April 23, 2024 • 24 mins
Only finding out as an adult that you were adopted can throw you into a tailspin, forcing you to reconsider long-held truths. In this bonus episode, we hear from Dr. Amanda Baden, an expert on the experiences of late discovery adoptees. Research has shown the later an adoptee finds out, the more distress they have, and even finding out at 4 or 5 is considered “late.” Dr. Baden discussed why some adoptive parents choose to delay telling their kids and shared some of the long-term ramifications these revelations can have on an adult's life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey their listeners. For this bonus episode, we wanted to
reach out to an expert, someone who knows a thing
or two about what adoptees experience when they reach out
to their birth family, or what happens when someone finds
out they're adopted later in life, like Steve Patterson. Then
our producer Kate Mischkin taught with doctor Amanda Baten, a
(00:20):
licensed psychologist in New York City who's worked with adoptees,
adoptive families, and has adopted ourself. We were lucky to
sit down with them.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
This is chapter twelve, Doctor Amanda Beten on adoption. Just
to start out, would you mind telling us who you
are and what kind of work you do.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
My name's Amanda Beten. I'm a licensed psychologist in New
York City, and I'm also a professor at Montclair State University,
where I also serve as the doctoral program director. At
Montclair State, we train future counselors, and in the doctoral
program we train counselor educators, those who are going to
be professors. Training future counselors, it's very matter. And then
(01:06):
in my practice, I have a clinical practice in New
York where I work with primarily adult adoptees and adoptive families.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I'm wondering if you're if you're open to telling me
a little bit about how your own experience has informed
your practice.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I think you know, having grown up as a transracial
international adoptee myself, of course, I understand a lot of
the struggles. I know what they look like at various points.
I've been working with adoptees for over twenty five years.
I have a lot of stories, a lot of histories
that people have shared that some of which overlap with
mine and some which diverge completely. I try to make
(01:43):
sure that I have very good sense of what's my
history and what's theirs, not to confuse them, but I
definitely can see that there's a lot of shared experiences.
I shared history of how adoptees have an internal message
system that they might use to themselves about what it
means to be adopted. For kids and adolescents can be
(02:06):
hard to articulate, so some of what I do is
really helping them find words to explain their experience and
to normalize it, to recognize it. They weren't the only
ones who had that experience, and therefore it can be
very empowering to recognize like there's a real community out
there that can share some of this.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I was wondering if just something we could start out with.
Is some reasons adoptees seek out therapy in general?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Oh sure, I think everyone is always looking to understand
themselves a little bit better, looking for support when things
might get a little challenging or tough. The adults that
I see primarily have come for various reasons. Sometimes it's
the traditional reasons we understand is different kinds of mood
disorders like depression or anxiety, But a lot of it's
(02:55):
about identity. Understanding themselves is people of color understanding themselves
as adopted people. Many of them have been in therapy
with other clinicians who don't have adoption backgrounds, and so
in many of those cases, they might say that person
(03:16):
was supportive and kind, but maybe didn't quite understand the
nuances of adoption, or they felt they had to teach
them so much that it wasn't as helpful as they
wanted it to be. And more recently, sometimes it's also
about connections with you know, relationship issues, romantic kinds of relationships,
friendships and relationships with adoptive family members and birth family searches.
(03:40):
Those are all different reasons that people might seek therapy.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And so I just want to clarify, for the most part,
you're talking to folks who have been adopted. You're not
necessarily talking to the adoptive families.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I do work with some adoptive families, so whenever I'm
working with adult adoptees, at times we'll find it might
be very useful for them to have session where they
bring in their parents. We're working on them developing agency
to be able to express what they want, and me
to serve in the role of helping improve communication, help
(04:12):
the adopted person advocate for themselves, help interpret some of
the things that the parents may struggle to understand because
they didn't live it in the same way.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
What's a big misconception about adoption.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I think the most common misconception is that people think
they understand what adoption is because they've heard stories and
seen movies. Almost all Disney movies have an adoption theme
of some sort. So these arcs tell these stories I
think that can problematize adoption and also make it seem
so rainbows and flowers and stars like it's so wonderful
(04:52):
all the time. And the fact is adoptions complex and
the issues are complex. So a lot of times I
think people think if a child's been adopted, that they're lucky,
that they should be grateful, that the adoptive parents have
done a wonderful thing, that they're do gooders, and look
what a wonderful life they've been given. Those kinds of
(05:14):
things I think come into play a lot because it
calls into question motives for adopting. It calls into question
things like how an adoptee's supposed to process and think
about their experience. That can make it hard, because if
they have this message that they should never complain and
(05:34):
never be unhappy and never grieve anything that's related to
their adoption, then that is going to become a big
barrier in the relationship they have with their families and
in their own processing and navigating of the feelings that
come with adoption.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I want to travel back in time a little bit,
to the nineteen seventies. That's kind of where the sort
that we're focused on takes place. In our story. This
man didn't know that he was adopted to very late
in life. He stumbled upon a Manila envelope with the
name he was assigned at birth, but really didn't ask
any further questions, and finally, when his adoptive father died
(06:12):
in twenty nineteen, he started kind of unpacking. So I
was wondering, you know, back in the seventies, how common
was that for adopted children to not be told that
they were adopted and to have kept it a secret.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I wish I could tell you explicitly, because again, we
don't have numbers on these kinds of things. We would
not be able to estimate who's telling and who's not telling.
