January 10, 2024 • 45 mins
A Tapestry of Belonging in the Complex World of Adoption with Adoptee Julie McGue
When the quest for identity entwines with the intricacies of adoption, it's a journey worth sharing. This is precisely what Julie McGue, the award-winning author of "Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family and Belonging," offers as she unfolds her narrative of self-discovery as an adoptee on our latest Wandering Tree Podcast episode. Her story, marked by the complexities of closed adoptions and a lack of medical history, reveals the nuanced challenges adoptees face in understanding where they come from and the evolving legal landscape of adoptee rights.
The conversation takes an emotional turn as we delve into the silent struggles of birth mothers and the identity crises plaguing both them and the adoptees they've parted with. Julie sheds light on the weight of initial rejections, the secrecy shrouding their decisions, and the misleading information that adoptees often grapple with. It's a raw look at the powerful need for compassion in navigating these relationships and the unanticipated discoveries that DNA analysis can unveil, reshaping one's sense of self and ethnicity.
Lastly, we tackle the delicate matters of loyalty, authenticity, and the language we use to speak about adoption. Julie passionately makes the case for terms that honor all members of the adoption triad, dismantling misconceptions and highlighting the importance of positive language. We wrap up our profound discussion with a nod of gratitude to Julie for her openness and extend an invitation to our listeners: If Julie's candidness resonates with you, your voice and story are welcome here, adding to the diverse experiences that make the Wandering Tree Podcast a beacon for those seeking connection and understanding in the world of adoption.
Find your people, cherish your people and love your people.
#adoptee #adoptees #adopteevoices #adopteestories #adopteestrong #adoptionreality #adopteejourney #adoption #wanderingtreeadoptee
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm still struggling with thinking of myself as being
Native American.
Not because I have any kind ofprejudice, just it's not
something I grow up thinkingabout myself.
Nobody gave me a clue that thatwas something in my background.
I was told I was Irish andGerman, which I am.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, lisa Ann.
We are an experienced-basedpodcast focused on sharing the
journey of adoption, identity,life search and reunion.
With me today is Julie McGew.
She is the award-winning authorof Twice a Daughter a Search
for Identity, family andBelonging.
(00:59):
She has recently launched a newbook titled Belonging Matters
Conversations on Adoption,family and Kinship.
Welcome, julie to the show.
How are you today?
Thanks, lisa.
Thanks for having me AbsolutelyWell.
We're looking forward to thisconversation and I was hoping
you could kick us off with alittle bit more about you, julie
(01:23):
, and also a bit about youradoption story Wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So an interesting tidbit that makes me a little
different than most adoptees isI'm an identical twin, and my
twin sister and I were adoptedtogether, which was the policy
of Catholic Charities back inthe day to keep multiple birth
siblings together.
At 48, I had a breast biopsy,and that incident sent me on
(01:50):
this path to find out what mymedical history family
background, were all about.
I'm from a closed adoption,which means I didn't have any
information about my birthparents who they were, what
their story was, why we wereplaced for adoption and no
family medical history orbackground.
The closed adoption was aninteresting thing to tackle.
(02:14):
Fortunately for me, back in2011, the state laws changed in
Illinois, which is where I wasadopted, and we gained access to
our original birth record.
So that, unfortunately, wasn'tas helpful as I would have liked
.
The original birth record.
Back in those days, birth momsoften used an alias, which was
(02:37):
perfectly legal, and the birthmoms didn't have to put the
birth father's name on the birthcertificate, so parental rights
were not anything that birthfathers had to sign off on, and
so the story of twice a daughterwas finding our family medical
history, a process that took, ohwell, over five years.
(02:58):
We started off with ouradoption agency, a confidential
intermediary, I used a privateinvestigator at one point and
the confidential intermediaryand I and a genealogist really
broke the story about who mybirth father was and how to find
him.
So that's the story in anutshell.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, it's fascinating and I want to maybe
take you a little bit as apioneer to the adoption
community in terms of your storyand your timing.
I know that some of those itemsthat you just talked about were
different than some of thesearch that we are capable of
enacting today based off of DNA.
Thank you for kind of pavingsome roads for us.
(03:41):
It's meant to me a term ofendearment to you, not anything
more.
I think it also allows for usto talk a little bit about the
concept.
I've heard you say right toknow versus right to privacy,
and so give a spin on that fromyour perspective.
What does it mean and how doyou kind of rationale that out
(04:03):
in your mind?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It really goes back down to the nutshell that
anybody who is not adopted hasall their information from their
family accessible somehowthrough family history, shared
journals, even the family BibleDoptees.
We don't have any informationabout ourselves, and I really
(04:26):
believe that we have a right toknow the basic facts about
ourselves and that there shouldnot be gatekeepers that prevent
us from having access to that.
Now, on the flip side of that,birth parents and adoptive
parents too they're both in thesame camp, believe that they
have the right to their ownprivacy, that they should be
(04:47):
able to withhold informationthat protects their identity,
their secrets.
Shame is a big part of this inrespect to birth parents.
They often are led to adoptionbecause of an unplanned
pregnancy or circumstances intheir environment or financial
situation.
The reason why I lump adoptiveparents in there too, is
(05:09):
adoptive parents don't want toreally co-parent with a birth
parent, and so that arm's lengthdistance that they put between
themselves and the birth parentis their right to privacy, their
right to manage their familythe way they want to.
And so you've got this battleof wills between the adoptee,
who's wanting more access toinformation, more access to all
(05:33):
of their relatives, and thenyou've got the battle with the
birth parents and the adoptiveparents.
So this is the stage that'sbeing set in the United States
right now for adoptee rights.
Illinois was one of the firststates to allow access to
original birth records.
There are, at this count, about15 to 16 states that have
(05:54):
changed their adoption statutes,and that's not very many when
you think about it.
So if you're adopted in NewYork, for example, you have
access to your original birthrecord.
That just happened about a yearand a half ago.
There are other states whereyou know it's just dumb luck,
you cannot have access.
So fortunately, dna analysis orgenetic genealogy has come so
(06:19):
much farther than it was, as youpointed out earlier.
In my case I was matching withthird, fourth, fifth cousin, and
I did without any accuratenames.
I didn't even know which sideof the family I lined up on.
So those databases are only asgood as the subscribers, who
they sign up, who signs up toparticipate, and I'm just now,
(06:43):
okay, so almost 14 years intoreunion with my birth family
matching with first cousins.
There was a reluctancy, I guess, that people sharing their DNA,
and so my right to know waslimited by not only the adoption
statutes in Illinois, but alsoby genetic genealogy and where
(07:03):
it was in the growth pattern.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I still, to this day, find that just crazy, for as
far as we've come as a societyand an organization of people,
it just never fails to boggle mymind that we are still in that
mentality of division associatedwith a human's right to know
and someone else's right toprivacy, but, more importantly,
(07:27):
those that have made decisionson behalf of an infant, I don't
know if I would say with lack ofregard, but maybe lack of long
term understanding.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yes, yeah, and I think therein lies the
conversation with adoptees likeme writing our stories.
There's numerous new books outabout adoptees and anybody in
the adoption constellationsharing their stories and their
struggles to make connection andshare information, and that
conversation is so importantbecause that's what's going to
(07:59):
facilitate change across thecountry and when it comes to
adoptees rights.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, you spoke about your first book, twice a
Daughter A Search for Identity,family and Belonging, and in the
introduction we mentionedyou've recently launched another
book Belonging MattersConversations on Adoption,
family and Kinship.
