290 Kristal Parke
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/290
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. I'm so excited to introduce you to today's guest, filmmaker and fellow podcaster and fellow Canadian, Kristal Parke. Kristal is the subject of the documentary Because She's Adopted. Today, Kristal shares some of her story with us, including her non paternal realization, her road to sobriety, her visits back to the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, and meeting many of her biological family members, including her biological father.
Before we get started, I want to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on [00:01:00] adopteeson.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. Kristal's film is our September documentary club pick of the month. So please join us over on Patreon and you can hang out with us for that.
We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website adopteeson. com. Let's listen in. I am so pleased to welcome to adoptees on my friend, Kristal Parke. Welcome Kristal.
Kristal Parke: Hello friend Haley. I am so happy to be here with you today and your podcast was the very first podcast that I ever listened to around adoptees.
And it really helped me through the beginning part of my journey into discovering more about the impact of adoption or relinquishment on me. So [00:02:00] thank you so much.
Haley Radke: Makes me feel so good. And I was thinking this morning as I was prepping for our call that you've been in my office, .
Kristal Parke: I have, I feel very lucky. I do. I really do. And your office is everything and more that I would expect it to. It's you and it's. It's such an indication of what you stand for and the impact that you've had on people's lives. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Thank you. For people that don't know you, would you mind sharing some of your story with us?
Kristal Parke: Yes, absolutely. My name is Kristal Parke. I was adopted as an infant. Actually, it was most recently that I just looked at my paperwork and I wasn't adopted until I was two years old. I didn't know that. I always thought I was adopted right at the beginning, but my adoptive parents picked me up when I was five days old from the hospital.
I'm Canadian, [00:03:00] and it was a private adoption. Interesting kind of fact about my adoption or piece of my adoption was the beginnings. And if I was going to be a boy, my adoptive mom's sister and her husband would take me. And if I was a girl, then my adoptive mom and dad would take me. And, that was always just a story that was told to me.
And you know how you grow up with these stories and you think that they're normal and then become a mom and then you realize how abnormal it really is and how messed up it is in a way. That's a little kind of piece of my beginning. I feel like I was, my path could have gone so many different ways, anyway, I, for all intents and purposes, I think that I had a good adoption. I had a family that loved me, my adoptive mom and dad had two biological sons already. They [00:04:00] were 11 and 15 years older than me and they just adored me growing up, all of them. But I felt a great expectation on my life and I felt like there was just a lot of pressure on me to be the best.
There was a lot of perfectionism imposed on me, I would say. And maybe it was because my adoptive mom didn't have a lot growing up and wanted me to have everything she didn't have or have all the opportunities that she didn't have. Or maybe it was because she believed she had a second chance at raising a child because that 11, 15 year gap is that's a big age gap to start all over again.
Anyway when I was 17, my adoptive mom and dad supported me in finding my biological mother and father. And my biological mother and [00:05:00] I reunited along with my biological half brother who was two two years older than me when I was 17. And that was a great experience. I was really glad that I did it. It felt like the pieces of my puzzle were complete at the time, but as I grew older, there was still so many unanswered questions. And when I was 17 and found my biological, my adopted parents found my biological father, he was very disinterested. He said you are a blood relative, so I guess you do deserve to know your family history.
And I always say that was very . It was almost like, okay, the line in the sand, this guy doesn't want anything to do with me. I felt rejected and I was scared to reach out to him a after that, and I never did until [00:06:00] 2021. I had done ancestry, DNA and sorry. I had done ancestry DNA in about 2018, I think it was, and in 2021 on a Friday night at nine o'clock, I logged on to my ancestry account and I had a top match and it said parent child, and it was my biological father, but it was not the man that I had spoken to when I was 17 who had rejected me. It was someone else and that was a shock it it, to say that I don't even know if I have the words to explain what a shock it was and now that I've made more connections with people who have experienced that, it really does shift kind of everything that you thought.
Was and it shook the, my [00:07:00] foundation, I would say, but this lovely man just embraced me and told me he loved me. He had no idea I existed. And he said, I want to know you. And if there's anything that you want to know, I'm here and call me anytime. So he only lived like four hours away from me.
I found out that his dad, my biological grandfather, lived 45 minutes away from me. And this experience was what sort of inspired me to tell my story through documentary film. So I was a hairdresser for many years. I've done all sorts of things. I'm a mom of three teenagers. I've never been in film before, but I just thought, I would really love to share this story in this way.
And that was what, was the [00:08:00] catalyst. And then after that, oh my gosh, everything just opened up and unraveled and was beautiful and was painful. And here I am today with you, Haley.
