107: My Not-So-Open Kinship Adoption

To get ready for this episode -- which turned out to be on Emotional Intelligence in adoption relationships -- imagine that you are 18 years old and parenting a 4 month old boy, a path you don’t feel prepared for at all. You have an older half-brother; he and his wife have been struggling to conceive. You end up placing your baby with them in what is agreed to be an open adoption.

But in practice, it’s not open. Sure you have contact at family get-togethers. You get to see him. But years later, his parents have declined to tell him that he was adopted and that you are his birth mom. As he grows older, you are pressed to either stay complicit with this lie of omission, or spill the beans without their permission. Listen in to this story of a kinship adoption gone wrong, and lessons learned.

Show Notes

Instagram: @EQClem
LinkedIn: Clemencia Deleon
Wrong Way Adoption Part 1: Kinship Adoption Gone Wrong
Wrong Way Adoption Part 2: Kinship Adoption Back Story
On topic: It’s 2020. Why Do We Still Suck at Adoption Telling?
Mentioned: Ashley Mitchell episode on adoption education
Books mentioned: The Primal Wound and The Girls Who Went Away
Article mentioned: Don’t Split the Baby

Transcript

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About this Podcast

Lori Holden (The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole) brings to you an array of articulate and thought-provoking guests with lived experience in adoption, each with valuable insights to share about the all-encompassing journey of parenting an adopted person from babyhood to toddlerhood to school age to teenage -- and ultimately to adulthood. Join us as we explore Adoption: The Long View.

Named a Top 25 Adoption Podcast