May 27, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode, Karlos Dillard and Shana discuss the complexities of adoption, including the importance of sharing personal stories, the trauma associated with being adopted, and the role of therapists in understanding adoptee experiences. Shana shares her own adoption story, the challenges of identity, and the impact of closed adoptions on her life. They also explore the legal implications of adoption and the emotional journey of reunification with birth family, emphasizing the need for greater awareness and reform in the adoption industry.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Content warning. The Wards of the State podcast may contain
material that may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. Heylight Shiners, Welcome back to another
(00:38):
episode of Wards of the State. We are coming up
to our one hundredth episode, and every single episode, like
I know, we've flowed down y'all the listeners. I've been
getting some emails. I need y'alliston. I can't continue the
show unless y'all come and share y'all stories. I could
already share it my I know y'all tired to hear
about my story. So if you would like to share
(00:58):
your story, or if you know an adoptee that think
that you might think might want to share their story,
send them the link to the show. We really need you.
I think we have like four or five more people
schedule for this month, so I really want to make
sure that we can get a full season in before July.
You guys do know I take July, June, July, August
off from work, so I'm trying to get everything done.
This month is actually May as well, So if you
(01:20):
are a birth parents, I know we have some birth
parents that have been waiting all year. We do highlight
birth parents stories once a year for Mother's Day and
Father's Day, so we do some episodes in May and
some episodes in June. So if you are also a
mother or a father who's lost their children to the system,
either adoption of foster care, we would love to hear
from you as well. All those links are in my
(01:40):
bio on all my social media platforms. Also, guys, we
now have both of my books on the TikTok shop,
So if you're on the TikTok shop and you haven't
read the books yet, go grab them because you know,
we can get them at Amazon on my website. But
right now TikTok is really pushing. They're really pushing the
TikTok shop, and they're doing free shipping for a seller,
so I don't have to pay for the shipping like
I would normally have to if it was coming from
(02:01):
my website, so that's great. And then some other last announcements,
we have our second book tour, our second and third
book tour stop coming up. That's going to be on
May tenth in Portland at Boat Coffee and Books, and
then also it's going to be in Seattle, Oh give
me a second. I should have had that, y'all. It's
in the links of my bio Seattle, May eleventh, the
(02:22):
links to my bio of that location. I'm also making
videos about it on my pages, so if you guys
are watching all my social media pages, you will be
bombarded with updates on dates and things. I hope to
see you guys all there. I know Seattle is going
to be such an amazing time because all my family
and friends are going to be there because I lived
in Seattle for seven years. So if you guys want
to come to the Seattle book signing, it is free.
It's completely free for anyone to come on all of
(02:45):
the book tour stops. We've been fundraising or we've just
been paying out of our pockets, working hard to make
sure because I wanted to make sure that everybody can
have access. I didn't want to I know, right now
in the country, finances with the tariffs and everything, finances
are getting hard for people. But that doesn't mean that
they shouldn't have access to resources, right So one of
the resources I wanted to offer was just having parents,
adopted parents bring their children, their adoptees, their former foster
(03:06):
youth or their foster youth just to come and meet
and greet and have a good time reading parts of
the book. It's also well coffee shop and they got
little foods the one in Seattle, so I think they're
both coffee shops actually, so we can have we'll have
we'll have a great time, guys. So yeah, that's going
to be importantly organ at both coffee and books on
May tenth, and then there is a stop in Seattle
on May eleventh, that's Mother's Day. Check the link in
my bio for all the information there. So I think
(03:28):
those are all the updates we have. Oh last update, guys,
you can still watch the YouTube videos of these podcast
episodes or the videos on YouTube, so if you will
to see the podcast, make sure you check out the YouTube.
And it's just my name, guys, Carlos Dillard on YouTube.
And I think that's it. So without further ado, I
want to introduce the next guest, and it's Shanna. Hey, Shanna,
(03:49):
how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Hi? I'm good, how are you?
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I am fantastic. So just kind of start with your story.
How did you enter their external childcare system?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
So my story is not one that's so much filled
with you know, a lot of I don't have a
lot of foster I don't have any foster care experience.
There wasn't abuse or neglect or anything like that. I
was a domestic, same race adoptee, so I was adopted
by white parents in the seventies, and you know, from
the outside, I have I guess what you would call
a more privileged adopt adoptive adopted experience. But there's a
(04:24):
lot on the inside that I'll talk about that people
don't talk about. And that's that's kind of what my
work is now. I'm in training to become a therapist
because there is very little research and very little resources
out there for adoptees.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
So that's what I'm hoping to do.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Absolutely. I just did back in October. I spoke at
the Academy, Yeah, the Academy of Child in Adolescent Psychiatry,
and you would be I was so surprised about how
the information I was giving them was all new. I know,
I was, I know, shocked. I was shocked, like even
some therapies. I was talking to them about rebirthing therapy,
which they now called the Evergreen model, right, and They're like,
(05:06):
is that real? And I'm like, you are a psychiatrist,
I not know, and like you said, I don't think
a lot of them are actually knowing specifically how to
deal with adoption trauma. Because I'll be honest, adoption trauma
is not new, but it's this new thing that people
are actually finally starting to admit that that it happens
in maternal separation trauma is real. Yes, right, yeah, right,
(05:29):
So you're right, there is a there is a need. Yeah,
there is a need for for therapists like yourself who
are going to be trauma informed and adoptees centered. So
kind of tell about your your growing up and being adopted.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
So my parents, this was the seventies, so they were
trying to have kids. They weren't able to and then
my mom eventually had a hysterectomy so that obviously she
couldn't have children. So by then she was in her
sees and they wanted a white baby, and at that
time it was harder to get a white baby, so
they put their name on the list with Children's Home Society,
(06:07):
which I don't believe does adoptions anymore. I think they
have a little bit of dark history too, which you
can read about. But so they put their name on
a list and four years later they got me and
my mom said she was at work and she got
a call and they said, we have a little blonde haired,
blue eyed baby girl.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Do you want to And my mom was like yes.
And from what I understand, does that.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Kind of like doesn't that kind of like when you
explain it like that, it's like.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, it feels off picking a bag?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, right, like do you want? Because that's one thing.
That's one thing that I don't like when when adopted
parents say I chose you. You didn't chose me. It
was just what I was given. I was I was
the freshest offer.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, And that's that's one of the like mind fucks
about adoption, is like you're so lucky you got chosen,
But on the inside, the adoptee is experiencing the worst
possible grief you could ever experience in your life.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So it's really a weird thing.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
So from what I understand, I was in a foster
home for maybe a week while they finalized all the
paperwork and legal stuff or whatever. And it's funny because
when I was I go to therapy too, but it's
almost like I remember being in foster care.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
But I was a newborn baby, so how could I
remember that? And I was talking to my therapist and
I was like, am I just making this up? And
she was like no.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And that's part of the research that we now know
is that before people would say, oh, babies are a
blank slate, you know, it's just like a puppy, Like
you take a puppy from its mom, you give it
to another person, they're fine. But we now know that's
not true. Babies are very complex. They have very complex emotions.
They can experience grief and pain, anxiety.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And that's the thing about puppies. So you know, you
know the history of adoption and the AA is it?
Why could I ever think of that damn organization? The
Animal People who be Helping People ASPCA. Yes, they were
the first organization. His name was Henry Burke. He was
the first. He was a founder of the ASPCA, and
he was the first person to actually take children from
abusive homes. He did this because children were considered property first,
(08:04):
and he was allowed to. He had had the Supreme
Court in New York give him authority to remove animals
that are being abused from homes. So he was going
into these homes and removing children out of cages or
the animals out of cages, and there were children in
cages right next to them.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So then he went back to the Supreme Court and
he says, I believe that I should be able to
remove children under the same protections of animals, because they
said he could protect any type of reps how and
he was like, we're humans, are mammals. So he actually
used the rights of the ASPCA to get children, and
he started like one of the first CPS systems. And
that's why a lot of our language is the same.
So fostering, rehoming, adoption, all of that is the same
(08:42):
because they did not know that. It's yeah, it's actually
a great history look back on. Adoption started with the ASPCA,
and like tild welfare started with the ASPCA. And you're
in America, and that's why we have so many common things.
But so when you said it's like dogs, but that's
not true though, because you have I mean technically not legally,
but you're supposed to wait four to six weeks before
taking the dog from a mom if it's healthy, like
(09:04):
the mom's healthy. It's really bad to take dogs away
from their mom's right. We all know this and accept that,
but we're just like, let a human just pop a
baby out wound, wet, and we're just gonna just give
them to the adoptive parents. But everything so it's probably
nothing happened here, nothing to here.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, the baby doesn't know any different.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Absolutely. In my therapy and in my work, I too remember, well,
I don't know how much your trauma is trauma even
if you experience it as you know an infant, it's
called that like the primal wound. I'm sure you're you're
familiar with the book if you haven't.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Right here, actually right, it's like it's right the Bible
of adoption.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It really is that. I have a couple of Bible
A couple of them are like the Bible of adoption,
and it's I don't agree with everything that the adoptive
mother is saying there, but I do agree with the
idea that we could just remove children. And we think
it's all okay, but we're not remembering that there's that
wound happened. And the mind. The brain is like a
computer system, and a lot of people forget that it's
actually the fastest, most powerful computer system. On the world.
(10:03):
So you may not remember, but your brain does because
your brain was there, right exactly. That's that's that unpacked,
unhealed trauma right in maternal seperation trauma that you're like, Man,
I don't remember being a foster caure, I don't remember
being separate. You feel it, feel this, Yeah, brain remembers exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
What I like to say to people is like, imagine
that you are a baby, toddler, whatever, and you witness
your parents get murdered right in front of you.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
How would you treat that toddler? Would you be like,
oh my gosh, you're so lucky.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
You have new family now, Oh my gosh, you're so lucky,
Like that's what we do to adoptees.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You're so lucky.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So this little baby or toddler child is going through
all this grief, but everyone around them is celebrating and
having parties and smiling and.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Laughing like touch days. Yes, Like how like it's so
messed up?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And so that for me created a lot of confusion
because I was as a child looking back now as
an adult, I was really depressed and I was I
had a lot of fear, Like I didn't even like
going to sleepovers because I was afraid I'd never seen
my parents again, like all these little things.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
And but I'm so lucky, right, I'm so lucky that
I have.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
My parents growing up. Did your parents tell you you
were adopted when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
That's one thing that I will say.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
They always told me, and that's really important for adoptees
to know their history.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
So did they, like, did they tell you or did
you just grow up knowing? Like, did they tell you
like such a young age.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
That yes, my mom she just told me, like when
I was a baby, like, but it was always framed
in that, you know, we chose you.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
You're so lucky.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
But she I'm making my parents sound horrible. But they
they tried to, you know, really put it in a
positive light for me, because again, like they didn't know
what they were doing either.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
There's no research, there's no hand but for adoptive parents.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
That's the biggest. So when I you're probably from me
with my work and a lot of people say you
just hate adoptive parents, I'm like, I don't hate them
at all. I don't, but you don't know what you
don't know, and there isn't because of the adoption industry,
and because of all of like you know, the advertisement
and the marketing, everyone believes that it's just such an
easy thing and it's such a wonderful thing, and it's
(12:17):
just not And we need parents to understand that when
we're asking for a reform and we're asking, you know,
for different therapies and different changes, it doesn't mean that
you were a bad person. So it's like, just like
your parents, you were explaining like, oh, well, they said
you're so lucky and all of this, Well, they didn't
know that that wasn't okay to say. They were, like
you said, there's no rule book. They didn't have a
lot of adoptee books or the problem room like we
have now. These are now resources that we have a
(12:39):
TikTok and podcasts, But in the seventies, girl, all they
had was the news.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
In the newspaper exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Honestly, adoption was still kind of new. It was only
apeption in the United States only came up in the
late nineteen forties, and it really wasn't that accepted up
until it was I was in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
It was pretty taboo even then, Like even in the seventies,
mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So like they probably didn't not people didn't speak on it.