Haley Radke: What does it feel like for you to have a lot of these moments preserved on film and you can go and revisit them anytime?
A lot of us have, we have the memory in our head and can replay it, but you can literally watch it. What's it like watching some of those things back?
Kristal Parke: oh, sometimes I feel very detached from it and sometimes it brings me to tears again. It depends where I think my emotional capacity will let me go to in at that particular time.
But all in all, I'm so glad that I had it on film because it was really one of those moments in time that I [00:09:00] never wanted to ever forget. And I think our memories can evolve too over time, right? And we might think that it was this way and maybe it wasn't that way, but that's how we recall it. But I do appreciate having it on camera for sure.
Haley Radke: Just talking about, the reunion moments, when you knew you were going into it with the cameras, do you feel like you acted differently or were you able to be fully in the moment?
Kristal Parke: Yeah it's really interesting, the first time meeting my biological mother, I didn't know I was going to be on camera.
So that, that was such a beautiful surprise to be able to have someone have captured that and not have had to organize that.
Haley Radke: That's like a whole movie that's you know
Kristal Parke: it totally
Haley Radke: somebody standing by and just videoing it and Yeah. Yeah.
Kristal Parke: Yes. And, but with my biological father, we had a whole film crew.
We were doing this in a park, in a public park, [00:10:00] and. I don't know. You really just forget that the film crew is there. Like for me, anyway, I did. I was able to really, and I never wanted to look back on the moment and wish that I hadn't said something or hadn't done something. So I really went into it with I'm going to just show up as me to the best ability that I can.
And yeah, everything just, and when you're experiencing a moment like that too, everything just fades away. It was just me and him in that moment. And especially because of how he responded to me so beautifully in that moment as well. Not everyone, not everybody is a hugger, right?
And I'm a hugger and, we both just embraced and I couldn't let go of him. And then there's a [00:11:00] moment where I turned my head and I put my head on his shoulder. And that hug felt like it lasted for hours. It didn't, but it did last like probably three to five minutes, which is a long, that's a long time to be embracing somebody. That you've never met before.
Haley Radke: So special. So you have a lot of adoption trauma in your life, in the people that surround you. Okay, so you're an adoptee yourself. You're also an NPE. So not parent expected.
Kristal Parke: Yes.
Haley Radke: But then your birth mother was also an adoptee and was a part of the 60s scoop. And then your parents, adoptive parents as well, have an adoption identity aside from adoptive parents. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? [00:12:00]
Kristal Parke: Yeah. Yeah. So my my adoptive parents, when they were teenagers, they had a son and they relinquished him. And my adoptive mom, I didn't know this until many years later, but she had gone back to the foster home to see him, to see their son over and over again.
Like she wanted to stay in his life. She really did want to raise him. Back then I'm so shocked that the foster family allowed her to do that. And then when he was two years old. She had gone back for the last time and decided that, she did in fact feel she was capable and ready to raise him with my adopted dad and he'd been adopted out without her knowledge.
And she carried that trauma with her forever and she wore it and you could see it. [00:13:00] And even though nobody other than our immediate family knew that there was this son that was out there, she, it caused her a lot of pain. She seemed like a little bit of a tortured person in some ways like internally tortured.
Haley Radke: When did they tell you that you had a sibling out there somewhere?
Kristal Parke: When I was 17 it was interesting when I was 17 and I started to go a little buck wild My mom I remember my mom, she could never just have these calm conversations with me. And so she was worried that I was like, gonna, I think being 17 myself, I think it really triggered her because it made her remember when she was 17.
And so she gave me a box of condoms. And I, and wanted to have this sex talk, and I was like, Mom, you are so [00:14:00] late to the game. Thank you for the condoms. But what are you even doing? And it did turn into quite a, an argument. Her and I were just we were really combative with each other, and she, in her distress, screamed at me and said, I had a baby when I was 17, and it just shocked me.
I was like, what? And so that's how I found out. My adopted dad never discussed it. And then when things calmed down and I tried to talk to her about it again, she was just way, way too ashamed and caught in her pain and her trauma of relinquishing a child that she couldn't even discuss it with me. It was a traumatic way of finding it out, it was, yeah and then I think too, that was the same year that I found, that she found [00:15:00] my biological parents for me too. Like that whole year there was probably so much going on for her. To watch me walk through this. I can imagine she might have even felt a little bit of jealousy that, I was able to be reunited with my birth mother and she hadn't yet found her biological son, even though she'd looked for him for years and years, she couldn't find him.
