October 9, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode of the podcast, Karlos Dillard engages in a deep conversation with Priscilla, an adoptee from New York City, about her experiences in the foster care and adoption system. They discuss the importance of including birth parents in adoption conversations, the complexities of the adoption process, and the need for reform in the child welfare system. Priscilla shares her personal journey of discovering her adoption at a young age, the challenges she faced, and the impact of her experiences on her mental health. The conversation also touches on the importance of reunification and the challenges that come with it, as well as advice for future foster and adoptive parents.
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Episode Transcript
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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. Hello, Hello, Hello light Shiners, Welcome
(00:44):
back to another episode of Wards of the State podcast.
We are getting so close to one hundred episodes, y'all.
It has been five years, going on five years. I think, no,
just July will be four years. We will be at
four years. It's been a wonderful, wonderful journey, and we
continue to provide you guys with weekly episodes uplived experiences
(01:05):
from all different types of external childcare, from adoption to kinship,
to guardianship to we even had some Crown Wars across
the pond give their experiences. I also want to think
a lot of the birth parents right now, there's a
whole conversation surrounding birth parents. Should they be included in
the conversation of reform? And I believe so. But I
(01:26):
do believe that they should have a purpose at the
table and children should be always at the lead and
the ones adopted or the ones affected by their adoption right.
And this is why once a year we do have
birth parents on the podcast, but this year we didn't
do it, guys because I ran out of time. So
I want to say we are wanting you guys to
(01:46):
still have three to four episodes from birth parents. So
if you're birth parents, we miss Mothers Month so we
can still slighte you guys in for June or July
and making sure that your story is shared. I do
think that y'all story is and we do try to
slide in three or four of those a year for
our audience. Speaking of the audience, can y'all make sure
y'all go to Apple Apple Podcasts and leave us a review.
(02:08):
We haven't had a review since I think last January,
so a couple months. It's now June. That's the six months.
So if you guys are listening, and I see you
guys are listening because the numbers are there, can you
guys go let other folks know how you're liking it
just by simply leaving a one, two, three for five star,
writing a review on Apple Podcasts and also subscribing to
us on Spotify and it'll remind you guys. You can
also watch the podcast live on YouTube as I record it.
(02:31):
You can just go on my YouTube which is my
name Carlos Dillard and you can also watch the edited
version of the videos on YouTube once the podcast comes out.
So I think those are all the announcements. As always,
my books are always on sale. Go grab you one.
These available everywhere books are sold. Order the state, aboard
the adoption, and order the state. I me, Mr Foster,
care I am releasing the audiobook. I know a lot
(02:51):
of y'all have been waiting for the audiobook for what
are the state upboard the adoption? That will be out
on Christmas, So that'll be a great Christmas gill for everyone.
And just like four years five years ago when we
came out with Book one, I will be giving away
thirty free audiobooks to make sure you stay tuned on
that giveaway. And I think that's all the announcements we
have over here. So I'm so excited to hear our
(03:11):
next guests in their lift experience of Priscilla. How are
you doing today?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I'm doing great? How are you?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I am fantastic? So welcome, welcome, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So if you guys can see listeners, Priscilla has the
most beautiful, beautiful, curly hair. The people on YouTube, look look, look,
you made me. I might have to undo this hair.
The curls are curling. The curls are curling. Stay here,
it's a good day. It's a good I know I
have those good days. Right, Your curls are just perfect.
So Priscilla, let's just start off with your lift experience.
(03:42):
How do what is your experience in the external child
welfare system?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Well, I am a New York City adoptee, and if
you know anything about New York City adoptees, you.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Have to go through the foster care system.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And so everybody who's adopted, no matter unless it's a private,
you know, rich person and you know those kind.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Of you're a foster child.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
And my experience was just really eye opening, I would say,
because at the age of nine, I found out I
was adopted at night.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
At nine, Wow, how did you find out your adopted?
