284 Dr. Alice Diver
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/284
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. Today's guest is the remarkable Dr. Alice Diver, law professor and outspoken adoptee advocate. Alice has written multiple journal articles and books on the topic of adoptee rights, including her latest, Genetic Stigma in Law and Literature, Orphanhood, Adoption, and the Right to Reunion.
Alice shared some of her personal story with us, and then we dive into her work, including Language in Adoption, where you'll hear such gems as surplus people and substitute families. We also get to talk about how adoptees are viewed by the law in comparison with adoptive parents. We wrap up with some recommended [00:01:00] resources, and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Before we get started, I have a little update for you. If you're a regular listener, you'll know I've taken the last few summers off. But since dropping to two episodes a month, we're going to be going through the summer. So please keep subscribed or following wherever you listen to podcasts, as you'll have several opportunities to hear from fellow adoptees this summer.
Of course, we have lots of content going for Patreon supporters as well. And info for that is always available on the website, adopteeson.com. Okay, let's listen in. I'm so pleased to welcome to the podcast, Dr. Alice Diver. Welcome, Alice.
Dr. Alice Diver: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's good to be here.
Haley Radke: You don't know this, but I've admired your work for years and years. So this is like a career highlight for me truly. So I'm very excited to get to talk to you. And I'd [00:02:00] love it if you would share a little of your story with us.
Dr. Alice Diver: Wow, thank you so much for the, for that. That's amazing to me. Thank you. I guess my, I'm an adoptee. Obviously, I think anyone that knows me knows that because I tend to tell them quite early on.
So I was one of the 1960s vintage babies and I was adopted in Montreal. I was seven months, so I went through the, I would say, mother baby home institutions rather than homes. So in through a mother baby orphanage, the Catholic Welfare Bureau. And my folks, their story was quite sad. They'd been married for 20 years. And had a baby but he passed away after only a few days, so they got me very shortly after that and they said they wanted a girl, so as not to be reminded that they'd had a wee boy, and they were mid 40s, so they were, lucky to have a child at that age because we were coming into the era of, older persons, maybe not being ideal adopters.
They were [00:03:00] very good and they did their best. They took us to, we moved to, it was just me only child as well. Or as I'd say, rescue dog. From time to time, I would describe myself, hard. I don't think they knew what hit them. They'd had cats before, but they'd never had, this deranged creature who yelled a lot that came into their lives.
And because my mom had, because she was Irish. She was always very homesick. So in 1979 when I was 12, we went from Montreal to a small town in Northern Ireland where there was no McDonald's, no Pop Tarts. I thought I'd died and gone to hell. Very upsetting experience to me. And had lots of lots of fair haired, very Irish looking cousins.
And then I was I stood out as being different, but adoption was never really discussed. I think they hadn't told some people, that because it was, they'd been having a baby and then they got me. So some of the family didn't know, but yeah, it soon became apparent. It was in the days of matching characteristics.
So they were very fair. And they were given this blue eyed blonde baby, [00:04:00] then at the age of about, I think about 18 months, the blue eyes, blonde hair disappeared, unfortunately, and yeah, and they ended up with this very brown eyed, swarthy, round baby that bore no resemblance, but I guess what has shaped me in terms of the search, the way Quebec works, it's closed records, as I think is the same for a lot of U. S. states. So when I was 18, I applied for the non identifying information. So they send you very helpful non identifying things like you had big eyes and a nice shaped head and you like to sit outside in the sun. And I thought all of those things still apply. Thank you. Didn't narrow it down. I did discover, though, the thing that really that made it was.
I discovered Indigenous heritage. So I didn't know where I heard Newfoundland, and then I was able to do some research of my own, but that was amazing. So no one had any clue about that. I guess it ties in with not exactly baby scoop, but with maybe stigma [00:05:00] or the need to deny people's ancestry. No medical records.
So I didn't know that most of my family were birth family were deaf or going deaf with otosclerosis. That would have been useful to know. Hearing aids are great. Switch them off at night. It's all good. I'll tell you a little bit just about the reunion, because that's that a lot of people like, they seem to like this bit of the story.
So I, the way it works in Quebec, you write through social services, intermediary person. It's all confidential. I wrote a very lovely letter saying that I was a great person and at that stage I was married had my daughter and sent a photograph of her and I thought this will just be the hallmark reunion, and I'll be welcomed with open arms because what's not to love but after about a year birth mother came I don't know the terms not great, but she's okay with it I'll say mother came back and all confidential anonymous and she said, no, sorry, I'm not telling anyone about you.
I have teenagers at this point. She said, [00:06:00] So no, there will be no contact. Fine. I thought there's not much I can do about that. I just have to accept it. Yeah. And then she wrote a second letter after that, which was more of the same. And I thought she's clearly struggling.
And I guess it was a burden to carry. Yeah, so you try to put that aside for as long as you can, and you get all my things. Then I had four children of my own and I worked. Then DNA came into the public realm. So at 2012, I thought I might just get the DNA done and see who pops up.
And it found some sort of fourth cousins. They were very nice, very welcoming, but I couldn't connect any dots until about six years ago, I found an aunt who was younger than me, and with, and had been doing her DNA to see about tracing more of the Indigenous ancestry. So within half an hour, the way it works, we both got an email.
Within half an hour, armed with a surname, I found an [00:07:00] obituary, I went on Facebook, and I was able to see pictures of my half siblings, who all, her husband, this was about 3 a. m., elbowed him and said, you gotta wake up. And I said, look at these people. Do they look like me?
And he was just, I can't really say the expletives that he said, but he was instantly correct response. Wide awake going, and I was 50 at that stage. He said, yeah, he says, I think we found your people. He said, because your people look like our kids. He said, it's just, look at them. He said, yeah.