Thank you so much for giving methe opportunity to read.
I've also listened to it.
So for our audience, Julieprovides not only an electronic
(08:27):
version through all your outletsbut also an audio version, and
I enjoyed both of those.
I want to have us go to yourbook, your most recent one that
launched, and talk about thestyle.
I loved it.
It was unique.
If you would not mind giving uscontext about you as an author,
why you decided to become anauthor and then the style of
(08:51):
this book.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
When I was telling friends and family about this
crazy adoption search that Iundertook the rejection of my
birth mom, her changing her mind, needing a judge to get
involved to access medicalhistory, the twists and turns of
finding birth relatives andthen discovering a brother and a
(09:13):
sister I didn't know I had, anda very strange but heartwarming
synchronicity with myhalf-brother.
I was telling that story topeople, and they were you've got
to write this down, and Ithought you know what I'm about
to be an empty nuster.
I could write this story, so Istarted taking memoir writing
(09:34):
classes with several differentcolleges and universities and
started writing the story aboutthe same time that the story was
unfolding.
Then I embarked on hiring aneditor and got the story to the
point where it was ready to bereleased.
What happened afterwards,though, is what led to this new
(09:56):
book Belonging Matters.
I started blogging regularly,publishing essays and
periodicals, and all of thosetopics were related to identity
and belonging and family,because my family was changing.
At the time, I had these newbirth relatives that I was
incorporating.
(10:16):
My brother had a relationshipwith the family that I grew up
with, so that brought in theidea of what I thought my family
was all about my brother'smother, who I'm not related to,
calls my sister and I herstepdaughters, and so the lines
were blurring about family andkinship and I thought, you know
(10:39):
my readers really need an update.
Twice, a daughter came out in2021.
So the essays in this new bookare about things that happened
that didn't go in the book, orthings that happened after the
book went to the publisher, andstories about my own family.
I share a lot about my husbandand my kids, the funny things
(11:03):
that they do.
Each of these pieces is meantto be a standalone piece.
So, while there's some overlapsometimes in things that are
mentioned, they're meant to bestandalone pieces but not a
continuous story.
So I delve into topics, thedifficult conversations that
I've had with my birth mom, withmy adoptive mom.
(11:25):
There's an essay about notmeeting my birth father, and
there's also an essay about whatgift my birth father did give
me, which is something we cantalk about later if you'd like.
But one of my favorite essaysthat you and I have touched on
is this essay called BirthMothers Should Come With Warning
Labels.
(11:46):
I did not have a goodunderstanding of the journey
that a birth mother goes through.
If you will.
The social worker coached mewhen I was making contact with
her.
She said you got to be patientwith her.
She's you are entering her lifemidstream.
She doesn't know you're comingand she's going to be operating
(12:08):
out of fear and shock.
It's like walking into a moviewhen it's half over.
You know there's a lot you haveto learn.
That was a warning label.
While I did hear what the socialworker was telling me, it also
was difficult to assimilate thatrejection that I got first off.
She was operating out of fearand shame.
(12:29):
She had not told the husbandthat she had been married to for
over 30 years that she had twodaughters and placed them both
for adoption.
So she had a lot of ground tomake up.
I wish I would have understoodthat better.
I did get a lot of insight from.
(12:49):
Catholic Charities has a postadoption department in Chicago
and they have a regular supportgroup that has adoptive parents,
birth parents and adopteesincluded, going to those
sessions and hearing birthmothers share their story on why
they had to place their childfor adoption and the loss that
(13:11):
they felt about it, the shamesurrounding that act and also
the heartache on trying to makeconnection with their lost
daughter or son.
That allowed me to get a betterunderstanding of my birth
mother's reactions.
She's a tough cookie she stillstruggles with because they're
(13:31):
there.
I'm claiming loudly that shewas a birth mother and had an
unwed pregnancy is not somethingthat she's gonna easily do and
I am aware of that, but it'sstill hurtful because I want her
to welcome me with open armsand she has a lot of obstacles
to doing that.
(13:51):
So that was the meat of thetopic.
Birth mothers should come withwarning labels.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I liked that particular essay for all of
those reasons and then some Oneof the things from my own
journey that I struggled withthat will tap into.
Another portion of the topic Iknow we wanna talk about is my
identity.
You learn things that may setyou on a different path of who
(14:19):
you are and that is hard toprepare for.
I'm not really convinced yetthat any book or any support
group or any podcast is trulygoing to give you every tool you
need to manage through that.
There are fantastic tools, butjust that portion of the
(14:41):
conversation, julie, where we'retrying to find who we are, a
little bit more of ourbackground.
But also I did not take intoaccount what I might learn could
impact who I believe myself tobe.
Yeah, yeah, so key, so key.
Well, I hear the compassion inyour voice for birth mothers.
(15:03):
We do share that.
I gained an immense amount ofcompassion when I met Candace
Cahill and read her book as well, and so if you have not had a
chance to read that one, it isso good.
It reminds me a lot of also howyou're approaching things.
Hers is called Goodbye.
Again, it was probably the bookI've said this before it was
(15:27):
the book I needed to read togain my compassion that I hear
in your voice and I see in yourbook that we're talking about
today in that particular essay,and so you know, just kudos to
our ability to also growourselves and our community to
have a little bit of compassion.
Now, that doesn't take awayfrom man it really stinks to be
(15:50):
rejected Right.
You're just wounded already andthen you're wounded again, and I
think that is.
It's hard to grapple with that,no matter who you are, no
matter how you prepare.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Or how old you are, and I think that that's part of
this conversation is.
I was a middle-aged woman goingthrough this search.
I had a strong family valuesbackground in the family.
I grew up in a wonderfulmarriage for strong kids, where
there wasn't anythingcatastrophic going on in my life
(16:24):
when I started on this path andI think those that support and
stability was a key part ofhelping me go through this path
of rejection, secondaryrejection and then over again
when I tried to find my birthfather.
So going back to what you weretalking about, the identity,
finding things out aboutyourself that I'm still
(16:47):
grappling with.
So my birth father, I found out, was one quarter Chippewa
Indian and this astounded me.
I'm still struggling withthinking of myself as being
Native American, not because Ihave any kind of prejudice, just
it's not something I grow upthinking about myself.
(17:07):
Nobody gave me a clue that thatwas something in my background.
I was told I was Irish andGerman, which I am, but I think
they told everybody back thenbecause kids that had that
family background were easier toplace.
There wasn't anythingobjectionable in their
background but the NativeAmerican piece.
And going back to the originalbirth record, because my birth
(17:30):
father's name is not on myoriginal birth record.
I cannot claim any connectionto the Chippewa Indian
organization.
I'm not considered part of thetribe and I can't, unless the
laws change and DNA analysisallows us to, to claim what is
our rightful heritage.
(17:51):
So that piece of knowledge wasanother slam.
I thought this is justsomething.
It just keeps on going.
I have the piece of paper thatsays I belong, but I don't
belong because there's somethingmissing and I think all
adoptees that are on this paththey discover things like that
(18:12):
every day.
Piece of information thatprevents them from really
belonging.
One other thing that happenedthat I talk about quite a bit is
I was told my sister and I weretold that we were fraternal
twins.
So I don't know where themisinformation happened, if
somebody at the hospital on theday we were born checked the
(18:34):
wrong box, somebody not care orwhere the misinformation
happened.
But when DNA analysis wasstrong enough, we did testing
and we're identical twins.