At night?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
My adopted mother, we were driving in a car going
to the mall Greenagern Mall which is now shutting down
in Valley Stream, New York, and on the news, like
you know, car radio, it was adopted dog from north
Shore Animal League and you know.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Me a child, I'm like, how do we get this dog?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
What is adoption, and my mom was like, well, adoption
is when me animal and she was trying to describe
the dog at the time. Can't take care of it,
so somebody bought it in so somebody can adopt it
and take care of it.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
And I was like and she was like, well you're adopted.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
That's how said, and that's how I and I guess
in that moment she realized she's wrong and it never
resolved after that.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It was just something like it. It was just there.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
We went shopping that day and that is now a
trigger as a as we talk about childhood things. People
cannot find any things now because in my mind, you
are trying to make up for something that you have
done and that's nothing to that person. That's my unhealed
trauma from that day. I know, you know, sometimes people
(05:27):
don't know it and I know it, but I like
to tell people don't buy any gifts. That's not how
you get made, because that's never gonna heal.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I always think what you got behind that gift.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, so years coming up, I just always tell people
I was adopted after that, and I guess to my mom's.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And your parents are black, I'm assuming yes they are Okay,
sounds like how did you? Hopefully right?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Like, I am very different than everybody in my family,
but I didn't think I was adopted and till that day,
so I would tell anybody.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Who would listen, I'm adopted, Like we will go.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
To family reunions and I'm like not and not like parents,
and my tests to be like yeah, like, people think
I was crazy for a very long time because this
is nineteen seventy eight. Oh, they thought my mother was pregnant.
Everybody had this. No, I seen your mother pregnant. I
don't know what y'all were looking at, but I know
(06:27):
the story. Yeah, so that's how I found out. It
wasn't until I.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Was eighteen and I got a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I figured out how the adoption system worked because I
wanted to find my brother. I always face searched, and
in New York that's a horrible thing because you see
millions of people every day. But I used to ride
the trains and look around and see if I can
see somebody who even looks like me.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, so did you were you in foster care as
an infant? That's why you don't remember being home? Like,
how did you not remember that you were.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
According to them, I was adopted the next day.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
My parents were.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
My mother was fifteen, my father was seventeen. The day
after she gave birth, they took me home and I
was adopted when I started going through my paperwork.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
That's not the legal prob It takes six to twelve months.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Right, and my parents that adopted me were getting paid
up until my eighteenth birthday.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
You don't get paid if you adopted.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
That's not true.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It depends foster adoption.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
If you're foster adoption, you can get paid. But in
New York law, once you have an adoption and offer
any stipens, no, the stipen stop. You adopt you you
left foster care behind. You have now adopted that as
your child.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So that soh some I do know some cases, if
you're like medically fragile or if you have like mental issues,
they'll give you stipens. But not Yeah, that's so were
you just in the whole time.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So that's what my lawyer said. It looks like, and
that's what gets the paperwork. So in New York you
don't ever see that paperwork.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Once you're adopted, it's sealed forever.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Sealed forever, you know, and put away to Iron Mount
and never seen again.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I have my adoption paperwork and.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
No, so that's your foster care paperwork.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Hello, but it's in the adoption. Hello, but it's in
the adoption. My parents have no record of my adoption.
They have a birth certificate and a Social Security card.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
They don't have any of your name.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Their name is not on your birth certificate, yes it is.
How did they do that?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I don't know because I have my mom's original birth
certificate with her name on there.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
So how did they get another birth certificate? Was your
name on?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
They said, that's who. Yeah, so it's like multiple layers.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And then my birth mother remembers a rich couple was
supposed to get me. My adopted father remembers a rich
couple was supposed to get me because he said he
got into it with the gentleman the day they came
and got me. And those people are nowhere on my paperwork.
But then my birth father never, oh, I'm sorry, Hello.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
There you go. You said they're not on your paperwork.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
They're not on my paperwork. And then also my father
never signed a surrender. I was supposed to go to
my father and his family. According to him, when I
found him.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Your biological father. So was he not aware that you
were being born? Why wasn't he at the hospital?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
He was aware I was being born.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
My mom was fifteen and they sent her to live
in a maternity home, and then.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
They made up a.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Lie that my father attacked her and that he was
a vicious individual so and that he was going to
the military and he didn't want anything to do with me.
My father and his family remembers them coming to the house,
his sister being pregnant at the time. Him, his mother
and his other two sisters were like, yes, we'll take
(10:06):
the baby, will raise her, well, raise the baby because
they didn't know at the time, and the lady, the
social worker was like, oh, this is perfect, you know,
wrote it down and never came back. So they waited
the nine months and they expected somebody should be dropping
you off. My father said he saw my mother at
the corner store and said, oh, I gave our baby
(10:26):
up for adoption. And my dad said he lost it
because he was like, he was ready, he was ready
to have a child. He was ready for this experience.