He says that, that. That has to be your mother, but just, you're the same person. So my poor aunt, she then tried to make contact. Cause I said, listen this lady's does not want contact. So don't frighten her, please. Cause I don't want to be responsible for someone having a heart attack. I said, tread softly.
I said, I've made my peace. If you can convince her, that's fine. And of course it was Christmas. It was my birthday. I hate my birthday. The first week of January, worst week of the year. So it just yeah, I sat and it was about, probably [00:08:00] took about six weeks of my aunt and some of her sisters convincing her that I was not, an axe murderer and that it was okay and that I didn't want anything apart from maybe to say hello and maybe the odd email.
And ironically, the thing that convinced her that I meant no harm was she was so scared of being discovered because she hadn't said to her kids. I said, if it's the DNA thing that's scaring you in case, people start to see matches. I said, I'll just, I'll take it down. I'll set it to private so you don't have to be panicking. And that seemed to flip the switch. And she said that's a nice thing to do. And then I will never forget it. I was for work. I was down in Cardiff and Wales. And as you do, there's this sort of abandoned castle. It's hard to beat a good castle. So I thought I will walk a rare sunny day.
I thought, I'm just going to go for a walk. And the tour guide was busy telling us about, and I won't even try a Welsh accent, but was busy telling us about, who was hung and who died and what ghosts there were. [00:09:00] When a message pops up on Facebook going, Hey, it's your mother. It's been whatever it is, 50 years.
I think it's time I said hello. And we can chat. I have to now hold it together and walk around a castle. I have to have it. How do I manage this? And I can remember texted after texted my two youngest daughters were out for dinner in a restaurant, having pizza, they live the high life.
I don't, I texted them the message and one daughter burst into tears, loud tears in the middle of the restaurant while the other girl was like, could you stop that? It looks like we're breaking up, pull yourself together. And then she said a week later, she was telling her friends and they all started to cry and she says, I can't handle this. Could people stop crying? What is wrong with everyone? But no, she, it was nice. And after that, and in her defense now, she's never, my mom has not missed a day since then, both morning and night, I get a little Facebook message. Saying, what the weather is, what the, what the menu for the day is.
Lovely, [00:10:00] normal, everyday things.
Haley Radke: For six years?
Dr. Alice Diver: Uh-huh. She's not missed, she's not missed a day and night she hasn't missed. If I miss a day, I'll get a message saying, where are you living? And I'm like, yes! Which is nice to get that bit of maternal, concern or whatever. And initially she said she was going to take a few months to very slowly tell her children about me, because it is quite a bombshell.
But within a week she had told them. And a couple of days later then my eldest brother was messaging me and we talked for about two hours about Doctor Who. So I let, it's little funny things that, yeah, and I've been sent recipes. I've been over to visit, I've gone to Montreal, they came to Ireland.
Went to Newfoundland and saw moose and all the, I have to say it's just been, it's been very good. It's been very good. It can't be easy for people to have this random stranger turns up, I didn't turn up on a doorstep as such, but yeah, so it was, never thought that would have happened and yeah, it's been going pretty good.
Haley Radke: Amazing. [00:11:00]
Dr. Alice Diver: That's my story. Longer than I meant it to be.
Haley Radke: No, I love it. I love it. You're a law professor. From what I understand, you mostly teach family law. And what drew you to become an attorney? And you've been researching adoption for many years prior to your reunion.
Dr. Alice Diver: Yeah, I think I suppose even about as an undergraduate student, we had the chance to do a research paper in final year.
I used mine as a rant against the system, really, to just look at adoption orders, how they close records, freeing orders. Even now, I would look sometimes at cases where contact is denied between older siblings and sometimes for very good reasons, it might, may have to be.
But it's just interesting that the language is still of the 1970s. Sometimes I just, I find it. It's interesting some of the reasons that they cite. Yeah, it's just always been a, it's always been an [00:12:00] interest. When I was a lawyer, I was only practicing for about five years before I went into academia.
So I probably did more property law, some child protection cases, trying to defend a care order or trying to have contact between parents and children, but sometimes that can cut a bit close. There's times you think this is one that's going to follow me home. Academia is much better.
You get paid for having coffee and talking to people and annoying, annoying my poor students. It's much more satisfactory in terms of a career choice. No disrespect to my, former fellow, lawyers. But yeah, and family laws, I say it's a nice one to teach, although we do, a segment on domestic abuse, which is harrowing.
I always say to people now, there's a trigger warning. I find increasingly more over the last 30 years, more care experienced people coming through. What would have been known as care leavers here, but now care experienced. And I know when I'm addressing a room, I'll say, I know there's adopted people out there.
I won't make you put your hands up. [00:13:00] If you wish to talk, because you can kill a conversation stone dead by going, anybody adopted? That's not yet acceptable to do that, maybe someday. But generally somebody, one or two people will come up maybe after a week or so and say, I was adopted or the thing about the UK records are open so you can get your birth certificate at 18.
Don't necessarily get maybe all the supports to go with that. It's getting better. But there's still some issues. There's still the belief, that, I'm thinking of Ireland, where records were recently opened and maybe not going that well, and their redress scheme. But there's a sort of a thought that you get that piece of paper, now you've got a name, or, now you can identify your people.
Away you go. And they assume it'll be the hallmark happy ending. And it isn't always. They forget that people can be rejected, that there's stigma, that regions can break down. But they can just wither quietly sometimes where people go, yay, and then it's okay, novelty wears off. So I would love to see more research being done into that, [00:14:00] if possible.
I don't know. It's a funny one.
Haley Radke: Do you think if you hadn't had your original rejection from your birth mother, that you would have dove so deeply into critical adoption scholarship?
Dr. Alice Diver: Wow, that's a really good question, which I've never really thought about. Possibly yes, because I'm quite bad tempered and grumpy.