So yeah. And then finally they did find him in 2020 and you could just see. She finally had peace. She finally had peace because she'd found him, her and my dad both. And I feel like it gave her a little bit more compassion towards me as well as an adoptee.
Haley Radke: I, this is, this feels like an ouchie question to ask you, but I'm going to ask you.
Kristal Parke: oh, please do.
Haley Radke: An adopted person, we're wearing a bunch of different [00:16:00] hats, right? We're wearing the hat that our parents have put on us and we're trying to fit in and be safe and be a member of the family. We're also like, who would I have been? You're looking at who would I have been if my birth mother had kept me or who'd I have been if I had been adopted by this other aunt and uncle and just because of my gender, that's why I'm ended up here.
But then you're also looking at your adoptive parents and they had this other kid. So when you're meeting him, he's like disrupting this, and it's like, would they have adopted me if they had been able to keep him? It's this world changing thing. How are you doing with that when that's happening? Because that would upend me.
Kristal Parke: oh, I was coming unglued. I was absolutely coming unglued. And, I've always felt like a bit of an outsider in my family. And I don't think it [00:17:00] was because of anything they necessarily did or didn't do. But I remember saying to my mom you need to make sure that if you go and meet him, then that you invite me because I could see them just not being very thoughtful and just all going and meeting him and forgetting to invite me or something.
And so I made a point of saying you need to make sure that I'm invited to this thing. And when the day came to go out to dinner to meet him. I couldn't go. I couldn't go. It was too painful. It was, he was a representation of them, of him truly belonging to them, of him being a biological child to them.
And that was something I could [00:18:00] never be to them. And it illuminated so much more that I wasn't theirs. That he was theirs and I wasn't theirs. That's how it, that's how it translated to me. Yeah, it, that was a really hard time for me. And I remember asking my adoptive mom to read a book called Adoption Healing.
It was the one of the very first books that I read, and I felt so understood in that book. I can't remember who it's by Soll or something.
Haley Radke: Joe Soll.
Kristal Parke: Yeah, Joe Soll. And I had given her the book and she never read it and I'd asked her and she was like, oh, when I read it I fall asleep and like she just had such an unwillingness to read it.
She could only read it from [00:19:00] an adoptive mother's perspective. She couldn't put herself in an adoptee's shoes at all. Not many people can, but I'm just saying she couldn't even attempt to do that. And I begged her. Sorry, go ahead.
Haley Radke: Do you think that's because she couldn't put herself in a birth mother's lens?
Kristal Parke: I think that she either. Existed in her birth mother box, or she existed in her adoptive mother box. I don't think she could exist in she compartmentalized those so aggressively, And then it just left no room for her to even try to understand what it might feel like to be an adoptee.
And she, of all people, really did have that conditioning that [00:20:00] adoption was such a beautiful, perfect solution to a child not having a parent that could take care of them or chose to take care of them. My circumstances was in it and it's in my paperwork. Like the moment my birth mother knew I was, she was pregnant with me she chose adoption. She did not want to raise me. So yeah it's weird. It's, it, when I look at my adoptive mom, even the way she treated my birth mom. My birth mom was below her because now she was an adoptive mom that was raising her daughter. And I've seen this where birth mothers feel like they have to stay quiet and they have to just placate and they have to just, they don't get to have a voice in the matter or anything [00:21:00] like that, and I can't believe that she wouldn't have more compassion for my birth mother, maybe because she didn't have self compassion for her choice. Maybe because she blamed herself and was just, under such a blanket of guilt for her choice,
Haley Radke: yeah. Yeah.
Kristal Parke: Yeah. And then the weirdest thing was when, so I never met him until later on. And when I did finally meet this brother, he looked just like my dad and my brothers, so that was even an extra little bit of that hurts, and, but then he came to our childhood home and it was, he's sixty I think he's in his sixties and my parents have lived in that home since 1970.
And I had so much compassion for him when he walked into that [00:22:00] home. And there's family pictures everywhere of a life that he could have had and didn't. And I'm even, I'm having like chills right now thinking about it because that must have been very painful for him. I will admit through all that, I felt so, looking back on it now, I was very self centered in the beginning I really couldn't, I could only see my own pain in that whole experience of him coming into the family.
And because of that, I wasn't able to be as welcoming of him as I know, because I am a very welcoming person like that is just not even within my character to not be, to not have welcomed him, especially being an adoptee, right? And knowing how difficult that is to feel like you, are rejected by your birth family, whatever.