Now you look at the cover of mybook and there'd be no doubt in
your mind that my sister and Iare identical, but the facts
were that my folks had been toldthat we were fraternal.
(18:55):
It's not that big of a deal.
I mean, I'm a twin, I have mysister in my life, but for an
adoptee it's just one morelittle detail that somebody got
wrong and it just feels likesuch a travesty that for 50
years I was latching ontosomething that was incorrect
(19:20):
information.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, it's very key to not only belonging but
identity, and I have spent anentire calendar year now truly
in deep study on identity.
I had my own kind of moment andit was earth shattering for me
and how I saw myself and myworth, and it pulled me from the
(19:46):
top of a mountain and I call itthe abyss.
I mean I went really deep.
I spent probably a good twoyears just trying to figure out
who I am in the context ofidentity, and so I also
resonated with the essay.
I Feel Like a Fake where youtouch up on imposter syndrome
(20:08):
and so.
I know when we were talkingpreviously, we both landed on a
term that I loved coming fromyou whole identity.
Would you mind giving me alittle bit of context around
that?
The essay started for me.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
When I was a teenager , my family was very Irish.
They were deeply involved inthe Irish community and
traditions in Chicago.
We attended festivals.
The St Patrick's Day Parade indowntown Chicago is a big deal.
It's like New York.
They dye the river green andthere's a lot of hoopla around
(20:43):
that.
My folks entered my sister andI in the St Patrick's Day Queen
contest and I was fortunate tobe on the court and ride in the
parade atop a convertible.
While that was so fun, as ateenage girl I was so thrilled
to have that opportunity insideI thought to myself I wonder if
(21:05):
I even deserve to be here.
What if I'm not Irish at all?
I've taken a spot away from alittle ass that deserved to be
here.
And that doubt about myethnicity really percolated for
a long time and you can imaginewhen I did do DNA analysis and
(21:26):
found I was like half Scotch andIrish, I was absolutely
relieved who I thought Ibelonged to and where I, where I
landed, turned out to be trueand it was a relief.
But that feeling, a feeling offake, is troubling and I think
it eats at you.
It eats at your confidence, iteats at your belonging.
(21:48):
I was only half in.
You know if I really Irish am Iam I not, I was only half in,
and now I think that I reallycan champion the fact that I am
Irish and that is my traditionsand my ethnicity, and my kids
have latched on to that too.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I like that for myself.
I talk about the triangle alittle bit differently and it is
around the concept of youridentity and your self-worth.
So there is, you know, a reallydifficult component of the
conversation that says I'mrelinquished, I'm chosen, and
your self-worth?
Which tags to your identity?
(22:27):
Self-worth for me and identityare so intertwined.
I talk about it in the contextof pre-search and reunion,
because search has a largecomponent of that.
I was truly a person that I feelin hindsight was on top of the
mountain.
I see it differently now, ofcourse, but, you know, very
(22:48):
successful by my definition,both personally and
professionally.
I loved my life in the contextof what I was living, and I
never doubted who I was as thatperson.
And I met my birth mother and Ilearned something and it set
the course for, wow, I must havebeen an absolute imposter and
(23:14):
didn't even know it, and what Ithought about post.
One of our conversations, julie, was the topic you talked about
, where we're assimilating intoour families and part of our
identity is that we are not justthis adoptee, but we are part
of this family and yourbelonging.
That is an identity.
We're part of the people thatcreated us and that is part of
(23:38):
our identity, and then we arethe people that we've become
through life experience.
I don't think that they'remutually exclusive, even though
we may struggle with that insome some capacity.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, I think that you are right on with that.
It's interesting to me to beable to join my brother and
sister, my half-brother andsister, and fold them into the
family in which I was raised andwe have this commonality, which
has a lot to do with my sisterlaw.
(24:10):
But the ability to do that wasnot something I ever thought was
going to happen.
My adoptive mom although myparents were always professing
to be supportive of a searchsomeday the fact that it didn't
happen until I was 50.
I think my parents hadbasically said we're all good,
(24:31):
you know, the kids are happywith who they are and they don't
need to delve into this.
But then I had this breastbiopsy and got pushed into the
search, and that brought out aninteresting situation with my
adoptive mom.
She was not in support of thatsearch.
Our relationship struggled.
It never struggled before that.
(24:52):
It struggled because I didn'thave the support I thought I
needed and I was looking at herthrough a different lens.
She I had a sibling that passedaway suddenly when I was a
teenager and while theintellectual side of my brain
was saying, well, she's afraidshe's going to lose me too.
I intellectualized that, but myfeelings were still hurt that
(25:15):
she was not supporting me, andsomething that I needed to do
for health reasons, but also formy kids.
They needed to know what theywere dealing with longer term,
and that relationship with herwent through a big change.
There was a rift.
I was not sharing anything withher.
A good piece of my identity andbelonging kind of went right
(25:38):
out the window.
Here's this family that Ireally identified with and they
weren't supporting me.
So it wasn't just finding outI'm Native American, it was
finding out things about my ownparents.
My father always supported thesearch and I think he was a good
barometer as to helping my momwith her doubts.
(26:00):
You know, identity and belongingare always changing.
They are like the key factorsin our lives.
It starts with that lunch table.
You know that you don't fit inas a middle schooler or a high
schooler.
It starts there when do Ibelong?
Throw an adoptee in the middleof that we're already struggling
with where do we fit in?
(26:21):
And our family?
Where do we fit in with society?
I never liked the conversationwhen people would find out I was
adopted.
They were too curious and theywould ask questions that I
didn't welcome.
So now it's an interesting thing, I lost my husband about a year
and a half ago and fortunatelyI was in a good place with my
(26:42):
adoption search and reunion andhe really was the instigator.
And I'm finding that, you know,I'm going through this whole
belonging piece and identityagain.
It just doesn't stop.
I'm not a wife anymore, but I'mstill a mother, I'm a
grandmother and now I'm anauthor and I think we're doing
(27:02):
this constantly through ourexistence.
We're figuring out who we areand it's changing always.
We're figuring out where webelong.
You know, now I belong to someof my in-laws' families.
I just wrote a blog piece aboutthis being the the odd guest at
Thanksgiving.
(27:23):
All my other kids were withtheir in-laws and significant
others and I found myself in NewJersey with my daughter's
family and my son-in-laws,parents and aunts and uncles,
and because my daughter was oncall she's an OB she wasn't even
there at Thanksgiving.
But I felt like I belonged tothose people and so belonging is
(27:45):
not just who you arebiologically related to.
It's related to who you feelcomfortable with, where you feel
comfortable, and I think that'sjust always changing and I
think, rather than be angry youknow, I'm not angry about my
adoption anymore.
There's an acceptance about mysituation.
Stuff happens to us that wehave no control over, and if we
(28:09):
can learn to accept it and maybeforgive the bad actors, the bad
players, we have a betterchance of being a self-content
person.
I am not an angry adoptee and Ifeel bad for the adoptees that
are, because it doesn't allowthem to move on and lead a
(28:30):
productive life.
Identity and belonging are aconversation that we're always
going to have.
I look at my own mom, who's 91and she's a widow and she's in a
senior community and she'sstill making friends and she's
still figuring out.
You know where she belongs, andlife is always changing and we
have to change with it.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, two things First of all, our condolences
for your loss and second, what apowerful example of lived
experience on this journey.
I do appreciate the perspectivethat says before we get and I'm
going to paraphrase before weget too hung up on who we are
and all of the implications ofadoption, let us also sit in a
(29:14):
space where we remember whatit's like to be a teenager and
then newly married and, in yourinstance, a widow, grown
children.