They just adopted the child, did the best that they
could exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
And that's the thing too, that you know, most adoptive
parents are coming from a place of love and good
intentions and they're not trying to do harm. But it
is harmful to not recognize the grief, the silence. I
call it the silent grief of adoptees or foster kids.
You know, it runs deep, the deep, deep river.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Now did you have and you said your mother had hysterectomy,
So did you Did they adopt any other children or
were you the only child?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I have a brother he's four years younger. So after
they adopted me, they knew that it takes about four years,
so they put their name right back on that list,
and four years later they got another little he wasn't
blonde haired, but another little white baby. Mm hmm. So yeah,
I think I think it was easier to adopt other
races back then. M But like I said, getting a
(13:54):
you know, a white baby, that sounds so awful. But
you know that's another thing too, Like it was it
was price them.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
They priced them differently, y'all are are more expensive?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
You're like, for I think my mom said I was
two thousand dollars. Oh, it cost two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
In the seventies. That's the money.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That was a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
That's somebody at the seventies. Yep, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Well, okay, so you're growing up. How is your childhood
growing up? It sounds like your parents just kind of
like always told you that you were adopted. Did you
struggle with like trying to wonder who your biological family
was growing up? And that I'm guessing it was a
closed adoption since it was a private agency, right, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Closed adoption.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
So all I had from the Children's Home Society provided
like a very brief medical background, and it was just like,
I mean, they had, you know, a week's worth of
knowledge about me, so it was like, you know, happy
baby doesn't cry a lot. I'm like, gee, I wonder
why I'm like going through trauma. But and then they
gave me a little paragraph about like birth mother is
(14:55):
you know, brown haired, green eye, like just very brief
about both. So I had that little piece to pay
for my whole life. And that's kind of what I
would look at every once in a while. But my
childhood was like a normal middle class childhood, you know, happy,
no abuse in the home or anything like that. Like
I I was lucky in a lot of ways, because
I've heard so awful start.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
We talk about that a lot. I think I was
just doing an interview with another guest a couple of
weeks ago about their net positive experience in their adoption,
because I tell people it can happen even if you
don't have educated parents. You know, the little mistakes that
they didn't make about like saying you're so lucky, things
like that, those are small things that can be changed.
But the basis of it is just you know, under
I think your adoptive mom sounds like she understood it
(15:37):
immediately of showing these children that like, hey, you're adopted,
but like I do love you, and you you are
I'm going to raise you the best that I can.
But now that we do have the information, we need
people to start doing that before they start getting into adoptions.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I love the people. And then another thing about net
positive adoptions is that that's why as adoptees we connect.
So no matter if you had a bad quote negative
adopt or net positive adoption, we all still have the
same internal issues of identity, of abandonment. And it's like,
so it didn't really matter how we were being raised. Yeah,
(16:14):
something about maternal separation and children not being raised by
their families create some type of internal humanistic pain that
every adoptee experience is no matter if it's positive or negative. So,
and that's one reason I do this show is because
I need people to understand, like, stories like yours, Shanna
can happen, and they can be great, but even in
(16:34):
the most positive adoptions, there's still loss.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, there's still loss, right, And that made it confusing
for me as I was getting older, because so starting
to go through puberty and all the changes are happening,
and I'm feeling like depressed, and I had really low
self esteem. I was like painfully shy. And now I
know a lot of these things came from that initial trauma,
but it was confusing for me because it's like, look,
(17:00):
you have this great family, You're being raised so well,
like you're you're so lucky, but I feel like shit
on the inside.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Why Oh? And I would talk to.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
My mom about it and she didn't understand either, and
she would say things like, oh, well, everybody feels like that,
and you know, everybody gets depressed sometimes, but it's deeper
than that for adoptees. And that's why I'm so passionate
about becoming a therapist, because if you're not adopted, you
just don't understand, and you won't understand, like no matter
how much somebody tells you, you don't.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I don't know what it feels like unless you're there.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Unless you're there, absolutely, And because of your adoption was
a private adoption, your birth certificate was changed. So how
has that affected your life? And I know you want
to speak about that a little bit, about the changing
of the birth certificates.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, so that is in a closed adoption, particularly when
you are adopted, they legally change your they legally falsify
your birth certificate. So it's like the only legal document
that's allowed to be falsified. And so my original birth
certift get is locked and sealed away and there's no
way I can access it ever. I know some states
(18:05):
have opened them up again, but California is one that
has not, and I've looked into it because I was
just curious about what my original name was and the
only way that California will allow a birth certificate to
be unsealed. You have to have like some crazy medical
reason or like you have to have like a big.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Major reason for it reason.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, it's either or if you can prove that the
adoption there was some type of fraud or deception through
the adoption. But it's like a severe medical thing. Yeah,
it's in practically, Yeah, my state of Michigan. I can
get mine when I'm one hundred and seven.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Wow. Thanks, that's great.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
So yeah, it's ninety nine year from the day that
you were adopted. So I was I was okay, like
seven or eight when I got adopt Okay, so I
get it at Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Wow, that's like you can have it. Just kidding, like, but.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
No, I found my birth family, so I have all
my medical history now. But it is an issue. But
even let's say, because guys, even in open adoptions, the
per certificates are still closed in every legal US adoption.
That's like when I have people who come up to
me and they say, hey, I was adopted. I've had
this happen a couple of times, and I say, okay,
well I always asked them, I said, what's your is
your parents, the parents that you know as your parents,
(19:21):
because they always like, I don't know if I was adopted,
I don't know. If I was kidnapped, I don't know.
And I've helped adoptees who were is victims of kidnapping,
like literally, and I was like, look at your pirth certificate.
I say, look at your cer certificate and they're like,
it has a random name on it. I don't know
the people. And I was like, your parents name and
then she's like, well, no, it's the it's it's the original.
And I was like, in the US, you should have
(19:41):
you will have an adopted birth certificate, no matter how
what happened. It's rare that you don't. You will get one.
Maybe they will put in some states they do be
putting both parents names, but no, you will get an
official And they didn't have any adoption paperwork. The agency
that their parents had said that they were like never existed.
And that's always the first thing though. It's always a
(20:02):
tell tell sign when I'm doing research for adoptees, is
I look at the birth certificate. Also when people are
adopted and they don't know that they're adopted. I've had
clients come up to say, Carlos, I feel like I'm adopted,
you know, DNA. But then if they do their DNA
tess and their parents don't, then like it's really really hard.
And then a lot of them are older, like a
lot of the older adopt they're usually like sixty to eighty.
(20:23):
They don't want to do DNA. They they don't trust
like the government whatever, So we have to do just documents.
So one of the documents that I look at is
their birth certificate. And because they were never told that
they adopted, they think they're like, my parents' name are
on here, and I'm like, okay, now look at the
birth date and look at the issue date. If you're adopted,
your issue date will always be a month or longer
from the birth date. And that's that yeah, And that's
(20:46):
because when you were born, most hospitals take three to
five business days to issue the birth certificate. Right, so
most people have their issue date on theirth certificate within
a week of their birth. Adoptees that dates like a
month or longer. So mine is seven years issued. So
if I didn't know I was adopted, why is my
issue date seven years after I was born? Right? Like
(21:09):
something happened here? Why did it take some it was reissued.
So that's a little trick if you guys ever want
to know if you might be adopted, to look at
your birth certificate and see how long that issue dates
away from your birthday.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I'm going to check that. I'm curious. Now.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
My birth certificate is so weird looking like now they're
all pretty and like big. Mind's like this big because
it's from the seventies. So I don't even know if
the issue dates on there. I'm I'm gonna yeah, I've.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Only seen, I've only seen it might.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Be issued date, yeah yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, so the birth certificate. What are some issues have
you found as an adoptee or just someone who works
in the field that it causes problems? What are some issues?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I think the biggest one is just identity, because for me,
I wanted to know I never I did eventually meet
my birth parents, and I could talk about that separately,
But for me, it was just more curiosity. I wanted
to know, like who were my parents, Like what were
their names?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
What was my name?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Like?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It's just a curiosity thing for me. But I think
for other.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
People, especially people that don't have information from their adoption
agency or anything like that. It's a really huge piece
of information for people to have because a lot of
people don't have anything to start their research on, you know,
they don't know anything, so it's it's just it's very secretive.
It makes it really difficult. And if you do have
(22:26):
medical issues, that's another thing. When you go to the doctor,
they ask you like, does your family have a history,
and blah blah blah. I always say I don't know
because I'm adopted and I luckily don't have medical issues
knock on wood, But people that do, it would.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Be nice to know what the history of that is.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So absolutely, but I think the biggest thing is just
the identity piece. Like for some people, that's all we
have is the birth certificate. That's all we have of
our past.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, for me, the identity issue was the largest issue
with the birth certificate for the longest time. And too
I reunited with my birth family and my mom and
my sister died. That's when I started to learn that
there are actually legal consequences to having your birth certificate
changed as well. So as we know, legally we're not
legally related to any of our birth family. So this
causes problems with making medical decisions for them, identifying their
(23:17):
dead bodies at more, even kinship rights. My niece was
here and I had to go through a traditional guardianship
instead of kinship, which I had more protections as kinship,
but because I wasn't legally related to her, they considered
me ficked in the kinship or just like a guardian,
And that gives you different rights because if you are
biologically related to someone, you have a little bit more
(23:38):
rights with the courts and with the system to say like, hey, no,
this is my family. They can stay here. But if
you're just a guardian, then it's really just like up
to the state or to the parent to remove them
whenever they want to. So there are legal consequences. And
even like my brother, he just recently moved in with
us for a couple months to get on his feet,
and I have to make sure that we have a
medical release form for him because if he gets into
an accident or something happens to him, I legally cannot
(24:01):
I'm not his Texic kin legally, Yeah, so I would
have to like call my brother, and I'm not talking
to him right now, so I don't know what I
would do, right, Yeah, but my other brother. So there's
there are so many things legal things right about this
per certificate that will affect the rest of our lives,
right and for me, Okay, great adoption happened, but just
like divorce, why don't we have a way out? Why
(24:23):
can't why can't they reverse this?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Well?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And why why do the birth parents get all the
protection and we get nothing? You know, Like that was
put into place to protect the birth parents at a
time when you know, adoption was taboo and all that stuff,
But what about us?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I get nothing?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
You know? So I also think it was I think
it was there to not only protect the birth parents,
I also think it was there to lie to people
because if you can sit there and say you can
say yeah, like with Georgia Tan, like oh, this baby
came from a crack house and you're saving them, when
it actually just came from like a four thirteen year
old who was great by her dad.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yep, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
So it's like, yeah, it allows them to keep up
the facade of lying about our birth and like every adoptee,
every one of our parents can be crackheads. Every one
of our parents can't be you know, leaving us on
the side of a dumpstairs. Some of most of these
people were just probably young, impoverished people. They y'all played
upon them and sold their child. And if they would
have had that two thousand dollars, I'm sure your mom
(25:20):
probably would have been okay or maybe a little bit considered,
you know, keeping you you know, yep, it's insane, just
like how we just erase identities, We just raise information
and we expect that the kids to be okay with it.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
It's absolutely as Yeah, that's I think that's what bothers
me the most. It's just erasing. It's like that didn't happen.
