that, like that, that I was like, I see that I have some dealings here. So I sent the email and it was wounding. And for a couple of days, Lori did. I'm feel very comfortable saying this because we talk about this all the time with each other. But Lori did respond in a way that was kind of unkind, she sent a note and it wasn't kind her response.
And I didn't say anything. We let the weekend go. And then we scheduled time. We both came back on Monday and talked because we're both really committed to the project, ultimately. And we came back and we had a phone call and we heard each other. And I think we both saw how our own adoption related dynamics were at play there and we could talk about it.
She's I'm really sorry. I never should have said that to you. And it wasn't like it was, I mean, I'll just say it. I don't think she would have a problem with me saying it. I think she said. Something about. And you're right. [00:15:00] You're the expert on attachment.
Haley Radke: Oh,
Sara Easterly: It wasn't. And those are not her exact words.
Haley Radke: Yeah, but, yeah, actually, I am. I'm like, yeah.
Sara Easterly: No, I'm not, clearly. Yeah, it doesn't come alongside you at all. It was funny. We learned from it. And then we also learned about our working styles and I learned, I need, I can say that now, but at the time, I didn't have the insight to be like, I need to get my stuff out on paper before you do it like you and I'm sorry, I can see how that's really frustrating for you because you've got all this energy and organization and you're it's not fair, but I can't, I got to write my stuff first and then you can respond and go after me.
And so it did light the light of fire for me. Okay. I can't wait until the very last deadline here because we're, I've got colleagues and we have a process we need to go through. And then the other piece of that was real that other big aha for us was like we're writing about coming together and [00:16:00] we were off in our own silos writing and we thought we would just dump it all together and then it was like, Oh, we have to actually do what we're saying to what we're saying we have to do we have to go back and forth.
We have to bounce off of each other's words. This isn't just we all go in our corners and write the book and just. Place it in it's not going to work that way.
Haley Radke: So one of the things that I bumped up against when I was reading wasn't quite the final, I guess. You asked me if I would endorse the book, and this is a long time ago.
And I was like, sure. And so I read a giant chunk of the adoptee section, which was first good job, . And then I was like flipping through towards the end knowing that I'm gonna come up to the adoptive parent section in particular. And I saw some of the chapter [00:17:00] titles and things and I was like, oh my gosh, I don't think I can read this.
It really felt like activated and I was like, I can't finish reading this and I have a rule that I only endorse things that I've fully read and actually want to endorse And I had to email you and tell you I couldn't do it. And I felt so bad, Sara, because, I mean, we've had a really good connection all these years.
And I'm gonna cry just thinking about it, but my dog died. You were one of the people that... you sent me this really thoughtful gift and I still have your card on my wall. I can see it from here, and I know how much work you've done for adoptees and helping them unlock their writing and through your writing classes and all of those things.
Right. I was like, Oh my God, I'm really going to let her down, but I can't do [00:18:00] it. It was so scary to send that email to you.
Sara Easterly: I appreciate you saying that. I knew that. I mean, when I got the email from you, I, that was my first thought is, Oh, I hope I didn't put her. I'm. I just, I felt bad because I was like, Oh, I put I just figured I know you and I know that it would have been a really hard to write.
And I think you even said that in your note, it was a lovely note. And I totally understood. And I want you to know, I feel like I'm going to cry too. I mean, I am so thankful. And so are Kelsey and Lori that you spoke up because we needed, it was a really key moment in the development of this book because they go through so many drafts and you get to a point where you're like, I'm sick of this book. It's done. And there were some things that I know were not really working. And a part of me was like, an editor is going to fix this. Our [00:19:00] editor will get this, like we'll get this down the road and then it didn't happen.
And a part of that, I think it's an important part of the conversation that I'm just going to flag for maybe later is when you're publishing traditionally editors don't always. They're not adoption fluent, so only in here can we do this. So what your feedback was a pure gift. I have goosebumps, truly because we realized that we have this book title and this idealistic vision of unfiltering adoption and not, and bringing out into the open the things that have been swept under the rug and not addressed, or we gloss over and pretend there's no loss and pretend all these things. And that works for adoptees and for birth parents.
