May 16, 2025 • 53 mins
304 | Dr. Michele Merritt
Today’s guest is Dr. Michele Merritt - a philosophy professor who’s coined the new term Adoptism to describe the ways adoptees are marginalized. Michele shares some of her personal story, including the curiosity she always had about where she came from. We discuss what led her to start critiquing adoption publicly and the barriers to publishing these critiques that some academic journals put in place, like the classic, “I know one adoptee and they don’t feel that way”. We do mention suicide during this conversation, so please take care when deciding if this a safe episode for you to listen to.
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Episode Transcript
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Haley Radke (00:00):
This podcast is for educational and
entertainment purposes only.
Nothing stated on it either by its hostsor any guests, is to be construed as
psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to AdopteesOn the podcast where adoptees
(00:20):
discuss the adoption experience.
I'm Haley Radkey.
Today's guest is Dr. Michele Merritt,a philosophy professor who's coined
the new term adoptism to describethe ways adoptees are marginalized.
Michele shares some of her personalstory, including the curiosity she
always had about where she came from.
(00:40):
We discuss what led her to startcritiquing adoption publicly and the
barriers to publishing these critiquesthat some academic journals put in
place, like the classic, I know oneadoptee and they don't feel that way.
We do mention suicide during thisconversation, so please take care
when deciding if this is a safeepisode for you to listen to.
(01:01):
We wrap up with some recommendedresources and as always, links to
everything we'll be talking about todayare on the website, adopteeson.com.
Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome toAdoptees On Dr. Michele Merritt.
Hi Michele.
Dr. Michele Merritt (01:19):
Hi.
Haley Radke (01:20):
I'm so glad to finally speak with you.
I've learned from you overthe years, I've followed your
writing, and now we get to talk.
I'd love it if you would share alittle of your personal story with us.
Dr. Michele Merritt (01:34):
Okay I'm basic.
No, just a good old domestic white adopteefrom a closed adoption way back in 1980.
So like on the tail end of the, the babyscoop era, I guess technically over by
them, but there was still a lot of thatstigma going on, so in Florida especially,
lots of closed adoptions still going on.
Even my younger brother who wasadopted in 86 was a closed adoption.
(01:56):
So you can see the kindof, it's still going on.
Same race parents, I havestrangely, a mother adopted mother
who looks very much like me.
I've come to learn that was probably bydesign and I grew up in a great home.
I'm still very close to my adoptedparents and had a good life and kind
(02:17):
of that fairytale positive adoptionstory that everybody wants us to buy.
So I didn't really have anyproblems being adopted, I guess
you could say, for most of my life.
Or I didn't know that I hadany problems being adopted, and
I did meet my biological mom.
When I was 17 because I was this onething about me, I was curious my whole
(02:39):
life, just from a young age wantingto know what my parents were very
open with me about being adopted.
So there were no secrets.
But they told me the kind of story thatI think a lot of adopted kids are told
that your mom and dad loved you so much,they just couldn't take care of you.
So they wanted a better life for you.
And there was a lot of nebulousinformation about who they were.
Like they were poor and young andprobably did drugs and that story.
(03:03):
And I wanted to know the truth for myself.
I guess I've always been a truthseeker and finally just talked my
dad into looking her up and I guesshe paid the agency some exorbitant
amount of money to search for her.
I've come to realize that's what happens.
You go searching and you have topay the agency to do the search
for you, which is really just themlooking up where their people are
(03:25):
that they've worked with in the past.
So I don't know why they charge a thousanddollars for that, but yeah, so anyways,
we found her, I met her very brieflyand met two of her other children that
she had since me, so my half siblings.
But it was a kind of really quick.
Hey, how you doing?
Nice to see you.
I was 17 and I just wanted tosee her face and that was that.
(03:46):
And then I retreated back into myadopted life and realized, okay,
I definitely, I'm glad I have mylife that I have with my parents.
After meeting her and seeing how shelived and the poverty and everything
like that, it was eye-opening for me.
So I just went back into my little,I don't know, illusory world and it
wasn't until I had kids another 17years later, that I started when I
(04:10):
was pregnant with my first child.
I suddenly realized like, Idon't know where I came from.
Like literally I don'tknow my birth story.
I don't know how I came into the world.
Was it, a natural birthC-section, complicated premature?
Was I healthy?
What did my parents dowhile I was gestating?
So I started looking for her again 'causewe had lost touch and didn't have I,
(04:31):
this is, when I met her the first time,this was pre-internet and all that.
So I had no like way of keepingtabs on her and then I just
couldn't find her again.
And I found those two siblings of mine.
But they're a little bit hit or misswhen it comes to keeping up and maybe
not the best siblings to be keeping upwith, if it was a kind of dead end there.
Yeah.
(04:51):
And so I never found her and then justswept it back under the rug after my
first child was born, because I had avery bad postpartum situation with him.
Just very depressed and actually suicidalfor quite a while after he was born.
So that took up a lot of mymental space for a good year.
Then I just became a momfor a while, and did that.
(05:12):
And then we got pregnant again.
And when my daughter was born, that's whenlike the kind of obsessive need to find
my family came back and I wanted to findmy dad because I realized my mom was a
dead end situation and I just went nutsafter she was born looking for my dad.
And I think I spent.
The entire sabbatical that I hada whole semester off and I was
(05:34):
with her just bonding my daughterand just also looking for my dad.
And finally with DNA, I think it was23 And Me and Ancestry and all that,
found an uncle and messaged him.
I actually messaged his wife and shewas a professor at the same university
that I had worked at in central Florida.
I had been there for a yearteaching and I had no idea.
(05:56):
And she was there in the communicationsdepartment, so close to philosophy.
And I messaged her first actually 'causeI thought maybe professor to professor,
I won't freak her out too much and say,Hey, I think you're married to my uncle.
I'm this long lost childof his brother, I think.
And then when it was clear that's whoit was, and I found a picture of my dad.
(06:18):
I just, this is dramatic, but I remembersitting in my chair and seeing a picture
of him finally and just falling outof my chair crying because I knew,
like I saw his face and it's hard toexplain, but his face and my daughter's
face are like, they're just mirrors.
And I don't know, somethingintuitive told me at when she
was born, I had to find him.
So I find that interesting.
Everybody that sees himand her, it's just, yeah.
(06:42):
Spitting image.
So yeah, I found him, andthat was the end of 2019.
I had a newborn and I had plans to meethim and I met him early 2020 before
Covid hit and got to meet him in person.
And then he died like a couplemonths later, just suddenly.
So that set me off into a whole, likeother, I don't even know what that,
(07:02):
there's not a name for that kind ofdepression that happens after that.
Loss second time, you know thatmany of us have, but I'm still
close to his brother, my uncle,and yeah, I'm in a happy reunion.
I guess I hate that word aswe'll talk about later, a happy
reunion state with my uncle.
And yeah, that's it feeds into howI got into critiquing adoption from
philosophy, but it was being home withCovid going on and finding my dad, and
(07:26):
just being really pissed off about allof the things that had prevented me
from knowing my family all this timeI. And then I started looking through
philosophy, literature and realizing like.
Nobody in my discipline writes about this.
And if they do, it's very like formulaic,commercial appeal kind of adoption is
good and here's a good reason, likephilosophically that you should adopt
(07:48):
'cause it's good for the environment.
There's actually a paper that says that.
Haley Radke (07:51):
No.
Dr. Michele Merritt (07:52):
Yeah, it's good.
It's good because, we don't need tobe making more babies and filling up
the planet with more babies and it'sgood to, there's just it's ridiculous
actually the way philosophers will tryto spin adoption as a positive thing.
That also made me mad and I realized Ineeded to throw my voice into the mix
and use my discipline for something otherthan what I had been, which is mostly
(08:12):
writing about dogs and how dogs think.
And so I've shifted gears since then.
But yeah, that's how Igot to where I am now.
Haley Radke (08:21):
I'm so sorry for the loss of your dad twice.
That's brutal.
Dr. Michele Merritt (08:28):
Yeah.
It was tough having such young kids toowhen it happened, because I just lost
myself, like for about two weeks, I think.
And luckily I have a great partner thatjust swept up everything and let me be
in this pile of tears and depressionfor however long I needed to be.
And yeah, I didn't know itwas gonna hit me so hard.
(08:49):
You think I didn't even know him mywhole life, so why am I so upset?
And yeah.
Haley Radke (08:55):
Do know one thing I'm a little bit stuck on is how you said you
look so much like your adoptive mother.
Do you remember people tellingyou that when you were a kid?
And what was your response?
Because I had that happen all the time.
And I would always be like, I'm adopted.
Dr. Michele Merritt (09:16):
That's funny.
Yeah.
I, I don't really remember.
I probably doing a little historicalreconstruction here, but I do, I,
I remember being told that a lot.
I'm not sure what I said.
I was a very reticent child.
I didn't talk much at all, and I'mstill like socially awkward in a
lot of ways, but I've come out of myshell over the years with confidence
built from academia and other things.
(09:39):
But when I was a kid, it waspainfully bad how shy I was.
And people would say, oh, you lookjust, they would talk to my mom.
They wouldn't say it to me.
They would say, she looks just like you.
I'd hear that and then they'd look atme and wink or whatever, and I just
remember being very uncomfortable.
I was made uncomfortable by that, and itwas like she would look at me and wink,
and it was our little secret almost that Iwas adopted, but then I wasn't as bold as
(10:01):
you, I don't think to say I'm a adopted.
Haley Radke (10:02):
It's always funny to me to think about that.
So when you said that, I waslike what do, what did you do?
Because I was just like, I'm not theirs.
Just let's be clear.
Dr. Michele Merritt (10:11):
Yeah.
It's one of those things I probablyjust went the little nervous laugh that
I do still to this day, that I get somad at myself about when I, somebody
said something really infuriating and Iwanna tell them off, and then instead I
just like, so I'm sure I did somethinglike that as a kid, but I don't know.
I just remember thinking like.
(10:31):
It was weird to be told that, butI knew that my adoptive mother just
was beaming and I didn't wanna hurther feelings, she just loved it
so much that she looked like me.
Haley Radke (10:41):
Totally.
That's a big rabbit trail.
We can go down, we cantalk about that after.
Dr. Michele Merritt (10:45):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (10:46):
In a recent paper that you published, you have a little footnote
in there and it's in the main pieceof your paper as well, talking about
how your papers critiquing, adoption,keep getting rejected from all of
these different academic journals.
Why do you think that is?
Dr. Michele Merritt (11:08):
So the saga of this particular paper is actually funny.
I've published other things since thenthat were a lot easier to publish.
Like you mentioned, ASAC, they were,they've published me twice now in the
span of time that it took me to getthis one paper published in a major
academic journal for feminist philosophy.
So Feminist PhilosophyQuarterly is like one of the top
(11:28):
journals in my field I think.
And it's open access, sothat's a benefit for it.
And the saga of that situation isjust, I started in 2020, like I said,
when I was starting to be awoken tothe situation of adoption being not
what I thought it was and wrote apaper and it was rough to be fair, it
wasn't really ready for publication.
(11:48):
And, but I still sent it off andit just was like rejected and
they gave some good feedback.
And so this is like maybe how youshould re, you have three papers
that you're trying to do here.
Fix it and, but it's rejected.
Maybe you can try again later.
And so I did and then sentit somewhere else and that
just got rejected outta hand.
Not even an explanation at one journal.
Sent it to another journal.
I sent it actually to, I hesitate to saythis, but I'm gonna do it anyways too.
(12:11):
My former advisor, who is aneditor at a journal, sent it
there and it still got rejected.