So I possibly would have, I'm very good at seeing the negative in any situation. Would I have, I probably might not have been just as angry about the system and about everything. But yeah, I definitely, I would have seen, because I would have seen others struggling with the brick wall and the closed records.
So I think it probably would have, because suppose the thing about reunion is if you manage to get one and even if it goes well, you can be happy, but there's still the voice at the back saying I really get along with these people. They're lovely. And I can see I'm going to be fond of them. [00:15:00] But I lost 50 years.
So for example, like my sister, we unbeknownst to ourselves we have a daughter only a week apart back in the 90s. So if we had been, in touch, then that would how amazing would that have been that we would have been pregnant at the same time and just all the little things that you missed.
And I've often I think I've said to my brothers, it would have been just so not about an only child. I know you're maybe going to be a bit odd. But I've frequently told them, I says, if I'd had you guys growing up, even, they're younger than me, but they're a lot bigger and it just would have been nice.
You wanted someone to fight your corner. I just would love to going back to have been able to say, I'll get my brothers. Feel like Daenerys Targaryen. Here's my dragons. That's what it would have been like, cause they're quite, you know, they're big fellas. And I think they would, I like to think they would have protected their short, grumpy sister, maybe.
Haley Radke: Have quite a bit in common. I'm also Canadian. I don't know if you knew that. And my, I had a rejection from my birth mother, but we've never been in contact [00:16:00] since our brief reunion. And I started the show a couple years into reunion with my father. And I don't know, had all the things gone if this is where I would be, I'm not sure.
I'm thinking about that too. And I also was raised an only and have siblings now. So it's a real shift, isn't it? From being an only, solo focused to being a sister?
Dr. Alice Diver: It's nice. I like it. I do like it. Although I have to, cause I'm they would be the oldest. I have to rein in the urge, to dispense advice or to try and, maybe be bossy and stuff. I have to, it's unusual to have, it's lovely, but unusual to have siblings. I never know if it's said to be marked.
Haley Radke: How do you rein in that urge? Maybe that's a conversation for another time, but I could use some advice on that.
Dr. Alice Diver: Oh, badly. I've managed to do it very badly, as my kids could probably could probably advise as well. They could say, yep. [00:17:00] Mother has started again. She's off again with the advice that we don't want.
Haley Radke: I'm curious if you let's shift to more sort of work focus. Have you done much looking into adoption annulment, or rescission or any of those kinds of things? I saw your presentation at ASAC. And another lawyer was presenting, Greg Luce, and I don't know if you saw his presentation.
Yes, you did. And when you were initially sharing your story, and I've heard you share it a few other places, you said your coloring changed, so you went from fair to a little darker. And you also found out later that you're deaf. And I thought, oh, your adoptive parents actually had recourse to return you if they had cared to do, I don't know if folks know much about that, but I'm [00:18:00] wondering your thoughts on that and flipping it over to the adoptee rights side of things. We have no such recourse really.
Dr. Alice Diver: Exactly. But I do I found out after my mother had passed away, my dad let slip one day that apparently when I was about two, he said, yeah, I think she wanted to send you back at that stage.
But I said, no. And it's okay, that's an interesting thing to, yes, but then I thought maybe that just came out of somewhere or, I think he meant well to say it. And, again, I was handful and she was grieving and. Yeah, so that's, I know it's a threat too that sometimes, adoptive parents will say in jest to their children.
I know so many people that was said to, and even if they weren't serious, that's not the thing. Do not say that.
Haley Radke: Never.
Dr. Alice Diver: To an adoptee, because we're always yourself, I think we're always looking for any potential signs of rejection, so someone, maybe stops speaking or is angry at you, you immediately assume that [00:19:00] I'm gone, I've, they've written me out of their life, so it's a funny one.
Oh yeah, I think this was, whenever the deafness was discovered, funny enough, I was about 27, and I remember telling them, oh, I'm going to get, adoptive mom. I said, I'm going to get hearing aids. This is great. And she said, we were told there was nothing wrong with you. And she was quite cross.
And I was all there's loads wrong. Behold, there's, there are many flaws. Again, I think she meant it well, but it didn't come out that way, and yet it just reminds you that you're a bit of a commodity sometimes you're filling a role, which is a dark way to see things. I know.
But that's how we see it sometimes, because that's.
Haley Radke: Facts are facts, frankly,
Dr. Alice Diver: 100%. Yeah, they absolutely are. Yeah, it's funny. The thing about rescinding one's adoption, the UK doesn't allow you to do that. And I had funny enough, a symposium last year, and I think it was I had Scottish and English adoptees coming in by Zoom.
And we had a really great heated discussion, a [00:20:00] Northern Ireland judge was in for that one. So they, I went out and got coffee and left them to it. It was very lively. I should try and find the recording. They were saying, why do we not have the right to appeal our adoption, to take back our original name.
If an adoptive place, but especially if it's abusive, why is the, why are, why can't we reclaim our identities like this? And I remember that the judge, this lovely man, and he said, no, I agree. He said, the law is flawed. That's something that really needs to be looked at. And even with, I suppose the notion of redress, and recompense is really what's all about at the moment.
We're hoping that the UK will apologize to adoptees. They haven't yet. We're still waiting. How they, how it wasn't their fault, the ill treatment, I'll never know. But yeah.
Haley Radke: Nor has Canada. There was a the Senate hearings and those things, but there, nothing really came of that to this point.
Dr. Alice Diver: But even when you do get the apology, is it a piece of paper? Is it a word? Does it open the door to you maybe getting compensation? I know Northern Ireland at the minute is the ongoing [00:21:00] investigations. How do you compensate someone for a life that wasn't lived, or the relationships that you didn't have, or a placement that wasn't ideal?