I can say, though, that it still.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Happens, and why do you think that happens.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I think that there's a lot of answers to that,
and they're somewhat individual to the parent to some degree.
But I think the standard answers people give are that
they want the adopted person to understand it fully, they
don't know when a good time is to tell them.
They think it will upset them and make them feel
(06:59):
less part of the family. These are all kind of
common answers, but I also think that there's a lot
of fear involved, a fear that the child may not
feel part of the family. They may have questions, they
may want to reach out and find birth family. There's
an attempt to if you pretend that we're all biologically related,
(07:23):
then we'll all pretend and everything will be the same.
I think that some folks might frame it as having
protected the child, when we know that's not always the
sole motivator or necessarily an accurate explanation. I've actually worked
with a person once who had suspected for many years
(07:47):
that they were adopted and had been looking into this
for years, and there had been denials and denials and
denials from the adoptive parents, and the person finally confronted
the parent and said, look, I'm about to do this
DNA test. It's going to come out, so here's your
chance to tell me. And this this person was in
their fifties at the time. The adoptive parents still refused,
(08:10):
and of course the DNA test proved it, and they
finally had to have the conversation. Ultimately, I don't know
if they actually had a logical stream of thought around
how this might play out or not, but they had
been locked into this narrative for over fifty years.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I canmuchure it's hard to break that after fifty years
telling the same story based on your experience and your expertise,
when is a good time to tell a kid.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
That's a great question. And we have a lot of
colleagues who do adoption research as well, and one of
them who's quite well known in the field, David Brezinski,
had sent two independent researchers to me to say, hey,
maybe Amanda will do this study with you, because they
were both what they called late discovery adoptees LDAs, and
so they came to me with this idea and I
(08:59):
was entruy. So what we did was we did a
survey to look at the impact of when you found
out you were adopted, and the results were very compelling.
What we basically found out was that if an adopted
person has a memory of finding out they were adopted,
(09:21):
then that's already a little late for them. They've already
experienced some distress. So we looked at whether distress, satisfaction
with life, and coping mechanisms how they all impacted this.
But if you account for the coping mechanisms that people have,
adults have more coping mechanisms, that the impact of finding
(09:42):
out that you're adopted after the age of three gradually increases.
The older you get, the more distress. So what it
meant to me was that memory really sits in people's minds.