Just ignore that that didn't happen. This is your new
life now, you know, you're just a puppy going to
a new family.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
That didn't happen. So okay, So tell us a little
bit about your reunification. You said that you did reunite.
What age were you and how did that process work
for you.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
So I was twenty two, twenty three and I had
just moved out of my family house. I moved up
to San Francisco, and I was like living my life
and I had been thinking about finding my birth parents
for a little while, and the way it works with
the closed adoption, at least with my agency, is that
(26:14):
I had to send in some paperwork and then if
my birth parents had also sent in paperwork, then they
swapped that information.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So I sent my.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Stuff in thinking oh, I'm never gonna hear anything. And
then this was before the internet really too, like email
was just a new thing. Like everything was through the mail,
and like a week later, I get a phone call,
we have your birth mom's name, and I was like,
oh my god, I'm not ready for this, Like I
was not expecting it that soon. But then I did
start exchanging letters with her, and so she I found
(26:43):
out she lived maybe twenty minutes from my parents, but
I was up in San Francisco at the time, so
we would We were exchanging letters for a while, and yeah,
it was It was good for me and I got
a little bit of closure, but it still was a
little bit. It's kind of an identity crisis because I'm
I'm so used to thinking, Okay, I'm adopted and I
have birth parents, but that's like over here, you know,
(27:04):
this is my life. So now this what's over here
is over here, and I'm like, this is kind of
messing me up a little bit. And I had found
out my birth dad had passed away years before, but
I did get a little information about him. And then
my birth mom ended up passing away a couple years later,
and I stayed in contact with her two siblings who
actually live nearby, and I go to their house for
(27:27):
you know, little family gatherings and stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Now, so it's been great.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Do you have any biological siblings?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
No?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
None, And something that I always thought about, I had
this fantasy. This is another thing with adoptees is that
we sometimes fantasize about what our birth parents look like.
And I always had this fantasy that my birth mom
looked kind of like me, like, but in my head,
she was like a rocker chick, I don't like an
eighties rocker chick or something like a cool lady. And
(27:55):
when I met her, I was a little disappointed that
she didn't live up to that fantasy, which is another
part of adoption trauma that you kind of, you know,
fantasize because you don't know. But she never got married,
never had kids, And I at first kind of blamed
myself for that because I was like, oh, my gosh,
you know, she probably was so guilty about giving me
(28:15):
up for adoption that she was sad and never had kids.
Like I kind of took that on and I had
to deal with that too. But so there's like so
many layers of all of this stuff, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So many layers. And did your mom ever share why
she chose adoption for you?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
She didn't, but I put some pieces together. So she
was a senior in high school and got pregnant, and
my birth dad was twenty something. So in my mind,
I've painted the picture it was like a little spring break,
little love affair, and he was from out of town,
so they hooked up, she got pregnant, and then she's
a senior in high school in the seventies, pregnant, and
I think that her parents forced her to give me
(28:51):
up for adoption. I don't think it was her choice,
but I have not confirmed that yet.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Okay, well, thank you for sharing that. And you know
that's just like I said, young and poor, that's usually
usually the case, young and poor. Well, Shanna, we're gonna
take a quick break when we come back and then
talk about more about the changes that you would like
to see in the adoption industry. Newborn babies not being
blink slates and more about how therapists need to be
more trauma informed. So we're gonna take a quick break
(29:19):
and we'll be right back. Okay, hey, light Shiners, welcome
back to War to the State podcast. Make sure you
guys are leaving us US five star, one two three, four,
five star waiting and review on Apple Podcasts, and also
make sure you're subscribing to us on Spotify. And like
I said at the beginning of the show, we now
are doing video podcast on YouTube, so make sure you
check out Carlos Dealer's YouTube that was we already said,
(29:40):
well it's in the name of the YouTube, which is
my name, y'all, I cat talking about myself a therap person.
So like I said earlier in the show, make sure
you send this to someone who'd like to share their stories.
Shanna is sharing an amazing story about a net positive experience,
but even still talking about that that loss. And I
think that these are the type of conversations that a
lot of adoptive parents because so many people when they
(30:01):
hear especially like adoption reform, they think that your anti adoption,
your anti children finding safe homes, And absolutely that's not
the case. We would just like more legal protections, right,
and more protections for children, and more rights for children
as far as birth certificates and unadoption and annulment, and
then honestly just people being more educated and like we
(30:22):
were saying, and having more therapists educated and having more
parents educated. So it's really important for us to share
stories like Shanna's because it's in that positive experience. So
there's nothing that her adoptive parents necessarily did wrong, but
adoption itself starts at a loss loss and if we
don't acknowledge that, then we were going to have a
lot of traumatized children. And we see the statistics that
(30:44):
adoptees go through with their mental health and addictions and
things like that. So with that being said, Shanna, we
were talking about before our break being infants, and I
want to hear about what your theory is or what
your idea on the blank slate theory what is, even
though I know technically it's already been and debunked, like
there's no blankstate theory, but we still hear about it
a lot with people say like, oh, you're a newborn baby,
(31:05):
you don't remember anything.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Mm hmmmm hmm.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah, that's that's kind of been the thinking for all
of history up until very recently, that babies are just,
you know, just a blank slate. You know, you can
just they don't they don't have complex emotions or feelings.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
But that's we know now that's not the case.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Like babies can experience depression and anxiety and grief and
fear and all of the same exact emotions that grownups
can feel, they just can't express it in the most
complex of ways. So even though they can't say, like, hey,
I'm depressed, where's my mom? I can't find her, all
of those feelings are in the body, being stored in
the body and being stored in the mind and come
(31:45):
out later in life.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
So it's a lot needs.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
To be done to educate adoptive parents on what to
do for their little babies. Like again, I'm not I'm
not anti adoption, I'm pro education for adoptive parents, because
there's a.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Lot not anti adoption on pro reform.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
We need to like that.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
And here's the thing, there's no system in this in
any country that's going to be one hundred percent good, right,
And that's what gives it frustrates me so much because
I'm like, this is a system and I actually has
a twenty five billion dollar private sector industry and we
just think it's okay and nobody's going to check and
nobody's concerned.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, well, I think a lot of it. I think
a lot.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Maybe part of it is a lot of it's tied
to religion. So it's like, you know, the religious part,
love and light and you know, all of that stuff.
So that kind of complicates things in a lot of ways,
I think.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
But and I'm not.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Religious, I'm more spiritual, so I might have a little
negative reaction when I hear, you know, all the religious
stuff tied to it.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
But but yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I think one thing that I want to do is
start training adoptive parents on what they can do. Like,
for example, I know that when I was a baby
at that time, you put your baby in the crib
at night alone and you let it sleep by itself,
and it's sort of the cry it out method. Would
you if you had a little toddler that just witnessed
its parent dying in front of them, would you let
(33:14):
them cry it out alone all night long?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Probably?
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Not.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
So, just little things like that, like a little newborn
baby going through grief needs to be held all the time.
Like there's no you can't help hold it too much.
That theory like the baby's manipulating you by crying and
you're holding it too much.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Like that is false.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Hold that baby all the time, you know, skin to
skin or whatever, like just give that baby all the
love and attention, like just little simple things like that
like cry it out method bad.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Don't do that bad? No, and you know so. So
I started doing lived experience consulting about two years ago,
and it's a failed that there aren't many of us.
I think I know a handful. Isaac Ether is one.
He's an adoptee myself, and there's like a few other
adoptees I've met online who offer experience consulting, but there's
not because there there's like, no, you need to be
(34:03):
an adoptee to do it right.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Well, and I think people don't realize that how it's needed,
Like people don't realize that it's needed.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
And the issue, well, and here's the issue is we
have with this. We have some classisms, some capitalism, some racism,
all of the isms are in there, right, yeah, because
people even ask me like how are you qualified to
teach for psychiatrists and all of these people and these doctors,
And I said, because I know something that they don't know. Yeah,
just because I don't have letters behind my name does
not mean I'm less smart. I have to they have
(34:33):
a different experience than me, and they want to work
in a field where they're going to work with people
like me. So if they don't have that experience, then
let me show them and let me educate them. And
I think that that's a lot, a lot of it,
especially like for me, it's being a childless person by choice.
And I don't want children. I just know I don't
want children. But I'm glad that I know that, me
(34:55):
and my husband know we don't want children. Because I
help so many people and so many kids. I kind
of imagine I did it for a year with my niece,
and I was exhausted. I had to stop advocating. I
had to stop my work, mostly because I couldn't deal
with a child who was going through similar traumas as
me and my home at thirteen years old, right, and
then go to work all day and deal with people
and their children, and oh.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
A lot, it's a lot. That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
I have too I'm like, oh, yeah, they're teenagers now,
so it's easier.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
But I think that's probably.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Why is harder when there, because then yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
It is, it is. I think that's why I'm with
some cookies. That's true money, you know, piece.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
With money, money, they want money and credit cards.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
But I think it is a space that we need
more people. And I'm so excited to hear that you're
going to enter the lived experience consulting space because, like
you said earlier in the show, adoptive parents don't have
any word to turn. There's no rule book. They go
to the agencies, and the agencies just tell them some
love and love them, right.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
They don't get any type of pray about it, pray
about it, give up. My mother says she gave up
chocolate for like what what's that doing?