And the commentary in that particularsubmission, one of several comments
were choice that you'll laugh at.
One of them was I know somebodywho's adopted, and this is not
at all how they view things.
Haley Radke (12:29):
I'm sure these had so many conversations about it.
It's amazing how deeply intimatepeople are familiar with our stories.
Dr. Michele Merritt (12:37):
Oh, this, and these are academics too
that are reviewing journals.
They're supposed to be the top in theirfield to be making unbiased surveys
of these papers that are coming inand they're telling me the author
like I know somebody that's adoptedand this doesn't hold water for me.
I'm like, that's not agood response, but okay.
And then I was told my tone wastoo aggressive in one of my, one
of the responses, which this isa feminist philosophy paper don't
(13:01):
we know what tone policing is?
Are we not supposed to do that here?
But, and to be honest, I don't seemy tone is aggressive in anything
that I write, but maybe it is.
I just don't see it.
I'm not an aggressive personanyways, so I was frustrated to say
the least, and I finally sent itto Feminist Philosophy Quarterly.
I'm not even sure exactly when, butit finally came back with a r and r,
(13:23):
revise and re revise and resubmit.
Which is better than nothing.
Lots of revisions.
I did the revisions.
One of the reviewers just took offand decided not to do the second
round, so we had to find anotherreviewer, and it just kept going back
and forth and finally got to a placewhere they said they'd accept it.
And four years of that and for thatpaper to finally come out, and I think
(13:45):
I probably would've given up if ithad been any other paper, but this
was like really important to me to getout into the world, and as much as I
hated the blood, sweat, and tears thatI had to put into it, sometimes I was
ready to throw it against the wall.
In the interim, I had come acrosssome work that really helped me bring
into focus exactly what I was tryingto do, which with this term adoptism
(14:07):
being a specific way that adoptedpeople are marginalized and that comes
from reading the 2023 book, UndoingSuicidism is, which is a term that
Alexandre Baril coined to talk aboutsuicidal people being marginalized,
specifically because they're suicidal.
So I basically took his word.
(14:27):
And said, I'm gonna use thisformula that he's got, but
to talk about adopted people.
And if I hadn't waited until I readhis book, I wouldn't have had that.
So it's serendipitous that.
Haley Radke (14:37):
Oh, okay.
Dr. Michele Merritt (14:37):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (14:38):
Let's talk a little bit more about this term.
I love it.
I love giving us language to usewhen we're critiquing adoption.
And so having a new term adoptism like.
It was really helpful for me.
Can you explain a little bit moreabout what you think about when
(14:59):
you're using that, inventing theterm, you're inventing a new term?
That's pretty cool.
Dr. Michele Merritt (15:03):
Philosophers are known for this, probably
infamous for, this maybe is theright word, but I actually really
like the term and I think it's.
Like you said, it's necessary forus to have language that's our own,
because all the language that adoptedpeople have had over the years
has been foisted on us it seems.
So this is the term that we can reclaim.
This is specifically how we aremistreated, subjected to injustices
(15:28):
on various levels, both epistemicand, moral injustice sometimes too.
But it's also like a good term to pickup on specifically how being adopted is
a source of discrimination or prejudiceor marginalization, because I think one
of the things is to be really carefulnot to talk about being marginalized
(15:49):
is if I'm a white woman marginalizedin the same way as a black adopted
person or a trans adopted person.
But since we're all adopted how canwe talk about the ways that being
adopted specifically has impacted us?
And even that's gonna be trickybecause there's international
adoptees and transracial adopteesand different kinds of adoption.
And I focus on plenary adoption, which isthat, the kind of adoption where you're
(16:13):
completely subtracted from permanentlyand irrevocably your biological family.
It's not like stepparentadoption or kinship adoption.
So anyways, but if we recognizethat there's all these different
intersections that all of us areliving at, that we're marginalized
in different ways, and some of us aresitting at many intersections and some
of us are only sitting at one or two.
(16:35):
But the thing that kind of unites usis this, the fact of being adopted
and how that societally is viewedin a very specific way, especially
in this country, and causes a lot ofmarginalization of people that wanna
tell their stories that run counter towhat that dominant social narrative is.
And so that's, that term adoptismis like the way that I see it is,
(16:57):
it's the term that captures that.
Nothing's gonna capture everythingbut it, in the paper I talk about how,
for example, one of the ways adoptismshows up, adoptist ideology is assuming
that adopted people aren't authoritieson their own lived experience that
they shouldn't be talking and theyshould be silenced even, and gaslit.
(17:17):
And so feminist philosophershave talked about these kinds
of things like gaslighting, asforms of epistemic injustice.
So it's like being harmedspecifically in your capacity to
know things and to produce knowledge.
And so adopted people, I see this as veryobvious to me, adopted people are harmed
in this way because they're not allowedto speak about their experiences unless
(17:38):
they fit within the positive framework.
But if they speak negativelyabout being adopted, then
they're, again, they're gaslit.
They're silenced, they're toldthey're being too aggressive.
Haley Radke (17:47):
They're, their articles rejected 'cause somebody knows
somebody that loves being adopted.
Yeah.
Dr. Michele Merritt (17:53):
So to me, this is just like quintessential
example of epistemic injusticethat adopted people often face.
And that's what I focus on the paperis the epistemic part of this, because
I can't even, I'm quite literallya case here where I've been trying
to produce knowledge in my field.
That I have a PhD in.
As a tenured professor at a university,I still cannot get a word out because
(18:14):
of these things happening to me.
So I have like my own personal storyof this happening, but then I see it
happening too with all of my peersthat are adopted online trying to talk
or trying to do their own advocacy.
And being shut down.
Haley Radke (18:30):
I love reading a paper and seeing my Twitter friends mentioned
and tweets that I'm like I'm old.
I, I still call it that.
I know it's called X now.
That I was like, I rememberwhen she tweeted that.
But that's how we've built ourcommunity over these this last decade
(18:51):
and gained just an even larger voice.
And so to see folks like yourself andother critical adoption scholars, adding
to this like in a academic discoursesituation is also really amazing.
I love the title.
Be Grateful or Be Quiet.
(19:11):
Literally how many times havewe had something said to us?
That implies thatexplicitly, probably more.
Dr. Michele Merritt (19:20):
Yeah.
Just as an example of that isjust talking about being adopted.
I think I was giving a talk atHendrix College in Arkansas.
After the talk, a woman cameup to me and she was very nice.
She was not trying to be offensive, and Ithink she even knew that she prefaced it
by saying, I just wanna ask you something.
(19:40):
I know it's gonna sound bad.
And then she finally came out withit and said, do your parents, do they
know that you do this kind of work?
Are they how do they handleall these things you're saying?
And I just, I'm like, Iam in my forties, ma'am.
I'm allowed to do this work.
I think we hear this alot with adopted people.
I've seen it online.
(20:01):
I've seen people comment these sortof sentiments that I'm just waiting
till my adoptive parents die beforeI start really speaking truth.
And that just breaks my heart.
Like you have a lot of lifeto live while they're alive.
Don't waste it and be scared totalk, but we're so conditioned to
not hurt our parents' feelings.
All I think all children grow upthis way, this sort of obligation
(20:21):
and guilt and all of that we havetowards our parents, but adopted people
maybe have this extra layer because.
I don't wanna be given back.
I don't wanna be rejected again.
And, you've, you're an adult andyou're still scared to say something.
But that, and that's baked into herquestion is I'm supposed to worry
about this as I'm giving a talk.
As a professor, I'm worried,what would my mother say?
Haley Radke (20:41):
And I just, I've heard that before too.
And I wonder in what other situationare grown adults asked, what do
your parents think about this?
Dr. Michele Merritt (20:53):
I know I've tried to think of those parallels and I just,
I have a hard time coming up with them.
Yeah, it happened.
Just this, another story, another plugfor adopted person that I recommend
reading if you haven't, is SunAh Laybourn
.She has a book about the lives of Korean adoptees.
I can't remember the exact title rightnow, but I've plugged in on Twitter before
(21:14):
and I went to her book launch becauseshe lives here in Memphis where I live.
And teaches at University ofMemphis and in her book launch.
I'm sorry, this is maybe givingaway stuff that she would not
like to hear out there again.
But somebody asked the same thing ofher, what do your parents think of this
Haley Radke (21:30):
no
Dr. Michele Merritt: book that you just wrote? (21:30):
undefined
It's what?
So yeah
Haley Radke (21:34):
I had SunAh on she wrote Out of Place The Lives
of Korean Adoptee Immigrants.
Dr. Michele Merritt (21:38):
Okay.
Haley Radke (21:39):
And I loved talking to her.
'cause she's a sociologist.
And I asked her.
I'm like, can you confirm that adopteeswe're our own society, we're our own
unique culture in society, right?
And we do have you, you do this very well.
I don't, you're very much I'mnot speaking for all adoptees.
(22:00):
I don't know.
Listen I talk a lot for adoptees.
I know not everybody agreeswith me, that's okay.
But we do have this sharedexperience that very much has
altered the course of our lives.
And to have that shorthand when youget to meet an adoptee in real life
and you can just go right to theheart of the matter is pretty cool.
(22:23):
That's, is that the onlybenefit of being adopted?
I don't know, maybe one.
Dr. Michele Merritt (22:27):
Yeah.
I have a, a paper from I think it's 2021maybe from ASAC, about online community
building, an adopted experience, andI was a lot more optimistic back then.
I think that we can all have a community,and I know that word is contentious and
I prefaced I have something in the paperwhere I say, I know that, but just the
(22:47):
idea that there's a community of being.
It's paradoxical, the way I put it,I think it's like we're alone in our
togetherness or together in our alonenessor something like that, is how I put it.
That we, we really don't haveanything that unites us except for
being adopted because then otherwisewe're all very different people.
There are adopted people who arestraight and gay and Republican and
Democrat, and there's fighting inside ourcommunity over issues that have nothing
(23:11):
to do with us being adopted really.
But then it gets all tangled upand it makes us feel like we don't
belong to each other as a community.
But then there is that one thing, likeyou said, that I could just walk into
a room and if there's somebody adoptedin there, we can immediately talk about
those shared experiences, even if they'reslightly different, they're at least
(23:32):
similar enough that other people are notgonna understand in a way that we do.
Haley Radke (23:37):
Yes, exactly.
I long for the Utopian Society,which I realize is not realistic.
Okay.
We mentioned before this thingabout you said language foisted
upon us or something like that.
And I love when you presented atASAC, you talked about how much you
(23:58):
hated the term reunion and we've heardall kinds of things like, oh no it's
a reunification or, I don't know.
I'm trying to think of the otheralternatives people use, but I
really appreciated you saying that.
'cause it is, it's like, it's almostthis romanticized thing, just using
(24:19):
the word like it's, I don't know.
I've been put on a pedestal andwe all know reunion is not any,
you might get a honeymoon phaseif you're lucky, but it's not all,
it's cracked up to be all the time.
What are your thoughts on that term?
Dr. Michele Merritt (24:33):
I just, the word just strikes me as odd because
it's re being like again, as if youwere united ever in the first place.
That's problematic already.
At the start, yes, I was withmy mother and father for a few
minutes when I was born, but Iwouldn't hardly call that a union.
And there was a lot of strife.
At least in my story.
There's a lot of strife aboutwhether I was even going to
(24:54):
be adopted and my grandmotherapparently was fighting to keep me.
But that's a whole other storythat we could talk about, right?
That's not incentivizedby adoption agencies.
I don't think there was ever a union inthe first place, but even if there was a
union that I'm being re-put into when Imeet them again, there's all these other
(25:15):
family members that I was never with.