In my role as a faculty member, I teach a
course on multicultural counseling, and when I do bring in
(10:06):
adoption into the course, I do a little quiz for
them and I ask them at what age do they
think a child should be told they're adopted. What's fascinated
me about it is that there was this range. There's
always a few students who say immediately at birth, as
soon as you can, but there's far more who say five, eight, fifteen,
(10:29):
eighteen or never, which really surprised me. And then my
explanation my response to them would be, so I don't
think a child needs to understand all of the complexity
of adoption to understand that they were born in someone
else's body and that there's another family out there. And
(10:49):
if you wait until they're three, five, ten, how many
times have you had to lie to your child? Most
of the LDAs they often talk about the awareness that
they'd been betrayed and lied to. It's much harder to
keep these secrets, and we know secrets have a way
of coming out often, so we try and help families
(11:12):
recognize that if you can't be honest with your child
about their history, you're going to create wedges from the
very beginning that's going to make it hard to have
just an honest relationship with them.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Okay, So, in general, how do late discovery adoptees differ
from other adoptees.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Well, I think the difference is more in they have
a late start. One of the things we struggled with
when designing the study was how we wanted to define late,
and our study finding showed that, yeah, four is already
a little late. So I think that the difference will
depend to some degree on when they find out. Because
(11:54):
the person that you're doing this podcast about, he's just
now identifying as an adopted person and now just diving
into that world and has maybe changing all the things
he's had to think about who he was and where
he came from. Whereas adoptees who've known forever have had
(12:15):
a head start in that. That doesn't mean they've always
gotten there or done the work or had effective progress
with it, but they've had the opportunities in some cases
to join adoption communities, to be with other adopted people
to start incorporating that into their identity from a very
early age. And the challenge is not being able to
(12:38):
incorporate that into your identity means it may feel like
your identity has to alter drastically from what you thought
it was. And knowing that there's this other family out
there who may or may not have ever wanted to
reconnect or something like that can throw people into a
(13:00):
tail spin.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
In your experience, how typical is it for an adopt
you to discover that they were adopted, you know, finding
paperwork or some other way, but to not raise it
with their adoptive parents.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I think that there's definitely communication problems in all families,
and I think that some folks are more willing to
have those challenging and difficult conversations than others. Someone who
has not had a practice of that and maybe more unwilling.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
To do it.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And sometimes people want to close the door on something
that doesn't fit into their narrative.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, two people in this story is that they knew
and they just didn't want to rock the boat. They
didn't want to hurt their adoptive parents' feelings.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
That goes with the grateful narrative too. Who am I
to question and challenge them? I don't want to rock
the boat. Maybe I don't want to deal with it either,
or maybe I like pretending because bringing that up is
going to change a lot, and it's going to force
some change and a lot of times, as humans, we
(14:10):
avoid discomfort, we avoid change, and that's where denial comes
into play a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
So I'm wondering if that's something we would recommend. Seeking
out records and finding a birth family.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Great question. I never say that one answer fits for everyone.
Back in the seventies and eighties, even the nineties, the
prevailing perspective was that any adopted person who wanted to
find their birth parents probably was dysfunctional in some way,
unhappy with their families, had some issues. Now the tables
(14:47):
have turned completely and the perspective is if you don't
want to find your birth families, then you must be
in denial or something like that. So there's a lot
of pressure either way. Adoptees are all pathologize and they
can't win completely. But I don't think there's a blanket
yes or no. I think the individual needs to really
(15:08):
think about what they want from that, whether they're ready
for it. I highly recommend therapy counseling for someone who's
considering it, because I've worked with lots of adoptees who
went in with this mission to do the detective work
and find the birth family and then had no idea
what they wanted to do with that relationship or how
(15:29):
to approach it, and it became challenging and painful for
both sides because here the birth family thinks, oh, they
want to know me and want to connect, but they're
withdrawing and they're withholding, and it's very confusing. The communication
is challenging. So anyone who's an LDA would benefit from
finding community, and if they're able to and willing to
(15:52):
get some therapy from someone who understands this experience, it
can be very beneficial to them.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
So once you go on that journey and you find
your birth mother and she can't answer all your questions,
I wonder how that might impact your sense of self.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
I think that you know, when you do find a
birth family member, you're never going to have all your
questions answered. You know, even when you're born to your parents,
they can't answer everything. There's some mystery that's always going
to be involved. But the sense of self is sometimes
how we make a sense of what we're hearing. Sometimes
(16:35):
adoptees make their interpretation of the relinquishment is about them.
They think it's some deficit they have or some punishment
for themselves, when in fact, most relinquishments are about the
problems that the birth parents are having. Yeah, and these
are adult problems. When you go into a union, it's
(16:57):
going to be hard because there are back and white answers.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
And I wonder if we can talk about the adoptive
parents a little bit. I can imagine might be a
challenging time for an adoptive parent when their child is
seeking out the birth parents and siblings they never knew
they had. I'm wondering what kind of feelings this might
bring up for adoptive parents.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I'm guessing they would feel frustrated that they had to
reveal the truth, maybe they never intended to, or maybe
they feel some shame about it. I think a lot
of adoptive parents who keep these secrets don't come and
present for therapy. They may not be willing to confront
(17:35):
what's happening. One of the reasons that they may have
decided to keep this secret has been their own insecurity
about their status as parents, as rightful parents, as true parents,
and so I would guess that it would raise a
lot of those issues again for them. I've heard many
adoptive parents say they didn't want to share their child,
(17:57):
they want to erase the idea that birth parents even exist,
And in those cases we could say with fair certainty
that those adoptive parents have not worked through their own
issues around deciding to adopt.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
What suggestions might you have for someone who wants to
find the courage to say they'd like to get to
know their birth family, but doesn't necessarily want to disappoint
their adoptive parents or hurt someone's feelings.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I'd say that therapy can be a good start, because
sometimes with the work of a solid therapist, they can
help them find the words, and sometimes the therapists can
even help navigate that discussion. Whenever you come against something
that feels like a barrier, what often helps is to
(18:52):
empathize with the other perspective and then try and inform
that perspective. So what I might suggest someone do is
empathize with their parents' fears and their anxieties and insecurities,
because they may feel that they're going to lose their child,
or something's going to shift and change for the worse
(19:16):
without recognizing that it often can shift for the better
if they can stay open and engaged in loving about it.