His family prepared for this experience for me and my yeah,
and his rights were violated because as we like I said,
I have our paperwork. He never signed a letter surrender,
(10:48):
so natural laws should have been I should have been
raised by my father and his family instead.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Of putting to the system.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, because somebody got paid.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
And if there was a rich couple that's on nobody's
paperwork that was there to obtain me.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
That day, where was that money was that? You know?
Was that?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
And the more I researched, the more I kept finding
the same lawyer that signed papers not only for me,
but several other people that were looking for their you know,
biological parent around that time. And I was just like, hmm,
why would you be on at least ten of our paperwork?
And everyone is from that same maternity hall that you know,
wayward girls, girls that were prostitutes, girls that were already
(11:31):
in foster care, to throw away girls. You're taking their
babies and so when yeah, basically, and then you're selling
them And that's the bigger part that I have a
problem with.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You're selling them to psychopaths. Sociopath how do they get
you on the foster cur system? Then though I'm in there,
you with, I couldn't I.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Need to see this case low I need this case.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So when I applied years ago, you know, you applied
for a city job.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I saw it. I said it was acs you could
be there as a clerk. I was like, perfect, I applied.
I heard right back from HR you can never work here.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Why not because I'm in the system and they never
want me accessing like putting my social in and seeing
my paperwork. She said I would never work there, and
she was like, you could work anywhere else in the
New York you know, but they will never hire you
in this office because they know you're a foster Shire
(12:32):
And I was just like, but if I.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Know, and you know, what's.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
The there's something with my case. And it's the bigger
part was my father never signed a letter surrender. That's
illegal either way. My adoptions, the care.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
It sounds crazy, but there was just this I don't
know was that Georgia or North Carolina. They found all
of those young girls, teenage girls who were brought in
from another country and they were literally just like breed,
like they were getting them pregnant and then adopting their children.
Nowt so this is something that's then happened.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, and this is before computers. This is nineteen seventy eight.
How many kids in New York City went through a
system and disappeared? Because you could have came in from
anywhere Connecticut, Massachusetts with money, Jersey with money, and these
are just.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Simple civil workers.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Hey, let me go ahead and slide you ten thousand,
ten thousand, and nineteen seventy eight. It is a lot
of money for a baby. Yeah, young, this young fifteen
year old girl is pregnant. You don't know nothing. We
could just scramble some paperwork up. I got lucky, lucky.
I went to a family that was like, yeah, you know, yeah,
you know. The way it landed on me at nine
(13:46):
was a little rough.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
But after that, yeah, how was your childhood with your
adopted family?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I am very different.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I'm very outspoken, but my dad says I have a
fire and that's been since a childhood.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And they're very.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Requiet and church like, and I'm a questioner, what's this,
what's this?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
What's this?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
And so it was always a fight, especially with my mom,
because I believe she saw a powerful person and a
person that can take a licking and get back up
and keep doing something else. Because that was my whole
childhood was not from them, but from outside sources. Things
would happen and it would be like, all right, well
(14:27):
this is the next day, and I'll keep going. But
they didn't know how to handle a teenager that was
battling with her own identity, who was battling with being adopted,
who was battling who didn't know where she came from
with people really don't know. That really isolates you from people.
(14:48):
When you don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Where you come from, good, bad, or indifferent. You don't
know who you are.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
But you got to present to other people, and you
got to present imperfection because I couldn't be.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I was there, baby girl. So I was always on a.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Level that I could never have that crack, so secretly
I would always have a double light. When I realized
at fourteen that I could hide things from them and
be a different person, I did, and I started to
break away from the family so much so at sixteen
I got my own place and last.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
And I never went back.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Well, I got pregnant in my twenties, we went back,
you know, had my baby, and then left again. But
I never went back because I didn't feel a connection.
And to this day and I hate to say it,
because whoever sees it's hard. I just don't understand why
they raised me from birth. Why don't I have that connection.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Because it's just natural even because and if they raise
you from birth, it doesn't mean that you're gonna connect.