Like I have six siblings that I had neverknown I had until I found out about them.
So we're not in reunion at all.
That's not even the right word.
We're like in, hey, how the helldid I not know you existed state.
That's what we're in.
That's not reunion.
That's, I don't evenknow what you call that.
(25:36):
I think I called it mindbleep during my presentation.
Haley Radke (25:40):
Yes, you did.
Dr. Michele Merritt (25:41):
I grew up with one adopted brother my whole life.
And then to come to find out that there'ssix more out there that belong to me
and my uncle, like I mentioned, who I amvery much we're in pretty close contact
and we visit him often with the kids.
So he gets to see his greatniece and nephew and it's great,
but it's not reunion 'cause hedidn't meet me the first time.
(26:04):
We met for the first timewhen I was in my thirties.
Haley Radke (26:06):
And so there's people that don't know about us.
There's the extended family.
There's all the things.
The other thing you pointed outin that presentation was this
lack of shared we experiences andthe missing bio synchronicity.
And I was like, oh, yes, thank you.
Because I, I just had, I just talkedwith my sisters yesterday and that's
(26:32):
the lack, like the grief is in that thelacking years where we weren't together.
And there's no way to reclaim that.
And there's no way to earn back the timeyou would've shared fighting over who gets
to clean the bathroom next or the summervacations or for me, it really hits when
(26:54):
I see them in all the family pictureswhen you're not in the family pictures.
Dr. Michele Merritt (26:59):
Yeah.
That's another tough thing aboutsibling relationships, especially
I think like by not having that.
I watch my two children growing up,and they fight all the time, and I
wish they wouldn't, but I'm also happythat they're going through that because
they'll hopefully be closer laterin life and they'll know each other.
They'll have that hist.
It's like a shared history too.
(27:19):
It's a narrative that the family isbuilt around this shared cooperative
narrative that you're building.
And I just stepped into the picture with,I have two sisters on my dad's side that
I'm, I'd say they're my closest siblingsof all the ones that I've found and we
have gotten together, and the kids I'vemet, so they've got like cousins, that
the kids have cousins they spend timewith now, and that's great, but it's like
(27:43):
being an outsider because the two of themgrew up together and they have the whole
shared story of their childhood and I justshowed up one day, but, and one of them
thought she was the oldest sibling of the,there's three of them that were born to
the same mother that my, my dad remarriedto, and she thought she was the oldest.
And cut here I come.
(28:05):
Nope.
Haley Radke (28:06):
Just disrupting in that birth order.
So when you started critiquing adoption.
Writing about it and publishing.
What was it like for you professionallyat your university to not
necessarily change the direction?
(28:28):
I guess a little bit change the directionthat your research was going to, have
you had support from your university?
Dr. Michele Merritt (28:35):
For the most part yeah, I think so.
They've been really goodabout just supporting me doing
whatever wild thing I wanna do.
I got hired to do philosophy ofmind and cognitive science and
feminisms, like both of those things.
So I could teach feminist philosophy,but also like more traditional
philosophy of mind classes.
Which I still do.
The idea is that I would stillbe publishing in that domain.
(28:55):
So feminism, I'm like, that's howI'm working it in is it's still a
feminist project to critique adoption.
That's how I was able to publish abook on dogs too, because I was like,
this is still cognitive science.
It's just I wanna talk aboutdogs, even though you all had
no idea I was gonna do that.
I've done pretty well research wiseat my university, so I think they're
just happy to keep me doing what I'mdoing and appease me in that way.
(29:17):
I don't wanna speak too muchand have it jinxed, but I
haven't made them too angry yet.
And I actually, with this adoptionstuff, I just took a sabbatical last
semester in the project justificationwas the book that I'm working on, which
is basically that paper that I justpublished that you're talking about,
the Be Grateful or Be Quiet Paper isan extended version of that, like a
(29:39):
much more book length project aboutadoption, marginalization, and the need
to consider abolition and all of that.
So I proposed that book to myuniversity and said, I need a
sabbatical to get going on this.
And they said yes.
So I obviously am doing somethingthat they're not too mad about yet.
Haley Radke (29:56):
Oh, that's so exciting.
Congratulations.
We absolutely need this.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna link toyour paper 'cause you said it's open
source Feminist Philosophy Quarterly.
So this particular one, I'm gonnalink to it in the show notes for
folks to read 'cause I'm gonnarecommend it and spoiler like, anyway.
I like people when you readit, you're gonna be like yes.
(30:17):
Like Michele's saying the true thing,like this is how I've experienced it
and this is how the ways I've beenshut down and these are the ways
we've been marginalized and like it'svery, I think folks are gonna love it.
I'm curious about.
When you, if you have students readit, do you teach anything about
adoption in any of your classes?
What's it like going against thesocietal narrative, but at least you
(30:41):
have the authority of the professorship.
Dr. Michele Merritt (30:44):
Yeah.
It's funny, I think one of the questionsyou asked me was something about do I
have trouble, providing like my livedexperience as opposed to like scientific
research or something like that.
And on the one hand it's Ido provide the research too.
'cause I do a lot of thatgathering of the data and saying,
here's the what the data say.
It's not just me.
But then like I think when I waspublishing this paper in Feminist
(31:04):
Philosophy Quarterly, one of thereviewers said, do you even need all
that data if you're just telling usfrom your own experience, what it's like
to be adopted and feminist philosophy,at least there's a call for that.
Like we want more of that becauseit's the first person or insider
perspective or what sociologistssometimes call the EMIC perspective.
The insider perspective is not onlyallowed now, it's almost like necessary.
(31:26):
Like you, you shouldn't be writing aboutwhat it's like to experience racism
if you're a white person, for example.
We know that.
That's why we don't read certainauthors and say that they're
the authority on what it's like.
So I'm not gonna name names right now,but then I think the tide is finally
turning in that way for adopted people,at least in feminist philosophy.
And I think my paper might actually bepart of that move, I hope, because it's
(31:47):
no, I should be talking about adoption,not these other people who've published
on it that are adoptive parents.
Those are the typical ones topublish literature in philosophy.
They're adopted parents, so you know,I get, I like that actually seems
to be happening as just a matterof course in the humanities is the
call for the insider perspective.
(32:08):
Then when I'm teaching, like toyour question about teaching, I
do, I bring it up in my feministphilosophy class for sure.
We read several of mypieces, Ryan's pieces.
Anything I can get my hands onthat has to do with adoption,
I'll have a little section on it.
And they tend to be really open to itin a way that I think more established
academics are not, and especially thereally younger students, the students
(32:32):
that are just in college 18 to 22.
My intro to philosophy students, Iteach that every semester, and I always
include, I have to include shorterpieces so I wouldn't include my Be
Grateful or Be Quiet piece there.
I would go over their heads, I think.
But I have a piece in The Nation that'sreally short and it's, I think it's,
We Should Be Fighting for a WorldWithout Adoption is the title of that.
(32:53):
I have them read that sort oftowards the end when we're talking
about ethics and social justice.
And I was really worried the first time Itaught it that I was gonna get, tomatoes
thrown at me or something like that.
But really, I find that most of thestudents, they're just completely
flabbergasted at some of thestats that I'll throw at them.
And some of the stories I'll tellthem and they're just disgusted,
(33:14):
especially when I throw up the, there'san NPR article from several years
ago and it just, the title is BlackBabies Cost Less Than White Babies.
And I just throw that upthere and they're like, what?
And we've already been talking aboutMLK and racial justice at this point,
so they're already like primed tobe angry about some of these things.
And I find they're really receptive.
And I have, every now and then I'llhave an adopted person in my class
(33:35):
who's, I don't have those adoptedstudents so far that are like, no,
I love being adopted please don'ttalk to me about your bad experience.
They're like, yes, Dr. Merrittfinally, somebody else gets it
like, have you been on TikTok?
Have you seen that thesepeople are talking?
I'm like, yes, I have.
I've been on TikTok.
I'm old, but I have seen thatpeople are angry about adoption
on TikTok, so I think it's like.
(33:57):
The kids are all right.
Like it's, they're coming upand they're getting it now.
So I actually like talking about itto my students more than academics.
Haley Radke (34:06):
I love that.
Like really, I love that.
It's so true.
In my experience.
Once you show people behind thecurtain, it's like, how can you.
Not get it like, who literally isarguing against family preservation.
(34:27):
This is like chaotic to think that way.
So I love that they can see it,that when you're showing them.
Dr. Michele Merritt (34:35):
Yeah, it's great.
Haley Radke (34:37):
You've been very public with a variety of things that often people hold
secret, so struggles with mental health.
You mentioned earlier when youhad your first child that you
struggled with suicidal ideation.
You've been publicabout some other issues.
How is that for you?
(34:58):
Do you, have you always been an open book?
Are you just wanting us to havemore conversations about it?
Do you ever wish, maybe like me, maybeyou hadn't put your first and last
name out on a podcast nine years agoand it just, this is what happens.
What do you think about all that?
Dr. Michele Merritt (35:17):
Yeah.
It's funny because I don'tthink I've always been so open.
I told you I was totally shy when I wasyoung, but I guess it was having children.
That kind of just is, what's thecatalyst, the first child I had, I
just went through so much and I'vehad to be fully open and disclosive.
I struggled with suicidalideation ever since.
(35:40):
I can remember being like young, 12, 13.
Just really having a hard timewhen I was in my teenage years.
I think a lot of that probably has to dowith the hormones and the shifting and
changing into an adult that goes on it.
It can be really tumultuous,and I'm discovering that sort of
happens later in life too, whenyour hormones start shifting again.
Haley Radke (35:57):
And that's happened to me when I was 12 too.
That's when, yeah, that'swhen it started for me.
Yeah.
Dr. Michele Merritt (36:02):
And it's I've noticed that, so not surprisingly after
having a baby, when your hormones arelike completely on hiatus, like they
don't even know what's going on your gut.
You, I'm not trying to reduce itall to that, but I think you're.
The stage is set for things to gobadly already, and we already know
that one in two women, 50% of womenor people who give birth, I should
(36:23):
say, are at risk for some kind of milddepression or something after birth.
But then like to have severe postpartumdepression is a little less common,
but it's still common enough that weshould be paying attention to it more.
And so it really hit me hard and.
All the suicidal stuff I had ever beenthrough in my life came to the fore.
And, I wasn't just passively suicidal.
It was very active for a whilethere, and I needed like really
(36:44):
intense care for a little while.
And then when I was all settledand everything, I, that's when I
decided I wanted to write about it.
And I wrote, not from theadopted perspective, just from
the, hey, I'm a woman who'sexperienced postpartum depression.
Postpartum psychosis even.
It was really bad.
And look, I'm this like put togetherprofessor that most people would
(37:07):
never suspect I'm struggling thismuch and I want everyone to know that
it's totally not normal in the sensethat it's fun and okay, but let's
normalize this conversation so peoplearen't so ashamed to put it out there.
And I did.
And then.
A few days later, after I publishedthat blog, CPS came to my house to
investigate me for potentially hurtingmy child because of my blog and being
(37:30):
honest about the, the nothing about mychild, but about the suicidal stuff.
You would think that I would stopat that point, but it's just,
it's fueled me on to keep talking.
It's another thing like thisis why we should talk because
this crap happens to people.
And yeah, I have since just not,in fact, I think I've gotten
louder since that experience.
(37:51):
So it was, again, another form ofthis kind of injustice that not
adopted people, but suicidal people.
This is exactly what Alexandre's workis like talking about suicidism that
suicidal people try to talk aboutbeing suicidal and they're immediately
pathologized institutionalized.