There's just some things that are that little bit too horrific or beyond the pale that they're a tough one. And yeah, law is, I guess I'm back on my soapbox, but law is quite inadequate at trying to, unless I had a time machine, maybe that's why I'm thinking, maybe that's why we talked to the Doctor Who, me and the brother, maybe because, a TARDIS would have been good, because I think we would have, we've had, we had some discussions about, in childhood, would we have gotten along and, things that we could have, they were appalled to hear that as an only child, if you're playing a game of, let's say chess. I wasn't great at chess, but checkers, battleship, Clue, Ludo, games that you normally would have one other person, you would nearly, you'd have to go away and come back to forget your last move to work out a way to play a board game by yourself.
You'd see what my parents wanted to return me. Actually, I was a creepy kid. [00:22:00] Creepy kid with many personalities. But yeah, no, it's a strange with the law, I think is gradually waking up as adoptees get older and as countries start to ban international adoption and surrogacy has come into the mix as well with people saying, we're complex.
Lenny's issues are tricky and difficult and there isn't a fix for them. Yeah, so at least there's a bit of growing awareness not as much as there should be I would like society to take better notice of us not use this as punchlines that's the bit that really you know, it gets my goat.
I don't, I, you don't have to go more than a few days before you'll, something on social media, someone will be making a joke where the punchline is, and you're adopted. And it just makes me rather cross.
Haley Radke: I, I've heard you say this before, that the law is flawed and is not in any place to fix these wrongs right now for us.
And [00:23:00] in your new book, you talk so much about adoption and literature in, in various forms. And I've also heard you express this idea that fiction helps move culture forward. So can you talk a little bit about that, because I don't want to speak for you, so can you expand on that? And then what kinds of books and representation we're seeing more and more adoptee authored work in the world, which is wonderful, that's getting accolades and hitting bestseller lists and stuff, which is amazing, and we're celebrating those adoptees.
What more things do you want to see in the world that you think could shift the law?
Dr. Alice Diver: That's it. The memoirs are doing great work. I think it's so important that people are, that they're like testimony, they're like evidence, a long form of it where people are saying, okay, I know the narrative is that adoption is a thing of wonder and it's very beautiful and it can be a [00:24:00] good thing.
However, there needs to be a light shone, talk to the adult adoptee and get them to talk about their childhood. Because people, unless you, you've been there or walked in the shoes, you don't really get it, I don't want to say the kept because it sounds mean, but it's not a bad term either. It does. It does sum up.
Haley Radke: That's what I say.
Dr. Alice Diver: I'm sorry. There is kept privilege. There is. They just don't all get it.
Haley Radke: Another adoptee therapist of ours, Pam Cordano, calls them muggles.
Dr. Alice Diver: Yeah. Perfect. That is civilians. Yeah. Muggles is good. Because they, their world was very different to ours, from, you could say from birth, from pre birth, they didn't have to track people down.
Things that they take for granted, knowing who you look like, having someone that you look like and not having that. I think we do the eggshell walk quite a lot. I think we're often so scared about saying things to not drive people away, or maybe sometimes we drive them away first. I don't know.
There's just a lot of little differences there. It's just, [00:25:00] it's funny when you know when you're in a, if you're in a support group, if you're in a room of adoptees, even if you're not the same age. You could tell a story and the heads will start nodding and people will be like, yeah, I get that. Let me tell you this sort of one of mine.
And it's just, it's been in a warm bath. You wouldn't be in a warm bath with people. You know what I mean? Emotionally, it's not literally, but yeah, it's just you're among kindred spirits. I like that the muggles, I do like that. Yeah. They don't have our magic powers to read people in an instant or to cope with things that other people would find.
Sometimes you'll say something about your childhood. And you watch people's jaws drop and you think, oh, so I forgot you were in a little different universe and that wouldn't have been a thing for you. It's quite nice to appal them though. I do the, cause then we lose our filter and it's, I just think it's an appropriate response for them to say that was wrong.
Yeah, do you think? Yes it was. And then the conversation can move on, I think we just need to keep them educated. But fight the good fight. That's what I think we're doing. You were saying about, yeah, law just [00:26:00] doesn't quite do it. Even in other areas, it doesn't always promote justice as well, as we know.
Literature, I think the memoirs, definitely they're fantastic. Sometimes pop culture can do a thing, can reach the parts, that law doesn't. I probably said it at the ASAC talk. The movie Philomena, not without its problems, but it brought quite the message. It definitely brought it home to people, here's a thing that happened, a thing that was very wrong.
It's a pity the adoptee had passed away because it would have been good to have had his story and a bit more about that. The book, I suppose as well, I've gone through various eras to see how adoptees are treated. They're not always adoptees, sometimes they're foundlings, sometimes they've been rejected.
So there's a lot of folklore in there, and I was amazed to see how some of the odd little things in folklore that have survived. So burial, where were the unbaptised babies buried in Ireland? Was it [00:27:00] on consecrated ground? Was it a septic tank? What traditions went with that? Did you even get a burial?
A proper, dignified, humanising ceremony to happen. Why is there this fear of us? Because there is the fear of the unknown stranger turns up and goes, I'm your sister. Brace yourself. Some people are okay with that. Others are like, what do you want? Do you want money? That, please don't hurt me.
And quite often if there's a, a psychopath in a I don't know a Netflix tale. I just know I think that they're either adopted or they've got some missing thing. They're not identifying a parent. It's a little bit, it's a little bit tired. I'll still watch it. I'll still watch it.
And then I'll complain loudly to whoever's in the room with me, even if it's only myself. Because we're we got so used to that. What else does the book have? The books, I was told recently that it was quirky and a bit of a mashup. And I said maybe that's what I was aiming for. It has a bit of everything.
Where else would you get? You've got, we've got Heathcliff, we've got the Dickens orphans, getting along together. [00:28:00] Jane Eyre, because she had her witchcraft. That's the hill I will die on. And then I suppose going into The happy 20th century where you've got your Anne of Green Gables, which so many people love.