We think it does. And then we realized, wait, adoptive parents are the ones who've been in power and we can't have the full unfiltered perspective. If [00:20:00] we want everybody to read this, that's a different book. Like this book, we're trying to reach all the audiences. And so we do need to be like really aware of those power dynamics and how it affects every reader and your honesty meant so much.
And by the way, if it also makes you feel better, you weren't alone because I had a second adoptee come forward and someone I'm very close with and a mentor and said the same thing. So I was like, okay. And in writing groups, they always tell you, if you're in a writing group and you're getting feedback, if you get something critical from one person, you can decide what you're going to do, you do or don't have to listen to that.
But if you get two or more and they're saying the same things. You have to listen. And so you and the other, I was like, I really, I've been in writing groups for 20 some years. So I knew exactly this is what this is. It's this. And I had been hoping it would get fixed and kind of just ready to be done with it.
And it's nope, we're not [00:21:00] done yet. Go back in and we've got to pick this apart and figure out what is palatable. And I know it's not the same thing at all. But we, when you make the metaphor of race, so it is, it's easier to see like we would never expect people of color to listen to all the backstory of why white people are racist, a racist some something hurtful that we did out of our unconscious or conscious racism.
And it's the same dynamic. We were like, okay, that we can't that chapter on baby fever. I think may have been the, that was a title that was in there. It's gone. That chapter is done, but we don't need to understand that adoptive parents can have their spaces for that. And I think. I will say, that was good for me too, because I think just being, I had the luxury of three years in relationship with Lori and Kelsey, and I know their full work and I know the end.
Like for Lori, I know her [00:22:00] character arc that yes, she started with baby fever. And she has modeled a different way and she was trying to that was what she was trying to do with that chapter is model how to get past that and not have that mindset and model for hopefully prospective adoptive parents not to get it get myopic on baby fever and.
It's too uncomfortable. We don't, we don't need, that's not the point of really what we're trying to do in the book is unfilter everything. There's still a place for some filters and you got me.
Haley Radke: I have read it in full the new version that everyone else is going to be able to read and I did get through it and I didn't feel activated.
Of course, I was reading with a different lens this time. With the purpose of us having this conversation, and I really appreciated first of all, we already talked about this, having the [00:23:00] adoptees be the first voice in the book, and your really cool diagram of the adoption constellation with the adoptees at the center.
And it actually looks like I just was at this event. It's like a Canadian adoption event thing. And they call it the galaxy instead of the constellation and I was like, oh yeah, okay.
Sara Easterly: And that,
Haley Radke: Yeah, so I could see both of those in the in the diagram. So when I was reading through the, at the end, I thought, okay, this book still isn't necessarily for someone with the full lens of full family preservation, I was going to say at all costs. It's not that, but there is a line I think that is in your section where it's like adoption is still going to be a thing. [00:24:00] And there's many of us who really fully believe that abolition is possible, and there is a different way to call it permanency, I guess, give kids permanency who are unsafe, and we know that is a very small minority of what we're talking about in adoption with permanent legal guardianship or those kinds of things.
And so coming to it with that and thinking of how Lori does work with adoptive parents and Kelsey is working in the adoption field still, these are things that I thought, oh, okay. That's hard for me. That's hard for me to see adoption still, what do I say, perpetuated, I guess. What are your thoughts on that?
Sara Easterly: Yeah, I mean, I don't, what we say, and I'm sure you read this, but what we say is if you are, [00:25:00] if you, the reader, are adoption is love, it's beautiful, or if you're on the other side of that, adoption has to be abolished, then it probably isn't the book for you. You're right. I mean, it may not be. And that's okay.
I mean, I think every book has its market and its audience and that's okay. We are not pro adoption in the book. It's not like we're adopt. And I want to say Kelsey does tremendous work. Her work in adoption is all advocacy. She just was presenting to the House of Representatives last week, and it's all for stopping harmful practices in private adoption and getting regulation.
So it's not that she's out there. When she's working, the way she's working in adoption are for the good and for the better. Now I will say I have my own mixed feelings, and I think I've had some conversations with one of my interviewees and they lately just, we were just talking, I mean, it's.