He was very patient and [00:23:00] understanding and compassionate with me. And, and he knew that I was going through my own stuff with that too. And and then, when he came to our home, that was the moment where I was able to really look at him as a fellow adoptee. And I still have a hard time calling him my brother, though.
Yeah, and it's still hard when he talks about like my mom and his mom, but he'll call her mom or my mom, he'll say sometimes. And I still find that a little is, but he has every right to, he has every right to. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. I know someone will be listening that can very much identify with those feelings and it's so complicated in your story that you share in Because She's Adopted [00:24:00] touches on so many different experiences that a lot of us have had.
And another thing that you share that is so deeply personal is your journey to recovery and becoming sober. And you have done that for many years now. How many years sober are you?
Kristal Parke: It'll be 13 years in November.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Kristal Parke: November 14th, 2011 is my sober date.
Haley Radke: oh, congratulations.
Kristal Parke: Thank you. Thank you.
Haley Radke: As you filmed the documentary and got into more adoptee community and those kinds of things, were you surprised to know how overrepresented we are in treatment for addictions?
Kristal Parke: Not really. And because I don't know, have you watched shows like Intervention and things like that or, okay. So like I, before I got sober, I would, I was obsessed with like recovery shows. [00:25:00]
Haley Radke: Okay.
Kristal Parke: It was weird. I, it was like somehow I knew that I had a problem, but wasn't willing to really look at my own self. It was easier to look at other people, but a lot of those people are adopted a lot of them. And yeah, so I wasn't necessarily surprised, but what I was really moved by is, was when I would show the film and adoptees would say, oh my gosh, it, this was such a perfect time in my life to see this film. I'm 22 days sober today, or thank you for sharing your journey. I've, I have a number of years sobriety behind me as well. And, I look at adopt, I look at addiction, I think we all have something that we turn to to not have to feel the feelings that we're feeling or experience the things, the thoughts memories, emotions that, that are uncomfortable.[00:26:00]
And for an adoptee, I think there's a level of uncomfortability in your own skin right from the very beginning, for me anyway there was. And addiction for me started very early on. And yeah, so it's, I'm grateful. I'm grateful to be sober. I, my life would not be what it was, what it is today.
I would not be the friend. I would not be the mother. I would not be just the person I am today, if I had have continued down that path, I don't even know if I'd be raising my own children if I hadn't gotten sober. So
Haley Radke: I don't know it's like this, I was going to say, it's like this miraculous moment, when you come into awareness. of it's time, which probably doesn't feel miraculous, probably just feels like [00:27:00] horrible and that, but that part is documented in the film some moments and you share some really I don't know if it feels like an ugly moment with your husband and some of those things and it's really profound to watch because we know the other side, like it's I don't know, I'm just, you impress me so much with your strength of character and showing that to us.
Kristal Parke: Thank you. That means a lot to me. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And it was a miraculous moment. If you had asked me if I had a drinking problem the night before, I would have said absolutely not. And I literally woke up in the morning and had this awakening that I needed help. It really was. I went to bed and then the next morning I woke up and I was like, I need to get [00:28:00] help. I'm going to lose everything. So yeah, I'm grateful for that moment. That's for sure.
Haley Radke: Another special moment that you share in the documentary is going to the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, which is where your birth mother was from.
And can you talk a little bit about that? And then I know that you went back this year with your children. And I'm wondering if you can share about that. We haven't even mentioned even from the beginning that you're also an indigenous person and grew up in a white family.
Kristal Parke: So for me growing up, I felt proud to be indigenous. And at the time we did call it Indian, like we, that, that was the terms that we used. But when I would share that openly with people outside of our family, my adoptive mom would say, you're just a little bit native, like nothing to speak of. That's a very impactful statement. And I don't think I realized how impactful that [00:29:00] statement was until I got older.
Because to me, it was just. Basically saying it's nothing to speak of that part of you is nothing to speak of. It's nothing to share. It's nothing to expose. It's nothing to be proud of. Like it's nothing to speak of. And so I would say that over my life time growing up, I was taught that being indigenous was something to be ashamed of.
I remember a family member taking me. We had a, the Katzie Indian Reserve by where we lived, and I remember a family member driving me through there to show how decrepit the place was and how, look at how these people live. And I don't want to believe that any of this was intentional. I think there's such systemic racism within [00:30:00] Canada that we, I think that there's people still that don't really recognize how colonial minded they still are in a lot of ways, but it was something that I felt like I was not to be proud of that it was something that I should be ashamed of. And then even as I got older, I remember working in a hair salon and the ladies thinking it was funny to tell native jokes and I don't dare say that I'm native in that space now because you've just made it very clear that it's something to joke about.