And I feel so bad for raining on their parade by saying, yeah, okay, she was an orphan, but she was the poster girl for a very bad system of transportation and the farm children. But even in the book, they're like, yeah, we're fresh out of boys, you'll have to take a girl, just lots of little little things that are there.
But it's good for us to read about it because on the second reading you start to see the little bits that don't add up and the gratitude, her main thing is gratitude. So that's in there.
Haley Radke: Can we talk about The Giver?
Dr. Alice Diver: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Haley Radke: Because. So that's by Lois Lowry. I looked it up today. It was published in 93 and it won the Newbery in 94 and that's when I read it and I was 11 and I recently gave it to my son to read and he's 11 when we're recording this [00:29:00] and he's oh, it was depressing.
And I was like, huh. Anyway, I loved that book. I loved Anne of Green Gables. I had many books that deeply permeated my childhood. And you said you were playing games by yourself and turning the chessboard. I was reading by myself in my room the same books over and over, including The Giver.
And when you talked about The Giver in your presentation, I was like, oh, my son had just read that, so I got a, my literal childhood copy. And I was like, I gotta reread that, because some of the points you made, I was like, what? I don't remember that. So reading it with my adult eyes, I was like, oh my word.
The whole all of society is adoptees. Birth mother is a job you get assigned. And it's this low level no glory, servitude sort of situation. And I was like, oh my [00:30:00] goodness, all the bombshells I had from that. Thank you for reawakening that for me.
Dr. Alice Diver: That's, that's, it's a great book. I suppose we home in, if there's an adoption, not even a subplot, but just the elements of it.
So they had to, so yeah, everyone was adopted because obviously they took tablets that they wouldn't have the stirrings and the feelings and there was no romance. There was no yeah, no music, no color, none of these things. And yeah, and the term birth mother, it was built up to be, this is an honorable profession, but then you very quickly see that they're just discarded three births, that's it. We see an older lady later on who, had been one, but she never got a family of her own. And it's just very, they're very derided and so on. I don't know if you've read the sequel. There's three sequels. Son is the final book. That's the one maybe to go to for a little bit of closure. I don't want to give spoilers.
But it is takes you back and gives you more of an insight into what was happening to the [00:31:00] girls that were producing the product is what, how they refer to the babies. I think if I could, in some senses, it's perfect. It's bleak, but it shows you the dark side. What would happen if family life was totally changed and there were no laws protecting it?
And I think that's exactly what does happen for some adoptees. Goodbye family life and we'll just get on with it. I would warn mothers reading it if they'd gone through a system like that. It made me think of a lot of the Irish testimony, the English testimony. the brutality the ill treatment as the product was taken away and given to another family.
Again, lots of drugs, either to dry up the milk or to suppress the emotions and so on. And then you remember, this is a book for kids. It's for teenagers. But then I think you know what? Maybe it's, it's good that they read of such things and then they'll think this is fiction.
And then we can do a Margaret Atwood and say, oh no, it is not. It's happening somewhere sometime. Yeah. [00:32:00] And it's sometimes you need to shine a light on things that aren't right. Cause how else are you going to change them? Even if it upsets people, if no one ever got upset, nothing would ever change.
And we'd be like the little happy people in The Giver that don't know that apples are red and that never have music. They don't even have grandparents, don't have Christmas lights, don't have, any of these things. So it's yeah, I think it's a good, it's a good work.
Haley Radke: One of the terms you use in your book repeatedly is surplus child.
Dr. Alice Diver: Yes.
Haley Radke: Can you talk about that? Because that lit something in me. I was like, Oh my God, I'm a surplus.
Dr. Alice Diver: I'm sorry. I apologize. I never like people on fire. I apologize for that. No, it was a term used in I'm fairly certain it was used in one of the novels might have been Handmaid's Tale. Somebody used the phrase, of course, I jumped on it and thought, oh, that's bleak.
I'll use that. Why not? It's a bit of darkness. [00:33:00] I will appropriate it and use it. I suppose that, yes, they were, that was, they kept population levels in the giver. They kept them low to prevent future famines. So a twin was automatically going to be sent elsewhere, euthanized, whatever, to how they chose.
The child that didn't fit in, so Gabriel that sparks the first book and we later find out why he didn't fit in. But yeah, he's not, he's going against the system because he's, you're not sleeping, you're not eating, you're crying, you're want, you're not being sedated the way the others are. So he's a little, but he's not, again, surplus to requirements.
Handmaid's Tale, you saw the children, I think horrifically they referred to them as, shredders. So they were somehow flawed and were not kept. And again, she slips that in very quickly near the end, that one of the babies that we thought was being very embraced and celebrated and appropriated didn't quite conform, so there's a rumor that maybe it was chosen to be rejected. I think the first chapter with [00:34:00] the illegitimacy, the cheerful first chapter that talked about illegitimacy and children being exposed and abandoned. Or seen as changelings left out, they're fairies. Again, in a way, I suppose surplus to requirements or not fitting with, if the product was not acceptable, we didn't quite fit with what was wanted of us.
So you could have been imperfect because you were born out of wedlock. Or maybe through some disability or something. So yeah, it does put it up a bit to the adoptees will get it. I think I was like, who am I writing for? As I'm writing this couple of people said, who's your audience? I said, I would imagine it'll be angry adoptees.
That's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping it'll be. That, or people that have to live with us that want to try and understand us. But I'm thinking you nearly need to be blunt for the muggles or the kept person to go, okay, I get it now that you are facing that stigma and it has roots that go back a long way.
And it can sometimes be just a little bit subtle where you're maybe left out of something either by your [00:35:00] birth family, your adopted family, or maybe by friends. If you don't get you, maybe you don't get the invite to go to the pub that evening. Most people won't mind. An adoptee might go, what have I done? What's wrong with me? Abandonment again, and it just could be that you got left off the email. You'll maybe get a call later, but you do the little things that sort of are always there, always haunting us.