And I think a lot of adopted parents need to
realize that, Like, but that's part of adoption. They did
the best. They gave you a good, stable life, right,
and yeah, that's all they were supposed to give you.
This connection. If it happens, that's beautiful. But that's like,
(16:14):
that's that's like meeting your first boyfriend you ever met
and then thinking you're gonna be a connected forever with them. True,
that's literally insane. That's literally insane.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Because I have and I've been to therapy for many
years kind of battling this, and I have told my
therapist that I have a weird connection where I have
a loyalty, and that's what he sees it as they
saved me from a certain whatever, you know, an unknown
and in my mind, I owe that back.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So anything that comes up that.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Gives us friction, I'll put it to the back of
my mind or I won't talk about it or I'll
bury it and I'll be their child and step up
and do things and just blindly do that and never
address my feelings until one day it actually bubbled up
and it was like filled out and my dad was like.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
He didn't even know what to do with it.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
It was so much, and it was just years of
I look the other way, I don't say anything, and
I feel that you house, you clothed, and brothers and
sisters of foster care and adoption. So you know, you
make these connections when you talk to people and you
hear their stories and you go, yeah, I was too,
and they become your family outside.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Of your family.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
And I've heard the horror stories and I look back
and I'm like, Churchie and CHURCHI weren't that bad Versus
somebody who intentionally takes another person's child and.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Beats them or molested them.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah, Like that's a certain level of like you don't
have to, that's like, you know, that's unnecessary. So if
you're born you know, if you're born to psychopath, that's
if you go out and you hunt, and the fact
that you went and signed paperwork and was like yeah
and presented, and that's why monitoring and stringent psychological evaluations.
(18:15):
We need to get away from this tip tap. If
you care about children and you care about abortion and
all sort stuff, care about the children that are alive,
that are.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Sitting exactly so. I don't know if you've sketched any
of my lives, but I often have this conversation on TikTok,
like should white people be allowed to adopt? Should people
who don't agree with the LGBTQIA be allowed to adopt?
And people are like anyone, anyone can adopt as song
as they're loving. I'm like no, And what about the.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Family those women who adopted those eight African American children
who went from state to state, defrauding multiple states where
multiple people complained about them, complained that those children were
being mistreated, and sat there and said, those people say
one thing to the social worker, but behind closed doors,
(19:02):
they're like, oh these deep deep to be beep and
nobody said a word, and these children wind up suffering
the ultimate suffering.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Why nobody?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
People don't care about kids?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Right, nobody.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I've spent five six years during this work, and you
can show them the most horrible things that will be like, well,
you know, there are some good stories.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
And in the extent that I've had this argument that
I had to sometimes pull back from social media, especially
debating certain people. I mean, I understand being and you know,
you can have the right to believe in whatever you
believe in, you know, abortion and stuff. But I want
to see you rally for kids that are here the
way you're rallying for abortion rights. I want you outside
(19:46):
of foster care telling them that they need to tear
down the system that they have and rebuild a new system.
And let's take a look at these parents, and let's
take a look at these kids, and let's take a look.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
At these What are some reform that you can see
as far as the background process, What are some things
that you think that they should encourage or like do.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
So if we start doing like a PCL monitoring psycho
valuation that takes out twenty five percent of people who
are just there for monetary reasons, it picks up on
certain psychological behaviors that are not aligning.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
You said a p You said a PCL, pc l
R or PCL K. It's a what that's for.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Psych I have to relook it up because I'm on
my phone.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
It's a psychology tes Yeah. Okay, so I'm seeing this way.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It's a more in depth than what's.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
A the hair psychology checklist revised. It's a psychological assessment
tool used to assess the presence, intent, or an extent
of psych go psychopathy and individuals, particularly those within the
criminal child Okay, yeah, so they just they just making
sure people insane.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Right, that you have a level of capacity to take
care of a child, that you don't have a depraved indifference.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
That suss like. That would also pick up on people
who are just doing it for infertility, because even as
a person who advocates, I pick up on it because
I say, I wanted a child so bad, but I
was infertile, but I'm going to go adopt and I'm
so happy, and I'm like okay, and then we'll talk,
and it keeps going back to, well why are you adopting?