I mean, I have now, this is my second book on [00:26:00] adoption and this one's more of a teaching educating book than of course, my own story, but my writing and my essays are all trying to teach. And, then what is the, I think there's a real philosophical question of that I like talking about and thinking about and having in the back of my mind, because I don't want, are we teaching so much that we're now saying, okay, do X, Y, Z, and now you get to go do go forth and do adoption, and that's not my vision.
I really appreciated Lori interviewing two people who decided not to adopt.
Haley Radke: Yes.
Sara Easterly: And why they decided not to adopt. And I have a little bit of a, a part of me is I hope we can get prospective adoptive parents to read this book. And maybe we will talk people out of adopting. And I don't know about you, Haley, but I have had friends who struggled with infertility and they've said, I really appreciate your work because I'm not going to pursue adoption. And I'm like, wow, I thank [00:27:00] you, because, and if you do still, then you got to have your eyes wide open and not think this is just your answer to your prayers, and so I do, it's important to me to tell the truth for that reason. But I, I do, I wear that.
I keep that in mind and it's complicated. It's complicated for me. I still want to teach. There are still adoptees out there. Who need support who are being raised by parents who need to know how to raise and better support those children. And there are birth parents who need to do a better job of stepping up and supporting their kids in different ways.
And I really appreciate the ways that Kelsey models that in her section of recognizing that you didn't, you might have legally signed your rights away, but you are still a parent. And I love that she models that for other birth parents to see that the other piece that I want to say that's complex of the whole thing. And this is another thing I really value about Kelsey is she's [00:28:00] because her adoption took place only seven years ago. Because of the advocacy work she does, she's very well versed in what's happening today in adoption. And I think a lot of us and myself included we are basing what we know on adoption of our experience of whatever era our adoption took place and the landscape is changing.
And I think the when I look at it from the decades, I see how it's kind of the same thing over and over again. When you read The Search for Anna Fisher, it's like, what I thought this was all fresh, but that was in the seventies. And so it's, there's a lot of the same undercurrents, but things are changing.
And so I think it's really important for us to know that and be aware of what, how it's changing and why, and then to be able to kind of fill in the pieces now to apply with what's going on. So that definitely informs. Forms my perspective and all those [00:29:00] things are at play and I, it's adoption, right?
We live with complexity and not ever fully reconciling everything to this nice, tidy. Tidy package. And we just, I think we're kind of, that is a strong suit of adoptees, right? We can live in those things that are both.
Haley Radke: Yes, live in the middle. Okay. I appreciate those things. I want to touch on a couple.
First, let's talk about openness in adoption. I told you I was just at this event and one of the people that I connected with told me they had just done this, finished this research comparing adoptees who experienced closed adoptions with adoptees who've experienced open adoptions. Because now, right, those folks are becoming adults and we've, we can look at their experiences and they've had the decades and comparing their, the psychological outcomes and if there was a difference or benefit.[00:30:00]
Her research lines up with what I've heard anecdotally is that adoptees from open adoptions in whatever capacity openness means from a full connected relationship ongoing with one or both of their biological parents, they still have the same issues that the closed adoptees have. So I think there's this idea that like we're doing all these things so differently and openness is really like the fix and that's the one thing that was missing that I'm gonna have to just roll my eyes at when folks say that because I'm like, okay, but have you talked to adoptees that have experienced that? Because that's not their experience.
Maybe some. Not my friends and I really, I liked how Lori laid out some of the what does openness mean, right? Does that mean a postcard once a year versus [00:31:00] a full relationship and, having your adopted child go for full visit with bio parents without them there and those kinds of things.
Yeah, you have any comments on that piece of it? I mean, this is what we hear, right? It's the fix. Open is the fix.
Sara Easterly: Yeah, we hear it. Yeah. Yeah. And it is so great that we're getting, starting to get research and that those adoptees from that era are growing up. They're adults that can say, wait a minute.
Yeah. And because it wasn't the fixed end all be all. And I mean, it kind of gets to what I was saying earlier too, like just even for adoptive parents to have knowledge of attachment and what happens to us? That's not the end all be all either. Like it's still, there's still going to be pain and hardship and loss.