Haley Radke: Yeah,
Dr. Alice Diver: To be surplus , yeah, it's a loaded, it's a loaded word, isn't it?
We're bonus people, that's a better way of putting it. It's
Haley Radke: extra.
Dr. Alice Diver: I'm a bonus person.
Haley Radke: It is, but I was thinking and this is something you addressed too, right? We've got orphans, adoptee, foundling, and, sometimes we're labeled with an incorrect word, right? I'm not an orphan. I had living parents. I'm not a foundling, like I was born at a hospital and relinquished, I have friends who are literal foundlings found in a field, by a mentally ill mother who didn't have supports she needed. Yikes, [00:36:00] the terminology is so, problematic and you do point that out throughout the book.
I love having this extra word, surplus. And substitute family.
Dr. Alice Diver: Yes.
Haley Radke: Because I, I love it when people say,. I love I do, I truly love this when people say I was adopted by strangers.
Dr. Alice Diver: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Cause that's, that's not everybody's circumstances. Sometimes we have kinship adoption, but like that is what happened to me and to you, strangers, stranger adoption. So can you talk about substitute family?
Dr. Alice Diver: I think we're probably, yeah, when we're always scared of being seen as ungrateful because we're meant to be grateful because we, probably get reminded quite often. Oh, but you had good, I've had that said to me a few times, but you had good parents and I'm thinking I wasn't complaining.
I maybe just made some comment like I've been to Canada to see, why did you go there? You had good parents here. I think they're no longer living. It's hard to visit them. So I will maybe go and visit the living [00:37:00] in Canada instead, but yeah, that's the terminology substitute. It does sometimes sound very blunt and a little bit shocking.
Stranger adoption. It sounds like you're rejecting strangers that brought you in and you might not be doing that, but you're stating a fact in that, and I will always say we're mammals. We have other ways of sensing if we're in the right place, and that might not be, it may be a bit unfair, because I'm sure quite often the substitute family, the stranger, can be very welcoming.
Stranger's just a friend you haven't met yet, but when it comes to, baby and family, yes, it's a dark term. And if it upsets someone, I'm not gonna, I can't apologize to the kept person who says, oh you're critiquing the whole system. Yeah, I'm afraid I am because there needs to be something.
What does it say about a society if mothers can't keep their babies? That lack of support. It is an indictment of society and backin, up, up the church that thought this [00:38:00] was a good idea to create this industry. I know we're living in changed times and different times, but I think it's one of, that's one of the worst and darkest things that can happen to a human being, that can happen to a baby, that can happen to a relinquishing mother.
So yeah, I'm sorry that I can't have, the flowers and rainbows. My daughter told me, the youngest girl told me, the one that, keeps marching me off to hairdressers and telling me I'm awful. Because she means well, tough love from her. She had there was an office party a few months back and she said that she saw a cake and she thought, oh I wonder what they're celebrating.
And one of the ladies in the office had been cleared to be an adoptive parent, didn't know what kind of baby she was getting, didn't know the age, was told it would be an older child, was told there would be problems, but wasn't told which types of problems and so on. But anyway, so they had, Prosecco and champagne and there was balloons.
Everybody was really festive and cheerful. And my daughter says she says, I just, I couldn't do it. She says, because I thought this is lovely. This is nice. But also there's a child out there somewhere being abused. [00:39:00] There's a mother about to lose her child. There's something horrendous happening, especially for a two year old.
And there's issues, but we're not, we can't tell you the issues because it might prejudice you. But I feel quite sorry for the lady. I thought you might want to you know the issues, if you went to get a rescue dog, they'd warn you. He bites, or he's gassy, or he's smelly, or any of the things that you might want that information on.
But they thought, I thought, that's mad that's still happening. And I thought, yeah, that I wondered, were there any adoptees in the room that were maybe going to go and share in the cake? Maybe. But she's, I didn't eat, I didn't eat any cake. I said okay, but you're always on a diet anyway, cause you're terribly thin.
So I knew you wouldn't have eaten cake. But she says, no, she's just, I did just I did you say to anyone? Oh God, no, she said, I didn't want to be the bad fairy. I didn't want to ruin the vibe. She says, but I had to come home and tell you that I felt a bit so that maybe as a sums up society.
There's still that thing of, you can't speak out and you have to be like, yay, this is great. Somebody somewhere [00:40:00] eating the cake must in the back of their mind have thought, is there not a bit of darkness under here and are celebrations appropriate? And she was celebrating the idea that she was getting a child.
And I do feel for the lady that was, just infertile and I can see why she was overjoyed. But equally, I'm thinking she might have needed to have a bit of warning that, especially an older child, that's not a baby, you're getting an older child that's been through a lot of abuse.
Yeah, it's very complex. And how does law fix that? It can't. How does society fix it? I don't know. Grumpy people like me yelling at them might be the thing.
Haley Radke: Me too. I'm in, I'm yelling to Alice. I am. I'm doing my best. I'm, I still have this. I cannot reconcile how people celebrate the initial adoption, and we also get full coverage for every adoption reunion that people want to make [00:41:00] public.
And it's this happy, amazing story that people cry tears over. Do not know how the public reconciles that in their brain. Like why are you celebrating? You were celebrating when they were separated. Why are you celebrating that they're back together? I don't understand.
Dr. Alice Diver: That is a brilliant, there's an article in that somewhere, that's a brilliant point.
Yeah, it's make up your mind. Why do they have to be, yeah it's all so beautiful. Let's just go live with, let's do what the giver does. So everybody gets to be adopted, everyone gets to have all that joy and then we're all, yeah there's an answer, it's a strange one.
I think most human beings, we try to make the best of things, but I think sometimes ignoring underpinning realities, they're going to bubble out later on.