They have the cops called on them.
They're even shot by the police,especially if they're not white, right?
I mean it's, you can see themarginalization of suicidal people
(38:14):
in society quite clearly, and Ididn't know at the time there was
a word for that could be appliedto what I had gone through.
So now I talk about it even morefreely because I've been given this
language to understand my experience.
Haley Radke (38:26):
Appreciate you speaking up about it, and we've seen several
events where adoptees talk aboutsuicide and suicide prevention and
those kinds of things, which areso helpful in my opinion, in our
community, especially since we're athigher risk of attempting suicide.
So thank you.
Thank you for being one of thebrave people to talk about it.
(38:47):
I also, I just wanna say I. I love it whenwe'll say adoptees who have a perfectly
happy, healthy childhood, still in agood relationship critique adoption.
Because one of the things you mentionedin your paper is how we get, you
(39:09):
lobb, the, your ungrateful, angry,adopt you, you had a bad experience,
those kinds of things and it's no,that didn't happen for you and.
This system is still messed up.
Dr. Michele Merritt (39:21):
Yeah, and that's one of the things I really am trying to
emphasize in my work more and more, andI'm happy to share my personal story.
I have, everybody has their ownstory, but it's to me, unimportant
to talk about all the ins and outsof my personal adoption narrative.
It's more like the systemicissues with adoption itself.
So if we can separate out thepersonal from the systemic.
(39:43):
Because there are gonna be plentyof adopted people who are, they
have no problems being adopted.
Just like there's plenty of women whodon't seem to think there's any systemic
sexism in this country right now.
Go ahead and have that fun delusion.
That's fine.
But that doesn't mean that it's not truethat there's systemic issues with the
way women are treated or that there'ssystemic racism or, I'm not gonna compare.
(40:04):
Adoption marginalizationto racism, of course.
But the analogy is just simply thatthere's systemic issues that exist,
whether or not the people that are beingoppressed by those systems want to admit
as much, and maybe even, there are peoplethat are marginalized within oppressive
systems that somehow can reap benefitsfrom within those systems enough to be
(40:25):
blind to the fact that they're oppressed.
You know what I mean?
So they're like.
Maybe it's a woman who's white who'sgot a lot of money and doesn't seem
to think that there's any injusticesthat women as a whole face, you know?
So yeah.
I think that applies toadopted people very much.
And we have to move past our individualstories and start thinking collectively.
Haley Radke (40:45):
I wanna read a couple lines from your paper.
Dr. Michele Merritt (40:48):
Okay.
Haley Radke (40:49):
Adoptees who deviate from the institution's expectations
of happy and grateful are toldthey're psychologically damaged.
Huh.
Even if adoptees use a polite tone oroffer compelling and logical arguments,
they're perceived as playing the perpetualvictim or as being attention seekers.
(41:11):
Yeah, it's so good.
I love this.
Having a name for adoptism, which isthis is society's view of adoption,
this optimistic it's all those things.
And I, and at the conclusion you sayall adoptee voices need to be centered
(41:32):
in discussions of adoption much likewe ought to center the voices of
members of any marginalized groupwhen talking about what it's like to
experience that form of marginalization.
Yeah, exactly.
Well done.
Is there anything else you wanna tellus about your paper, your other writing?
I think there's so many thingspeople can learn from you.
I don't even know if you're tweetinganymore, but like I, I learned a lot
(41:54):
from you on Twitter back in the day.
Dr. Michele Merritt (41:56):
I'm on Twitter, still haven't deleted my account, but I'm
scared to post anything on there lately,given the climate that we're in right now.
But I,
Haley Radke (42:02):
it's so bleak.
Dr. Michele Merritt (42:04):
Yeah.
I, people have deleted their accountson mass and I've just taken this
approach that I stay on there as avoyeur to see what is going on the
other side of things, because, it's it'sdisgusting, but it needs to be observed
so you can see what people are saying.
I do, I haven't been on socialmedia a lot the last few months
I've been taking a hiatus.
But whenever I have somethingcome out, I always post it.
(42:25):
I have the silenced adoptee that I run onInstagram, and if it's something academic,
I'll post it on my own personal Facebook,but publicly so it can be easily accessed.
Let's see, a couple papers coming out.
I have the title of thispaper should be fun.
I'm not sure if this isgonna be open access or not.
It's from a conference proceedings,but the Society for Philosophy in the
(42:46):
Contemporary World is a great little groupthat I'm a part of and they did a panel at
a conference last year called EverythingIs BLEEP, and so my title is Adoption Is
BLEEP so that's coming out soon I think.
And then another paper onsuicidality as part of a conference
that I was at Oxford in 2023.
(43:07):
Along the lines of what we werejust talking about, like being
punished for saying I'm suicidal.
If I say that out loud, Iget punished immediately.
It's some of that personal narrative.
Also, I do talk about adoption in thatpaper because I'm trying to bring these
two things together in my work right now.
The idea of being adopted and beingsuicidal and how having both of those
identities you get it from both sides.
(43:27):
And there's some interesting parallelsin the way that suicidal people and
adopted people are treated generally.
So since I've experienced both ofthose, I'm allowed to talk about them.
And I try to stay in my own laneotherwise, because, if I haven't
experienced that particularidentity or form of marginalization,
I'm not gonna speak into it.
But yeah those two papers are comingout probably soon, this month maybe.
(43:47):
I hope.
Haley Radke (43:48):
The other piece we're gonna link to is What it Costs to be Adopted
that you wrote in Visible and you pointout, all these major pieces about adoption
adoptees are not consulted, and thenyou share these three adoptee stories.
I, it's so good, Michele.
You're just such a fabulous writer.
I can't wait for your book.
Just keep keep doing what you're doing.
(44:10):
I'm cheering you on.
I don't know that I'm gonna beintroducing you to any new people.
I'm sure lots of people are alreadyreading your work, but I'm excited
to share anyway and recommend youwholeheartedly to listeners, what did
you wanna recommend to folks today?
Dr. Michele Merritt (44:25):
Yes.
Ryan would be my top person to plug.
He's a great guy.
He's from Australia, Korean adoptee,and we have co-authored a piece together
in a book very, in some ways similarto what my paper is about, but he's got
a lot of great work on being adopted.
He's got the podcast Adopted Feels.
You can look up his academic webpage.
(44:46):
I think he's got a couple new thingsout that I haven't even read yet.
He has another piece in that samebook where we have a piece together.
He has another piece.
In that same book with somebody else.
I'm trying to think.
Oh, and he does really coolstuff about animals too.
So we, Ryan and I connected because hewas, I was looking for I think I googled
like philosophers and adoption, and Ifound very few people and I found him and
(45:08):
oh, and he had some stuff about animals,and it's this is a cool person to talk to.
So he's got, there was a, oh,I'm gonna forget the name of it.
It's a podcast that he was interviewedfor it was like the Big Think or something
like that where he talks about thisexperience of looking in the mirror
and being a Korean but being adoptedby white people and like he thought
(45:29):
he was white and like he this, like hedidn't feel like he was in his own skin
looking in the mirror, like seeing thisperson that he wasn't supposed to be.
And he writes so eloquently about that.
He does it from this phenomenologicalperspective, which is the tradition
and philosophy of thinking aboutconscious experience from that first
person subjective, like qualitativeaspect of having awareness of oneself.
(45:50):
And it's just, it's brilliant work.
So he doesn't get enoughattention and I think he should.
Haley Radke (45:54):
I love that.
I've listened to theirpodcast for a long time.
They do such a great job, and it'spod faded right now, you never know
when there'll be a new episode.
Yeah.
I look forward to readingsome more of Ryan's work.
Thank you so much, Michele.
Where can we follow you and see when yourpapers are coming out into the world?
Dr. Michele Merritt (46:14):
I have my website I try to keep that updated.
It's just michelemerrit.com,which is one L in Michele.
Everybody always messes that up.
And I have an Instagram account,which is the silenced adoptee, and
I sometimes will write on Medium.
I have a Medium page, although Ihave not done that in a long time.
And Twitter, I have that too.
(46:37):
Or X as it may be.
Yeah.
Haley Radke (46:39):
There's so many great medium pieces too.
I love Dear Medium articles.
Dr. Michele Merritt (46:43):
My medium is a collection of all kinds of things.
So it's not just adoption, it's dogs andbody image stuff, and it's a hodgepodge.
Haley Radke (46:52):
All kinds of things.
You are a very well-rounded person.
Okay, maybe we could talkabout dogs another time.
'cause dogs are mynumber one love in life.
Dr. Michele Merritt (47:00):
I actually do I wonder how much adopted people
really are like attached to animals.
It seems like there's a lot of us,and I'm wondering what that might
be like, what's the story there?
I have theories.
I have a future project of kind ofconnecting up the dog stuff that I do
with the adoption stuff and thinkingabout how we care for animals and care
(47:20):
for people and that kind of thing.
Haley Radke (47:21):
Yes, please.
We did a whole healing seriesepisode on what happens when your
dog dies for a adoptees, becauseI was unwell, to say the least.
Dr. Michele Merritt (47:33):
Yeah.
I've been working at the Humane Societyfor a few years now, just as a volunteer
dog walker, and I have a piece actuallyon Medium about this like complex feeling
that happens when I get attached to a dogthere that I'm not taking home because we
have two dogs and I've been complainingabout the hair in the house as it is.
Like I, we cannot have anotherdog and two children, but I
(47:54):
still wanna bring them all home.
And so I get attached to one and I thinkmaybe just, maybe we could have this
third dog and then I'll come in to walkthe dogs the next day and the dog's been
adopted and I just it's a very complexthing to experience that emotion like
that you're happy that the dog's gonnahave a home but you're sad because you
(48:15):
wanted the dog to be home with you and.
The dogs being adopted in a way thathumans, the rigorous process that
people have to go through to even getthat dog home with them compared to
how some humans can just be pluckedright out of the delivery room.
Like it's nothing.
So I just, it, I just sit there sometimesat the Humane Society and just cry
on the bench with one of the dogs I'mwalking thinking about that stuff.
(48:35):
So I'm just weird.
I don't know.
Haley Radke (48:38):
No, you're good people.
That's good.
Thank you so much, Michele.
Such an honor to get toknow you a little better.
I can't believe the privilege I'vegotten to speak to so many super
intelligent people about adoption.
(48:59):
I've learned so much from thescholars we've had on the show,
the authors we've had on the show,and folks that are just sharing
their regular stories, experiences.
They don't study adoption, butthey just wanna share their story.
I've learned so much fromany, everyone that's had the
(49:22):
generosity to share on the show.
And it's amazing to me after, Ithink it's come, it's, I think
it's nine years, you guys, it'sgonna be nine years, pretty soon.
It's amazing to me.
I'm still learning.
I'm still learning.
Every conversation I have I get somethingnew out of it and I hope you do too.
(49:43):
So thank you so much to Micheleand the other guests who have been
willing to share their stories.
I'm feeling reflective because as you'relistening to this episode 300 was, a
little while ago, but in my time it'sjust come out and just some of the super
sweet comments and messages I've receivedabout the impact the show has had.
(50:08):
They're just washing over me.
So I'm just feeling gratitude for you,willing to listen, and for all those
people willing to to share with us.
So just truly an honor and a privilege.
So thank you.
And one more way to keep theshow going is to join Patreon.
You can go to adopteeson.com/community.
(50:28):
And we have some awesome Zoomevents that you can join us for.
And they're always listed overon our website on the calendar,
and we'd love to have you join.
That's how I get to meetlisteners now and it's pretty fun.