For me, it was, it's been a journey of really coming back to a place where I am able to claim my Indigenous identity. And with that came having to deal with my own colonial mindset and my own, for lack of [00:31:00] better terms, racist ideologies. That's been a big journey and I started that journey, a lot long before I started the film.
But then when I decided to do the film and wanted to go back to the Opaskwayak at Cree Nation and really started to desire to connect to that part of myself and that culture, I got pushback from family. I got pushback from, white friends. Saying things like, oh, you're an Indian now. Like, why do you need to focus on your indigenous heritage?
Why can't you focus on your Italian heritage or your English heritage? Like that kind of stuff. So there was still this. I don't know what do you call that, Haley? That's,
Haley Radke: it's racism.
Kristal Parke: It's, yeah, it's complete and utter racism and it's hard because, [00:32:00] yeah, it's just hard.
Haley Radke: Can I'll make an interjection if that's okay?
Kristal Parke: Please do.
Haley Radke: Okay. A lot of our listeners are not Canadian, American or worldwide. And Canada has this like reputation, right? We're like, we welcome all these newcomers and immigrants and.
Kristal Parke: Yeah.
Haley Radke: And, I think public facing, there's this thing that like we're not racist, but towards indigenous people, absolutely.
Kristal Parke: Yes.
Haley Radke: I grew up in a very small Mennonite town, totally white, and the only people of color we would ever see were Indigenous kids that happened to be in foster care for a brief time, and it was a the racism was disgusting, outrageous, and 100 percent accepted across the board. And that is, yeah very common [00:33:00] still.
We mentioned earlier that you're, we can maybe talk about the 60s scoop just a little bit. And now researchers are calling it the millennium scoop because it's still happening today. So do you mind talking just a little bit about that?
Kristal Parke: Yeah, absolutely. As most people know the residential school system, the Indian residential school system was an intentional plan by the Canadian government to assimilate Indigenous kids into white colonial culture. They really did believe that these kids would be better off to be removed from their land and from their parents and the influence of their parents and go into these Indian residential schools where they could learn English and learn to be white. And now we know that [00:34:00] there was horrific abuse in those places and a lot of Indigenous people, if not all Indigenous people who went to these places experienced severe trauma.
The Sixties Scoop was a branch of this assimilation agenda. It was just another form of Indian residential school. So they quite literally would go in and take children from their reserves, from their land, steal them from their parents, blatantly steal children, abduct children. Other cases maybe weren't quite as
Haley Radke: obvious, blatant,
Kristal Parke: weren't that blatant yeah, but, they basically would take these children, put them into foster care. And then this is what really gets me like this. They would put pictures of these children in newspapers. There was a program [00:35:00] called Adopt Indian and Métis Children, AIME, and it was put on by the government for white families to adopt Indian and Métis children.
And they would separate children from their siblings and adopt one child out into the States and one out into Canada and so it was really just tearing these families apart and when you say that to somebody, when you tell somebody about this. It doesn't quite hit until you say to them, can you imagine somebody coming to your home and lying and saying that you're not providing your child with the proper care, the proper food, and then having police or social services come in, take your child, put their picture in [00:36:00] a paper, adopt them out, and you never get to see those children, your children again. It's a different story when you explain it in that way. I feel like Canadians still, when you try to explain this and a lot of Canadians still don't even know what the 60 scoop is when you try and explain this to them because it's got you know, the indigenous umbrella over it they just don't hear it until you start to make it personal and say what if this was your situation, you know. There's a lot of people that are hearing and are listening and are advocating for Indigenous people and children.
That's what the Sixties Scoop is. My birth mother was a victim of the Sixties Scoop. We call her a Sixties Scoop survivor. And now with the millennium scoop, Canada's foster system has over 50 percent of children in [00:37:00] foster care are Indigenous and Indigenous people only make up 7 percent of the population.
So that's pretty imbalanced, right? And so that's what they're calling the Millennium Scoop right now. I was asked actually for Truth and Reconciliation Day on September 30th to open the ceremonies, the Truth and Reconciliation Ceremonies for the Métis community here. And they're having all the children in foster care, the Métis children in foster care come to the event and they're honoring them. And they're doing a sashing ceremony where they give them sashes and I have the privilege of being able to speak at this event, but I keep thinking to myself, what can I say to these kids? What did they need to hear? What will leave an impact [00:38:00] on them, and I'm still trying to figure that out.