Haley Radke: Yeah.
Dr. Alice Diver: We're very good at masking and saying everything is awesome, everything's wonderful. But yeah, sometimes then they said, oh, I wonder why was she angry today? Don't know. Something has maybe, the [00:42:00] little triggers are everywhere. If they could stop with the triggers, if they could stop with, stop triggering us, does it, do you have to have it as a, oh, if I got one more subplot or one more twist, the big reveal is, guess what?
I'm not your father, or I am your father, or it might be, or whatever the, whatever that reveal is yeah, they need to find something else to, yeah to entertain people with that's very cynical, but yeah, it just, it's becoming a, it's a little bit tired. It's doing us a disservice because it ties in with the whole thing of but you're fine now and you should be grateful and why are you not great? Like Twitter is a scary place to go to. Some people will get really violently angry at any adoptee who dares to not even criticize, but to just say, yeah, your system could be better. Whoa, you will open, the portal to hell and people will start abusing you. I wonder why. I don't know. I don't know what their, what the issue is, but yeah.
Haley Radke: They have a secret child somewhere that they're afraid is going to show up on their doorstep [00:43:00]
Dr. Alice Diver: Something like that, yeah.
Haley Radke: There's something. I don't know. I have one more last topic I want to talk about before we do recommended resources. And when you presented at the ASAC conference, your topic was forced adoption as a war crime.
Dr. Alice Diver: A cheerful one. I do like a cheerful, a happy little topic.
Haley Radke: I loved it.
Dr. Alice Diver: Totally. I spread joy.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. I did. I totally loved it. I feel like there's some tie ins from the book, some examples that are similar, but can you talk a little bit about that? Because I really do think it, it's on theme with the rest of our conversation.
Dr. Alice Diver: Yeah, I could, I can do that. So casting my mind back to the paper, I think I was looking at Ukraine and what is happening there the occupied regions where the Russian Federation has come in. Now they have, they decided that this is a war crime, [00:44:00] the forcible displacement.
So children are being, and older children as well, are being fast tracked and sent off to being adopted by Russian families, in some cases going up into far away places. It was the fast tracking of the passport that got me. So they're changing their nationality very quickly. They're saying that these children are in some cases they say they're abandoned, so they were in care. Again, we see the falsifying and that a lot of them weren't abandoned. Their families tried to get them back. So that they're orphanizing them. They're saying, oh yeah, no parents that we could find. We know that's not true. They're using international law as a bit of a double edged thing.
So they're saying we're not war criminals. We had to do this to stop them being stateless. Because to be stateless is in breach of international law. It's a terrible thing. They're using child protection principles with saying it's in their best interests. You don't want 'em to stay in an institution, so we're gonna send them off to this loving family.[00:45:00]
But how do you square all of that? And I know it's a very different situation to ourselves because we were peace time adoptees. We weren't fighting a war. But you can connect the dots. How many similar issues were there? There's, Reuters did, and Amnesty, I think, did reports of these adoptees.
They weren't allowed to wear the colors of Ukraine, so they weren't allowed to wear the blue and yellow. And they were taught certain songs, so there was propaganda. And some of them, as they got a little bit older, were saying, oh yeah, that was our former country was bad. Do we see a similar thing like that happening with us, as in, how many of us didn't talk about birth family in front of adoptive family?
How many of us, I never said that I got my non identifying information. I never would have said that I was going to search. I waited till, really till the folks were I didn't wait till they were dead. I did it and didn't tell them. But in some ways I was glad reunion happened after they passed away because they would have lost their minds, Oh my God, it was the taboo subject of don't mention it.
My mom once, she said, I think I was a [00:46:00] teenager, and she said one time, I want you to know you're free to search anytime you want, but wait till I'm dead. She had a very pragmatic way of looking at things. So I just, yeah, I just think there's, maybe, I don't know if the war crime will ever be prosecuted, we'll wait and see if that's ever a, if that's ever a thing, but it will be interesting to draw maybe some lessons from wartime adoption across to the peacetime adoptees, because we're fighting our own little battle, it's just a small personal wars. Against society and against, anyone that annoyed. I'm ready to overturn cars now. I will start the revolution.
Haley Radke: Some of the notes I took were you say, you said, are there some war crimes that are acceptable? And it feels like this is one of them.
Dr. Alice Diver: Yes.
Haley Radke: Yeah. See, look at you. You're like, yeah, past Alice. Good job.
Dr. Alice Diver: We're really listening to this talk. That's a bit
Haley Radke: Come on.
Dr. Alice Diver: Oh, I'm not used to people listening. My students tend to doze off. They [00:47:00] get very bored by me, so that's great. That's lovely that you took it.
Haley Radke: I took plenty of notes.
Dr. Alice Diver: That's a note.
Haley Radke: I, it was really evocative for me. And so was your book. And I really hope that folks follow more of your work. I know you've published many articles around this topic and your new book, The Genetic Stigma in Law and Literature, Orphanhood, Adoption, and the Right to Reunion. It, I think a lot of adoptees who, like me, have read so many adoptee stories will really find it engaging and I love how you bring the law into it, even for someone like me that is not really trained in it or anything like that.
I found so many things, I was like, oh. I want to learn more about this. I want to talk more about this. And so I know folks will really connect to a lot of those points that you're bringing forward. I think it's wonderful. I [00:48:00] know you've written so many things on the topic. And so for folks that are new to you, I think they'll be excited to deep dive more of your work.
For podcast listeners though, I do want to say you have three episodes on The Law Pod podcast, which is that part of your university?
Dr. Alice Diver: It is. Yeah. The law school do that. They put out weekly on just on various different topics, very good explainers, law, politics. This one was slightly different to suppose that because it was I had Korean adoptees over, I had Canadians. So it just got us in a round table to to talk about everything.