There's a lot of documentaries that exist, a lot of
movies that exist that can be a great conversation starters,
where then you can talk about this process and how
these parents, Why were those parents so engaged in this search?
(19:39):
How were they able to make sense that you know,
that can give that opportunity to have some of those
discussions that they may struggle bringing up themselves.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
In that vein. What are some things that people within
the orbit of the adoptee, you know, everyone in their life,
what can they do to help the adoptee and support them.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
I think that it can be helpful to listen, certainly
without a ton of advice giving. I think the advice
giving can often be well meaning, but can sometimes reinforce
a lot of the stereotypes about adoption, and a lot
of advice giving often recreates some of the microaggressions that exist.
(20:25):
Like for example, one of the adoption microaggressions be named
was the phantom birth parents, and that's this idea of
trying to make them disappear, where the birth parents are
supposed to go off and not think about this. Again,
if everyone just does their role, then everything will be fine.
And it doesn't really work that way, And there's a
lot of adult adoptee communities out there that can be supportive.
(20:50):
I would say for this person, the big challenge a
lot of times is for them not to get stuck
in their anger and to keep moving through it and
to get the support to move through it. Because what
we see is someone who's struggling with making sense of
their identity or something getting stuck in that and not
(21:11):
making any movement.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Then yeah, I can definitely see that there's something you
wish people knew about adoption that you've gleaned from your work.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I guess I would say I wish that people would
recognize that adoptees aren't all damaged, that we're not all
the same, that there's just as much diversity among us
as there is in any other group, and that it's
not a sexy narrative to put in every movie, in
every book, even though it seems to be a very
(21:43):
compelling one to put in every time I'm watching a show.
I'm like, op, yep, there's another one. And so the
point where my family lasts because we see you any
show that's not at all connected to an adoption story,
that narrative still makes its way in as a quick
and dirty way to explain why someone would turn this
(22:06):
way or turn that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Way, or you know, yeah, as a narrator to face
in some sort of way.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
It really is, and I guess I wish if they're
going to use that that they do it with real
education about it and with real caution, because it does
contribute to the stereotypes and the stigma.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Doctor Rianton, thank you so much for taking the time
to talk to me. This is this is great, no.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Problem, glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Thank you so much to doctor Amanda Baden for taking
the time to share insight. We'll have some links to
her work in the episode description. Her website is doctor
Amandabaden dot com. Hello, John Doe has and original productions
by Revelations Entertainment in association with First and Life Productions.
From Revelation. Our executive producers are Morgan Freeman and James
(22:58):
Younger From First to Life. Lindsay Moreno is the executive
producer our producing partner is neo on Home Media. It
was written and produced by Kate Michigan. Our editor is
Katherine Saint Louis. She is also nei on Home Media's
executive editor. Our executive producer is Sherah Morris. Our development
producer is Ian Lindsay. Our associate producer is Rufaro Faith Maser.
(23:20):
Rural sound design and mixing by Scott Summerville. Theme and
original music composed by Jesse Pearlstein. Additional music came from
Epidemic Sound in Blue Dot Sessions. Frendall Faulton is our
fact checker. Our production manager is Samantha Allison from my
Heart Media. Dylan Fagan as our executive producer. Special thanks
to Adelia Ruben at ne On Hume and Carrie Lieberman
(23:42):
and Will Pearson at iHeartMedia. I'm Todd Matthews. You can
learn more about name us at NamUs dot com. The
number for the National Center for Missing Exploited Children's Call
Center is one eight hundred the loss That's one eight
hundred eight four three five six seven eight. The National
Sexual Assault hot Line from the Rate Abuse and Incest
(24:02):
National Network is one one hundred sixty five six four
six seventy three. Okay, guys, this is the end of
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But if you did like it, you make sure that
your rate and review the show. It helps more people
to find it and hear this wonderful story. Thanks again
for listening.