Haley Radke: So many people, when you went back to the OCN, the social worker, the, some family members just members of the community. Were saying to you welcome home.
Kristal Parke: Yes. Yes. Yeah. So when I, like, when I first got connected with the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, I just reached out to somebody that had a Facebook page.
It was like the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. elders page or something. And I told her who I was. I told her who my birth mother was. I told her who my grandparents were and my great grandparents. And she said, just make a post, just make a post and people will, they'll be able to connect you to your family. No problem.
And so I made this post and it got shared and shared and shared. And all the comments were welcome home. [00:39:00] I had no idea that they, that it mattered to them that I had never been there before, or that I didn't know them, or they didn't know me. I didn't know that would matter so much to them.
And when I did go back there, that was the first thing that almost everybody said to me was welcome home. And I really did feel at home there. I really did feel like I belonged there. And it was an incredible experience. I can't believe how gracious they were towards me. Like they here we are we come in.
We roll into town. I've got, this camera crew and we're, and it's a small town and we're filming and, but people were just so willing to be part of, to be part of the story and to be part of my journey home. [00:40:00] And it was incredible. It was really quite incredible. And then, and my biggest fear was when I went there, that they weren't going to accept me, that they were going to reject me like, oh, what's this white girl here doing here?
Like I was worried that they thought that I was coming with a camera crew to, exploit them in some way. And I really, that was the furthest thing from my mind. And it was always very important that I operated and that my team operated with extreme honor and respect for the people there because it really, it's their home.
Haley Radke: Tell me about seeing your kids there. This summer.
Kristal Parke: oh my gosh. Okay. So we went back just this in August and the intention was to go back and show the film. I wanted to show the film to the community there. Thank them. And. It was because of OCN CFS that we could actually go there. [00:41:00] Like they paid our whole way to go.
Haley Radke: The children and family services.
Kristal Parke: Yeah. Yeah. And Donna is, she works there and she has been a great sort of connection point for me. She's, she sends me newspaper articles and helps to keep me updated and has helped educate me in like around indigenous issues or issues within that, my community there. So now when you tell three teenagers that we're going to the Opaskwayak Cree Nation
Haley Radke: in Manitoba,
Kristal Parke: in, in Northern Manitoba, where there are so many mosquitoes, they don't jump for joy.
My oldest daughter did. Okay. She was very excited about it. She's very excited. And so the time that we went was during Opaskwayak indigenous days, it [00:42:00] was their 59th year. So they have activities going from morning to night. It was a great time to go because there was so much going on. I was able to connect with a lot of people.
And so I would say my two younger teens were, they were stinkers. They did not want to join in. They were super lame. And I know they're going to look back on it as they're, as they go into adulthood and they're going to be like, I was a stinker because now I want to connect to my indigenous heritage.
We, it was great. Like my oldest, she really embraced it. She is quite a girly girl and she was wearing this yellow, pretty summer dress and joined in with the other youth females, her own age, doing knife throwing. So she's like throwing these [00:43:00] knives at a target in this like beautiful, yellow dress and stood out like a sore thumb.
And, but, she just embraced it. She showed up as she was in that space and just joined in. And it was really great. The chief of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation chief Maureen Brown. She's the first female chief ever there. And she was there as a council member, when I first came to the Opaskwayak Cree Nation and she knew my family and she gave me a lot of history and it was interesting because the audio didn't, it wasn't good.
With all of the stuff that she had shared with me and I was so worried when we were about to watch the film and I pulled her aside and I said, I just want you to know that all these incredible things you shared with me, these stories that you told me about, these [00:44:00] traditions that you told me about, they were lost because the audio, like I couldn't, include them in the film because the audio wasn't working.
And she said to me, that's because they were sacred and they weren't meant to be in your film. And I was like, yeah I hear that. And I, yeah. So when we came back, she remembered us. She welcomed my family. She gave gifts to me and my family. She opened up the screening itself by sharing what her experience with me was and just really encouraged me.
She said, Kristal is most definitely an Opaskwayakak woman and she has the qualities of an Opaskwayakak woman. For her to see that in me and say that out loud about me, it just it, I feel like it continually allows me [00:45:00] to step into that identity as an Indigenous person. And yeah, like it's just incredible.
So anyway, going there with my kids, it was great. They experienced lots of new things. I hope to go back with them again. Hopefully the younger two will be more excited. Although my youngest and my oldest joined in on, they had this really great music competition for the youth on the very last night we were there and it was like a big deal.