So come and read with us in book club.
Hang out at an Adoptees Off Script Party.
(50:49):
Come ask questions from a therapist.
Ask an adoptee therapist events we haveso much great stuff for you over there.
Adoptees on.com/community.
Thank you so much for listening.
Let's talk again soon.
This podcast is for educational and
entertainment purposes only.
Nothing stated on it either by its hostsor any guests, is to be construed as
psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to AdopteesOn the podcast where adoptees
(00:20):
discuss the adoption experience.
I'm Haley Radkey.
Today's guest is Dr. Michele Merritt,a philosophy professor who's coined
the new term adoptism to describethe ways adoptees are marginalized.
Michele shares some of her personalstory, including the curiosity she
always had about where she came from.
(00:40):
We discuss what led her to startcritiquing adoption publicly and the
barriers to publishing these critiquesthat some academic journals put in
place, like the classic, I know oneadoptee and they don't feel that way.
We do mention suicide during thisconversation, so please take care
when deciding if this is a safeepisode for you to listen to.
(01:01):
We wrap up with some recommendedresources and as always, links to
everything we'll be talking about todayare on the website, adopteeson.com.
Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome toAdoptees On Dr. Michele Merritt.
Hi Michele.
Dr. Michele Merritt (01:19):
Hi.
Haley Radke (01:20):
I'm so glad to finally speak with you.
I've learned from you overthe years, I've followed your
writing, and now we get to talk.
I'd love it if you would share alittle of your personal story with us.
Dr. Michele Merritt (01:34):
Okay I'm basic.
No, just a good old domestic white adopteefrom a closed adoption way back in 1980.
So like on the tail end of the, the babyscoop era, I guess technically over by
them, but there was still a lot of thatstigma going on, so in Florida especially,
lots of closed adoptions still going on.
Even my younger brother who wasadopted in 86 was a closed adoption.
(01:56):
So you can see the kindof, it's still going on.
Same race parents, I havestrangely, a mother adopted mother
who looks very much like me.
I've come to learn that was probably bydesign and I grew up in a great home.
I'm still very close to my adoptedparents and had a good life and kind
(02:17):
of that fairytale positive adoptionstory that everybody wants us to buy.
So I didn't really have anyproblems being adopted, I guess
you could say, for most of my life.
Or I didn't know that I hadany problems being adopted, and
I did meet my biological mom.
When I was 17 because I was this onething about me, I was curious my whole
(02:39):
life, just from a young age wantingto know what my parents were very
open with me about being adopted.
So there were no secrets.
But they told me the kind of story thatI think a lot of adopted kids are told
that your mom and dad loved you so much,they just couldn't take care of you.
So they wanted a better life for you.
And there was a lot of nebulousinformation about who they were.
Like they were poor and young andprobably did drugs and that story.
(03:03):
And I wanted to know the truth for myself.
I guess I've always been a truthseeker and finally just talked my
dad into looking her up and I guesshe paid the agency some exorbitant
amount of money to search for her.
I've come to realize that's what happens.
You go searching and you have topay the agency to do the search
for you, which is really just themlooking up where their people are
(03:25):
that they've worked with in the past.
So I don't know why they charge a thousanddollars for that, but yeah, so anyways,
we found her, I met her very brieflyand met two of her other children that
she had since me, so my half siblings.
But it was a kind of really quick.
Hey, how you doing?
Nice to see you.
I was 17 and I just wanted tosee her face and that was that.
(03:46):
And then I retreated back into myadopted life and realized, okay,
I definitely, I'm glad I have mylife that I have with my parents.
After meeting her and seeing how shelived and the poverty and everything
like that, it was eye-opening for me.
So I just went back into my little,I don't know, illusory world and it
wasn't until I had kids another 17years later, that I started when I
(04:10):
was pregnant with my first child.
I suddenly realized like, Idon't know where I came from.
Like literally I don'tknow my birth story.
I don't know how I came into the world.
Was it, a natural birthC-section, complicated premature?
Was I healthy?
What did my parents dowhile I was gestating?
So I started looking for her again 'causewe had lost touch and didn't have I,
(04:31):
this is, when I met her the first time,this was pre-internet and all that.
So I had no like way of keepingtabs on her and then I just
couldn't find her again.
And I found those two siblings of mine.
But they're a little bit hit or misswhen it comes to keeping up and maybe
not the best siblings to be keeping upwith, if it was a kind of dead end there.
Yeah.
(04:51):
And so I never found her and then justswept it back under the rug after my
first child was born, because I had avery bad postpartum situation with him.
Just very depressed and actually suicidalfor quite a while after he was born.
So that took up a lot of mymental space for a good year.
Then I just became a momfor a while, and did that.
(05:12):
And then we got pregnant again.
And when my daughter was born, that's whenlike the kind of obsessive need to find
my family came back and I wanted to findmy dad because I realized my mom was a
dead end situation and I just went nutsafter she was born looking for my dad.
And I think I spent.
The entire sabbatical that I hada whole semester off and I was
(05:34):
with her just bonding my daughterand just also looking for my dad.
And finally with DNA, I think it was23 And Me and Ancestry and all that,
found an uncle and messaged him.
I actually messaged his wife and shewas a professor at the same university
that I had worked at in central Florida.
I had been there for a yearteaching and I had no idea.
(05:56):
And she was there in the communicationsdepartment, so close to philosophy.
And I messaged her first actually 'causeI thought maybe professor to professor,
I won't freak her out too much and say,Hey, I think you're married to my uncle.
I'm this long lost childof his brother, I think.
And then when it was clear that's whoit was, and I found a picture of my dad.
(06:18):
I just, this is dramatic, but I remembersitting in my chair and seeing a picture
of him finally and just falling outof my chair crying because I knew,
like I saw his face and it's hard toexplain, but his face and my daughter's
face are like, they're just mirrors.
And I don't know, somethingintuitive told me at when she
was born, I had to find him.
So I find that interesting.
Everybody that sees himand her, it's just, yeah.
(06:42):
Spitting image.
So yeah, I found him, andthat was the end of 2019.
I had a newborn and I had plans to meethim and I met him early 2020 before
Covid hit and got to meet him in person.
And then he died like a couplemonths later, just suddenly.
So that set me off into a whole, likeother, I don't even know what that,
(07:02):
there's not a name for that kind ofdepression that happens after that.
Loss second time, you know thatmany of us have, but I'm still
close to his brother, my uncle,and yeah, I'm in a happy reunion.
I guess I hate that word aswe'll talk about later, a happy
reunion state with my uncle.
And yeah, that's it feeds into howI got into critiquing adoption from
philosophy, but it was being home withCovid going on and finding my dad, and
(07:26):
just being really pissed off about allof the things that had prevented me
from knowing my family all this timeI. And then I started looking through
philosophy, literature and realizing like.
Nobody in my discipline writes about this.
And if they do, it's very like formulaic,commercial appeal kind of adoption is
good and here's a good reason, likephilosophically that you should adopt
(07:48):
'cause it's good for the environment.
There's actually a paper that says that.
Haley Radke (07:51):
No.
Dr. Michele Merritt (07:52):
Yeah, it's good.
It's good because, we don't need tobe making more babies and filling up
the planet with more babies and it'sgood to, there's just it's ridiculous
actually the way philosophers will tryto spin adoption as a positive thing.
That also made me mad and I realized Ineeded to throw my voice into the mix
and use my discipline for something otherthan what I had been, which is mostly
(08:12):
writing about dogs and how dogs think.
And so I've shifted gears since then.
But yeah, that's how Igot to where I am now.
Haley Radke (08:21):
I'm so sorry for the loss of your dad twice.
That's brutal.
Dr. Michele Merritt (08:28):
Yeah.
It was tough having such young kids toowhen it happened, because I just lost
myself, like for about two weeks, I think.
And luckily I have a great partner thatjust swept up everything and let me be
in this pile of tears and depressionfor however long I needed to be.
And yeah, I didn't know itwas gonna hit me so hard.
(08:49):
You think I didn't even know him mywhole life, so why am I so upset?
And yeah.
Haley Radke (08:55):
Do know one thing I'm a little bit stuck on is how you said you
look so much like your adoptive mother.
Do you remember people tellingyou that when you were a kid?
And what was your response?
Because I had that happen all the time.
And I would always be like, I'm adopted.
Dr. Michele Merritt (09:16):
That's funny.
Yeah.
I, I don't really remember.
I probably doing a little historicalreconstruction here, but I do, I,
I remember being told that a lot.
I'm not sure what I said.
I was a very reticent child.
I didn't talk much at all, and I'mstill like socially awkward in a
lot of ways, but I've come out of myshell over the years with confidence
built from academia and other things.
(09:39):
But when I was a kid, it waspainfully bad how shy I was.
And people would say, oh, you lookjust, they would talk to my mom.
They wouldn't say it to me.
They would say, she looks just like you.
I'd hear that and then they'd look atme and wink or whatever, and I just
remember being very uncomfortable.
I was made uncomfortable by that, and itwas like she would look at me and wink,
and it was our little secret almost that Iwas adopted, but then I wasn't as bold as
(10:01):
you, I don't think to say I'm a adopted.
Haley Radke (10:02):
It's always funny to me to think about that.
So when you said that, I waslike what do, what did you do?
Because I was just like, I'm not theirs.
Just let's be clear.
Dr. Michele Merritt (10:11):
Yeah.
It's one of those things I probablyjust went the little nervous laugh that
I do still to this day, that I get somad at myself about when I, somebody
said something really infuriating and Iwanna tell them off, and then instead I
just like, so I'm sure I did somethinglike that as a kid, but I don't know.
I just remember thinking like.
(10:31):
It was weird to be told that, butI knew that my adoptive mother just
was beaming and I didn't wanna hurther feelings, she just loved it
so much that she looked like me.
Haley Radke (10:41):
Totally.
That's a big rabbit trail.
We can go down, we cantalk about that after.
Dr. Michele Merritt (10:45):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (10:46):
In a recent paper that you published, you have a little footnote
in there and it's in the main pieceof your paper as well, talking about
how your papers critiquing, adoption,keep getting rejected from all of
these different academic journals.
Why do you think that is?
Dr. Michele Merritt (11:08):
So the saga of this particular paper is actually funny.
I've published other things since thenthat were a lot easier to publish.
Like you mentioned, ASAC, they were,they've published me twice now in the
span of time that it took me to getthis one paper published in a major
academic journal for feminist philosophy.
So Feminist PhilosophyQuarterly is like one of the top
(11:28):
journals in my field I think.
And it's open access, sothat's a benefit for it.
And the saga of that situation isjust, I started in 2020, like I said,
when I was starting to be awoken tothe situation of adoption being not
what I thought it was and wrote apaper and it was rough to be fair, it
wasn't really ready for publication.
(11:48):
And, but I still sent it off andit just was like rejected and
they gave some good feedback.
And so this is like maybe how youshould re, you have three papers
that you're trying to do here.
Fix it and, but it's rejected.
Maybe you can try again later.
And so I did and then sentit somewhere else and that
just got rejected outta hand.
Not even an explanation at one journal.
Sent it to another journal.
I sent it actually to, I hesitate to saythis, but I'm gonna do it anyways too.
(12:11):
My former advisor, who is aneditor at a journal, sent it
there and it still got rejected.
And the commentary in that particularsubmission, one of several comments
were choice that you'll laugh at.
One of them was I know somebodywho's adopted, and this is not
at all how they view things.
Haley Radke (12:29):
I'm sure these had so many conversations about it.
It's amazing how deeply intimatepeople are familiar with our stories.