Why I'm infertile? But why are you adopting because I
want a baby? But why are you adopting because I
(21:36):
want a baby? And I'm like, so you don't want
to help a child, You want your own child, So
what if this child is nothing like you, which it
won't be. That's when we get into a problem. Yeah, yeah,
I think that that needs to be looked at.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
That is definitely what it be need like conversations need
to be deeper. And the other bigger part is the
social workers are not paid enough. These are people would
not only bachelor's degrees with master degrees and you're paying
them eleven dollars an hour.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And that's the thing. They're not required. Most states don't
have their social workers are not actually MSWs, They're just
people they found on craigslist. This has been my biggest issue.
Catholic Social Services, Bethany, Christian Services, all of those private
foster care companies. Yes, they don't have to have degrees,
they just train them. They get on the job training.
These are people who literally got They make fifteen to
(22:27):
twenty five dollars an hour and I know this because
I work with them. They don't have any childhood of training.
They didn't go to school for early childhood development. They
definitely didn't go to school for social work. And you know,
I'm not saying that all of them are back because
there are some people who are just really good at
their job because the famis are good at picking up.
But I do think that there should be a little
bit more training. Yeah, and I do think we should
(22:49):
pay them more. Yes, people who have the MSW's. I
don't think that you should be able to get thirty
to sixty hours on the work clock training and work
with these families, because this is very important. This is
really important. Another thing that I often say that people
kind of get upset with me is that I believe
that foster parents should be federal employees. They deserve a
fit paycheck. But there are several reasons behind this one.
(23:10):
It is a job, in my opinion. The fact that
people keep saying it's volunteer work, it is. But this
is why they are weaponizing the money. Right, So instead
of having them weaponize money, let's give them a salary,
and then let's make sure that stipend is paced, put
on like a food stamp type card where we can
actually see where it's being used. You know, we have
the accounting the apartment that I look over and making
(23:32):
sure and then you get audited. So if you went
and bought i'll know a car or something on there
when you weren't supposed to, you're going to have to
pay the federal government back. And there's actually federal laws.
If you break a federal law, you're going to federal prison. Right.
So that's why I believe even foster parents should be
federal employees because if they beat a child, guess what,
You're going to federal prison. If you lie about their
health or their safety, you're going to prison. If you
(23:55):
steal money from them, you're going to prison. Right. Because
a lot of these foster parents just don't get any
consequences because they're volunteers.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
And my parents continued after I aged and moved out
of the house. They continued to be foster parents up
until their seventies, where they were part of an emergency
batch where kids would pulled from another foster care. They
would get to call in the middle of the night,
can you take care of this child? And they would
(24:24):
drop that child off immediately to my parents. So that's
not a volunteer when you're in your sixties and seventies
to get a call in the middle of the night
to get this baby that's been burnt or beaten or
you know.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Whatever, and you got it now.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
And my mom like she cares for these children, like
she sat here, whatever happened, she made sure they were fed,
they went to school that they were loved, that if
this was their last home, this was the home.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
That they remembered.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
And she has pictures will fall out, you know, all
these children. So she's the one I know. Yes, why
does she have to She used to get the you know,
oh we have to go ahead and re certify. And
why is everybody getting the same stuff everybody get? You know,
because they used to go in every year, have to
(25:17):
show paperwork when the last time I lived there, When
the last time my daughter visited?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Wow? Yeah, like crazy.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So they they used to come in with paperwork all
the time, visits from the social worker to see how
their house was kept. And you know my mom old
school in New York, that thing white glove clean.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
She got on the couch, still.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
White glove clean. Nobody, you don't live in the living room,
You live in the kitchen. Go sit in the kitchen.
You know. So never anything.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Wrong up until their seventies, Like they had to be
forced to not take any more children. They had to
be forced. I had to sign paperwork and I was like,
you're now too old. You have to take care of yourself.