You cannot get around that. There is loss and in adoption open or not. We can make it easier for the adoptees. And I think I would have loved, I mean, when I read Lori's section on openness, I love [00:32:00] that because I, there's that part of me that was like, Oh, I wish I had grown up with openness, even if it wasn't an open adoption.
Of course, there's, but I would have loved to have openness where I could just talk about adoption and how I felt openly. And, anything I, the other piece of that too, that I wonder about as a thought that I think about often is. What's it going to be like another 20 years from now when today's adoptees are grown up I mean, will they feel like all my parents would do was talk about adoption, because there was so much openness.
I don't know. Either way. I don't think. There's no quick solutions. Adoption can't have a quick solution. That's, I think that's the, that for me was the challenge of writing this book too. I was like, anyone who's not an adoptee reading this, it's going to be feel so hopeless when I finish my section, because I wanted, that is one of my key points.
You can't fix it. [00:33:00] You can't, you can understand better, but you can't fix it. And I think that was the trap that people fell into with open adoption is thinking this is going to make it and it didn't.
Haley Radke: I mean, I was at a conference last year, the year before, and one of the keynote was like one of the pioneers of open adoption and the way she talked about it because she'd been in adoption for years like working in adoption and the way she talked about it. I was like, oh my gosh, you don't have a clue you don't have a clue like and you're a keynote speaker. What is? So I mean that's one of the great things about your book right is you're really saying the hard things like if there's a book about adoption that's all positive and is purporting to have the solution it's [00:34:00] not real.
Those these are the real conversations, like the ones we're having now, that you guys talk about, right? In the book you're like, look, we've been glossing over this for so long. I think I even wrote down the... Oh, yeah. On page 18, there's a quote from you, putting a happy face on adoption doesn't serve anyone, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Sara Easterly: I also I've been really lucky. I've been in, in this happened almost shortly after Kelsey and Lori and I embarked on this book project. I joined Adoption Mosaic's Better Together group, and it's a group with adoptees and adoptive parents and a birth parent. I think we only have one birth parent right now.
And I've been in this group the entire time. And there are a lot of different kinds of adoptions. And these are parent, the adoptive parents are actively parenting right now. And I see, it really helped inform for me a lot of [00:35:00] remembering to see this. That open adoption is not the end all be all because I see the complexity.
I hear when you talk with even the parents, it's really complex for them to, and you put yourself in those shoes. If I was well aware that my birth mother had three children when I was younger, even as an adult in reunion, that can be hard for me. I feel the, even as an adult, I'm 51, I feel there's jealousy or there's hurt that why did she keep them and not me.
And and put that like a child growing up, seeing that, and that's really complicated to navigate for parents and the children alike. Yeah, I mean, I think in some ways, maybe it even adds complexity. Not that I'm saying don't do that either, it's just, everything's complex. There's just, there's no way around the complexity and the loss.
Haley Radke: No, there isn't. Okay. I want to make sure we touch on the Kelsey's section and the [00:36:00] birth parent section. I, one of the stories of one of the moms that she interviewed talks about how She didn't, she wasn't getting into trouble until after she had placed her child. And I think that was that was one of the key moments for me.
I'm like, yeah the trauma of placing your child for adoption. Even if it's in an open adoption, even if you sort of have some idea of what's going to happen to your child, like that can be just full of so much brokenness. And I think that the stereotype is that the birth parent is already having these sorts of issues, which is what led to this unexpected pregnancy.
Can you talk about some of your... insights and things that you know now about the birth parent experience from your [00:37:00] relationship with Kelsey over these last few years.
Sara Easterly: Yeah, I'm trying to think of how I can do this because I don't want to I so badly want to talk and tell you what all the things she said, but I learned so much from her section.
There's so much that heals my own, heals and informs my own relationship and the way I view my own birth mother, because there's understanding. That's the good and the hard of working across. About, across the lines of both, I will say, because you kind of are aware of your loss in a way to when you're like, Oh, look at her, like doing her work and understanding the impact and that can be painful.