Hey their listeners. For this bonus episode, we wanted to
reach out to an expert, someone who knows a thing
or two about what adoptees experience when they reach out
to their birth family, or what happens when someone finds
out they're adopted later in life, like Steve Patterson. Then
our producer Kate Mischkin taught with doctor Amanda Baten, a
(00:20):
licensed psychologist in New York City who's worked with adoptees,
adoptive families, and has adopted ourself. We were lucky to
sit down with them.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
This is chapter twelve, Doctor Amanda Beten on adoption. Just
to start out, would you mind telling us who you
are and what kind of work you do.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
My name's Amanda Beten. I'm a licensed psychologist in New
York City, and I'm also a professor at Montclair State University,
where I also serve as the doctoral program director. At
Montclair State, we train future counselors, and in the doctoral
program we train counselor educators, those who are going to
be professors. Training future counselors, it's very matter. And then
(01:06):
in my practice, I have a clinical practice in New
York where I work with primarily adult adoptees and adoptive families.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I'm wondering if you're if you're open to telling me
a little bit about how your own experience has informed
your practice.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I think you know, having grown up as a transracial
international adoptee myself, of course, I understand a lot of
the struggles. I know what they look like at various points.
I've been working with adoptees for over twenty five years.
I have a lot of stories, a lot of histories
that people have shared that some of which overlap with
mine and some which diverge completely. I try to make
(01:43):
sure that I have very good sense of what's my
history and what's theirs, not to confuse them, but I
definitely can see that there's a lot of shared experiences.
I shared history of how adoptees have an internal message
system that they might use to themselves about what it
means to be adopted. For kids and adolescents can be
(02:06):
hard to articulate, so some of what I do is
really helping them find words to explain their experience and
to normalize it, to recognize it. They weren't the only
ones who had that experience, and therefore it can be
very empowering to recognize like there's a real community out
there that can share some of this.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I was wondering if just something we could start out with.
Is some reasons adoptees seek out therapy in general?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Oh sure, I think everyone is always looking to understand
themselves a little bit better, looking for support when things
might get a little challenging or tough. The adults that
I see primarily have come for various reasons. Sometimes it's
the traditional reasons we understand is different kinds of mood
disorders like depression or anxiety, But a lot of it's
(02:55):
about identity. Understanding themselves is people of color understanding themselves
as adopted people. Many of them have been in therapy
with other clinicians who don't have adoption backgrounds, and so
in many of those cases, they might say that person
(03:16):
was supportive and kind, but maybe didn't quite understand the
nuances of adoption, or they felt they had to teach
them so much that it wasn't as helpful as they
wanted it to be. And more recently, sometimes it's also
about connections with you know, relationship issues, romantic kinds of relationships,
friendships and relationships with adoptive family members and birth family searches.
(03:40):
Those are all different reasons that people might seek therapy.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And so I just want to clarify, for the most part,
you're talking to folks who have been adopted. You're not
necessarily talking to the adoptive families.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I do work with some adoptive families, so whenever I'm
working with adult adoptees, at times we'll find it might
be very useful for them to have session where they
bring in their parents. We're working on them developing agency
to be able to express what they want, and me
to serve in the role of helping improve communication, help
(04:12):
the adopted person advocate for themselves, help interpret some of
the things that the parents may struggle to understand because
they didn't live it in the same way.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
What's a big misconception about adoption.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I think the most common misconception is that people think
they understand what adoption is because they've heard stories and
seen movies. Almost all Disney movies have an adoption theme
of some sort. So these arcs tell these stories I
think that can problematize adoption and also make it seem
so rainbows and flowers and stars like it's so wonderful
(04:52):
all the time. And the fact is adoptions complex and
the issues are complex. So a lot of times I
think people think if a child's been adopted, that they're lucky,
that they should be grateful, that the adoptive parents have
done a wonderful thing, that they're do gooders, and look
what a wonderful life they've been given. Those kinds of
(05:14):
things I think come into play a lot because it
calls into question motives for adopting. It calls into question
things like how an adoptee's supposed to process and think
about their experience. That can make it hard, because if
they have this message that they should never complain and
(05:34):
never be unhappy and never grieve anything that's related to
their adoption, then that is going to become a big
barrier in the relationship they have with their families and
in their own processing and navigating of the feelings that
come with adoption.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I want to travel back in time a little bit,
to the nineteen seventies. That's kind of where the sort
that we're focused on takes place. In our story. This
man didn't know that he was adopted to very late
in life. He stumbled upon a Manila envelope with the
name he was assigned at birth, but really didn't ask
any further questions, and finally, when his adoptive father died
(06:12):
in twenty nineteen, he started kind of unpacking. So I
was wondering, you know, back in the seventies, how common
was that for adopted children to not be told that
they were adopted and to have kept it a secret.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I wish I could tell you explicitly, because again, we
don't have numbers on these kinds of things. We would
not be able to estimate who's telling and who's not telling.