I love your forward thinkingmentality of embracing evolution
of ourselves as part of this.
That allows us to acknowledgeand find places to heal.
(29:37):
I think you just gave ourlisteners a great perspective on
an approach to just kind ofmoving forward.
If you sit in that and thinkabout it for a couple minutes,
what a great gift, thank youWell.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I hope that you know, by talking about adoption and
where it fits into who we are,as well as all the other
conversations that adoptees andbirth parents are having, that
those people that are outside ofour little world, are touched
by adoption world, have agreater understanding of the
(30:10):
things that we have to grapplewith.
We're grappling with life asthey know it.
Certainly other people havethese same struggles of being a
widow or a troubled teen or anolder person in a senior
community, but we have thatadded factor in there of trying
to find out who we are and wherewe came from.
Oh my goodness, andassimilating that.
(30:33):
I had a conversation right afterI was working on Twice the
Daughter, with a friend personthat I respected at the time,
and the intimation from her inthe conversation was that I was
being a disloyal adoptee.
By researching my familyhistory, I was being disloyal to
(30:53):
my adoptive parents.
That there should have been, asshe said, aren't you grateful
for the life you had and this isa constant theme that I love to
talk about, because it'ssomething we need to dispel in
the community that we are notbeing disloyal to our parents
(31:13):
that raised us by this searchfor self.
If we don't go down that pathand it's a path that we want to
be on we're being disloyal toourselves.
So I'm not saying everybodyneeds to search for their family
history.
Certainly that's not a choicethat's right for everybody.
But those of us that do go downthat path, we're choosing to do
(31:38):
that for a good reason, and theoutsiders looking in that
aren't touched by adoptionshould really be sitting back
and listening and taking noteand saying, hmm, what do I not
know about this situation?
Am I willing to listen to thisperspective and consider it,
(31:58):
instead of imposing my ownjudgment into this situation,
because that was a hurtfulconversation to me?
I do feel loyal to my adoptiveparents.
I still take care of them.
They're in my life, I have notdisregarded them, and so the
intimation that I was beingdisloyal really angered me.
(32:20):
And anyone that's listening toyour show that's in the triangle
gets what I'm saying.
But those outside of it, theyneed to operate with caution,
maybe with their own set of careinstructions.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I'm almost speechless .
I don't know if I've been thatway many times on the show, but
I am definitely almostspeechless as you were talking.
One of the things that keptrunning through my mind was
having the space to understand.
We are not working towardsdisloyalty or out of malice, but
(32:55):
we are also working towardsauthenticating ourselves and
there is just no easy way toconsistently share that for
someone who is not in thisparticular seat in this
community To truly, I think, getit.
I believe surface level there'sa lot of compassion, but I
(33:17):
don't know if we are ever goingto get, on the whole, a true
like I get you.
I think we'll hear more I hearyou's than I get you's, if that
makes any sense to you.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yes, and I think a good part of this work of I get
you.
We need to be grateful for thenext generation and I think that
the conversation that we'rehaving today falls into that is
that society is getting better.
There is not this shame aroundan unwed pregnancy.
Certainly, a lot of gay coupleshave adopted children.
(33:53):
That's not a stigma toparenting and single women are
parents.
So I think we're makingprogress, but it takes time and
it takes a lot of people raisingtheir voices and being the
loudest person in the room toget people to consider.
(34:14):
There's a different way oflooking at a topic.
Adoption is always going to berelevant when you think about it
.
There's six to eight millionadoptees in this country.
You multiply that by their twosuch a parents and siblings and
friends, and it's a topiceverybody is aware of.
It's universal, so it's notgoing to go away, and our
(34:37):
understanding of it and thelanguage we use around it the
positive adoption language isalways changing too, and I hope
that we continue to work towardsmore understanding around the
issues.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, and I want to clarify.
I don't believe that you'reindicating positive adoption
language under the context ofeverything's fantastic,
wonderful.
We reference it sometimes asunicorns and rainbows.
That is not at all, julie, Iknow what you meant.
Do you mind taking just acouple of minutes to clarify
that for our listeners?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Absolutely so.
In my era, 1959, when I wasadopted and I still slip this
out in public, which you're notsupposed to say is I was given
up for adoption, so that's mylanguage around my adoption.
When open adoption became inthe forefront in 1982 on, the
(35:35):
language changed.
The proper terminology today isplaced for adoption.
It sanitizes, in my mind, thesituation yes, you're placed for
adoption, but most adopteessomething got given up in the
process of being adopted.
I still think I was given up.
(35:55):
I gave up an identity.
I gave up this belonging to mybirth mother, all of that so
positive.
Adoption language is a term inthe adoption community that has
placed kinder words aroundcertain labels like birth mother
.
First, mother is a label that'skind of gaining recognition and
(36:16):
it's maybe the right way totalk about it.
The one that really gets megoing is real mother.
I can remember conversations asa kid when somebody would say
well, do you know anything aboutyour real mother?
Oh, wow, I mean that stung likea slap on the face.
I think both of them are real.
Honestly, my adoptive parentswere the parents in the trenches
(36:39):
giving me a life, teaching mevalues, what was right and wrong
.
They're very real to me and mybirth mom.
She's still very real to me too, because she's in my life.
Which one is the real set ofparents?
Why are we forced to make thatlabel and have it stick?
So there are other examples.
(37:00):
Natural mother is another labelassociated with your birth
parents.
Slash first parents.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
As you were talking, julie, things that were running
through my mind along this topic, maybe some grace on what words
we use and why there is aconnection to our age, our era
and the circumstances.
Just like you, I really don'tbelieve I was placed for
adoption, I was relinquished.
I feel more comfortable usingthe term relinquished and I do
(37:32):
believe that my identity isconnected to that event and it
wasn't a one and done, and sotherefore, if I want to use
relinquished because it worksfor me, I want the grace to be
able to do so.
Therefore, in the dialogue thatyou just kind of explained,
(37:53):
positive narrative to us, theconcept of a real parent or a
first parent or a birth parent,I think there's room for all of
that language to exist and tohonor where each adoptee sits.
Try not to get too hung up onit.
(38:15):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yes, I do.
Yeah, I mean it's hard, for meat least, to call my brother a
half-brother and a half-sister.
To me they are a brother and asister and for a long time I was
calling him my new brother andhe took objection to that.
He goes I was always yourbrother, we just have a new
(38:37):
relationship.
So I mean, he felt it too onhis end and so I stopped calling
him my new brother.
He is just my brother and so Ithink, like you said, the labels
are always changing based onhow we feel about our situation.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
I 100% agree.
As we're getting ready to closeout for today, I want to ask is
there something in particularthat we haven't covered yet,
that you would like to leavewith our listeners?
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Oh, you know, I think what I want to say is that just
never give up.
There were points in my searchwhere I, you know, I didn't know
I was going to be able to moveforward and there was always a
workaround.
It took a while sometimes tofind that workaround and while
it took longer than I thoughtand longer than I wanted, I
(39:28):
didn't give up.
And I would tell the listenersit may look like you're not
going to have a relationshipwith a birth relative or a
parent.
Don't give up on that.
Keep fighting along in eachlittle step.
We'll get you right to whereyou need to be.
I have a wonderful counselor inmy life that I love this saying
(39:51):
and I want to pass it on to thelisteners.
She says that which is right isunfolding, and why I love that
saying is because we have togive ourselves time.