So there's the grieving that I have to do in that and the yearning that someday, I might encourage those people in my closest circles to dive deeper [00:38:00] and look a little closer. So there's that, but there's the healing in that too. There's the healing and even knowing that grief is there because I might not have even paid attention to that before.
It brings it to consciousness and then there's just the understanding and the compassion that I can offer. And it's beautiful and it's heartbreaking, it's all those things at the same time, again, the dualities that we have to sit with all those things. But I've learned a lot and I've been able to put myself in Kelsey's position in a lot of ways to just as a young woman and I had an unplanned pregnancy myself and I went a different direction, and I can. I could have gone that could have been my situation. So there's a lot that's relatable of and I think in both cases, there's a lot of Kelsey writes a lot about the religious pressure and the pressure and [00:39:00] her family and the ethics and the feeling she had no say and I think, when you're young and you're vulnerable and you find yourself in a situation, an unplanned pregnancy, then your choices get limited and get distilled and set the course.
And so I, I could see my story turned out differently, but there's so much that I could relate to through Kelsey's story.
Haley Radke: I'm not necessarily expecting an answer. I'm sort of just kind of putting this out as an observation, I guess, is when I see her still a young woman in my mind,
oh, this will be the last time I say it. I turned 40 this year. So seeing that and knowing she's in relationship with her child, and just a couple years down the road she's in a position where she could be a parent, and, it's, oh, that's tough, [00:40:00] that is so tough and this is what leads me to this observation is, I really wish we were working at the upstream problems, versus having these again, this feels like a downstream conversation, where we're like, It's happening. It's happening. It's already happened. We're dealing with this versus setting those mothers up for success in parenting. Even in an unexpected spot where they're in,
Sara Easterly: I agree completely. And so does, so would Kelsey feel safe in saying that. I mean, she's in a community with a lot of birth moms and doing that in lots of different ways.
But it's, yeah, it's, that is where it needs to happen and, Kelsey and I both have been talking a lot and and she writes about it in the book too, about informed consent and what that means and birth parents do not definitely do not get informed consent. They're not told that, they're and Kelsey was [00:41:00] too.
And again, this is where I want. I just want her in the room to say this stuff. But, like we talk a lot about just the complexity of not being told that this will hurt or you'll be running from the hurt for the rest of your life. There will be guilt involved. And your adoptee will be your child will be in pain for potentially the rest of their life. There's, that's not, if that information is not given to them when they're being told they're selfless and doing the right thing and making the right choice and which, she writes about. So it's really important. And that's where I feel strongly that adoptive parents aren't given that, that informed consent either.
This is just the answer to your infertility or your, this is will help you make the family if it's not in, if it's not fertility related, but not told, again, like I said that's why I feel like it's a win when I have people who are coming to me and saying, yeah, I don't think we're going to adopt like knowing how hard this is.
Either hard, it would be a hard journey as parents, or it would be really hard on the child. Whatever their [00:42:00] reason, like that they're able to see this isn't what culture tells us it is.
Haley Radke: Okay. Last thing before we talk about our recommended resources, there is a section towards the end about talking about some of the things that adoptive parents can do.And I think, let's go there, let's go there. You've mentioned several times power dynamics in our conversation and, well, not me, a friend got into it with an adoptive parent during November and was asking them. What are some of the things you're doing to help adoptees? And their answer was highlighting adoptee voices and re sharing their stories and this is a conversation on Instagram, where they all are.[00:43:00]
And so my friend and I, we're like rolling our eyes at this thing, okay, that's the least you could do, the very least. And so what I see concrete things adoptive parents should be doing is like the bare minimum, right? Advocating for original birth certificate access. Advocating for mental health supports for adoptees.
Like, where's your money going now? Do you have thoughts on that? And what do you want to challenge adoptive parents to be doing versus just resharing our Instagram stories?
Sara Easterly: Yeah, or building platforms, just building their own platform.
Haley Radke: Yes, and making money off how to braid their black child's hair. No, thank you.
Sara Easterly: Yeah, I know. I like, there's a part of me that wants to start naming names and taking people down right now.
Haley Radke: Our listeners know, they know. They know.
Sara Easterly: We know. Yeah, we know. We all [00:44:00] sometimes I'm like, why do I keep them in my feed? Just to like. But it's my fuel.