I can say, though, that it still.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Happens, and why do you think that happens.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I think that there's a lot of answers to that,
and they're somewhat individual to the parent to some degree.
But I think the standard answers people give are that
they want the adopted person to understand it fully, they
don't know when a good time is to tell them.
They think it will upset them and make them feel
(06:59):
less part of the family. These are all kind of
common answers, but I also think that there's a lot
of fear involved, a fear that the child may not
feel part of the family. They may have questions, they
may want to reach out and find birth family. There's
an attempt to if you pretend that we're all biologically related,
(07:23):
then we'll all pretend and everything will be the same.
I think that some folks might frame it as having
protected the child, when we know that's not always the
sole motivator or necessarily an accurate explanation. I've actually worked
with a person once who had suspected for many years
(07:47):
that they were adopted and had been looking into this
for years, and there had been denials and denials and
denials from the adoptive parents, and the person finally confronted
the parent and said, look, I'm about to do this
DNA test. It's going to come out, so here's your
chance to tell me. And this this person was in
their fifties at the time. The adoptive parents still refused,
(08:10):
and of course the DNA test proved it, and they
finally had to have the conversation. Ultimately, I don't know
if they actually had a logical stream of thought around
how this might play out or not, but they had
been locked into this narrative for over fifty years.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I canmuchure it's hard to break that after fifty years
telling the same story based on your experience and your expertise,
when is a good time to tell a kid.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
That's a great question. And we have a lot of
colleagues who do adoption research as well, and one of
them who's quite well known in the field, David Brezinski,
had sent two independent researchers to me to say, hey,
maybe Amanda will do this study with you, because they
were both what they called late discovery adoptees LDAs, and
so they came to me with this idea and I
(08:59):
was entruy. So what we did was we did a
survey to look at the impact of when you found
out you were adopted, and the results were very compelling.
What we basically found out was that if an adopted
person has a memory of finding out they were adopted,
(09:21):
then that's already a little late for them. They've already
experienced some distress. So we looked at whether distress, satisfaction
with life, and coping mechanisms how they all impacted this.
But if you account for the coping mechanisms that people have,
adults have more coping mechanisms, that the impact of finding
(09:42):
out that you're adopted after the age of three gradually increases.
The older you get, the more distress. So what it
meant to me was that memory really sits in people's minds.
In my role as a faculty member, I teach a
course on multicultural counseling, and when I do bring in
(10:06):
adoption into the course, I do a little quiz for
them and I ask them at what age do they
think a child should be told they're adopted. What's fascinated
me about it is that there was this range. There's
always a few students who say immediately at birth, as
soon as you can, but there's far more who say five, eight, fifteen,
(10:29):
eighteen or never, which really surprised me. And then my
explanation my response to them would be, so I don't
think a child needs to understand all of the complexity
of adoption to understand that they were born in someone
else's body and that there's another family out there. And
(10:49):
if you wait until they're three, five, ten, how many
times have you had to lie to your child? Most
of the LDAs they often talk about the awareness that
they'd been betrayed and lied to. It's much harder to
keep these secrets, and we know secrets have a way
of coming out often, so we try and help families
(11:12):
recognize that if you can't be honest with your child
about their history, you're going to create wedges from the
very beginning that's going to make it hard to have
just an honest relationship with them.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Okay, So, in general, how do late discovery adoptees differ
from other adoptees.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Well, I think the difference is more in they have
a late start. One of the things we struggled with
when designing the study was how we wanted to define late,
and our study finding showed that, yeah, four is already
a little late. So I think that the difference will
depend to some degree on when they find out. Because
(11:54):
the person that you're doing this podcast about, he's just
now identifying as an adopted person and now just diving
into that world and has maybe changing all the things
he's had to think about who he was and where
he came from. Whereas adoptees who've known forever have had
(12:15):
a head start in that. That doesn't mean they've always
gotten there or done the work or had effective progress
with it, but they've had the opportunities in some cases
to join adoption communities, to be with other adopted people
to start incorporating that into their identity from a very
early age. And the challenge is not being able to
(12:38):
incorporate that into your identity means it may feel like
your identity has to alter drastically from what you thought
it was. And knowing that there's this other family out
there who may or may not have ever wanted to
reconnect or something like that can throw people into a
(13:00):
tail spin.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
In your experience, how typical is it for an adopt
you to discover that they were adopted, you know, finding
paperwork or some other way, but to not raise it