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Right? Yeah exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Well, and people think, well, you know, I'm a good person,
you know, and that's great. I'm sure you are a
good person, but if you're adopting a child, you have
to know that there's trauma that comes with that and
there's some special things you need to do to help
with that.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, it doesn't make you a bad person.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
For not knowing what to do, but you should be
open to learning about what you need to do if
you want and your child to succeed.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
And I think it's really important for It's so cool
to see more lived, experienced consultants like coming up and
doing the work. Because Isaac, he's a trans racial adoptee,
but him and his parents are like close, like they
work together, they train other white adoptive parents. It's really
really cool. I mean, I wish my relationship, but it's
not even close. I haven't seen my adoptive parents since
I was fifteen. So he does the education with his
(36:49):
adoptive mom and she's wide and they address they address
like how to raise a black child, but like also
unpacking your internalized racism things. But he doesn't get as
deep as I do when it gets into racism because
he didn't experience that. His parents were always like kind
of liberal and even though they were white, they were
understood race. So he didn't have to go through the
same experiences as me as being the only black kid
(37:10):
in my house, in my town, in my school, and
going through severe racism and even have parents who believe
that black people are below them. Right, So when he
does his classes. It's so cool because I've done a
couple of courses and classes with him. And even though
we are very very similar in our thirties transfrac to adoptees,
our education is so different because he's very much like
love all children, bring them into your home, and then
(37:33):
he'll get But me, I'm just like, bit leave them
black people, leave them alone unless it's like necessary, Unless
you've truly gone out of your way to do as
a white person, you will never be fully educated. But
making sure that you're in diverse neighborhoods, that they're in
a diverse school, that you have relations and connections with
culture and their family, I mean like actual people that
you know that you can talk to. Then maybe, but
(37:54):
I don't see most white folks doing that. They don't
believe they're the're good people and they're not going to
go out of their way, right, So you live in
a neighborhood that is diverse and make sure their child
has access to their culture and biological connections. So like
for me, it's like adoption is already like cutting off
a limb, but transpacial adoption is like cutting off both
of your legs. I'm already losing a leg.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Okay, I can't even imagine, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Adoption, and now because then like that, I want to
talk about identity crisis. I bet I grew up. Yeah,
I grew up figuring out. I grew up calling myself
a gay conservative atheist, don't know what the fuck that is?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
And then I I and I grew up having to
unpack a lot of internalized racism and internalized and yeah,
my parents never taught me how to care for my
hair and my skin, so I just did buzz cuts.
And then like now, as an adult, I've learned and
I love my hair, and I love the different styles
I can do, and there's so much personality, and there's
just so much history, even like even with my style now,
there's so much history that they just didn't bother to
(38:56):
teach me or care for. And it would have been
so much helpful if I would have had that, you know. So, yeah,
I'm not one hundred percent against it, but I'm not
one hundercent for it either. And then with people like yourself,
you can come in and say I had a net
positive experience, because that's that's the number one thing they're
going to say it's oh, you're just you're just bitter.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, yeah, you work.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
You're just better because you got a bad adoption. So
then when we have people like you, like no, I
had a great adoption, my parents are great, I still
struggle with shit heay, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Well, And I think like the race part too. I
you know, I've done a lot of work around my
own white privilege and things like that, and I'm like,
how can I use that to help people? And I
feel like most people who adopt are white, and they'll
listen to a white person. So I want to help
with that because I've seen influencers there's a lot, a
bunch of them on TikTok who have adopted Asian babies
(39:43):
and black babies, and I'm like, I don't see you
doing anything cultural for them, Like you're just living in
your white experience.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
So I want to try to help people.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
And you know what's crazy you say that, So you're right,
white people will listen to you, even though we have
the same similar experiences education, they will, they will open
up doors for you. And it takes I know, like
I have to shuck and jive literally shucking, and people
always ask me so I have a person. I always
have a personal assistant. The two personal assistants I've had
(40:12):
have been white women. And people say, well, Carlos, you're
so like pro black, why do you hire white people.
I'm like, well, because one of the qualified. And then too,
I know when we walk into rooms, So when she
wrot Ma Laura, my assistant, walks into a room, or
she gets on a phone call, they automatically respect hell
on her. She doesn't have to ask for it.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It is a shitty world we live in.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And then we'll and then we'll be in zooms and
things that we'll be making, like we're making ten thousand
and fifteen thousand dollars contracts and they're talking to her
like she's the owner of the right, and I'm like, yeah,
Hilaill be like, well, actually you have to speak to
mister Dillard about that. He's my loss.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Yeah, And they're like, yeah, it's so awful, like it's
so it's so shitty, but it's true, Like that's the
world we live in.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
So that's it.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
I'm like, how can I how can I help elevate
other people with my own privilege?
Speaker 2 (40:56):
And that's you know, that's what I want to do.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
So absolutely, And you know, and one thing I would
I would I would talk about race a lot in
your work. I would talk about how why is important
and hold your community accountable, Like why are you adopting
so many black and brown children and you're not doing
anything right? Right? Yeah, adopt your own.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Right, We're more expensive. I guess they don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
That's what it is. Yeah, that's what it is. It
is you would have lost right now. You would be
like sixty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Probably, Yeah, I know, ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Blond hair, blond hair, blue eyed little girl. Yeah yeah,
in California.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I know.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
It's crazy crazy, it's crazy. And it's easier too, Like
it's easier. Like even if you go to China to
adopt a baby, the process is long and hard, hard.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
That's what she said.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
But uh, in here in the US, it's even harder.
So I think people just want to speed up the process,
so like, oh, we'll just stop the little Chinese baby.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
It's yeah, there's again, there's so many layers to all
of this, like race and culture and money and religion.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
And I think another thing that people don't understand is
the different systems. So when I started talking about adoption,
they'll be like, adoption is free. No, it's not. It's
thousands of dollars. But they're thinking of private adoption, or
they're thinking of foster care to adoption, right, and then
and then they say like, there's so many thousands of
kids waiting to be adopted. I'm like, actually, there there isn't.
(42:23):
There's about one hundred thousand children who are eligible for adoption.
That doesn't mean that they are desperately were sitting that
most of them are over ten. They're young teens or
teenagers and they just want to turn eighteen to get
on with their lives. Ye, right, but there are two
million couples waiting per baby that is born, so we
don't have If we had just a fourth of those
(42:44):
people waiting to adopt infants go and adopt older children,
we would not have any children in the fostering system. Wait,
adopt it not one. But that's not the case. They
don't want children, they don't They want blank slates that
they can form their own.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Little humans exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
And it won't work, and then they upset when it
doesn't happen, and then that's we have a lot of
adoptees going to trouble teen institutions. We have a lot
of adoptees being rehomed on Facebook like animals.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
That pisses me off so much when I see that,
it like breaks my heart.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I can't even Some.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Of these kids are getting read home seven eight times.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
I can't even like when I see those, I can't
even watch them. It just breaks my heart. Like that's part,
that's my soft spot.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
I can't.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
I need to like work on healing that because it
just breaks my heart when I see that. I just
can't even imagine.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
There's this show I forget the name of the show,
Finding My Finding My Family. No, it was something about
it was on TLC and it was speed dating adoptees.
So like there's these kids are in foster care and
they would set up these these events, like these speed
dating events, and the kid would sit at the table
I think.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I did see some Oh yes, I hate this kid.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
And then like they would have like families rotate and
then they would have to choose they like the families
would choose which kids that they like that they were
interested in, And I was like, this is don't you'll
see that?
Speaker 3 (43:56):
This is disgusting, disgusting, like it's going to mess that
kid up so bad, Like you think you know when
pe when you like when they used to pick teams
and you're like the last nobody chose you.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Can you imagine like at an adoption event and nobody
chooses you.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Like one episode, one episode was this sixteen year old
black girl and she's like, I've been coming to these
for five years.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I can't even that just breaks my heart.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
But she ends up finding this older, like seventy year
old lady who was like a retired librarian, and she
was like, hey, I just want to help somebody, and
she ended up adopting her. But like the she fostered
her for like two years and then she adopted her
when she was nineteen, So I was like, Okay, that
was kind of cute. That kind of works, Yeah, but
like she can we can we not do this Peak daity?
(44:42):
Can we do a different system?
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Like why are we treating kids?
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Like it's like I go back to the puppies, Like
why are we treating like you're at the Pound for
adopted Like this is the pound for adopted kids?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Like just go pick the one you think is cutest.
I guess like, what are we doing.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
That's what they well, that's what people that's what people
did in the past with the orphanages. They would goble.
I'll take that one. Actually, bogo buy one, get one,
I'll take two. Right.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
It's so bad, it's so awful, Like all we can
do is laugh because it's just so bad, you.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Know, like, yeah, you gotta laugh instead of crying. You
gotta laugh instead of crying. So, Seanna, we went over
a lot of topics today. We did training for adoptive parents.
We did the blank slate what is one thing? Like,
what is something that we haven't covered that you want
to make sure that adoptive parents or adoptees know so much.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
I think that just if you're an adoptive parent, to
just communicate. If your child comes to you and tells
you they're feeling a certain way, don't just brush it off,
like ask them about it.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Talk to them about it, you know if.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Yeah, lots of people get depressed and lots of people
have anxiety, but it's very different for an adoptee. So
just be willing to listen and be open and be
open to learning. I think that's the biggest thing. Just
have an open mind about any everything.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, and don't take it personally when people try to,
because so much online people taking the person like you
said I'm a horrible person. I said, I never said that.
You thought that from what I'm saying, because you look
up the.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Shoe fit, so the shoe fit it usually does.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Tie it up and learn how to run with it
and get better at what you're doing, because you shouldn't
like when people say, like I compare it all the
time because I have like my my TikTok, I say
adoption is slavery, or like all adoption could be human trafficking,
And they say, are you saying all adoption is bad?
I was like, no, but if we have so many
children experiencing bad adoptions and experiencing loss and greek even
in positive adoptions, let's look at reforming it because kids
(46:36):
should not feel like this. And she's like, well, why
do you say it's all? And I compare it with
men When women say and say all men are dangerous,
I'd be like, yup, huh, yup, And then they'll be like, wait,
you're not a dangerous man. I'm not one, but I
do know that there's most men are not me. So
if I see a pattern of behavior of women being
affected by men, yes all, because it's all until there's none.
(46:58):
So that's what adopted pay should be feeling.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Like.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
I understand that you guys don't want to be shown
in a negative light. Well speak the fuck up instead
of fuck up about these parents that are doing horrible
share their adoptees and these systems. Don't just sit here
and be like, well I did a good job. Okay,
Well speak up about what the atrocities that.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Are happening, right, yeah, yep, yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Still Shanna, thank you so much for being here on
the show with us at Water the State podcast and
sharing your experience my pleasure. I always ask all of
the guests one last question before we get the show,
and that's what's one piece of advice that you would
give an adoptee who's in your same situation? What's one
piece of advice you could give them.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
I would tell them that everything that you are feeling
and experiencing is valid. You're not crazy, you're not alone.
There are many of us out there that are willing
to help you, So reach out. You know, you don't
have to struggle and feel crappy and you know, feel
all those feelings by yourself.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I love that. I love that, And like I say
every week, like shiners, always shine your because you never
know who you might be guiding in a dark space,
and even a little light in a dark room helps
people guide out of that dark room. So always shine
your light, guys, and to next week. We'll see you then.