Dr. Michele Merritt (12:37):
Oh, this, and these are academics too
that are reviewing journals.
They're supposed to be the top in theirfield to be making unbiased surveys
of these papers that are coming inand they're telling me the author
like I know somebody that's adoptedand this doesn't hold water for me.
I'm like, that's not agood response, but okay.
And then I was told my tone wastoo aggressive in one of my, one
of the responses, which this isa feminist philosophy paper don't
(13:01):
we know what tone policing is?
Are we not supposed to do that here?
But, and to be honest, I don't seemy tone is aggressive in anything
that I write, but maybe it is.
I just don't see it.
I'm not an aggressive personanyways, so I was frustrated to say
the least, and I finally sent itto Feminist Philosophy Quarterly.
I'm not even sure exactly when, butit finally came back with a r and r,
(13:23):
revise and re revise and resubmit.
Which is better than nothing.
Lots of revisions.
I did the revisions.
One of the reviewers just took offand decided not to do the second
round, so we had to find anotherreviewer, and it just kept going back
and forth and finally got to a placewhere they said they'd accept it.
And four years of that and for thatpaper to finally come out, and I think
(13:45):
I probably would've given up if ithad been any other paper, but this
was like really important to me to getout into the world, and as much as I
hated the blood, sweat, and tears thatI had to put into it, sometimes I was
ready to throw it against the wall.
In the interim, I had come acrosssome work that really helped me bring
into focus exactly what I was tryingto do, which with this term adoptism
(14:07):
being a specific way that adoptedpeople are marginalized and that comes
from reading the 2023 book, UndoingSuicidism is, which is a term that
Alexandre Baril coined to talk aboutsuicidal people being marginalized,
specifically because they're suicidal.
So I basically took his word.
(14:27):
And said, I'm gonna use thisformula that he's got, but
to talk about adopted people.
And if I hadn't waited until I readhis book, I wouldn't have had that.
So it's serendipitous that.
Haley Radke (14:37):
Oh, okay.
Dr. Michele Merritt (14:37):
Yeah.
Haley Radke (14:38):
Let's talk a little bit more about this term.
I love it.
I love giving us language to usewhen we're critiquing adoption.
And so having a new term adoptism like.
It was really helpful for me.
Can you explain a little bit moreabout what you think about when
(14:59):
you're using that, inventing theterm, you're inventing a new term?
That's pretty cool.
Dr. Michele Merritt (15:03):
Philosophers are known for this, probably
infamous for, this maybe is theright word, but I actually really
like the term and I think it's.
Like you said, it's necessary forus to have language that's our own,
because all the language that adoptedpeople have had over the years
has been foisted on us it seems.
So this is the term that we can reclaim.
This is specifically how we aremistreated, subjected to injustices
(15:28):
on various levels, both epistemicand, moral injustice sometimes too.
But it's also like a good term to pickup on specifically how being adopted is
a source of discrimination or prejudiceor marginalization, because I think one
of the things is to be really carefulnot to talk about being marginalized
(15:49):
is if I'm a white woman marginalizedin the same way as a black adopted
person or a trans adopted person.
But since we're all adopted how canwe talk about the ways that being
adopted specifically has impacted us?
And even that's gonna be trickybecause there's international
adoptees and transracial adopteesand different kinds of adoption.
And I focus on plenary adoption, which isthat, the kind of adoption where you're
(16:13):
completely subtracted from permanentlyand irrevocably your biological family.
It's not like stepparentadoption or kinship adoption.
So anyways, but if we recognizethat there's all these different
intersections that all of us areliving at, that we're marginalized
in different ways, and some of us aresitting at many intersections and some
of us are only sitting at one or two.
(16:35):
But the thing that kind of unites usis this, the fact of being adopted
and how that societally is viewedin a very specific way, especially
in this country, and causes a lot ofmarginalization of people that wanna
tell their stories that run counter towhat that dominant social narrative is.
And so that's, that term adoptismis like the way that I see it is,
(16:57):
it's the term that captures that.
Nothing's gonna capture everythingbut it, in the paper I talk about how,
for example, one of the ways adoptismshows up, adoptist ideology is assuming
that adopted people aren't authoritieson their own lived experience that
they shouldn't be talking and theyshould be silenced even, and gaslit.
(17:17):
And so feminist philosophershave talked about these kinds
of things like gaslighting, asforms of epistemic injustice.
So it's like being harmedspecifically in your capacity to
know things and to produce knowledge.
And so adopted people, I see this as veryobvious to me, adopted people are harmed
in this way because they're not allowedto speak about their experiences unless
(17:38):
they fit within the positive framework.
But if they speak negativelyabout being adopted, then
they're, again, they're gaslit.
They're silenced, they're toldthey're being too aggressive.
Haley Radke (17:47):
They're, their articles rejected 'cause somebody knows
somebody that loves being adopted.
Yeah.
Dr. Michele Merritt (17:53):
So to me, this is just like quintessential
example of epistemic injusticethat adopted people often face.
And that's what I focus on the paperis the epistemic part of this, because
I can't even, I'm quite literallya case here where I've been trying
to produce knowledge in my field.
That I have a PhD in.
As a tenured professor at a university,I still cannot get a word out because
(18:14):
of these things happening to me.
So I have like my own personal storyof this happening, but then I see it
happening too with all of my peersthat are adopted online trying to talk
or trying to do their own advocacy.
And being shut down.
Haley Radke (18:30):
I love reading a paper and seeing my Twitter friends mentioned
and tweets that I'm like I'm old.
I, I still call it that.
I know it's called X now.
That I was like, I rememberwhen she tweeted that.
But that's how we've built ourcommunity over these this last decade
(18:51):
and gained just an even larger voice.
And so to see folks like yourself andother critical adoption scholars, adding
to this like in a academic discoursesituation is also really amazing.
I love the title.
Be Grateful or Be Quiet.
(19:11):
Literally how many times havewe had something said to us?
That implies thatexplicitly, probably more.
Dr. Michele Merritt (19:20):
Yeah.
Just as an example of that isjust talking about being adopted.
I think I was giving a talk atHendrix College in Arkansas.
After the talk, a woman cameup to me and she was very nice.
She was not trying to be offensive, and Ithink she even knew that she prefaced it
by saying, I just wanna ask you something.
(19:40):
I know it's gonna sound bad.
And then she finally came out withit and said, do your parents, do they
know that you do this kind of work?
Are they how do they handleall these things you're saying?
And I just, I'm like, Iam in my forties, ma'am.
I'm allowed to do this work.
I think we hear this alot with adopted people.
I've seen it online.
(20:01):
I've seen people comment these sortof sentiments that I'm just waiting
till my adoptive parents die beforeI start really speaking truth.
And that just breaks my heart.
Like you have a lot of lifeto live while they're alive.
Don't waste it and be scared totalk, but we're so conditioned to
not hurt our parents' feelings.
All I think all children grow upthis way, this sort of obligation
(20:21):
and guilt and all of that we havetowards our parents, but adopted people
maybe have this extra layer because.
I don't wanna be given back.
I don't wanna be rejected again.
And, you've, you're an adult andyou're still scared to say something.
But that, and that's baked into herquestion is I'm supposed to worry
about this as I'm giving a talk.
As a professor, I'm worried,what would my mother say?
Haley Radke (20:41):
And I just, I've heard that before too.
And I wonder in what other situationare grown adults asked, what do
your parents think about this?
Dr. Michele Merritt (20:53):
I know I've tried to think of those parallels and I just,
I have a hard time coming up with them.
Yeah, it happened.
Just this, another story, another plugfor adopted person that I recommend
reading if you haven't, is SunAh Laybourn
.She has a book about the lives of Korean adoptees.
I can't remember the exact title rightnow, but I've plugged in on Twitter before
(21:14):
and I went to her book launch becauseshe lives here in Memphis where I live.
And teaches at University ofMemphis and in her book launch.
I'm sorry, this is maybe givingaway stuff that she would not
like to hear out there again.
But somebody asked the same thing ofher, what do your parents think of this
Haley Radke (21:30):
no
Dr. Michele Merritt: book that you just wrote? (21:30):
undefined
It's what?
So yeah
Haley Radke (21:34):
I had SunAh on she wrote Out of Place The Lives
of Korean Adoptee Immigrants.
Dr. Michele Merritt (21:38):
Okay.
Haley Radke (21:39):
And I loved talking to her.
'cause she's a sociologist.
And I asked her.
I'm like, can you confirm that adopteeswe're our own society, we're our own
unique culture in society, right?
And we do have you, you do this very well.
I don't, you're very much I'mnot speaking for all adoptees.
(22:00):
I don't know.
Listen I talk a lot for adoptees.
I know not everybody agreeswith me, that's okay.
But we do have this sharedexperience that very much has
altered the course of our lives.
And to have that shorthand when youget to meet an adoptee in real life
and you can just go right to theheart of the matter is pretty cool.
(22:23):
That's, is that the onlybenefit of being adopted?
I don't know, maybe one.
Dr. Michele Merritt (22:27):
Yeah.
I have a, a paper from I think it's 2021maybe from ASAC, about online community
building, an adopted experience, andI was a lot more optimistic back then.
I think that we can all have a community,and I know that word is contentious and
I prefaced I have something in the paperwhere I say, I know that, but just the
(22:47):
idea that there's a community of being.
It's paradoxical, the way I put it,I think it's like we're alone in our
togetherness or together in our alonenessor something like that, is how I put it.
That we, we really don't haveanything that unites us except for
being adopted because then otherwisewe're all very different people.
There are adopted people who arestraight and gay and Republican and
Democrat, and there's fighting inside ourcommunity over issues that have nothing
(23:11):
to do with us being adopted really.
But then it gets all tangled upand it makes us feel like we don't
belong to each other as a community.
But then there is that one thing, likeyou said, that I could just walk into
a room and if there's somebody adoptedin there, we can immediately talk about
those shared experiences, even if they'reslightly different, they're at least
(23:32):
similar enough that other people are notgonna understand in a way that we do.
Haley Radke (23:37):
Yes, exactly.
I long for the Utopian Society,which I realize is not realistic.
Okay.
We mentioned before this thingabout you said language foisted
upon us or something like that.
And I love when you presented atASAC, you talked about how much you
(23:58):
hated the term reunion and we've heardall kinds of things like, oh no it's
a reunification or, I don't know.
I'm trying to think of the otheralternatives people use, but I
really appreciated you saying that.
'cause it is, it's like, it's almostthis romanticized thing, just using
(24:19):
the word like it's, I don't know.
I've been put on a pedestal andwe all know reunion is not any,
you might get a honeymoon phaseif you're lucky, but it's not all,
it's cracked up to be all the time.
What are your thoughts on that term?
Dr. Michele Merritt (24:33):
I just, the word just strikes me as odd because
it's re being like again, as if youwere united ever in the first place.
That's problematic already.
At the start, yes, I was withmy mother and father for a few
minutes when I was born, but Iwouldn't hardly call that a union.
And there was a lot of strife.
At least in my story.
There's a lot of strife aboutwhether I was even going to
(24:54):
be adopted and my grandmotherapparently was fighting to keep me.
But that's a whole other storythat we could talk about, right?
That's not incentivizedby adoption agencies.
I don't think there was ever a union inthe first place, but even if there was a
union that I'm being re-put into when Imeet them again, there's all these other
(25:15):
family members that I was never with.
Like I have six siblings that I had neverknown I had until I found out about them.
So we're not in reunion at all.
That's not even the right word.
We're like in, hey, how the helldid I not know you existed state.
That's what we're in.
That's not reunion.