We have to give our lives timeto unfold.
I like it because it doesn'tsay things are predestined or
things happen for a reason.
I hate that, a whole idea.
(40:12):
But this unfolding of life andthat which is right for us is
unfolding is such a powerfulmessage that I want to leave
with the listeners.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
A great place to leave us.
I want to thank you for thatand that is so encouraging.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with us today.
It has been a joy to have youon the show and please know it
is always my honor to bringpeople to the show that want to
tell their story and their livedexperience.
I do not take that lightly, sothank you so much.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Thank you for your hard work in putting this
together.
It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Thank you for listening to today's episode of
Wandering Tree Podcast.
Please rate, review and sharethis out so we can experience
the lived adoptee journeytogether.
Want to be a guest on our show?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Check us out at wanderingtreeadopteecom you, you
(43:46):
, you, you, you Music.
I'm still struggling with thinking of myself as being
Native American.
Not because I have any kind ofprejudice, just it's not
something I grow up thinkingabout myself.
Nobody gave me a clue that thatwas something in my background.
I was told I was Irish andGerman, which I am.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, lisa Ann.
We are an experienced-basedpodcast focused on sharing the
journey of adoption, identity,life search and reunion.
With me today is Julie McGew.
She is the award-winning authorof Twice a Daughter a Search
for Identity, family andBelonging.
(00:59):
She has recently launched a newbook titled Belonging Matters
Conversations on Adoption,family and Kinship.
Welcome, julie to the show.
How are you today?
Thanks, lisa.
Thanks for having me AbsolutelyWell.
We're looking forward to thisconversation and I was hoping
you could kick us off with alittle bit more about you, julie
(01:23):
, and also a bit about youradoption story Wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So an interesting tidbit that makes me a little
different than most adoptees isI'm an identical twin, and my
twin sister and I were adoptedtogether, which was the policy
of Catholic Charities back inthe day to keep multiple birth
siblings together.
At 48, I had a breast biopsy,and that incident sent me on
(01:50):
this path to find out what mymedical history family
background, were all about.
I'm from a closed adoption,which means I didn't have any
information about my birthparents who they were, what
their story was, why we wereplaced for adoption and no
family medical history orbackground.
The closed adoption was aninteresting thing to tackle.
(02:14):
Fortunately for me, back in2011, the state laws changed in
Illinois, which is where I wasadopted, and we gained access to
our original birth record.
So that, unfortunately, wasn'tas helpful as I would have liked
.
The original birth record.
Back in those days, birth momsoften used an alias, which was
(02:37):
perfectly legal, and the birthmoms didn't have to put the
birth father's name on the birthcertificate, so parental rights
were not anything that birthfathers had to sign off on, and
so the story of twice a daughterwas finding our family medical
history, a process that took, ohwell, over five years.
(02:58):
We started off with ouradoption agency, a confidential
intermediary, I used a privateinvestigator at one point and
the confidential intermediaryand I and a genealogist really
broke the story about who mybirth father was and how to find
him.
So that's the story in anutshell.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, it's fascinating and I want to maybe
take you a little bit as apioneer to the adoption
community in terms of your storyand your timing.
I know that some of those itemsthat you just talked about were
different than some of thesearch that we are capable of
enacting today based off of DNA.
Thank you for kind of pavingsome roads for us.
(03:41):
It's meant to me a term ofendearment to you, not anything
more.
I think it also allows for usto talk a little bit about the
concept.
I've heard you say right toknow versus right to privacy,
and so give a spin on that fromyour perspective.
What does it mean and how doyou kind of rationale that out
(04:03):
in your mind?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It really goes back down to the nutshell that
anybody who is not adopted hasall their information from their
family accessible somehowthrough family history, shared
journals, even the family BibleDoptees.
We don't have any informationabout ourselves, and I really
(04:26):
believe that we have a right toknow the basic facts about
ourselves and that there shouldnot be gatekeepers that prevent
us from having access to that.
Now, on the flip side of that,birth parents and adoptive
parents too they're both in thesame camp, believe that they
have the right to their ownprivacy, that they should be
(04:47):
able to withhold informationthat protects their identity,
their secrets.
Shame is a big part of this inrespect to birth parents.
They often are led to adoptionbecause of an unplanned
pregnancy or circumstances intheir environment or financial
situation.
The reason why I lump adoptiveparents in there too, is
(05:09):
adoptive parents don't want toreally co-parent with a birth
parent, and so that arm's lengthdistance that they put between
themselves and the birth parentis their right to privacy, their
right to manage their familythe way they want to.
And so you've got this battleof wills between the adoptee,
who's wanting more access toinformation, more access to all
(05:33):
of their relatives, and thenyou've got the battle with the
birth parents and the adoptiveparents.
So this is the stage that'sbeing set in the United States
right now for adoptee rights.
Illinois was one of the firststates to allow access to
original birth records.
There are, at this count, about15 to 16 states that have
(05:54):
changed their adoption statutes,and that's not very many when
you think about it.
So if you're adopted in NewYork, for example, you have
access to your original birthrecord.
That just happened about a yearand a half ago.
There are other states whereyou know it's just dumb luck,
you cannot have access.
So fortunately, dna analysis orgenetic genealogy has come so
(06:19):
much farther than it was, as youpointed out earlier.
In my case I was matching withthird, fourth, fifth cousin, and
I did without any accuratenames.
I didn't even know which sideof the family I lined up on.
So those databases are only asgood as the subscribers, who
they sign up, who signs up toparticipate, and I'm just now,
(06:43):
okay, so almost 14 years intoreunion with my birth family
matching with first cousins.
There was a reluctancy, I guess, that people sharing their DNA,
and so my right to know waslimited by not only the adoption
statutes in Illinois, but alsoby genetic genealogy and where
(07:03):
it was in the growth pattern.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
I still, to this day, find that just crazy, for as
far as we've come as a societyand an organization of people,
it just never fails to boggle mymind that we are still in that
mentality of division associatedwith a human's right to know
and someone else's right toprivacy, but, more importantly,
(07:27):
those that have made decisionson behalf of an infant, I don't
know if I would say with lack ofregard, but maybe lack of long
term understanding.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yes, yeah, and I think therein lies the
conversation with adoptees likeme writing our stories.
There's numerous new books outabout adoptees and anybody in
the adoption constellationsharing their stories and their
struggles to make connection andshare information, and that
conversation is so importantbecause that's what's going to
(07:59):
facilitate change across thecountry and when it comes to
adoptees rights.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Well, you spoke about your first book, twice a
Daughter A Search for Identity,family and Belonging, and in the
introduction we mentionedyou've recently launched another
book Belonging MattersConversations on Adoption,
family and Kinship.
Thank you so much for giving methe opportunity to read.
I've also listened to it.
So for our audience, Julieprovides not only an electronic
(08:27):
version through all your outletsbut also an audio version, and
I enjoyed both of those.
I want to have us go to yourbook, your most recent one that
launched, and talk about thestyle.
I loved it.
It was unique.
If you would not mind giving uscontext about you as an author,
why you decided to become anauthor and then the style of
(08:51):
this book.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
When I was telling friends and family about this
crazy adoption search that Iundertook the rejection of my
birth mom, her changing her mind, needing a judge to get
involved to access medicalhistory, the twists and turns of
finding birth relatives andthen discovering a brother and a
(09:13):
sister I didn't know I had, anda very strange but heartwarming
synchronicity with myhalf-brother.