Haley Radke: Oh, no, I just block them.
Sara Easterly: I keep a few in there. I really do. I keep them in there for my fuel. What? Okay, now I got all fired up, Haley. What?
Haley Radke: Okay, boss the APs.
Sara Easterly: Yeah, okay. I do. I got a little nervous. There was one, one point in, I think you're talking about chapter 21 on supporting adoptee maturation. So I think it's okay. I'm not quizzing you, but I think that's the chapter. And in that chapter I did feel like I was kind of saying, here's what you have to do, make space for us to grieve. There's kind of the practical in terms of supporting adoptees today of. But then I also I have under one of those points was, and I snuck a whole bunch of things in, but, assuming a leadership role and I have a lot of stuff under leadership, but one of my sub points under that is don't make everything [00:45:00] about you and, I wrote and I was like, again, sometimes as I'm writing this stuff, I'm like, as it is when you're in on Instagram and you feel so brave when you're writing and then I'm like, okay, I hope they can handle this because I'm leaving it in, don't take our instincts personally, don't make us responsible for your emotions, don't expect the adoptee to take care of your emotional needs. Even if they try to do it, don't take advantage, don't overshare our stories. And then overshadow, don't, and don't even blast your story 'cause it overshadows our stories. So
Haley Radke: You have that memorized. Sara, that was
Sara Easterly: I do it's important to me .
Yeah. So there, that's my bossing . There's probably more.
Haley Radke: Oh, that's good.
Sara Easterly: Yeah. And don't, yeah, I think I've written about this too don't go on social media. I mean, come on. Oh, it's so painful. It's so painful. And then even saying my child gave the [00:46:00] permission, they can't give permission.
They cannot do that right now. Their children, understand it could take 40 years. I'm raising my hand. That's how long it took me to realize the little kind of nodding permission I gave was not permission.
Haley Radke: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I really appreciated that you even put you say this overtly in the book that the adoptees that you talk to for your section are all a bit older and have processed their adoption thoughts.
I thought I might bring this up earlier, but I'll say it now. I commented on this viral post of this baby being placed with their new adoptive parents. And this was like, had to be at least a month ago, maybe more, maybe six weeks. And I'm still getting replies to me about how stupid I am because my comment was like, you're looking at this as this [00:47:00] beautiful moment, but this is a really traumatic event for the child, right?
This means they're losing their connection with their biological family. And so I'm just like, okay. And the ones that really, I feel are the adoptees commenting and saying, Oh, what are you talking about? What do you know? Because I didn't identify myself as an adoptee in the comment. I love that I'm adopted. This is the happiest moment of this baby's life. And I was like, Oh. Okay. I don't think you've examined fully the impact adoption has had on you. And that's fine. That's how nice for you. But I appreciate that you really did talk to folks who have. And I recognize some of the names, some of the people I know, some have been on the show before.
And so that was really beautiful. So I really loved your section on adoptees. [00:48:00] I learned so much from Kelsey. And I'm going to say, who is this book for, Sara, who is this book for? Will our listeners benefit from reading this? I think so. I do. I think so. I think there's things that you point out to us as adoptees that could help us in our healing journey.
Some things that may be unexamined for us. Who do you want to read this book when you're talking to, our listeners here on Adoptees On?
Sara Easterly: Okay you mentioned the adoption constellation visual that I made and I want anybody who sees themself in that visual of the constellation to read the book.
I mean, that is ultimately our audience when we were writing the book and again. Pay back to you when we, when you came back and said, Oh, I can't read that 3rd question. We really went back and said, okay, let's, well, who are we writing for? [00:49:00] We had to get the clarity and what we came to is that each of us are writing to our own people.
Me to adoptees, Kelsey to birth parents, and Lori to adoptive parents, and we're writing to, we're writing to help, like for me, I was driven by feeling like I was crazy for the first 40 years of my life, on some level, because I didn't understand all the different ways that adoption affected me, and then becoming a parent so I guess it wasn't quite 40, I exaggerated, but, becoming a parent, In my 30s made me start realizing I just started a waking up and realizing, okay, and then I got into, I started studying attachment and I'm like.