That's, I don't evenknow what you call that.
(25:36):
I think I called it mindbleep during my presentation.
Haley Radke (25:40):
Yes, you did.
Dr. Michele Merritt (25:41):
I grew up with one adopted brother my whole life.
And then to come to find out that there'ssix more out there that belong to me
and my uncle, like I mentioned, who I amvery much we're in pretty close contact
and we visit him often with the kids.
So he gets to see his greatniece and nephew and it's great,
but it's not reunion 'cause hedidn't meet me the first time.
(26:04):
We met for the first timewhen I was in my thirties.
Haley Radke (26:06):
And so there's people that don't know about us.
There's the extended family.
There's all the things.
The other thing you pointed outin that presentation was this
lack of shared we experiences andthe missing bio synchronicity.
And I was like, oh, yes, thank you.
Because I, I just had, I just talkedwith my sisters yesterday and that's
(26:32):
the lack, like the grief is in that thelacking years where we weren't together.
And there's no way to reclaim that.
And there's no way to earn back the timeyou would've shared fighting over who gets
to clean the bathroom next or the summervacations or for me, it really hits when
(26:54):
I see them in all the family pictureswhen you're not in the family pictures.
Dr. Michele Merritt (26:59):
Yeah.
That's another tough thing aboutsibling relationships, especially
I think like by not having that.
I watch my two children growing up,and they fight all the time, and I
wish they wouldn't, but I'm also happythat they're going through that because
they'll hopefully be closer laterin life and they'll know each other.
They'll have that hist.
It's like a shared history too.
(27:19):
It's a narrative that the family isbuilt around this shared cooperative
narrative that you're building.
And I just stepped into the picture with,I have two sisters on my dad's side that
I'm, I'd say they're my closest siblingsof all the ones that I've found and we
have gotten together, and the kids I'vemet, so they've got like cousins, that
the kids have cousins they spend timewith now, and that's great, but it's like
(27:43):
being an outsider because the two of themgrew up together and they have the whole
shared story of their childhood and I justshowed up one day, but, and one of them
thought she was the oldest sibling of the,there's three of them that were born to
the same mother that my, my dad remarriedto, and she thought she was the oldest.
And cut here I come.
(28:05):
Nope.
Haley Radke (28:06):
Just disrupting in that birth order.
So when you started critiquing adoption.
Writing about it and publishing.
What was it like for you professionallyat your university to not
necessarily change the direction?
(28:28):
I guess a little bit change the directionthat your research was going to, have
you had support from your university?
Dr. Michele Merritt (28:35):
For the most part yeah, I think so.
They've been really goodabout just supporting me doing
whatever wild thing I wanna do.
I got hired to do philosophy ofmind and cognitive science and
feminisms, like both of those things.
So I could teach feminist philosophy,but also like more traditional
philosophy of mind classes.
Which I still do.
The idea is that I would stillbe publishing in that domain.
(28:55):
So feminism, I'm like, that's howI'm working it in is it's still a
feminist project to critique adoption.
That's how I was able to publish abook on dogs too, because I was like,
this is still cognitive science.
It's just I wanna talk aboutdogs, even though you all had
no idea I was gonna do that.
I've done pretty well research wiseat my university, so I think they're
just happy to keep me doing what I'mdoing and appease me in that way.
(29:17):
I don't wanna speak too muchand have it jinxed, but I
haven't made them too angry yet.
And I actually, with this adoptionstuff, I just took a sabbatical last
semester in the project justificationwas the book that I'm working on, which
is basically that paper that I justpublished that you're talking about,
the Be Grateful or Be Quiet Paper isan extended version of that, like a
(29:39):
much more book length project aboutadoption, marginalization, and the need
to consider abolition and all of that.
So I proposed that book to myuniversity and said, I need a
sabbatical to get going on this.
And they said yes.
So I obviously am doing somethingthat they're not too mad about yet.
Haley Radke (29:56):
Oh, that's so exciting.
Congratulations.
We absolutely need this.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna link toyour paper 'cause you said it's open
source Feminist Philosophy Quarterly.
So this particular one, I'm gonnalink to it in the show notes for
folks to read 'cause I'm gonnarecommend it and spoiler like, anyway.
I like people when you readit, you're gonna be like yes.
(30:17):
Like Michele's saying the true thing,like this is how I've experienced it
and this is how the ways I've beenshut down and these are the ways
we've been marginalized and like it'svery, I think folks are gonna love it.
I'm curious about.
When you, if you have students readit, do you teach anything about
adoption in any of your classes?
What's it like going against thesocietal narrative, but at least you
(30:41):
have the authority of the professorship.
Dr. Michele Merritt (30:44):
Yeah.
It's funny, I think one of the questionsyou asked me was something about do I
have trouble, providing like my livedexperience as opposed to like scientific
research or something like that.
And on the one hand it's Ido provide the research too.
'cause I do a lot of thatgathering of the data and saying,
here's the what the data say.
It's not just me.
But then like I think when I waspublishing this paper in Feminist
(31:04):
Philosophy Quarterly, one of thereviewers said, do you even need all
that data if you're just telling usfrom your own experience, what it's like
to be adopted and feminist philosophy,at least there's a call for that.
Like we want more of that becauseit's the first person or insider
perspective or what sociologistssometimes call the EMIC perspective.
The insider perspective is not onlyallowed now, it's almost like necessary.
(31:26):
Like you, you shouldn't be writing aboutwhat it's like to experience racism
if you're a white person, for example.
We know that.
That's why we don't read certainauthors and say that they're
the authority on what it's like.
So I'm not gonna name names right now,but then I think the tide is finally
turning in that way for adopted people,at least in feminist philosophy.
And I think my paper might actually bepart of that move, I hope, because it's
(31:47):
no, I should be talking about adoption,not these other people who've published
on it that are adoptive parents.
Those are the typical ones topublish literature in philosophy.
They're adopted parents, so you know,I get, I like that actually seems
to be happening as just a matterof course in the humanities is the
call for the insider perspective.
(32:08):
Then when I'm teaching, like toyour question about teaching, I
do, I bring it up in my feministphilosophy class for sure.
We read several of mypieces, Ryan's pieces.
Anything I can get my hands onthat has to do with adoption,
I'll have a little section on it.
And they tend to be really open to itin a way that I think more established
academics are not, and especially thereally younger students, the students
(32:32):
that are just in college 18 to 22.
My intro to philosophy students, Iteach that every semester, and I always
include, I have to include shorterpieces so I wouldn't include my Be
Grateful or Be Quiet piece there.
I would go over their heads, I think.
But I have a piece in The Nation that'sreally short and it's, I think it's,
We Should Be Fighting for a WorldWithout Adoption is the title of that.
(32:53):
I have them read that sort oftowards the end when we're talking
about ethics and social justice.
And I was really worried the first time Itaught it that I was gonna get, tomatoes
thrown at me or something like that.
But really, I find that most of thestudents, they're just completely
flabbergasted at some of thestats that I'll throw at them.
And some of the stories I'll tellthem and they're just disgusted,
(33:14):
especially when I throw up the, there'san NPR article from several years
ago and it just, the title is BlackBabies Cost Less Than White Babies.
And I just throw that upthere and they're like, what?
And we've already been talking aboutMLK and racial justice at this point,
so they're already like primed tobe angry about some of these things.
And I find they're really receptive.
And I have, every now and then I'llhave an adopted person in my class
(33:35):
who's, I don't have those adoptedstudents so far that are like, no,
I love being adopted please don'ttalk to me about your bad experience.
They're like, yes, Dr. Merrittfinally, somebody else gets it
like, have you been on TikTok?
Have you seen that thesepeople are talking?
I'm like, yes, I have.
I've been on TikTok.
I'm old, but I have seen thatpeople are angry about adoption
on TikTok, so I think it's like.
(33:57):
The kids are all right.
Like it's, they're coming upand they're getting it now.
So I actually like talking about itto my students more than academics.
Haley Radke (34:06):
I love that.
Like really, I love that.
It's so true.
In my experience.
Once you show people behind thecurtain, it's like, how can you.
Not get it like, who literally isarguing against family preservation.
(34:27):
This is like chaotic to think that way.
So I love that they can see it,that when you're showing them.
Dr. Michele Merritt (34:35):
Yeah, it's great.
Haley Radke (34:37):
You've been very public with a variety of things that often people hold
secret, so struggles with mental health.
You mentioned earlier when youhad your first child that you
struggled with suicidal ideation.
You've been publicabout some other issues.
How is that for you?
(34:58):
Do you, have you always been an open book?
Are you just wanting us to havemore conversations about it?
Do you ever wish, maybe like me, maybeyou hadn't put your first and last
name out on a podcast nine years agoand it just, this is what happens.
What do you think about all that?
Dr. Michele Merritt (35:17):
Yeah.
It's funny because I don'tthink I've always been so open.
I told you I was totally shy when I wasyoung, but I guess it was having children.
That kind of just is, what's thecatalyst, the first child I had, I
just went through so much and I'vehad to be fully open and disclosive.
I struggled with suicidalideation ever since.
(35:40):
I can remember being like young, 12, 13.
Just really having a hard timewhen I was in my teenage years.
I think a lot of that probably has to dowith the hormones and the shifting and
changing into an adult that goes on it.
It can be really tumultuous,and I'm discovering that sort of
happens later in life too, whenyour hormones start shifting again.
Haley Radke (35:57):
And that's happened to me when I was 12 too.
That's when, yeah, that'swhen it started for me.
Yeah.
Dr. Michele Merritt (36:02):
And it's I've noticed that, so not surprisingly after
having a baby, when your hormones arelike completely on hiatus, like they
don't even know what's going on your gut.
You, I'm not trying to reduce itall to that, but I think you're.
The stage is set for things to gobadly already, and we already know
that one in two women, 50% of womenor people who give birth, I should
(36:23):
say, are at risk for some kind of milddepression or something after birth.
But then like to have severe postpartumdepression is a little less common,
but it's still common enough that weshould be paying attention to it more.
And so it really hit me hard and.
All the suicidal stuff I had ever beenthrough in my life came to the fore.
And, I wasn't just passively suicidal.
It was very active for a whilethere, and I needed like really
(36:44):
intense care for a little while.
And then when I was all settledand everything, I, that's when I
decided I wanted to write about it.
And I wrote, not from theadopted perspective, just from
the, hey, I'm a woman who'sexperienced postpartum depression.
Postpartum psychosis even.
It was really bad.
And look, I'm this like put togetherprofessor that most people would
(37:07):
never suspect I'm struggling thismuch and I want everyone to know that
it's totally not normal in the sensethat it's fun and okay, but let's
normalize this conversation so peoplearen't so ashamed to put it out there.
And I did.
And then.
A few days later, after I publishedthat blog, CPS came to my house to
investigate me for potentially hurtingmy child because of my blog and being
(37:30):
honest about the, the nothing about mychild, but about the suicidal stuff.
You would think that I would stopat that point, but it's just,
it's fueled me on to keep talking.
It's another thing like thisis why we should talk because
this crap happens to people.
And yeah, I have since just not,in fact, I think I've gotten
louder since that experience.
(37:51):
So it was, again, another form ofthis kind of injustice that not
adopted people, but suicidal people.
This is exactly what Alexandre's workis like talking about suicidism that
suicidal people try to talk aboutbeing suicidal and they're immediately
pathologized institutionalized.
They have the cops called on them.
They're even shot by the police,especially if they're not white, right?
I mean it's, you can see themarginalization of suicidal people
(38:14):
in society quite clearly, and Ididn't know at the time there was
a word for that could be appliedto what I had gone through.