And I really have to think, you know, I don't
want you fallen asleep and this kid's running around and
so you done, and I understand how Yeah, there's so
(26:09):
many kids that have come through, and I'm just like,
I can never turn my back. And they're like a
really big reason why I can never turn my back
on anybody and why I fight hard today because they've
never turned their back. In the nineteen seventies, they two
black people decided to adopt a child, you know, for
(26:31):
no reason other than because they.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Had my brother.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
I have an older brother, so it was just like,
there's somebody in need, and they were in the foster
care system, so it's not like they just wanted, you know,
to feel a need from themselves. My mom always you know,
there's so many people out there that need help.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
There's so many people that have that doesn't you know,
the voice of the voiceless.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
And that's one thing I guess I can find a
commonality with mine because my voice is big enough where
I can be the voice of the voiceless. So I
see adoption and foster care as you know, my soapbox,
because stuff does have to change because there's so many
(27:17):
kids that go through the system, and now we have
people violating laws taking kids out of foster care and
deporting them. And that's not a first, it's just now
a known that's been known for how long that kids
have disappeared in foster care. And that's something that needs
to be investigated, reevaluated, and.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Really looked at because we're here for the kids.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
True.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
If we can't, this produces a problem further down the
line that we now turn our backs on. When that
kid ages out and is in a group home or
is homeless on the street, it's an automatic turn to
the back. Nobody wants to deal with anybody homeless. Nobody
cares why you're homeless. You don't care that this kid
came through a horrible situation and a forceter care system
(28:08):
that should have been advocating for him.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
You know. And now you have a homeless teenager.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
With no guidance, living by whatever they know on the
streets and you're turning your back and he's seeing society
or she's the anciety always with the back to what
do you expect mentally? What do you expect this person
to have? And I just want people to see the
trickle effect. Yes it starts at births, but it doesn't
(28:38):
end there. Let's stop thinking about just abortion. Let's think
about Okay, this person.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Did the right thing, gave this baby up. What do
we do after that protect that child? Oh?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
What we got to first up to protect the child
is we got to change the legal process. We shouldn't
be changing birth certificates. You shouldn't be changing identities. Adoption
the United States needs to resemble something like guardianship or
even it can expire at eighteen if the adoptee wants
to write. So I think that's a huge first step.
But I do think and that's why a lot of
peoplehen they come to my platform, they think that I'm
(29:11):
like anti adoption. I'm not. I just think that we
can't continue the same process while it's there's so many issues, Right,
That's like trying to put out a fire while there's
gasoline still going. Maybe let's stop the gasoline first and
then we can put out the fire. Right. But in
the same hand, like you said, to do this, a
lot of policy changes needs to start happening, a lot
(29:31):
of laws need to start happening, or people need to
understand how the process actually works. And that's one thing
that I try to do every day is just like
ask people do you know how the legal process is working.
Do you know about foster care? Do you know the
money that's involved? And a lot of people just don't
because you know, adoption is beautiful, and when we just
have no monolithic idea about something, we don't really care. Right.
(29:53):
And once you start getting more information and looking at
the statistics and looking at what's happening to adoptees and
the mental health that they're having, the addiction crisis that
they're having, this weird connection between I don't know. I
went down this rabbit hole like two years ago. Most
serial killers are adopted, which I just think it's fascinating
for even men and women. Irene, what was she was adopted?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
It's a disconnect. They was like, it's the disconnect from
all adopted.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, they're all the clown adopted.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
It's it's something things like this need to be researched
to see.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Why is it? Environment? Is it you know?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Something with that original the birth parent. They never got
with my birth record. They never got any medical information
from my mother. My mother died ninety days after I
met her. She battled three different cancers from the age
of eighteen to forty eight.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
That's something that you need to know.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
That's a that's a you know, a gen mark for me,
because now I had to go get tested to.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Make sure you how did you reunite her her?
Speaker 3 (31:00):
So I wind up looking for her through New York
had birth index, and a friend of mine told me
about the birth index, and at that time it was available.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
You could just walk in and go look at them.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
They're not now interesting enough and you could just look
at your year and the last I think four of
your birth certificate number is the same as your adoption number.