Oh, my God, all the ways I was responding were normal ways humans respond in the face of separation. And I pretty strongly believe there isn't much separation greater than adoption. So because we face it for our entire lives, it's constant in so many different ways which I write about in the book. So I [00:50:00] wanted to explain us to us, and I wanted to explain us to the people who are constantly not getting us. And getting it wrong it the timing was perfect again sometimes triggers are great I went to a conference a retreat and I had I was. I was at an author table with an author who had a book about it was totally pathologizing. She was a foster parent and adoptive parent, both. And she's writes books about these raising traumatized children.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh, the whole thing was pathologizing. And I'm like, I get, I'm tired of that. But it was my fuel. It was my fuel. Okay, I'm explaining us to us and I'm explaining us to that author and any person who read that author's book and all the other people who pathologize us. We don't have reactive attachment disorder. We have a human brain that responds to separation in a certain way. That's [00:51:00] what we do. and we aren't crazy, we're doing what our brains do and we've got too much separation to bear. And so that for me was my driving fact factor behind the book for the audience and Kelsey the same way. Birth parents, sometimes there's, I think it's like for adoptees, it can be so painful to look.
I, as you experienced, it's really hard when you get, when those adoptees are at that point in their journey, because, we're sitting in a different place now, you're in your forties, I'm in my fifties and I keep talking about that too. These milestones are big because you have new perspective, and you don't want to take away where they're at right now. It's part of the journey that we've all been on. And and you don't want to shut them down. You don't want to tell them, you don't want to tell them how their journey is going to unfold. That's not right either. But yeah, it's hard.
And I think that happens for birth parents too, was where I was going with that. Is I think that happens to it a different. It may not be quite by a year, but it happens for birth parents as well. And so that was a, Kelsey has talked about wanting to explain [00:52:00] that. And I think for Kelsey, she said this a lot is wanting to show the full well rounded three dimensional aspect of birth parents to others too.
She is not only a birth parent. She's a lot of. A lot of roles and a lot of she's a human being. She writes a lot and speaks, says that a lot. And for Lori too, I think there's the less about, because of that whole filtering and unfiltering exercise we went through.
But I think for her, it's, she said sometimes adoptive parents don't know that they're doing these things. And she also wanted to help kind of show, show that they're doing that. How to model thinking beyond certain stereotypes, how to model looking at your own situation only from your angle and then, of course, we hope that people are making policies and looking at what's best for the child will read this and come to some of those same conclusions of, Whoa, this goes deeper than we ever knew.
Haley Radke: I want to link to a video, you all have a podcast on, it's available on [00:53:00] YouTube and there's a video that released pretty recently. If you're listening when this episode is released it's called Adoption Constellation Roundtable: What is Hard About Adoption? And I really appreciated the comments from everyone.
I think it's a really great discussion that helps add to the conversation you and I've had today. What did you want to recommend to us Sara?
Sara Easterly: It's so hard when that question is so hard. It's so hard. I have so much I want to recommend.
Haley Radke: Your first time. You practically tried to. Recommend my show. I was like, but you're on it. They're already listening.
Sara Easterly: They're here. I remember struggling with this on that one. And the other one I did with Donna. I have two. Can I say two or is that cheating?
Haley Radke: Okay.
Sara Easterly: Okay, so I, the one I said in my, when [00:54:00] I emailed with you, I said Adoptee Voices E-Zine. But then it felt so self promoting, but it's not because it's other adoptees. It's the adoptee writers in my writing group. And I dedicated the book to my portion. Each of the three authors of adoption and filtered had a dedication and mine is dedicated to Adoptee Voices, writers that their stories matter and their voices matter. So, and that's why the E-Zine is so near and dear to my heart.
And I like to lift it up and point people to read it whenever they can, where I'm working on the next issue right now. We've had 11 issues and just some tremendous writing of adoptees, but then the other thing I wanted to highlight is the Adoptee Consciousness Model from Susan Branco and JeaRan Kim and others.
If you're not familiar with it, it's just such a, I'm really loving it. And I just keep returning to it. And I just I just love that it's a spiral and it's not, I just like the metaphor in so many ways. And I think, it kind of speaks to how, this work in [00:55:00] adoption for all of us, we are all building and growing and getting it better and better.