Haley Radke: I love this. Avoiding origin deprivation. So we'll link to those and your conversation with Emily Hipchen as well. Who also oversees ASAC.
Dr. Alice Diver: She's very good. She's very patient with me. She puts up with my bad writing. She's a great editor and she's very good.
Haley Radke: Anyway, we'll link to those things. I hope that folks check out [00:49:00] all of those things and other work that you've written. Is Forced Adoptions as War Crimes, is that going to come out in ASAC?
Dr. Alice Diver: Oh, yes. I think so. It's being, it's gone.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Dr. Alice Diver: I think at the peer review stage.
So I think it's probably come back to be revised a little bit, but I'm hoping it might be winter or maybe spring. So yeah, I think it, it ties in, you've reminded me, I think it ties in with The Giver and the Handmaid's Tale with the lack of reunion at all. So again, it's those novels, they shy away from really exploring too much of adoption.
So maybe that's where the, are some things like even for the dystopian novel, yeah, reunion, they don't go there. It's yay, happy ending reunion. End of book . I'm like, that was they, God. How did they get on? You've given us this A one.
Haley Radke: Did they get a message every day with a recipe and the weather? I don't think so.
Dr. Alice Diver: Absolutely. , that's absolutely that's the reunion handbook. You know, I not very bad.
Haley Radke: I keep saying ASAC , I should say it's the [00:50:00] Alliance for the Study of Adoption Culture. And it's a journal that comes out twice a year and there's a conference that's biennial. So maybe you'll present in a future conference, people could see.
What do you want to recommend to us today?
Dr. Alice Diver: I'll give my favorite novel, which I only really touched, I touched on it briefly in the book. Again, I think a book I read when I was about 10, An Episode of Sparrows. Now it's not, strictly to do with adoption. But I like it because it follows the experience. To me, it's, it marks a sea change. So it's set in the 1950s, just after the war. And it follows the experiences of a little girl who is very slowly and gradually abandoned by her mother. And she's focused on wanting to, to dig out, to plant a little garden among bomb ruins, like these ruined streets in London, but it actually has moments of humor.
She builds up her own substitute family. She builds up kinships with people and it's not a very long story. [00:51:00] And it's got, I will tell you nothing of the ending. Cause it would just be a, it would be a spoiler. The gardeners will like it because she's she gathers. She's quite a cheeky wee girl.
Like she'll, so she'll occasionally, she'll occasionally shoplift to get things that she needs. And she'll, it's, I just, I can't recommend it enough. And there's just a tiny bit of law near the end. But again, I couldn't tell you too much about it because it would spoil the ending, but it's just great.
And I see, I've read it a few times over the years because you know yourself, you read something as a child, you read it as an adult. And we get a glimpse, very briefly, inside of, a convent, a home of mercy, or whatever. She's so defiant the whole way through, her defiance. It's very funny and it's for once it's actually, I know it really sounds really bleak, by the end of it, you're edified, you'll be doing messy crying, you'll be doing hot mess crying, but the tears won't all be sad tears.
It'll be okay. But it'll ring you out on the way. So yeah, it's just if you're bored of life or if you want to upset yourself, for the week, you can [00:52:00] probably read it in a day.
Haley Radke: And there's no plot twist that there's an adoptee that's a murderer. We're good.
Dr. Alice Diver: Thankfully, no. That's what it means. Thankfully, there's none of that carry on because, yes, I'm one Elf away from losing it. It's.
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. You and Emily talk about Elf in your episode, so people can hear your Christmas movie thoughts there. This has been just a privilege. Thank you so much.
Where can folks connect with you online and find more of your work?
Dr. Alice Diver: Thank you so much for starters. And I'll have to say thank you for having me. This has been brilliant. I was very scared, but you were nice to me. So okay, let me think. I'm on. Yeah, I think I'm on Twitter. I don't post much on Instagram.
I just, I will have a look on it. Obviously, through the university's website, I have a page. Facebook from time to time I will go on as well. I probably just mainly post pictures of the cat because he's a bit of a lunatic and he [00:53:00] merits currently fighting with a magpie. He's having war with magpies at the minute in England.
So yeah, like I'm on Twitter, Facebook LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm open to all, open to anybody, or anybody wants to email, you can give out, the email as well. I'm happy for conversations. If anybody wants a chat or to complain at me I'm good for that too. Or to ask about the book, granted, anything, it's all really nice. Everyone, all welcome.
Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Dr. Alice Diver: Thank you as well. And it was really good to have to meet you properly and to have a chat. It was lovely.
Haley Radke: Isn't she remarkable? Just so impressive. And to add to that, if the high cost of an academically published book is a barrier for you, please note that Dr. Diver has offered to make a PDF of her book accessible if you like to email her. And all that info will be in the show notes [00:54:00] for this episode, which will be on adopteeson.com. Or if you're listening in a podcast app, you should be able to just click on the picture and click through the show notes should appear and there'll be links there for you. Thank you so much for your ongoing support of the show. I would love it if you would share this episode with just one friend, perhaps there's a fellow adoptee that you know that would really benefit from hearing from Alice's work.
I am so thankful for my monthly supporters. And another way you can support the show is from, with just like a one time donation through PayPal. And there's a link on the front page of adopteeson.com if you'd like to support Adoptees On or our new project. We would love to have you, um, back the work we're doing and help us keep the lights on and paying all of our fellow adoptees for their work here.
Thank you [00:55:00] so much for listening. And as promised, we are going to talk again very soon. This summer. Oh, you can hear my dog. Spencer cannot be chill today while I'm trying to record this for you. Sorry. He's digging on my carpet. We are going to have shows throughout the summer and there'll be two episodes in July and two in August.
And our first July episode will be coming up for you on July 12th, 2024. Thanks for listening. Let's talk again very [00:56:00] soon.