Like it was, they had a full five, five piece band behind like the performers. Like it was the stage, everything, lights, cameras, everything. And there was 11 contestants and my son took fourth place and my daughter took second place. So that was probably the highlight [00:46:00] of their summer. And, even though they were stinkers while we were there, I think that was the redeeming experience. So.
Haley Radke: That's pretty cool.
Kristal Parke: Yeah.
Haley Radke: I want To recommend that people watch your documentary Because She's Adopted. I loved it. I've seen it several times now. The first time I saw it was when you screened it here at an indigenous film festival.
Kristal Parke: Yeah.
Haley Radke: But it was, and before I really knew you.
Kristal Parke: Yes.
Haley Radke: It was so amazing because it's so you, it's it's quirky, it's funny, but it's also so moving and educational and you've shared, some of the plot twists and reveals that happen
in the documentary with us today as part of your story, but as they come up in the film, it's really oh my goodness, like this woman has experienced some things. So anyway, I just [00:47:00] it's so good. And I do. It's so you. I don't know. I don't know how else to say that. Now that I've gotten to know you so much better. It's so you. Obviously, it's all about you. But yeah.
Kristal Parke: That's a great compliment because I think with editing, an editor can go in and edit from their own bias or their own perception of who you are as a person, like maybe you have an editor that doesn't like you and they end up showing all the, your most terrible qualities.
But I had an incredible editor. Her name's Chelsea McEvoy. She's also Indigenous and she understood what it was like to be somebody that was disconnected from your indigenous culture. She recognized that she did not have any clue what it meant to be an adopted person. And [00:48:00] so because of that, she actually invited me into the editing suite and had me there with her hours upon hours to help edit the film because she was, she's just I don't know what
adoptees need to hear and you don't always get that kind of creative control, but she honored my story so well, she got to know me so well that I think she was able to really translate who I was through the editing. And I really think that the film is what it is because of her. I really do. Yeah.
Haley Radke: In the trailer, you say, I'm not the same person that I was when I began filming this documentary. And as like a personal aside, we have had a couple conversations about some moments in the film that you're like, oh part of it too. When you see it, it's oh, I think you're [00:49:00] still unpacking some things.
I think you're still, as we all are over time, this is like a moment in time that's captured as a capsule.
Kristal Parke: Yes.
Haley Radke: And as we go on, especially the more into adoptee community you get, you're like, oh, my opinions change on this now.
Kristal Parke: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. There's don't come for me, but there is a part in there where I say, I think adoption is beautiful.
But. There's also a very painful side to adoption and, I now scroll through adoptees online and it's quit saying adoption's beautiful. And I hear that and I totally get that. And so that is something that if I were editing it today, I probably wouldn't have, I probably wouldn't have included in there.
There, I can look at my story now. I think from both sides, I [00:50:00] can look at the pain in it and I can look at the beauty in it too. And I think that's what the healing has done for me is I can, whereas there was a time in my life where I could only look at the good because I was so indoctrinated by adoptee narratives.
But then there was a time in my life where I could only look at the negatives of my experience and I was, I could only look at my adoptive mom. And I don't know why my adopted dad got such a pass on all of this, but I could only look at my adopted mom with suspicion, I didn't think that she had any good intention when it came to my adoptee adoption, I thought that it was all self centered.
And so I think I appreciate the journey of being able to acknowledge that, yeah, there was. This is true over [00:51:00] here, but this is also true over here. And yeah there's also a part in there where my husband refers to my adoptive family as my true family. And I want to punch him in the face every time I watch it.
Haley Radke: I almost asked you about it and I was like no, like he, our partners, our family, like they are a couple steps behind us in unpacking things.
Kristal Parke: I think so.
Haley Radke: Hopefully they come along too for the unpacking, but yeah.
Kristal Parke: Yes. And I don't think he would say that today, but where we were when he was saying that was I was, not experiencing the most loving treatment from my biological family on my mom's side.
And I didn't really know my biological father's side yet, and I hadn't made those [00:52:00] extended connections. So at that moment in time, really the only family that I really could call my quote unquote, true family or real family was the family was that family was the only family that like still that treated me with love and acceptance and that.
Now, a true family comes in so many different forms. I have a true family in my adoptee community. I have true family in my adopted family, but I have, true family in my friendships. And also in my biological family, and I have made more connections when I was at the Opaskwayak Cree Nation.
I'm, I made many more connections. I met aunts and uncles and great aunts and cousins, and turns out I'm related to everybody there, which is amazing. And, like truly [00:53:00] walking down the road and someone's I'm actually your cousin. We're related through da. It's oh my gosh, really do feel so much belonging and really feel like there is something to the biological piece there is.