I was telling that story topeople, and they were you've got
to write this down, and Ithought you know what I'm about
to be an empty nuster.
I could write this story, so Istarted taking memoir writing
(09:34):
classes with several differentcolleges and universities and
started writing the story aboutthe same time that the story was
unfolding.
Then I embarked on hiring aneditor and got the story to the
point where it was ready to bereleased.
What happened afterwards,though, is what led to this new
(09:56):
book Belonging Matters.
I started blogging regularly,publishing essays and
periodicals, and all of thosetopics were related to identity
and belonging and family,because my family was changing.
At the time, I had these newbirth relatives that I was
incorporating.
(10:16):
My brother had a relationshipwith the family that I grew up
with, so that brought in theidea of what I thought my family
was all about my brother'smother, who I'm not related to,
calls my sister and I herstepdaughters, and so the lines
were blurring about family andkinship and I thought, you know
(10:39):
my readers really need an update.
Twice, a daughter came out in2021.
So the essays in this new bookare about things that happened
that didn't go in the book, orthings that happened after the
book went to the publisher, andstories about my own family.
I share a lot about my husbandand my kids, the funny things
(11:03):
that they do.
Each of these pieces is meantto be a standalone piece.
So, while there's some overlapsometimes in things that are
mentioned, they're meant to bestandalone pieces but not a
continuous story.
So I delve into topics, thedifficult conversations that
I've had with my birth mom, withmy adoptive mom.
(11:25):
There's an essay about notmeeting my birth father, and
there's also an essay about whatgift my birth father did give
me, which is something we cantalk about later if you'd like.
But one of my favorite essaysthat you and I have touched on
is this essay called BirthMothers Should Come With Warning
Labels.
(11:46):
I did not have a goodunderstanding of the journey
that a birth mother goes through.
If you will.
The social worker coached mewhen I was making contact with
her.
She said you got to be patientwith her.
She's you are entering her lifemidstream.
She doesn't know you're comingand she's going to be operating
(12:08):
out of fear and shock.
It's like walking into a moviewhen it's half over.
You know there's a lot you haveto learn.
That was a warning label.
While I did hear what the socialworker was telling me, it also
was difficult to assimilate thatrejection that I got first off.
She was operating out of fearand shame.
(12:29):
She had not told the husbandthat she had been married to for
over 30 years that she had twodaughters and placed them both
for adoption.
So she had a lot of ground tomake up.
I wish I would have understoodthat better.
I did get a lot of insight from.
(12:49):
Catholic Charities has a postadoption department in Chicago
and they have a regular supportgroup that has adoptive parents,
birth parents and adopteesincluded, going to those
sessions and hearing birthmothers share their story on why
they had to place their childfor adoption and the loss that
(13:11):
they felt about it, the shamesurrounding that act and also
the heartache on trying to makeconnection with their lost
daughter or son.
That allowed me to get a betterunderstanding of my birth
mother's reactions.
She's a tough cookie she stillstruggles with because they're
(13:31):
there.
I'm claiming loudly that shewas a birth mother and had an
unwed pregnancy is not somethingthat she's gonna easily do and
I am aware of that, but it'sstill hurtful because I want her
to welcome me with open armsand she has a lot of obstacles
to doing that.
(13:51):
So that was the meat of thetopic.
Birth mothers should come withwarning labels.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I liked that particular essay for all of
those reasons and then some Oneof the things from my own
journey that I struggled withthat will tap into.
Another portion of the topic Iknow we wanna talk about is my
identity.
You learn things that may setyou on a different path of who
(14:19):
you are and that is hard toprepare for.
I'm not really convinced yetthat any book or any support
group or any podcast is trulygoing to give you every tool you
need to manage through that.
There are fantastic tools, butjust that portion of the
(14:41):
conversation, julie, where we'retrying to find who we are, a
little bit more of ourbackground.
But also I did not take intoaccount what I might learn could
impact who I believe myself tobe.
Yeah, yeah, so key, so key.
Well, I hear the compassion inyour voice for birth mothers.
(15:03):
We do share that.
I gained an immense amount ofcompassion when I met Candace
Cahill and read her book as well, and so if you have not had a
chance to read that one, it isso good.
It reminds me a lot of also howyou're approaching things.
Hers is called Goodbye.
Again, it was probably the bookI've said this before it was
(15:27):
the book I needed to read togain my compassion that I hear
in your voice and I see in yourbook that we're talking about
today in that particular essay,and so you know, just kudos to
our ability to also growourselves and our community to
have a little bit of compassion.
Now, that doesn't take awayfrom man it really stinks to be
(15:50):
rejected Right.
You're just wounded already andthen you're wounded again, and I
think that is.
It's hard to grapple with that,no matter who you are, no
matter how you prepare.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Or how old you are, and I think that that's part of
this conversation is.
I was a middle-aged woman goingthrough this search.
I had a strong family valuesbackground in the family.
I grew up in a wonderfulmarriage for strong kids, where
there wasn't anythingcatastrophic going on in my life
(16:24):
when I started on this path andI think those that support and
stability was a key part ofhelping me go through this path
of rejection, secondaryrejection and then over again
when I tried to find my birthfather.
So going back to what you weretalking about, the identity,
finding things out aboutyourself that I'm still
(16:47):
grappling with.
So my birth father, I found out, was one quarter Chippewa
Indian and this astounded me.
I'm still struggling withthinking of myself as being
Native American, not because Ihave any kind of prejudice, just
it's not something I grow upthinking about myself.
(17:07):
Nobody gave me a clue that thatwas something in my background.
I was told I was Irish andGerman, which I am, but I think
they told everybody back thenbecause kids that had that
family background were easier toplace.
There wasn't anythingobjectionable in their
background but the NativeAmerican piece.
And going back to the originalbirth record, because my birth
(17:30):
father's name is not on myoriginal birth record.
I cannot claim any connectionto the Chippewa Indian
organization.
I'm not considered part of thetribe and I can't, unless the
laws change and DNA analysisallows us to, to claim what is
our rightful heritage.
(17:51):
So that piece of knowledge wasanother slam.
I thought this is justsomething.
It just keeps on going.
I have the piece of paper thatsays I belong, but I don't
belong because there's somethingmissing and I think all
adoptees that are on this paththey discover things like that
(18:12):
every day.
Piece of information thatprevents them from really
belonging.
One other thing that happenedthat I talk about quite a bit is
I was told my sister and I weretold that we were fraternal
twins.
So I don't know where themisinformation happened, if
somebody at the hospital on theday we were born checked the
(18:34):
wrong box, somebody not care orwhere the misinformation
happened.
But when DNA analysis wasstrong enough, we did testing
and we're identical twins.
Now you look at the cover of mybook and there'd be no doubt in
your mind that my sister and Iare identical, but the facts
were that my folks had been toldthat we were fraternal.
(18:55):
It's not that big of a deal.
I mean, I'm a twin, I have mysister in my life, but for an
adoptee it's just one morelittle detail that somebody got
wrong and it just feels likesuch a travesty that for 50
years I was latching ontosomething that was incorrect
(19:20):
information.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, it's very key to not only belonging but
identity, and I have spent anentire calendar year now truly
in deep study on identity.
I had my own kind of moment andit was earth shattering for me
and how I saw myself and myworth, and it pulled me from the
(19:46):
top of a mountain and I call itthe abyss.
I mean I went really deep.
I spent probably a good twoyears just trying to figure out
who I am in the context ofidentity, and so I also
resonated with the essay.
I Feel Like a Fake where youtouch up on imposter syndrome
(20:08):
and so.