with their adoptive parents.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I think that there's definitely communication problems in all families,
and I think that some folks are more willing to
have those challenging and difficult conversations than others. Someone who
has not had a practice of that and maybe more unwilling.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
To do it.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And sometimes people want to close the door on something
that doesn't fit into their narrative.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, two people in this story is that they knew
and they just didn't want to rock the boat. They
didn't want to hurt their adoptive parents' feelings.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
That goes with the grateful narrative too. Who am I
to question and challenge them? I don't want to rock
the boat. Maybe I don't want to deal with it either,
or maybe I like pretending because bringing that up is
going to change a lot, and it's going to force
some change and a lot of times, as humans, we
(14:10):
avoid discomfort, we avoid change, and that's where denial comes
into play a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
So I'm wondering if that's something we would recommend. Seeking
out records and finding a birth family.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Great question. I never say that one answer fits for everyone.
Back in the seventies and eighties, even the nineties, the
prevailing perspective was that any adopted person who wanted to
find their birth parents probably was dysfunctional in some way,
unhappy with their families, had some issues. Now the tables
(14:47):
have turned completely and the perspective is if you don't
want to find your birth families, then you must be
in denial or something like that. So there's a lot
of pressure either way. Adoptees are all pathologize and they
can't win completely. But I don't think there's a blanket
yes or no. I think the individual needs to really
(15:08):
think about what they want from that, whether they're ready
for it. I highly recommend therapy counseling for someone who's
considering it, because I've worked with lots of adoptees who
went in with this mission to do the detective work
and find the birth family and then had no idea
what they wanted to do with that relationship or how
(15:29):
to approach it, and it became challenging and painful for
both sides because here the birth family thinks, oh, they
want to know me and want to connect, but they're
withdrawing and they're withholding, and it's very confusing. The communication
is challenging. So anyone who's an LDA would benefit from
finding community, and if they're able to and willing to
(15:52):
get some therapy from someone who understands this experience, it
can be very beneficial to them.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
So once you go on that journey and you find
your birth mother and she can't answer all your questions,
I wonder how that might impact your sense of self.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
I think that you know, when you do find a
birth family member, you're never going to have all your
questions answered. You know, even when you're born to your parents,
they can't answer everything. There's some mystery that's always going
to be involved. But the sense of self is sometimes
how we make a sense of what we're hearing. Sometimes
(16:35):
adoptees make their interpretation of the relinquishment is about them.
They think it's some deficit they have or some punishment
for themselves, when in fact, most relinquishments are about the
problems that the birth parents are having. Yeah, and these
are adult problems. When you go into a union, it's
(16:57):
going to be hard because there are back and white answers.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
And I wonder if we can talk about the adoptive
parents a little bit. I can imagine might be a
challenging time for an adoptive parent when their child is
seeking out the birth parents and siblings they never knew
they had. I'm wondering what kind of feelings this might
bring up for adoptive parents.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I'm guessing they would feel frustrated that they had to
reveal the truth, maybe they never intended to, or maybe
they feel some shame about it. I think a lot
of adoptive parents who keep these secrets don't come and
present for therapy. They may not be willing to confront
(17:35):
what's happening. One of the reasons that they may have
decided to keep this secret has been their own insecurity
about their status as parents, as rightful parents, as true parents,
and so I would guess that it would raise a
lot of those issues again for them. I've heard many
adoptive parents say they didn't want to share their child,
(17:57):
they want to erase the idea that birth parents even exist,
And in those cases we could say with fair certainty
that those adoptive parents have not worked through their own
issues around deciding to adopt.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
What suggestions might you have for someone who wants to
find the courage to say they'd like to get to
know their birth family, but doesn't necessarily want to disappoint
their adoptive parents or hurt someone's feelings.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I'd say that therapy can be a good start, because
sometimes with the work of a solid therapist, they can
help them find the words, and sometimes the therapists can
even help navigate that discussion. Whenever you come against something
that feels like a barrier, what often helps is to
(18:52):
empathize with the other perspective and then try and inform
that perspective. So what I might suggest someone do is
empathize with their parents' fears and their anxieties and insecurities,
because they may feel that they're going to lose their child,
or something's going to shift and change for the worse
(19:16):
without recognizing that it often can shift for the better
if they can stay open and engaged in loving about it.