And so for him to say that and discount that, I don't think that was his intention but, I would not have included that if I was editing today, so.
Haley Radke: We'll give him a pass. We'll give him a pass on that.
Kristal Parke: We'll get just this time.
Haley Radke: Just this one, one and only time Stuart gets a pass so don't send her emails about that. Okay. What do you want to recommend to us today, Kristal?
Kristal Parke: I want to recommend a series, a TV series called Little Bird. It was, I believe directed by Jen, Jennifer Podemski. She's a Canadian Indigenous woman in film. And it is an ex [00:54:00] it's a story about a adopted woman who was Indigenous and adopted into a Jewish family and just came to the point in her life where she couldn't move forward without going back and finding her roots and all of that what that included and from an adoptee's perspective, every episode I watched, I cried and I could relate to so deeply. And so I believe that it's on Crave.
Haley Radke: Yeah, Crave in Canada. I think it was on HBO in the States. We'll try and find some links for folks to, to watch it.
Kristal Parke: Yeah. I think that it's really taken off because it is a very good explanation of what the Sixties Scoop was and its impact. And then of course, for adoptees as well.
Haley Radke: So yeah, it's amazing. I've only watched, I think the first two episodes and it [00:55:00] cut a little close. And so I was like, okay the feelings.
Kristal Parke: A hundred percent. I would say watch it with a support person or, have someone that you can process through it with because it is so real. It's, it's like watching, it's like watching your first adoptee doc or listening to your first adoptee podcast and going, oh my gosh, I've never felt so seen before in my whole life, you know?
Haley Radke: We're wrapping up. Where can folks watch your film? And I know you also have a limited series podcast coming out soon, too. So where can we follow along with all the things?
Kristal Parke: Okay, so you can rent my film if you are in the states or in Canada on my website. So that's kristalparke.Net. She'll include it in the show notes because no one has ever spelled my name correctly ever.
Haley Radke: I got you. I got you. We'll link [00:56:00] it up.
Kristal Parke: And and then the podcast, it's sorry. So the film you can also watch if you have TELUS Optic TV you just go and search Because She's Adopted, it's in there. And then the limited series podcast, it's a six part series called the Because She's Adopted podcast. It's a video podcast series. You can also start watching that September 24th on TELUS Optic TV.
I believe they're going to be putting it out on their YouTube as well, but I'm going to be putting it on Spotify and Apple podcast. And so it'll be under Because She's Adopted. And then of course you can follow me on YouTube. Instagram, Facebook, and Tik Tok Because She's Adopted.
Haley Radke: Amazing.
Kristal Parke: Do you know how the title came to be, Haley?
Haley Radke: I think [00:57:00] it was a funny thing that your husband said to you when you had fails in your life.
Kristal Parke: Yes. Yes. Or any, yeah anytime anything happened, he's, he'd be like, it's because she's adopted. He him and I have a very humorous joking relationship. And he may joke like that, but he's been my greatest ally, my greatest support through through all of this. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Good dude. All right.
Kristal Parke: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much, Kristal for sharing your story with us, talking about some of the really hard things. And I know it will be so helpful to many. And your film is just so beautiful. I can't wait for folks to check it out. And if you're on Patreon, you can do our September, instead of book club this month, we're doing documentary club, and we chose your film for this month. So really excited about doing that. So we'll have info [00:58:00] about that as well for folks to check that out. So thank you.
Kristal Parke: Awesome. Thank you, Haley. It was truly a dream to be on Adoptees On and you're making my dreams come true. And not only that I found a friend in you and I really do value you and appreciate you. So thank you for all you're doing and all you've done for adoptees in this community and beyond.
Haley Radke: Thank you.
I hope you'll come and join us to Talk more about Because She's Adopted in our documentary club this month on Patreon. We have scholarships available, which you can go to adopteeson.com/scholarship if you want to apply and there's also a free trial of Patreon. If you want to just hop in and check it out, I would love it if you watch the doc if you're able to share it with [00:59:00] fellow adoptees or friends or family that would be interested in learning more about Kristal 's story, which touches so many of the adoptee issues, like so many things, right? She's got so many circles in her constellation of folks who have been impacted by the 60s scoop by the adoption industry.
All of those things. And I think her story's really a powerful one that I think can help a lot of people. So I hope you'll share it with someone. And I really appreciate your ongoing support of the show. If you wanna make a donation, you can do that on our website, adopteeson.com or on Patreon, which is adopteeon.com/community.
Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again [01:00:00] soon.