I know when we were talkingpreviously, we both landed on a
term that I loved coming fromyou whole identity.
Would you mind giving me alittle bit of context around
that?
The essay started for me.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
When I was a teenager , my family was very Irish.
They were deeply involved inthe Irish community and
traditions in Chicago.
We attended festivals.
The St Patrick's Day Parade indowntown Chicago is a big deal.
It's like New York.
They dye the river green andthere's a lot of hoopla around
(20:43):
that.
My folks entered my sister andI in the St Patrick's Day Queen
contest and I was fortunate tobe on the court and ride in the
parade atop a convertible.
While that was so fun, as ateenage girl I was so thrilled
to have that opportunity insideI thought to myself I wonder if
(21:05):
I even deserve to be here.
What if I'm not Irish at all?
I've taken a spot away from alittle ass that deserved to be
here.
And that doubt about myethnicity really percolated for
a long time and you can imaginewhen I did do DNA analysis and
(21:26):
found I was like half Scotch andIrish, I was absolutely
relieved who I thought Ibelonged to and where I, where I
landed, turned out to be trueand it was a relief.
But that feeling, a feeling offake, is troubling and I think
it eats at you.
It eats at your confidence, iteats at your belonging.
(21:48):
I was only half in.
You know if I really Irish am Iam I not, I was only half in,
and now I think that I reallycan champion the fact that I am
Irish and that is my traditionsand my ethnicity, and my kids
have latched on to that too.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I like that for myself.
I talk about the triangle alittle bit differently and it is
around the concept of youridentity and your self-worth.
So there is, you know, a reallydifficult component of the
conversation that says I'mrelinquished, I'm chosen, and
your self-worth?
Which tags to your identity?
(22:27):
Self-worth for me and identityare so intertwined.
I talk about it in the contextof pre-search and reunion,
because search has a largecomponent of that.
I was truly a person that I feelin hindsight was on top of the
mountain.
I see it differently now, ofcourse, but, you know, very
(22:48):
successful by my definition,both personally and
professionally.
I loved my life in the contextof what I was living, and I
never doubted who I was as thatperson.
And I met my birth mother and Ilearned something and it set
the course for, wow, I must havebeen an absolute imposter and
(23:14):
didn't even know it, and what Ithought about post.
One of our conversations, julie, was the topic you talked about
, where we're assimilating intoour families and part of our
identity is that we are not justthis adoptee, but we are part
of this family and yourbelonging.
That is an identity.
We're part of the people thatcreated us and that is part of
(23:38):
our identity, and then we arethe people that we've become
through life experience.
I don't think that they'remutually exclusive, even though
we may struggle with that insome some capacity.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, I think that you are right on with that.
It's interesting to me to beable to join my brother and
sister, my half-brother andsister, and fold them into the
family in which I was raised andwe have this commonality, which
has a lot to do with my sisterlaw.
(24:10):
But the ability to do that wasnot something I ever thought was
going to happen.
My adoptive mom although myparents were always professing
to be supportive of a searchsomeday the fact that it didn't
happen until I was 50.
I think my parents hadbasically said we're all good,
(24:31):
you know, the kids are happywith who they are and they don't
need to delve into this.
But then I had this breastbiopsy and got pushed into the
search, and that brought out aninteresting situation with my
adoptive mom.
She was not in support of thatsearch.
Our relationship struggled.
It never struggled before that.
(24:52):
It struggled because I didn'thave the support I thought I
needed and I was looking at herthrough a different lens.
She I had a sibling that passedaway suddenly when I was a
teenager and while theintellectual side of my brain
was saying, well, she's afraidshe's going to lose me too.
I intellectualized that, but myfeelings were still hurt that
(25:15):
she was not supporting me, andsomething that I needed to do
for health reasons, but also formy kids.
They needed to know what theywere dealing with longer term,
and that relationship with herwent through a big change.
There was a rift.
I was not sharing anything withher.
A good piece of my identity andbelonging kind of went right
(25:38):
out the window.
Here's this family that Ireally identified with and they
weren't supporting me.
So it wasn't just finding outI'm Native American, it was
finding out things about my ownparents.
My father always supported thesearch and I think he was a good
barometer as to helping my momwith her doubts.
(26:00):
You know, identity and belongingare always changing.
They are like the key factorsin our lives.
It starts with that lunch table.
You know that you don't fit inas a middle schooler or a high
schooler.
It starts there when do Ibelong?
Throw an adoptee in the middleof that we're already struggling
with where do we fit in?
(26:21):
And our family?
Where do we fit in with society?
I never liked the conversationwhen people would find out I was
adopted.
They were too curious and theywould ask questions that I
didn't welcome.
So now it's an interesting thing, I lost my husband about a year
and a half ago and fortunatelyI was in a good place with my
(26:42):
adoption search and reunion andhe really was the instigator.
And I'm finding that, you know,I'm going through this whole
belonging piece and identityagain.
It just doesn't stop.
I'm not a wife anymore, but I'mstill a mother, I'm a
grandmother and now I'm anauthor and I think we're doing
(27:02):
this constantly through ourexistence.
We're figuring out who we areand it's changing always.
We're figuring out where webelong.
You know, now I belong to someof my in-laws' families.
I just wrote a blog piece aboutthis being the the odd guest at
Thanksgiving.
(27:23):
All my other kids were withtheir in-laws and significant
others and I found myself in NewJersey with my daughter's
family and my son-in-laws,parents and aunts and uncles,
and because my daughter was oncall she's an OB she wasn't even
there at Thanksgiving.
But I felt like I belonged tothose people and so belonging is
(27:45):
not just who you arebiologically related to.
It's related to who you feelcomfortable with, where you feel
comfortable, and I think that'sjust always changing and I
think, rather than be angry youknow, I'm not angry about my
adoption anymore.
There's an acceptance about mysituation.
Stuff happens to us that wehave no control over, and if we
(28:09):
can learn to accept it and maybeforgive the bad actors, the bad
players, we have a betterchance of being a self-content
person.
I am not an angry adoptee and Ifeel bad for the adoptees that
are, because it doesn't allowthem to move on and lead a
(28:30):
productive life.
Identity and belonging are aconversation that we're always
going to have.
I look at my own mom, who's 91and she's a widow and she's in a
senior community and she'sstill making friends and she's
still figuring out.
You know where she belongs, andlife is always changing and we
have to change with it.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, two things First of all, our condolences
for your loss and second, what apowerful example of lived
experience on this journey.
I do appreciate the perspectivethat says before we get and I'm
going to paraphrase before weget too hung up on who we are
and all of the implications ofadoption, let us also sit in a
(29:14):
space where we remember whatit's like to be a teenager and
then newly married and, in yourinstance, a widow, grown
children.
I love your forward thinkingmentality of embracing evolution
of ourselves as part of this.
That allows us to acknowledgeand find places to heal.
(29:37):
I think you just gave ourlisteners a great perspective on
an approach to just kind ofmoving forward.
If you sit in that and thinkabout it for a couple minutes,
what a great gift, thank youWell.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I hope that you know, by talking about adoption and
where it fits into who we are,as well as all the other
conversations that adoptees andbirth parents are having, that
those people that are outside ofour little world, are touched
by adoption world, have agreater understanding of the
(30:10):
things that we have to grapplewith.
We're grappling with life asthey know it.
Certainly other people havethese same struggles of being a
widow or a troubled teen or anolder person in a senior
community, but we have thatadded factor in there of trying
to find out who we are and wherewe came from.