Awesome th
Content warning. The Wards of the State podcast may contain
material that may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. Heylight Shiners, Welcome back to another
(00:38):
episode of Wards of the State. We are coming up
to our one hundredth episode, and every single episode, like
I know, we've flowed down y'all the listeners. I've been
getting some emails. I need y'alliston. I can't continue the
show unless y'all come and share y'all stories. I could
already share it my I know y'all tired to hear
about my story. So if you would like to share
(00:58):
your story, or if you know an adoptee that think
that you might think might want to share their story,
send them the link to the show. We really need you.
I think we have like four or five more people
schedule for this month, so I really want to make
sure that we can get a full season in before July.
You guys do know I take July, June, July, August
off from work, so I'm trying to get everything done.
This month is actually May as well, So if you
(01:20):
are a birth parents, I know we have some birth
parents that have been waiting all year. We do highlight
birth parents stories once a year for Mother's Day and
Father's Day, so we do some episodes in May and
some episodes in June. So if you are also a
mother or a father who's lost their children to the system,
either adoption of foster care, we would love to hear
from you as well. All those links are in my
(01:40):
bio on all my social media platforms. Also, guys, we
now have both of my books on the TikTok shop,
So if you're on the TikTok shop and you haven't
read the books yet, go grab them because you know,
we can get them at Amazon on my website. But
right now TikTok is really pushing. They're really pushing the
TikTok shop, and they're doing free shipping for a seller,
so I don't have to pay for the shipping like
I would normally have to if it was coming from
(02:01):
my website, so that's great. And then some other last announcements,
we have our second book tour, our second and third
book tour stop coming up. That's going to be on
May tenth in Portland at Boat Coffee and Books, and
then also it's going to be in Seattle, Oh give
me a second. I should have had that, y'all. It's
in the links of my bio Seattle, May eleventh, the
(02:22):
links to my bio of that location. I'm also making
videos about it on my pages, so if you guys
are watching all my social media pages, you will be
bombarded with updates on dates and things. I hope to
see you guys all there. I know Seattle is going
to be such an amazing time because all my family
and friends are going to be there because I lived
in Seattle for seven years. So if you guys want
to come to the Seattle book signing, it is free.
It's completely free for anyone to come on all of
(02:45):
the book tour stops. We've been fundraising or we've just
been paying out of our pockets, working hard to make
sure because I wanted to make sure that everybody can
have access. I didn't want to I know, right now
in the country, finances with the tariffs and everything, finances
are getting hard for people. But that doesn't mean that
they shouldn't have access to resources, right So one of
the resources I wanted to offer was just having parents,
adopted parents bring their children, their adoptees, their former foster
(03:06):
youth or their foster youth just to come and meet
and greet and have a good time reading parts of
the book. It's also well coffee shop and they got
little foods the one in Seattle, so I think they're
both coffee shops actually, so we can have we'll have
we'll have a great time, guys. So yeah, that's going
to be importantly organ at both coffee and books on
May tenth, and then there is a stop in Seattle
on May eleventh, that's Mother's Day. Check the link in
my bio for all the information there. So I think
(03:28):
those are all the updates we have. Oh last update, guys,
you can still watch the YouTube videos of these podcast
episodes or the videos on YouTube, so if you will
to see the podcast, make sure you check out the YouTube.
And it's just my name, guys, Carlos Dillard on YouTube.
And I think that's it. So without further ado, I
want to introduce the next guest, and it's Shanna. Hey, Shanna,
(03:49):
how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Hi? I'm good, how are you?
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I am fantastic. So just kind of start with your story.
How did you enter their external childcare system?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
So my story is not one that's so much filled
with you know, a lot of I don't have a
lot of foster I don't have any foster care experience.
There wasn't abuse or neglect or anything like that. I
was a domestic, same race adoptee, so I was adopted
by white parents in the seventies, and you know, from
the outside, I have I guess what you would call
a more privileged adopt adoptive adopted experience. But there's a
(04:24):
lot on the inside that I'll talk about that people
don't talk about. And that's that's kind of what my
work is now. I'm in training to become a therapist
because there is very little research and very little resources
out there for adoptees.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
So that's what I'm hoping to do.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Absolutely. I just did back in October. I spoke at
the Academy, Yeah, the Academy of Child in Adolescent Psychiatry,
and you would be I was so surprised about how
the information I was giving them was all new. I know,
I was, I know, shocked. I was shocked, like even
some therapies. I was talking to them about rebirthing therapy,
which they now called the Evergreen model, right, and They're like,
(05:06):
is that real? And I'm like, you are a psychiatrist,
I not know, and like you said, I don't think
a lot of them are actually knowing specifically how to
deal with adoption trauma. Because I'll be honest, adoption trauma
is not new, but it's this new thing that people
are actually finally starting to admit that that it happens
in maternal separation trauma is real. Yes, right, yeah, right,
(05:29):
So you're right, there is a there is a need. Yeah,
there is a need for for therapists like yourself who
are going to be trauma informed and adoptees centered. So
kind of tell about your your growing up and being adopted.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
So my parents, this was the seventies, so they were
trying to have kids. They weren't able to and then
my mom eventually had a hysterectomy so that obviously she
couldn't have children. So by then she was in her
sees and they wanted a white baby, and at that
time it was harder to get a white baby, so
they put their name on the list with Children's Home Society,
(06:07):
which I don't believe does adoptions anymore. I think they
have a little bit of dark history too, which you
can read about. But so they put their name on
a list and four years later they got me and
my mom said she was at work and she got
a call and they said, we have a little blonde haired,
blue eyed baby girl.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Do you want to And my mom was like yes.
And from what I understand, does that.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Kind of like doesn't that kind of like when you
explain it like that, it's like.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, it feels off picking a bag?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, right, like do you want? Because that's one thing.
That's one thing that I don't like when when adopted
parents say I chose you. You didn't chose me. It
was just what I was given. I was I was
the freshest offer.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, And that's that's one of the like mind fucks
about adoption, is like you're so lucky you got chosen,
But on the inside, the adoptee is experiencing the worst
possible grief you could ever experience in your life.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So it's really a weird thing.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
So from what I understand, I was in a foster
home for maybe a week while they finalized all the
paperwork and legal stuff or whatever. And it's funny because
when I was I go to therapy too, but it's
almost like I remember being in foster care.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
But I was a newborn baby, so how could I
remember that? And I was talking to my therapist and
I was like, am I just making this up? And
she was like no.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And that's part of the research that we now know
is that before people would say, oh, babies are a
blank slate, you know, it's just like a puppy, Like
you take a puppy from its mom, you give it
to another person, they're fine. But we now know that's
not true. Babies are very complex. They have very complex emotions.
They can experience grief and pain, anxiety.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And that's the thing about puppies. So you know, you
know the history of adoption and the AA is it?
Why could I ever think of that damn organization? The
Animal People who be Helping People ASPCA. Yes, they were
the first organization. His name was Henry Burke. He was
the first. He was a founder of the ASPCA, and
he was the first person to actually take children from
abusive homes. He did this because children were considered property first,
(08:04):
and he was allowed to. He had had the Supreme
Court in New York give him authority to remove animals
that are being abused from homes. So he was going
into these homes and removing children out of cages or
the animals out of cages, and there were children in
cages right next to them.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
So then he went back to the Supreme Court and
he says, I believe that I should be able to
remove children under the same protections of animals, because they
said he could protect any type of reps how and
he was like, we're humans, are mammals. So he actually
used the rights of the ASPCA to get children, and
he started like one of the first CPS systems. And
that's why a lot of our language is the same.
So fostering, rehoming, adoption, all of that is the same
(08:42):
because they did not know that. It's yeah, it's actually
a great history look back on. Adoption started with the ASPCA,
and like tild welfare started with the ASPCA. And you're
in America, and that's why we have so many common things.
But so when you said it's like dogs, but that's
not true though, because you have I mean technically not legally,
but you're supposed to wait four to six weeks before
taking the dog from a mom if it's healthy, like
(09:04):
the mom's healthy. It's really bad to take dogs away
from their mom's right. We all know this and accept that,
but we're just like, let a human just pop a
baby out wound, wet, and we're just gonna just give
them to the adoptive parents. But everything so it's probably
nothing happened here, nothing to here.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, the baby doesn't know any different.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Absolutely. In my therapy and in my work, I too remember, well,
I don't know how much your trauma is trauma even
if you experience it as you know an infant, it's
called that like the primal wound. I'm sure you're you're
familiar with the book if you haven't.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Right here, actually right, it's like it's right the Bible
of adoption.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It really is that. I have a couple of Bible
A couple of them are like the Bible of adoption,
and it's I don't agree with everything that the adoptive
mother is saying there, but I do agree with the
idea that we could just remove children. And we think
it's all okay, but we're not remembering that there's that
wound happened. And the mind. The brain is like a
computer system, and a lot of people forget that it's
actually the fastest, most powerful computer system. On the world.
(10:03):
So you may not remember, but your brain does because
your brain was there, right exactly. That's that's that unpacked,
unhealed trauma right in maternal seperation trauma that you're like, Man,
I don't remember being a foster caure, I don't remember
being separate. You feel it, feel this, Yeah, brain remembers exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
What I like to say to people is like, imagine
that you are a baby, toddler, whatever, and you witness
your parents get murdered right in front of you.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
How would you treat that toddler? Would you be like,
oh my gosh, you're so lucky.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
You have new family now, Oh my gosh, you're so lucky,
Like that's what we do to adoptees.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You're so lucky.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So this little baby or toddler child is going through
all this grief, but everyone around them is celebrating and
having parties and smiling and.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Laughing like touch days. Yes, Like how like it's so
messed up?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And so that for me created a lot of confusion
because I was as a child looking back now as
an adult, I was really depressed and I was I
had a lot of fear, Like I didn't even like
going to sleepovers because I was afraid I'd never seen
my parents again, like all these little things.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
And but I'm so lucky, right, I'm so lucky that
I have.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
My parents growing up. Did your parents tell you you
were adopted when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
That's one thing that I will say.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
They always told me, and that's really important for adoptees
to know their history.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
So did they, like, did they tell you or did
you just grow up knowing? Like, did they tell you
like such a young age.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
That yes, my mom she just told me, like when
I was a baby, like, but it was always framed
in that, you know, we chose you.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
You're so lucky.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
But she I'm making my parents sound horrible. But they
they tried to, you know, really put it in a
positive light for me, because again, like they didn't know
what they were doing either.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
There's no research, there's no hand but for adoptive parents.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
That's the biggest. So when I you're probably from me
with my work and a lot of people say you
just hate adoptive parents, I'm like, I don't hate them
at all. I don't, but you don't know what you
don't know, and there isn't because of the adoption industry,
and because of all of like you know, the advertisement
and the marketing, everyone believes that it's just such an
easy thing and it's such a wonderful thing, and it's
(12:17):
just not And we need parents to understand that when
we're asking for a reform and we're asking, you know,
for different therapies and different changes, it doesn't mean that
you were a bad person. So it's like, just like
your parents, you were explaining like, oh, well, they said
you're so lucky and all of this, Well, they didn't
know that that wasn't okay to say. They were, like
you said, there's no rule book. They didn't have a
lot of adoptee books or the problem room like we
have now. These are now resources that we have a
(12:39):
TikTok and podcasts, But in the seventies, girl, all they
had was the news.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
In the newspaper exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Honestly, adoption was still kind of new. It was only
apeption in the United States only came up in the
late nineteen forties, and it really wasn't that accepted up
until it was I was in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
It was pretty taboo even then, Like even in the seventies,
mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So like they probably didn't not people didn't speak on it.