So now I talk about it even morefreely because I've been given this
language to understand my experience.
Haley Radke (38:26):
Appreciate you speaking up about it, and we've seen several
events where adoptees talk aboutsuicide and suicide prevention and
those kinds of things, which areso helpful in my opinion, in our
community, especially since we're athigher risk of attempting suicide.
So thank you.
Thank you for being one of thebrave people to talk about it.
(38:47):
I also, I just wanna say I. I love it whenwe'll say adoptees who have a perfectly
happy, healthy childhood, still in agood relationship critique adoption.
Because one of the things you mentionedin your paper is how we get, you
(39:09):
lobb, the, your ungrateful, angry,adopt you, you had a bad experience,
those kinds of things and it's no,that didn't happen for you and.
This system is still messed up.
Dr. Michele Merritt (39:21):
Yeah, and that's one of the things I really am trying to
emphasize in my work more and more, andI'm happy to share my personal story.
I have, everybody has their ownstory, but it's to me, unimportant
to talk about all the ins and outsof my personal adoption narrative.
It's more like the systemicissues with adoption itself.
So if we can separate out thepersonal from the systemic.
(39:43):
Because there are gonna be plentyof adopted people who are, they
have no problems being adopted.
Just like there's plenty of women whodon't seem to think there's any systemic
sexism in this country right now.
Go ahead and have that fun delusion.
That's fine.
But that doesn't mean that it's not truethat there's systemic issues with the
way women are treated or that there'ssystemic racism or, I'm not gonna compare.
(40:04):
Adoption marginalizationto racism, of course.
But the analogy is just simply thatthere's systemic issues that exist,
whether or not the people that are beingoppressed by those systems want to admit
as much, and maybe even, there are peoplethat are marginalized within oppressive
systems that somehow can reap benefitsfrom within those systems enough to be
(40:25):
blind to the fact that they're oppressed.
You know what I mean?
So they're like.
Maybe it's a woman who's white who'sgot a lot of money and doesn't seem
to think that there's any injusticesthat women as a whole face, you know?
So yeah.
I think that applies toadopted people very much.
And we have to move past our individualstories and start thinking collectively.
Haley Radke (40:45):
I wanna read a couple lines from your paper.
Dr. Michele Merritt (40:48):
Okay.
Haley Radke (40:49):
Adoptees who deviate from the institution's expectations
of happy and grateful are toldthey're psychologically damaged.
Huh.
Even if adoptees use a polite tone oroffer compelling and logical arguments,
they're perceived as playing the perpetualvictim or as being attention seekers.
(41:11):
Yeah, it's so good.
I love this.
Having a name for adoptism, which isthis is society's view of adoption,
this optimistic it's all those things.
And I, and at the conclusion you sayall adoptee voices need to be centered
(41:32):
in discussions of adoption much likewe ought to center the voices of
members of any marginalized groupwhen talking about what it's like to
experience that form of marginalization.
Yeah, exactly.
Well done.
Is there anything else you wanna tellus about your paper, your other writing?
I think there's so many thingspeople can learn from you.
I don't even know if you're tweetinganymore, but like I, I learned a lot
(41:54):
from you on Twitter back in the day.
Dr. Michele Merritt (41:56):
I'm on Twitter, still haven't deleted my account, but I'm
scared to post anything on there lately,given the climate that we're in right now.
But I,
Haley Radke (42:02):
it's so bleak.
Dr. Michele Merritt (42:04):
Yeah.
I, people have deleted their accountson mass and I've just taken this
approach that I stay on there as avoyeur to see what is going on the
other side of things, because, it's it'sdisgusting, but it needs to be observed
so you can see what people are saying.
I do, I haven't been on socialmedia a lot the last few months
I've been taking a hiatus.
But whenever I have somethingcome out, I always post it.
(42:25):
I have the silenced adoptee that I run onInstagram, and if it's something academic,
I'll post it on my own personal Facebook,but publicly so it can be easily accessed.
Let's see, a couple papers coming out.
I have the title of thispaper should be fun.
I'm not sure if this isgonna be open access or not.
It's from a conference proceedings,but the Society for Philosophy in the
(42:46):
Contemporary World is a great little groupthat I'm a part of and they did a panel at
a conference last year called EverythingIs BLEEP, and so my title is Adoption Is
BLEEP so that's coming out soon I think.
And then another paper onsuicidality as part of a conference
that I was at Oxford in 2023.
(43:07):
Along the lines of what we werejust talking about, like being
punished for saying I'm suicidal.
If I say that out loud, Iget punished immediately.
It's some of that personal narrative.
Also, I do talk about adoption in thatpaper because I'm trying to bring these
two things together in my work right now.
The idea of being adopted and beingsuicidal and how having both of those
identities you get it from both sides.
(43:27):
And there's some interesting parallelsin the way that suicidal people and
adopted people are treated generally.
So since I've experienced both ofthose, I'm allowed to talk about them.
And I try to stay in my own laneotherwise, because, if I haven't
experienced that particularidentity or form of marginalization,
I'm not gonna speak into it.
But yeah those two papers are comingout probably soon, this month maybe.
(43:47):
I hope.
Haley Radke (43:48):
The other piece we're gonna link to is What it Costs to be Adopted
that you wrote in Visible and you pointout, all these major pieces about adoption
adoptees are not consulted, and thenyou share these three adoptee stories.
I, it's so good, Michele.
You're just such a fabulous writer.
I can't wait for your book.
Just keep keep doing what you're doing.
(44:10):
I'm cheering you on.
I don't know that I'm gonna beintroducing you to any new people.
I'm sure lots of people are alreadyreading your work, but I'm excited
to share anyway and recommend youwholeheartedly to listeners, what did
you wanna recommend to folks today?
Dr. Michele Merritt (44:25):
Yes.
Ryan would be my top person to plug.
He's a great guy.
He's from Australia, Korean adoptee,and we have co-authored a piece together
in a book very, in some ways similarto what my paper is about, but he's got
a lot of great work on being adopted.
He's got the podcast Adopted Feels.
You can look up his academic webpage.
(44:46):
I think he's got a couple new thingsout that I haven't even read yet.
He has another piece in that samebook where we have a piece together.
He has another piece.
In that same book with somebody else.
I'm trying to think.
Oh, and he does really coolstuff about animals too.
So we, Ryan and I connected because hewas, I was looking for I think I googled
like philosophers and adoption, and Ifound very few people and I found him and
(45:08):
oh, and he had some stuff about animals,and it's this is a cool person to talk to.
So he's got, there was a, oh,I'm gonna forget the name of it.
It's a podcast that he was interviewedfor it was like the Big Think or something
like that where he talks about thisexperience of looking in the mirror
and being a Korean but being adoptedby white people and like he thought
(45:29):
he was white and like he this, like hedidn't feel like he was in his own skin
looking in the mirror, like seeing thisperson that he wasn't supposed to be.
And he writes so eloquently about that.
He does it from this phenomenologicalperspective, which is the tradition
and philosophy of thinking aboutconscious experience from that first
person subjective, like qualitativeaspect of having awareness of oneself.
(45:50):
And it's just, it's brilliant work.
So he doesn't get enoughattention and I think he should.
Haley Radke (45:54):
I love that.
I've listened to theirpodcast for a long time.
They do such a great job, and it'spod faded right now, you never know
when there'll be a new episode.
Yeah.
I look forward to readingsome more of Ryan's work.
Thank you so much, Michele.
Where can we follow you and see when yourpapers are coming out into the world?
Dr. Michele Merritt (46:14):
I have my website I try to keep that updated.
It's just michelemerrit.com,which is one L in Michele.
Everybody always messes that up.
And I have an Instagram account,which is the silenced adoptee, and
I sometimes will write on Medium.
I have a Medium page, although Ihave not done that in a long time.
And Twitter, I have that too.
(46:37):
Or X as it may be.
Yeah.
Haley Radke (46:39):
There's so many great medium pieces too.
I love Dear Medium articles.
Dr. Michele Merritt (46:43):
My medium is a collection of all kinds of things.
So it's not just adoption, it's dogs andbody image stuff, and it's a hodgepodge.
Haley Radke (46:52):
All kinds of things.
You are a very well-rounded person.
Okay, maybe we could talkabout dogs another time.
'cause dogs are mynumber one love in life.
Dr. Michele Merritt (47:00):
I actually do I wonder how much adopted people
really are like attached to animals.
It seems like there's a lot of us,and I'm wondering what that might
be like, what's the story there?
I have theories.
I have a future project of kind ofconnecting up the dog stuff that I do
with the adoption stuff and thinkingabout how we care for animals and care
(47:20):
for people and that kind of thing.
Haley Radke (47:21):
Yes, please.
We did a whole healing seriesepisode on what happens when your
dog dies for a adoptees, becauseI was unwell, to say the least.
Dr. Michele Merritt (47:33):
Yeah.
I've been working at the Humane Societyfor a few years now, just as a volunteer
dog walker, and I have a piece actuallyon Medium about this like complex feeling
that happens when I get attached to a dogthere that I'm not taking home because we
have two dogs and I've been complainingabout the hair in the house as it is.
Like I, we cannot have anotherdog and two children, but I
(47:54):
still wanna bring them all home.
And so I get attached to one and I thinkmaybe just, maybe we could have this
third dog and then I'll come in to walkthe dogs the next day and the dog's been
adopted and I just it's a very complexthing to experience that emotion like
that you're happy that the dog's gonnahave a home but you're sad because you
(48:15):
wanted the dog to be home with you and.
The dogs being adopted in a way thathumans, the rigorous process that
people have to go through to even getthat dog home with them compared to
how some humans can just be pluckedright out of the delivery room.
Like it's nothing.
So I just, it, I just sit there sometimesat the Humane Society and just cry
on the bench with one of the dogs I'mwalking thinking about that stuff.
(48:35):
So I'm just weird.
I don't know.
Haley Radke (48:38):
No, you're good people.
That's good.
Thank you so much, Michele.
Such an honor to get toknow you a little better.
I can't believe the privilege I'vegotten to speak to so many super
intelligent people about adoption.
(48:59):
I've learned so much from thescholars we've had on the show,
the authors we've had on the show,and folks that are just sharing
their regular stories, experiences.
They don't study adoption, butthey just wanna share their story.
I've learned so much fromany, everyone that's had the
(49:22):
generosity to share on the show.
And it's amazing to me after, Ithink it's come, it's, I think
it's nine years, you guys, it'sgonna be nine years, pretty soon.
It's amazing to me.
I'm still learning.
I'm still learning.
Every conversation I have I get somethingnew out of it and I hope you do too.
(49:43):
So thank you so much to Micheleand the other guests who have been
willing to share their stories.
I'm feeling reflective because as you'relistening to this episode 300 was, a
little while ago, but in my time it'sjust come out and just some of the super
sweet comments and messages I've receivedabout the impact the show has had.
(50:08):
They're just washing over me.
So I'm just feeling gratitude for you,willing to listen, and for all those
people willing to to share with us.
So just truly an honor and a privilege.
So thank you.
And one more way to keep theshow going is to join Patreon.
You can go to adopteeson.com/community.
(50:28):
And we have some awesome Zoomevents that you can join us for.
And they're always listed overon our website on the calendar,
and we'd love to have you join.
That's how I get to meetlisteners now and it's pretty fun.
So come and read with us in book club.
Hang out at an Adoptees Off Script Party.
(50:49):
Come ask questions from a therapist.
Ask an adoptee therapist events we haveso much great stuff for you over there.
Adoptees on.com/community.
Thank you so much for listening.
Let's talk again soon.
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