And the more we all, it, all of it adds value. And I like the evolution of kind of going from out of the fog, which I still use sometimes, but I also like the evolution of speaking to adopted consciousness. So much richness there.
Haley Radke: Yes. JeaRan Kim was on the show talking about that model in 235 if people want to hear her elucidate on it and perfect timing. The, I don't know if you heard that jingling. That is probably the first public jingling of my new puppy.
My editor is going to be so happy about all the little puppy noises, but is what it is. Okay. I wanted to say it out loud because you grieved with me for my old puppy and now you get to you too see my new puppy [00:56:00] in a minute when we're
done.
Sara Easterly: Yeah, you have to, I have to have a viewing.
Haley Radke: Yes. Okay, let's do it right now.
And then you've got to tell people where we can find your book, books, and where we can connect with you online.
Sara Easterly: Okay. Yeah. If I mean, I might, my heart might melt here. I mean, you have no brain capacity after that. Oh, what a beauty. Oh, I love the bow tie. Oh, big yawn.
Haley Radke: If you want to see Spencer, you can go to my personal Instagram. Videos and pictures of him. Okay, Sara.
Sara Easterly: That's a sad to be set up. I just want to reach through and cuddle him. Yeah, he's on Haley's shoulder here and it's the sweetest thing ever. Oh, he's going back to sleep. I love it. I've got a puppy right now too, Haley, and he's at the naughty stage. He's a teenager now, six [00:57:00] months.
Haley Radke: There's another naughty stage. . Great
Sara Easterly: Let's not talk about that. Yeah. Okay. .
Yeah. So to find a book probably the best place to go is adoptionunfiltered.com. That links to our podcast, that links to information about the book. And it's available every anywhere. Bookshop.org, Amazon, you can request it through the library, anything. So it's published by Roman and Littlefield.
Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Sara.
Sara Easterly: Thank you, Haley. I appreciate being back and I loved having this hard conversation like talking. I'm glad we could do this.
Haley Radke: We did it.
I so appreciate when friends can have different perspectives on things and we can still get along and do work together. And I [00:58:00] mean, Sara and I both kind of talked about this. In email and sort of off recording, but I really don't think we have very different perspectives on adoption. I think we both really highly value adoptee voices and I mean, she started a whole thing to help adoptees storytell and write their thoughts and get things onto paper in order to elevate adoptee voices, which I think is amazing, incredible.
I know so many people that have gone through. One or more of their writing cohort groups, and I think it's amazing. But the value I see in folks like Sara, who can work with adoptive parents and hopefully coach and lead them to a better understanding of adoptees is enormous because [00:59:00] I don't want to do that, it's a lot of you don't want to do that either and so I feel so grateful for someone like Sara who has the patience and the compassion and the patience and the patience to deal with some of those ongoing shenanigans. I really appreciate that. And I think these conversations are really good. And I also, they show me some of the areas I still need to grow in for sure. I love hearing from birth parents. Because it helps me gain a better understanding of my mother and why she won't have contact with me and where can you get that? Where else can you get that? And I've had so many mothers sit with me and be very generous with their stories. And I hope we can do the [01:00:00] same for them. And I always like to say adoptive parents are welcome to eavesdrop here. So listen, but we won't be taking questions. Thank you. Anyway, if you were like worried that all of a sudden I'm going to start interviewing adoptive parents on the show, no, don't worry about that. Adoptees On. Adoptees only. We're good with that.
I want to thank my Patreon supporters for making this show possible. When you are a patreon supporter you are paying for the costs of Adoptees On to be produced Sara has been a patreon supporter and I really appreciate everyone who has donated in some fashion towards the production cost of the show and if you join patreon we have levels where we have online events monthly with book clubs and Ask an Adoptee Therapist events.
[01:01:00] And there are so many good things about being in our community together. It's just really special for me. And we have scholarships available if you would like to come. You can go to adopteeson.com/scholarship and find out how to apply there. We would love to have you. Thank you so much for listening.
Let's talk again next Friday.