They just adopted the child, did the best that they
could exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
And that's the thing too, that you know, most adoptive
parents are coming from a place of love and good
intentions and they're not trying to do harm. But it
is harmful to not recognize the grief, the silence. I
call it the silent grief of adoptees or foster kids.
You know, it runs deep, the deep, deep river.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Now did you have and you said your mother had hysterectomy,
So did you Did they adopt any other children or
were you the only child?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I have a brother he's four years younger. So after
they adopted me, they knew that it takes about four years,
so they put their name right back on that list,
and four years later they got another little he wasn't
blonde haired, but another little white baby. Mm hmm. So yeah,
I think I think it was easier to adopt other
races back then. M But like I said, getting a
(13:54):
you know, a white baby, that sounds so awful. But
you know that's another thing too, Like it was it
was price them.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
They priced them differently, y'all are are more expensive?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
You're like, for I think my mom said I was
two thousand dollars. Oh, it cost two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
In the seventies. That's the money.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That was a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
That's somebody at the seventies. Yep, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Well, okay, so you're growing up. How is your childhood
growing up? It sounds like your parents just kind of
like always told you that you were adopted. Did you
struggle with like trying to wonder who your biological family
was growing up? And that I'm guessing it was a
closed adoption since it was a private agency, right, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Closed adoption.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
So all I had from the Children's Home Society provided
like a very brief medical background, and it was just like,
I mean, they had, you know, a week's worth of
knowledge about me, so it was like, you know, happy
baby doesn't cry a lot. I'm like, gee, I wonder
why I'm like going through trauma. But and then they
gave me a little paragraph about like birth mother is
(14:55):
you know, brown haired, green eye, like just very brief
about both. So I had that little piece to pay
for my whole life. And that's kind of what I
would look at every once in a while. But my
childhood was like a normal middle class childhood, you know, happy,
no abuse in the home or anything like that. Like
I I was lucky in a lot of ways, because
I've heard so awful start.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
We talk about that a lot. I think I was
just doing an interview with another guest a couple of
weeks ago about their net positive experience in their adoption,
because I tell people it can happen even if you
don't have educated parents. You know, the little mistakes that
they didn't make about like saying you're so lucky, things
like that, those are small things that can be changed.
But the basis of it is just you know, under
I think your adoptive mom sounds like she understood it
(15:37):
immediately of showing these children that like, hey, you're adopted,
but like I do love you, and you you are
I'm going to raise you the best that I can.
But now that we do have the information, we need
people to start doing that before they start getting into adoptions.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I love the people. And then another thing about net
positive adoptions is that that's why as adoptees we connect.
So no matter if you had a bad quote negative
adopt or net positive adoption, we all still have the
same internal issues of identity, of abandonment. And it's like,
so it didn't really matter how we were being raised. Yeah,
(16:14):
something about maternal separation and children not being raised by
their families create some type of internal humanistic pain that
every adoptee experience is no matter if it's positive or negative. So,
and that's one reason I do this show is because
I need people to understand, like, stories like yours, Shanna
can happen, and they can be great, but even in
(16:34):
the most positive adoptions, there's still loss.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, there's still loss, right, And that made it confusing
for me as I was getting older, because so starting
to go through puberty and all the changes are happening,
and I'm feeling like depressed, and I had really low
self esteem. I was like painfully shy. And now I
know a lot of these things came from that initial trauma,
but it was confusing for me because it's like, look,
(17:00):
you have this great family, You're being raised so well,
like you're you're so lucky, but I feel like shit
on the inside.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Why Oh? And I would talk to.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
My mom about it and she didn't understand either, and
she would say things like, oh, well, everybody feels like that,
and you know, everybody gets depressed sometimes, but it's deeper
than that for adoptees. And that's why I'm so passionate
about becoming a therapist, because if you're not adopted, you
just don't understand, and you won't understand, like no matter
how much somebody tells you, you don't.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I don't know what it feels like unless you're there.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Unless you're there, absolutely, And because of your adoption was
a private adoption, your birth certificate was changed. So how
has that affected your life? And I know you want
to speak about that a little bit, about the changing
of the birth certificates.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, so that is in a closed adoption, particularly when
you are adopted, they legally change your they legally falsify
your birth certificate. So it's like the only legal document
that's allowed to be falsified. And so my original birth
certift get is locked and sealed away and there's no
way I can access it ever. I know some states
(18:05):
have opened them up again, but California is one that
has not, and I've looked into it because I was
just curious about what my original name was and the
only way that California will allow a birth certificate to
be unsealed. You have to have like some crazy medical
reason or like you have to have like a big.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Major reason for it reason.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, it's either or if you can prove that the
adoption there was some type of fraud or deception through
the adoption. But it's like a severe medical thing. Yeah,
it's in practically, Yeah, my state of Michigan. I can
get mine when I'm one hundred and seven.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Wow. Thanks, that's great.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
So yeah, it's ninety nine year from the day that
you were adopted. So I was I was okay, like
seven or eight when I got adopt Okay, so I
get it at Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Wow, that's like you can have it. Just kidding, like, but.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
No, I found my birth family, so I have all
my medical history now. But it is an issue. But
even let's say, because guys, even in open adoptions, the
per certificates are still closed in every legal US adoption.
That's like when I have people who come up to
me and they say, hey, I was adopted. I've had
this happen a couple of times, and I say, okay,
well I always asked them, I said, what's your is
your parents, the parents that you know as your parents,
(19:21):
because they always like, I don't know if I was adopted,
I don't know. If I was kidnapped, I don't know.
And I've helped adoptees who were is victims of kidnapping,
like literally, and I was like, look at your pirth certificate.
I say, look at your cer certificate and they're like,
it has a random name on it. I don't know
the people. And I was like, your parents name and
then she's like, well, no, it's the it's it's the original.
And I was like, in the US, you should have
(19:41):
you will have an adopted birth certificate, no matter how
what happened. It's rare that you don't. You will get one.
Maybe they will put in some states they do be
putting both parents names, but no, you will get an
official And they didn't have any adoption paperwork. The agency
that their parents had said that they were like never existed.
And that's always the first thing though. It's always a
(20:02):
tell tell sign when I'm doing research for adoptees, is
I look at the birth certificate. Also when people are
adopted and they don't know that they're adopted. I've had
clients come up to say, Carlos, I feel like I'm adopted,
you know, DNA. But then if they do their DNA
tess and their parents don't, then like it's really really hard.
And then a lot of them are older, like a
lot of the older adopt they're usually like sixty to eighty.
(20:23):
They don't want to do DNA. They they don't trust
like the government whatever, So we have to do just documents.
So one of the documents that I look at is
their birth certificate. And because they were never told that
they adopted, they think they're like, my parents' name are
on here, and I'm like, okay, now look at the
birth date and look at the issue date. If you're adopted,
your issue date will always be a month or longer
from the birth date. And that's that yeah, And that's
(20:46):
because when you were born, most hospitals take three to
five business days to issue the birth certificate. Right, so
most people have their issue date on theirth certificate within
a week of their birth. Adoptees that dates like a
month or longer. So mine is seven years issued. So
if I didn't know I was adopted, why is my
issue date seven years after I was born? Right? Like
(21:09):
something happened here? Why did it take some it was reissued.
So that's a little trick if you guys ever want
to know if you might be adopted, to look at
your birth certificate and see how long that issue dates
away from your birthday.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I'm going to check that. I'm curious. Now.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
My birth certificate is so weird looking like now they're
all pretty and like big. Mind's like this big because
it's from the seventies. So I don't even know if
the issue dates on there. I'm I'm gonna yeah, I've.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Only seen, I've only seen it might.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Be issued date, yeah yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, so the birth certificate. What are some issues have
you found as an adoptee or just someone who works
in the field that it causes problems? What are some issues?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I think the biggest one is just identity, because for me,
I wanted to know I never I did eventually meet
my birth parents, and I could talk about that separately,
But for me, it was just more curiosity. I wanted
to know, like who were my parents, Like what were
their names?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
What was my name?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Like?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It's just a curiosity thing for me. But I think
for other.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
People, especially people that don't have information from their adoption
agency or anything like that. It's a really huge piece
of information for people to have because a lot of
people don't have anything to start their research on, you know,
they don't know anything, so it's it's just it's very secretive.
It makes it really difficult. And if you do have
(22:26):
medical issues, that's another thing. When you go to the doctor,
they ask you like, does your family have a history,
and blah blah blah. I always say I don't know
because I'm adopted and I luckily don't have medical issues
knock on wood, But people that do, it would.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Be nice to know what the history of that is.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So absolutely, but I think the biggest thing is just
the identity piece. Like for some people, that's all we
have is the birth certificate. That's all we have of
our past.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, for me, the identity issue was the largest issue
with the birth certificate for the longest time. And too
I reunited with my birth family and my mom and
my sister died. That's when I started to learn that
there are actually legal consequences to having your birth certificate
changed as well. So as we know, legally we're not
legally related to any of our birth family. So this
causes problems with making medical decisions for them, identifying their
(23:17):
dead bodies at more, even kinship rights. My niece was
here and I had to go through a traditional guardianship
instead of kinship, which I had more protections as kinship,
but because I wasn't legally related to her, they considered
me ficked in the kinship or just like a guardian,
And that gives you different rights because if you are
biologically related to someone, you have a little bit more
(23:38):
rights with the courts and with the system to say like, hey, no,
this is my family. They can stay here. But if
you're just a guardian, then it's really just like up
to the state or to the parent to remove them
whenever they want to. So there are legal consequences. And
even like my brother, he just recently moved in with
us for a couple months to get on his feet,
and I have to make sure that we have a
medical release form for him because if he gets into
an accident or something happens to him, I legally cannot
(24:01):
I'm not his Texic kin legally, Yeah, so I would
have to like call my brother, and I'm not talking
to him right now, so I don't know what I
would do, right, Yeah, but my other brother. So there's
there are so many things legal things right about this
per certificate that will affect the rest of our lives,
right and for me, Okay, great adoption happened, but just
like divorce, why don't we have a way out? Why
(24:23):
can't why can't they reverse this?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Well?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And why why do the birth parents get all the
protection and we get nothing? You know, Like that was
put into place to protect the birth parents at a
time when you know, adoption was taboo and all that stuff,
But what about us?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I get nothing?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
You know? So I also think it was I think
it was there to not only protect the birth parents,
I also think it was there to lie to people
because if you can sit there and say you can
say yeah, like with Georgia Tan, like oh, this baby
came from a crack house and you're saving them, when
it actually just came from like a four thirteen year
old who was great by her dad.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yep, exactly right.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
So it's like, yeah, it allows them to keep up
the facade of lying about our birth and like every adoptee,
every one of our parents can be crackheads. Every one
of our parents can't be you know, leaving us on
the side of a dumpstairs. Some of most of these
people were just probably young, impoverished people. They y'all played
upon them and sold their child. And if they would
have had that two thousand dollars, I'm sure your mom
(25:20):
probably would have been okay or maybe a little bit considered,
you know, keeping you you know, yep, it's insane, just
like how we just erase identities, We just raise information
and we expect that the kids to be okay with it.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
It's absolutely as Yeah, that's I think that's what bothers
me the most. It's just erasing. It's like that didn't happen.