There's a lot of documentaries that exist, a lot of
movies that exist that can be a great conversation starters,
where then you can talk about this process and how
these parents, Why were those parents so engaged in this search?
(19:39):
How were they able to make sense that you know,
that can give that opportunity to have some of those
discussions that they may struggle bringing up themselves.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
In that vein. What are some things that people within
the orbit of the adoptee, you know, everyone in their life,
what can they do to help the adoptee and support them.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
I think that it can be helpful to listen, certainly
without a ton of advice giving. I think the advice
giving can often be well meaning, but can sometimes reinforce
a lot of the stereotypes about adoption, and a lot
of advice giving often recreates some of the microaggressions that exist.
(20:25):
Like for example, one of the adoption microaggressions be named
was the phantom birth parents, and that's this idea of
trying to make them disappear, where the birth parents are
supposed to go off and not think about this. Again,
if everyone just does their role, then everything will be fine.
And it doesn't really work that way, And there's a
lot of adult adoptee communities out there that can be supportive.
(20:50):
I would say for this person, the big challenge a
lot of times is for them not to get stuck
in their anger and to keep moving through it and
to get the support to move through it. Because what
we see is someone who's struggling with making sense of
their identity or something getting stuck in that and not
(21:11):
making any movement.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Then yeah, I can definitely see that there's something you
wish people knew about adoption that you've gleaned from your work.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I guess I would say I wish that people would
recognize that adoptees aren't all damaged, that we're not all
the same, that there's just as much diversity among us
as there is in any other group, and that it's
not a sexy narrative to put in every movie, in
every book, even though it seems to be a very
(21:43):
compelling one to put in every time I'm watching a show.
I'm like, op, yep, there's another one. And so the
point where my family lasts because we see you any
show that's not at all connected to an adoption story,
that narrative still makes its way in as a quick
and dirty way to explain why someone would turn this
(22:06):
way or turn that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Way, or you know, yeah, as a narrator to face
in some sort of way.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
It really is, and I guess I wish if they're
going to use that that they do it with real
education about it and with real caution, because it does
contribute to the stereotypes and the stigma.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Doctor Rianton, thank you so much for taking the time
to talk to me. This is this is great, no.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Problem, glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Thank you so much to doctor Amanda Baden for taking
the time to share insight. We'll have some links to
her work in the episode description. Her website is doctor
Amandabaden dot com. Hello, John Doe has and original productions
by Revelations Entertainment in association with First and Life Productions.
From Revelation. Our executive producers are Morgan Freeman and James
(22:58):
Younger From First to Life. Lindsay Moreno is the executive
producer our producing partner is neo on Home Media. It
was written and produced by Kate Michigan. Our editor is
Katherine Saint Louis. She is also nei on Home Media's
executive editor. Our executive producer is Sherah Morris. Our development
producer is Ian Lindsay. Our associate producer is Rufaro Faith Maser.
(23:20):
Rural sound design and mixing by Scott Summerville. Theme and
original music composed by Jesse Pearlstein. Additional music came from
Epidemic Sound in Blue Dot Sessions. Frendall Faulton is our
fact checker. Our production manager is Samantha Allison from my
Heart Media. Dylan Fagan as our executive producer. Special thanks
to Adelia Ruben at ne On Hume and Carrie Lieberman
(23:42):
and Will Pearson at iHeartMedia. I'm Todd Matthews. You can
learn more about name us at NamUs dot com. The
number for the National Center for Missing Exploited Children's Call
Center is one eight hundred the loss That's one eight
hundred eight four three five six seven eight. The National
Sexual Assault hot Line from the Rate Abuse and Incest
(24:02):
National Network is one one hundred sixty five six four
six seventy three. Okay, guys, this is the end of
the show. If you didn't like it and don't do anything.
But if you did like it, you make sure that
your rate and review the show. It helps more people
to find it and hear this wonderful story. Thanks again
for listening.
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