Oh my goodness, andassimilating that.
(30:33):
I had a conversation right afterI was working on Twice the
Daughter, with a friend personthat I respected at the time,
and the intimation from her inthe conversation was that I was
being a disloyal adoptee.
By researching my familyhistory, I was being disloyal to
(30:53):
my adoptive parents.
That there should have been, asshe said, aren't you grateful
for the life you had and this isa constant theme that I love to
talk about, because it'ssomething we need to dispel in
the community that we are notbeing disloyal to our parents
(31:13):
that raised us by this searchfor self.
If we don't go down that pathand it's a path that we want to
be on we're being disloyal toourselves.
So I'm not saying everybodyneeds to search for their family
history.
Certainly that's not a choicethat's right for everybody.
But those of us that do go downthat path, we're choosing to do
(31:38):
that for a good reason, and theoutsiders looking in that
aren't touched by adoptionshould really be sitting back
and listening and taking noteand saying, hmm, what do I not
know about this situation?
Am I willing to listen to thisperspective and consider it,
(31:58):
instead of imposing my ownjudgment into this situation,
because that was a hurtfulconversation to me?
I do feel loyal to my adoptiveparents.
I still take care of them.
They're in my life, I have notdisregarded them, and so the
intimation that I was beingdisloyal really angered me.
(32:20):
And anyone that's listening toyour show that's in the triangle
gets what I'm saying.
But those outside of it, theyneed to operate with caution,
maybe with their own set of careinstructions.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I'm almost speechless .
I don't know if I've been thatway many times on the show, but
I am definitely almostspeechless as you were talking.
One of the things that keptrunning through my mind was
having the space to understand.
We are not working towardsdisloyalty or out of malice, but
(32:55):
we are also working towardsauthenticating ourselves and
there is just no easy way toconsistently share that for
someone who is not in thisparticular seat in this
community To truly, I think, getit.
I believe surface level there'sa lot of compassion, but I
(33:17):
don't know if we are ever goingto get, on the whole, a true
like I get you.
I think we'll hear more I hearyou's than I get you's, if that
makes any sense to you.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yes, and I think a good part of this work of I get
you.
We need to be grateful for thenext generation and I think that
the conversation that we'rehaving today falls into that is
that society is getting better.
There is not this shame aroundan unwed pregnancy.
Certainly, a lot of gay coupleshave adopted children.
(33:53):
That's not a stigma toparenting and single women are
parents.
So I think we're makingprogress, but it takes time and
it takes a lot of people raisingtheir voices and being the
loudest person in the room toget people to consider.
(34:14):
There's a different way oflooking at a topic.
Adoption is always going to berelevant when you think about it
.
There's six to eight millionadoptees in this country.
You multiply that by their twosuch a parents and siblings and
friends, and it's a topiceverybody is aware of.
It's universal, so it's notgoing to go away, and our
(34:37):
understanding of it and thelanguage we use around it the
positive adoption language isalways changing too, and I hope
that we continue to work towardsmore understanding around the
issues.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, and I want to clarify.
I don't believe that you'reindicating positive adoption
language under the context ofeverything's fantastic,
wonderful.
We reference it sometimes asunicorns and rainbows.
That is not at all, julie, Iknow what you meant.
Do you mind taking just acouple of minutes to clarify
that for our listeners?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Absolutely so.
In my era, 1959, when I wasadopted and I still slip this
out in public, which you're notsupposed to say is I was given
up for adoption, so that's mylanguage around my adoption.
When open adoption became inthe forefront in 1982 on, the
(35:35):
language changed.
The proper terminology today isplaced for adoption.
It sanitizes, in my mind, thesituation yes, you're placed for
adoption, but most adopteessomething got given up in the
process of being adopted.
I still think I was given up.
(35:55):
I gave up an identity.
I gave up this belonging to mybirth mother, all of that so
positive.
Adoption language is a term inthe adoption community that has
placed kinder words aroundcertain labels like birth mother
.
First, mother is a label that'skind of gaining recognition and
(36:16):
it's maybe the right way totalk about it.
The one that really gets megoing is real mother.
I can remember conversations asa kid when somebody would say
well, do you know anything aboutyour real mother?
Oh, wow, I mean that stung likea slap on the face.
I think both of them are real.
Honestly, my adoptive parentswere the parents in the trenches
(36:39):
giving me a life, teaching mevalues, what was right and wrong
.
They're very real to me and mybirth mom.
She's still very real to me too, because she's in my life.
Which one is the real set ofparents?
Why are we forced to make thatlabel and have it stick?
So there are other examples.
(37:00):
Natural mother is another labelassociated with your birth
parents.
Slash first parents.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
As you were talking, julie, things that were running
through my mind along this topic, maybe some grace on what words
we use and why there is aconnection to our age, our era
and the circumstances.
Just like you, I really don'tbelieve I was placed for
adoption, I was relinquished.
I feel more comfortable usingthe term relinquished and I do
(37:32):
believe that my identity isconnected to that event and it
wasn't a one and done, and sotherefore, if I want to use
relinquished because it worksfor me, I want the grace to be
able to do so.
Therefore, in the dialogue thatyou just kind of explained,
(37:53):
positive narrative to us, theconcept of a real parent or a
first parent or a birth parent,I think there's room for all of
that language to exist and tohonor where each adoptee sits.
Try not to get too hung up onit.
(38:15):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yes, I do.
Yeah, I mean it's hard, for meat least, to call my brother a
half-brother and a half-sister.
To me they are a brother and asister and for a long time I was
calling him my new brother andhe took objection to that.
He goes I was always yourbrother, we just have a new
(38:37):
relationship.
So I mean, he felt it too onhis end and so I stopped calling
him my new brother.
He is just my brother and so Ithink, like you said, the labels
are always changing based onhow we feel about our situation.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
I 100% agree.
As we're getting ready to closeout for today, I want to ask is
there something in particularthat we haven't covered yet,
that you would like to leavewith our listeners?
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Oh, you know, I think what I want to say is that just
never give up.
There were points in my searchwhere I, you know, I didn't know
I was going to be able to moveforward and there was always a
workaround.
It took a while sometimes tofind that workaround and while
it took longer than I thoughtand longer than I wanted, I
(39:28):
didn't give up.
And I would tell the listenersit may look like you're not
going to have a relationshipwith a birth relative or a
parent.
Don't give up on that.
Keep fighting along in eachlittle step.
We'll get you right to whereyou need to be.
I have a wonderful counselor inmy life that I love this saying
(39:51):
and I want to pass it on to thelisteners.
She says that which is right isunfolding, and why I love that
saying is because we have togive ourselves time.
We have to give our lives timeto unfold.
I like it because it doesn'tsay things are predestined or
things happen for a reason.
I hate that, a whole idea.
(40:12):
But this unfolding of life andthat which is right for us is
unfolding is such a powerfulmessage that I want to leave
with the listeners.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
A great place to leave us.
I want to thank you for thatand that is so encouraging.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with us today.
It has been a joy to have youon the show and please know it
is always my honor to bringpeople to the show that want to
tell their story and their livedexperience.
I do not take that lightly, sothank you so much.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Thank you for your hard work in putting this
together.
It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Thank you for listening to today's episode of
Wandering Tree Podcast.
Please rate, review and sharethis out so we can experience
the lived adoptee journeytogether.
Want to be a guest on our show?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Check us out at wanderingtreeadopteecom you, you
(43:46):
, you, you, you Music.
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