Just ignore that that didn't happen. This is your new
life now, you know, you're just a puppy going to
a new family.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
That didn't happen. So okay, So tell us a little
bit about your reunification. You said that you did reunite.
What age were you and how did that process work
for you.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
So I was twenty two, twenty three and I had
just moved out of my family house. I moved up
to San Francisco, and I was like living my life
and I had been thinking about finding my birth parents
for a little while, and the way it works with
the closed adoption, at least with my agency, is that
(26:14):
I had to send in some paperwork and then if
my birth parents had also sent in paperwork, then they
swapped that information.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So I sent my.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Stuff in thinking oh, I'm never gonna hear anything. And
then this was before the internet really too, like email
was just a new thing. Like everything was through the mail,
and like a week later, I get a phone call,
we have your birth mom's name, and I was like,
oh my god, I'm not ready for this, Like I
was not expecting it that soon. But then I did
start exchanging letters with her, and so she I found
(26:43):
out she lived maybe twenty minutes from my parents, but
I was up in San Francisco at the time, so
we would We were exchanging letters for a while, and yeah,
it was It was good for me and I got
a little bit of closure, but it still was a
little bit. It's kind of an identity crisis because I'm
I'm so used to thinking, Okay, I'm adopted and I
have birth parents, but that's like over here, you know,
(27:04):
this is my life. So now this what's over here
is over here, and I'm like, this is kind of
messing me up a little bit. And I had found
out my birth dad had passed away years before, but
I did get a little information about him. And then
my birth mom ended up passing away a couple years later,
and I stayed in contact with her two siblings who
actually live nearby, and I go to their house for
(27:27):
you know, little family gatherings and stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Now, so it's been great.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Do you have any biological siblings?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
No?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
None, And something that I always thought about, I had
this fantasy. This is another thing with adoptees is that
we sometimes fantasize about what our birth parents look like.
And I always had this fantasy that my birth mom
looked kind of like me, like, but in my head,
she was like a rocker chick, I don't like an
eighties rocker chick or something like a cool lady. And
(27:55):
when I met her, I was a little disappointed that
she didn't live up to that fantasy, which is another
part of adoption trauma that you kind of, you know,
fantasize because you don't know. But she never got married,
never had kids, And I at first kind of blamed
myself for that because I was like, oh, my gosh,
you know, she probably was so guilty about giving me
(28:15):
up for adoption that she was sad and never had kids.
Like I kind of took that on and I had
to deal with that too. But so there's like so
many layers of all of this stuff, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So many layers. And did your mom ever share why
she chose adoption for you?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
She didn't, but I put some pieces together. So she
was a senior in high school and got pregnant, and
my birth dad was twenty something. So in my mind,
I've painted the picture it was like a little spring break,
little love affair, and he was from out of town,
so they hooked up, she got pregnant, and then she's
a senior in high school in the seventies, pregnant, and
I think that her parents forced her to give me
(28:51):
up for adoption. I don't think it was her choice,
but I have not confirmed that yet.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Okay, well, thank you for sharing that. And you know
that's just like I said, young and poor, that's usually
usually the case, young and poor. Well, Shanna, we're gonna
take a quick break when we come back and then
talk about more about the changes that you would like
to see in the adoption industry. Newborn babies not being
blink slates and more about how therapists need to be
more trauma informed. So we're gonna take a quick break
(29:19):
and we'll be right back. Okay, hey, light Shiners, welcome
back to War to the State podcast. Make sure you
guys are leaving us US five star, one two three, four,
five star waiting and review on Apple Podcasts, and also
make sure you're subscribing to us on Spotify. And like
I said at the beginning of the show, we now
are doing video podcast on YouTube, so make sure you
check out Carlos Dealer's YouTube that was we already said,
(29:40):
well it's in the name of the YouTube, which is
my name, y'all, I cat talking about myself a therap person.
So like I said earlier in the show, make sure
you send this to someone who'd like to share their stories.
Shanna is sharing an amazing story about a net positive experience,
but even still talking about that that loss. And I
think that these are the type of conversations that a
lot of adoptive parents because so many people when they
(30:01):
hear especially like adoption reform, they think that your anti adoption,
your anti children finding safe homes, And absolutely that's not
the case. We would just like more legal protections, right,
and more protections for children, and more rights for children
as far as birth certificates and unadoption and annulment, and
then honestly just people being more educated and like we
(30:22):
were saying, and having more therapists educated and having more
parents educated. So it's really important for us to share
stories like Shanna's because it's in that positive experience. So
there's nothing that her adoptive parents necessarily did wrong, but
adoption itself starts at a loss loss and if we
don't acknowledge that, then we were going to have a
lot of traumatized children. And we see the statistics that
(30:44):
adoptees go through with their mental health and addictions and
things like that. So with that being said, Shanna, we
were talking about before our break being infants, and I
want to hear about what your theory is or what
your idea on the blank slate theory what is, even
though I know technically it's already been and debunked, like
there's no blankstate theory, but we still hear about it
a lot with people say like, oh, you're a newborn baby,
(31:05):
you don't remember anything.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Mm hmmmm hmm.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Yeah, that's that's kind of been the thinking for all
of history up until very recently, that babies are just,
you know, just a blank slate. You know, you can
just they don't they don't have complex emotions or feelings.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
But that's we know now that's not the case.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Like babies can experience depression and anxiety and grief and
fear and all of the same exact emotions that grownups
can feel, they just can't express it in the most
complex of ways. So even though they can't say, like, hey,
I'm depressed, where's my mom? I can't find her, all
of those feelings are in the body, being stored in
the body and being stored in the mind and come
(31:45):
out later in life.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
So it's a lot needs.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
To be done to educate adoptive parents on what to
do for their little babies. Like again, I'm not I'm
not anti adoption, I'm pro education for adoptive parents, because
there's a.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Lot not anti adoption on pro reform.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
We need to like that.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
And here's the thing, there's no system in this in
any country that's going to be one hundred percent good, right,
And that's what gives it frustrates me so much because
I'm like, this is a system and I actually has
a twenty five billion dollar private sector industry and we
just think it's okay and nobody's going to check and
nobody's concerned.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, well, I think a lot of it. I think
a lot.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Maybe part of it is a lot of it's tied
to religion. So it's like, you know, the religious part,
love and light and you know, all of that stuff.
So that kind of complicates things in a lot of ways,
I think.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
But and I'm not.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Religious, I'm more spiritual, so I might have a little
negative reaction when I hear, you know, all the religious
stuff tied to it.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
But but yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I think one thing that I want to do is
start training adoptive parents on what they can do. Like,
for example, I know that when I was a baby
at that time, you put your baby in the crib
at night alone and you let it sleep by itself,
and it's sort of the cry it out method. Would
you if you had a little toddler that just witnessed
its parent dying in front of them, would you let
(33:14):
them cry it out alone all night long?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Probably?
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Not.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
So, just little things like that, like a little newborn
baby going through grief needs to be held all the time.
Like there's no you can't help hold it too much.
That theory like the baby's manipulating you by crying and
you're holding it too much.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Like that is false.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Hold that baby all the time, you know, skin to
skin or whatever, like just give that baby all the
love and attention, like just little simple things like that
like cry it out method bad.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Don't do that bad? No, and you know so. So
I started doing lived experience consulting about two years ago,
and it's a failed that there aren't many of us.
I think I know a handful. Isaac Ether is one.
He's an adoptee myself, and there's like a few other
adoptees I've met online who offer experience consulting, but there's
not because there there's like, no, you need to be
(34:03):
an adoptee to do it right.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Well, and I think people don't realize that how it's needed,
Like people don't realize that it's needed.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
And the issue, well, and here's the issue is we
have with this. We have some classisms, some capitalism, some racism,
all of the isms are in there, right, yeah, because
people even ask me like how are you qualified to
teach for psychiatrists and all of these people and these doctors,
And I said, because I know something that they don't know. Yeah,
just because I don't have letters behind my name does
not mean I'm less smart. I have to they have
(34:33):
a different experience than me, and they want to work
in a field where they're going to work with people
like me. So if they don't have that experience, then
let me show them and let me educate them. And
I think that that's a lot, a lot of it,
especially like for me, it's being a childless person by choice.
And I don't want children. I just know I don't
want children. But I'm glad that I know that, me
(34:55):
and my husband know we don't want children. Because I
help so many people and so many kids. I kind
of imagine I did it for a year with my niece,
and I was exhausted. I had to stop advocating. I
had to stop my work, mostly because I couldn't deal
with a child who was going through similar traumas as
me and my home at thirteen years old, right, and
then go to work all day and deal with people
and their children, and oh.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
A lot, it's a lot. That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
I have too I'm like, oh, yeah, they're teenagers now,
so it's easier.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
But I think that's probably.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Why is harder when there, because then yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
It is, it is. I think that's why I'm with
some cookies. That's true money, you know, piece.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
With money, money, they want money and credit cards.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
But I think it is a space that we need
more people. And I'm so excited to hear that you're
going to enter the lived experience consulting space because, like
you said earlier in the show, adoptive parents don't have
any word to turn. There's no rule book. They go
to the agencies, and the agencies just tell them some
love and love them, right.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
They don't get any type of pray about it, pray
about it, give up. My mother says she gave up
chocolate for like what what's that doing?
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Right? Yeah exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Well, and people think, well, you know, I'm a good person,
you know, and that's great. I'm sure you are a
good person, but if you're adopting a child, you have
to know that there's trauma that comes with that and
there's some special things you need to do to help
with that.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, it doesn't make you a bad person.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
For not knowing what to do, but you should be
open to learning about what you need to do if
you want and your child to succeed.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
And I think it's really important for It's so cool
to see more lived, experienced consultants like coming up and
doing the work. Because Isaac, he's a trans racial adoptee,
but him and his parents are like close, like they
work together, they train other white adoptive parents. It's really
really cool. I mean, I wish my relationship, but it's
not even close. I haven't seen my adoptive parents since
I was fifteen. So he does the education with his
(36:49):
adoptive mom and she's wide and they address they address
like how to raise a black child, but like also
unpacking your internalized racism things. But he doesn't get as
deep as I do when it gets into racism because
he didn't experience that. His parents were always like kind
of liberal and even though they were white, they were
understood race. So he didn't have to go through the
same experiences as me as being the only black kid
(37:10):
in my house, in my town, in my school, and
going through severe racism and even have parents who believe
that black people are below them. Right, So when he
does his classes. It's so cool because I've done a
couple of courses and classes with him. And even though
we are very very similar in our thirties transfrac to adoptees,
our education is so different because he's very much like
love all children, bring them into your home, and then
(37:33):
he'll get But me, I'm just like, bit leave them
black people, leave them alone unless it's like necessary, Unless
you've truly gone out of your way to do as
a white person, you will never be fully educated. But
making sure that you're in diverse neighborhoods, that they're in
a diverse school, that you have relations and connections with
culture and their family, I mean like actual people that
you know that you can talk to. Then maybe, but
(37:54):
I don't see most white folks doing that. They don't
believe they're the're good people and they're not going to
go out of their way, right, So you live in
a neighborhood that is diverse and make sure their child
has access to their culture and biological connections. So like
for me, it's like adoption is already like cutting off
a limb, but transpacial adoption is like cutting off both
of your legs. I'm already losing a leg.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Okay, I can't even imagine, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Adoption, and now because then like that, I want to
talk about identity crisis. I bet I grew up. Yeah,
I grew up figuring out. I grew up calling myself
a gay conservative atheist, don't know what the fuck that is?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
And then I I and I grew up having to
unpack a lot of internalized racism and internalized and yeah,
my parents never taught me how to care for my
hair and my skin, so I just did buzz cuts.
And then like now, as an adult, I've learned and
I love my hair, and I love the different styles
I can do, and there's so much personality, and there's
just so much history, even like even with my style now,
there's so much history that they just didn't bother to
(38:56):
teach me or care for. And it would have been
so much helpful if I would have had that, you know. So, yeah,
I'm not one hundred percent against it, but I'm not
one hundercent for it either. And then with people like yourself,
you can come in and say I had a net
positive experience, because that's that's the number one thing they're
going to say it's oh, you're just you're just bitter.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, yeah, you work.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
You're just better because you got a bad adoption. So
then when we have people like you, like no, I
had a great adoption, my parents are great, I still
struggle with shit heay, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Well, And I think like the race part too. I
you know, I've done a lot of work around my
own white privilege and things like that, and I'm like,
how can I use that to help people? And I
feel like most people who adopt are white, and they'll
listen to a white person. So I want to help
with that because I've seen influencers there's a lot, a
bunch of them on TikTok who have adopted Asian babies
(39:43):
and black babies, and I'm like, I don't see you
doing anything cultural for them, Like you're just living in
your white experience.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
So I want to try to help people.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
And you know what's crazy you say that, So you're right,
white people will listen to you, even though we have
the same similar experiences education, they will, they will open
up doors for you. And it takes I know, like
I have to shuck and jive literally shucking, and people
always ask me so I have a person. I always
have a personal assistant. The two personal assistants I've had
(40:12):
have been white women. And people say, well, Carlos, you're
so like pro black, why do you hire white people.
I'm like, well, because one of the qualified. And then too,
I know when we walk into rooms, So when she
wrot Ma Laura, my assistant, walks into a room, or
she gets on a phone call, they automatically respect hell
on her. She doesn't have to ask for it.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
It is a shitty world we live in.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
And then we'll and then we'll be in zooms and
things that we'll be making, like we're making ten thousand
and fifteen thousand dollars contracts and they're talking to her
like she's the owner of the right, and I'm like, yeah,
Hilaill be like, well, actually you have to speak to
mister Dillard about that. He's my loss.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Yeah, And they're like, yeah, it's so awful, like it's
so it's so shitty, but it's true, Like that's the
world we live in.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
So that's it.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
I'm like, how can I how can I help elevate
other people with my own privilege?
Speaker 2 (40:56):
And that's you know, that's what I want to do.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
So absolutely, And you know, and one thing I would
I would I would talk about race a lot in
your work. I would talk about how why is important
and hold your community accountable, Like why are you adopting
so many black and brown children and you're not doing
anything right? Right? Yeah, adopt your own.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Right, We're more expensive. I guess they don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
That's what it is. Yeah, that's what it is. It
is you would have lost right now. You would be
like sixty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Probably, Yeah, I know, ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Blond hair, blond hair, blue eyed little girl. Yeah yeah,
in California.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I know.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
It's crazy crazy, it's crazy. And it's easier too, Like
it's easier. Like even if you go to China to
adopt a baby, the process is long and hard, hard.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
That's what she said.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
But uh, in here in the US, it's even harder.
So I think people just want to speed up the process,
so like, oh, we'll just stop the little Chinese baby.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
It's yeah, there's again, there's so many layers to all
of this, like race and culture and money and religion.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
And I think another thing that people don't understand is
the different systems. So when I started talking about adoption,
they'll be like, adoption is free. No, it's not. It's
thousands of dollars. But they're thinking of private adoption, or
they're thinking of foster care to adoption, right, and then
and then they say like, there's so many thousands of
kids waiting to be adopted. I'm like, actually, there there isn't.
(42:23):
There's about one hundred thousand children who are eligible for adoption.
That doesn't mean that they are desperately were sitting that
most of them are over ten. They're young teens or
teenagers and they just want to turn eighteen to get
on with their lives. Ye, right, but there are two
million couples waiting per baby that is born, so we
don't have If we had just a fourth of those
(42:44):
people waiting to adopt infants go and adopt older children,
we would not have any children in the fostering system. Wait,
adopt it not one. But that's not the case. They
don't want children, they don't They want blank slates that
they can form their own.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Little humans exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
And it won't work, and then they upset when it
doesn't happen, and then that's we have a lot of
adoptees going to trouble teen institutions. We have a lot
of adoptees being rehomed on Facebook like animals.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
That pisses me off so much when I see that,
it like breaks my heart.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I can't even Some.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Of these kids are getting read home seven eight times.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
I can't even like when I see those, I can't
even watch them. It just breaks my heart. Like that's part,
that's my soft spot.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
I can't.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
I need to like work on healing that because it
just breaks my heart when I see that. I just
can't even imagine.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
There's this show I forget the name of the show,
Finding My Finding My Family. No, it was something about
it was on TLC and it was speed dating adoptees.
So like there's these kids are in foster care and
they would set up these these events, like these speed
dating events, and the kid would sit at the table
I think.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I did see some Oh yes, I hate this kid.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
And then like they would have like families rotate and
then they would have to choose they like the families
would choose which kids that they like that they were
interested in, And I was like, this is don't you'll
see that?
Speaker 3 (43:56):
This is disgusting, disgusting, like it's going to mess that
kid up so bad, Like you think you know when
pe when you like when they used to pick teams
and you're like the last nobody chose you.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Can you imagine like at an adoption event and nobody
chooses you.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Like one episode, one episode was this sixteen year old
black girl and she's like, I've been coming to these
for five years.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I can't even that just breaks my heart.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
But she ends up finding this older, like seventy year
old lady who was like a retired librarian, and she
was like, hey, I just want to help somebody, and
she ended up adopting her. But like the she fostered
her for like two years and then she adopted her
when she was nineteen, So I was like, Okay, that
was kind of cute. That kind of works, Yeah, but
like she can we can we not do this Peak daity?
(44:42):
Can we do a different system?
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Like why are we treating kids?
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Like it's like I go back to the puppies, Like
why are we treating like you're at the Pound for
adopted Like this is the pound for adopted kids?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Like just go pick the one you think is cutest.
I guess like, what are we doing.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
That's what they well, that's what people that's what people
did in the past with the orphanages. They would goble.
I'll take that one. Actually, bogo buy one, get one,
I'll take two. Right.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
It's so bad, it's so awful, Like all we can
do is laugh because it's just so bad, you.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Know, like, yeah, you gotta laugh instead of crying. You
gotta laugh instead of crying. So, Seanna, we went over
a lot of topics today. We did training for adoptive parents.
We did the blank slate what is one thing? Like,
what is something that we haven't covered that you want
to make sure that adoptive parents or adoptees know so much.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
I think that just if you're an adoptive parent, to
just communicate. If your child comes to you and tells
you they're feeling a certain way, don't just brush it off,
like ask them about it.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Talk to them about it, you know if.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Yeah, lots of people get depressed and lots of people
have anxiety, but it's very different for an adoptee. So
just be willing to listen and be open and be
open to learning. I think that's the biggest thing. Just
have an open mind about any everything.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, and don't take it personally when people try to,
because so much online people taking the person like you
said I'm a horrible person. I said, I never said that.
You thought that from what I'm saying, because you look
up the.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Shoe fit, so the shoe fit it usually does.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Tie it up and learn how to run with it
and get better at what you're doing, because you shouldn't
like when people say, like I compare it all the
time because I have like my my TikTok, I say
adoption is slavery, or like all adoption could be human trafficking,
And they say, are you saying all adoption is bad?
I was like, no, but if we have so many
children experiencing bad adoptions and experiencing loss and greek even
in positive adoptions, let's look at reforming it because kids
(46:36):
should not feel like this. And she's like, well, why
do you say it's all? And I compare it with
men When women say and say all men are dangerous,
I'd be like, yup, huh, yup, And then they'll be like, wait,
you're not a dangerous man. I'm not one, but I
do know that there's most men are not me. So
if I see a pattern of behavior of women being
affected by men, yes all, because it's all until there's none.
(46:58):
So that's what adopted pay should be feeling.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Like.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
I understand that you guys don't want to be shown
in a negative light. Well speak the fuck up instead
of fuck up about these parents that are doing horrible
share their adoptees and these systems. Don't just sit here
and be like, well I did a good job. Okay,
Well speak up about what the atrocities that.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Are happening, right, yeah, yep, yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Still Shanna, thank you so much for being here on
the show with us at Water the State podcast and
sharing your experience my pleasure. I always ask all of
the guests one last question before we get the show,
and that's what's one piece of advice that you would
give an adoptee who's in your same situation? What's one
piece of advice you could give them.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
I would tell them that everything that you are feeling
and experiencing is valid. You're not crazy, you're not alone.
There are many of us out there that are willing
to help you, So reach out. You know, you don't
have to struggle and feel crappy and you know, feel
all those feelings by yourself.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I love that. I love that, And like I say
every week, like shiners, always shine your because you never
know who you might be guiding in a dark space,
and even a little light in a dark room helps
people guide out of that dark room. So always shine
your light, guys, and to next week. We'll see you then.
Awesome th
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