They only changed the first batch of numbers, which I
thought was weird. So you literally had to go through
the book and it's very small type and look for
(31:32):
that number.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
So I was the second book, twenty pages from the
last page.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
So it took me two days and I found her
last name. And because I had her last name in
the information that my birth my adopted parents had that
she drew up in Queens, I just went through Facebook
in nineteen seventy eight Queens.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I was harassingingo who.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Was pregniced, who was pregnated in nineteen seventy eight Queens
and the you know who did you hear this?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
One lady was really upset.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
She was like, you're you know, you're really ruffling fever
that I don't care. Yeah, honestly, I understand that y'all
make mistakes, but you didn't have to realize that that
is a lifetime. There's a child out there. You can
never think that that child would never want to contact you,
or you just have to sit and wait.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
This is your day.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
And I happen to stumble on her picture looking at
a bunch of things, and it was like looking in
a mirror.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
It was my exact face.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I sent this picture out to everybody and they thought
it was a picture of myself, and they said, you.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Found her, that is her.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
And I wind up finding her phone number I think
maybe two or three days later, because I sent out
letters to all addresses that I could find of her,
and I just couldn't wait, so I started dialing all
the phone numbers that was available, and I got her
one day and she sounded mean. I just let it
(32:57):
all out. I said, listen, this that's who I am.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Are you my mother? And she said, I've been.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Waiting for this call for thirty three at the time,
I was thirty three. For thirty three years. So when
we reconnected. She told me that she only has little
time left, that she was already eight. Once into a
six six month death sentence, they told her she was
gonna die six months ago. So I rushed back to
New York and I saw her.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
She was eighty pounds maybe, and I knew I just
had to gather information. I had to gather as much
information as I could because I could hope, I could wish,
I could pray, But I saw her, and.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
When I met my dad.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And being how horrible the story is on his end,
he was like it was still closure as bad as
it was, as bad as it seeing her die, because
even when she was dying, she fell into a coma
after Thanksgiving, two days before my birthday.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I stayed in the hospital with her the whole tire time.
Two days after my.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Birthday, we finally cut the machines off, so about four
days in the hospital and I just talked to her
the whole time, just watch TV and warned because even
though what she did was horrible at the age of fifteen,
and she carried that up until, you know, her death,
(34:24):
I had to warn her because she was my mother
and she made a mistake and that was it.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
You know, I.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Couldn't beat her upside the head. She made a mistake either.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
She let and this is what I do believe, she
let that system tell her what to do. That adult
social worker told her this is what she needed to say,
this is what she needed to do, because there was
no way. She was in love with my father and
made up a lot. Her back was against the wall.
(34:57):
She was a fifteen year old foster child herself. She
did whatever she had to do. And that's what I mean.
They manipulated a fifteen year old girl to lie to
destroy my father's Yeah, to destroy my father's life. Because
then she went back to the neighborhood and told that
same lie because she had to because you can't.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Where's the baby? That's what everybody's gonna ask you. Were's
the baby?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Oddly enough, my sister was born the October after I
was born, to his best friend. So it's just an
adult manipulated a child. And she became a manipulator and
just started that because she wasn't like that before she was.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Did she did she keep your sister?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Crazy?
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Because if it was all of that, like, she couldn't
because they were trying to say that she was a
child forster care child, so she couldn't keep me.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
No, that's not what it was.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Because my sister came literally the October after me, and
she said and was treated like a you know, princess.
So what was the difference the money?
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Somebody that money? Yeah, I was gonna say, somebody had
to get paid.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
There was no difference other than the money.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And that's all I can find as the commonality between
my case.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I say this all the time. Follow the money.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
It's the money.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Follow the money.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Rich family.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
All of a sudden, you know, my parents it's not
an actual adoption because they believe that. They believed up
until the day I told them. I said, you know,
you illegally adopted me, and they were like, are you serious.
I'm like, you don't adopt somebody. The next day you
go to a court, you speak to a judge. If
none of that happened, I'm not adopted. They just changed
(36:39):
the birth certificate and gave it to you. They just
gave you a Social.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Security card with my name and gets gave it to you.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
And then when I started working in the federal government,
I got question a lot because I have two names
to one social Security card.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Because they never shut one off.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
It was just a name change. Yeah that's crazy, yep.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And that's how I.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
They were like, you know you have another name, and
I'm like, oh, yeah, I know d D. And they're
like this, Okay, that's not what that means.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Wow. So yeah, that's my that's and that's still happening.
Se when's your book coming out?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
You wrote it, it's in like notebooks. I've cried over
it because it gets really deep, especially.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
With my dad. I've known my dad.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
For at least four years as a teenager, and we
didn't know that we were father daughter.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
He used to see me. I grew up five minutes
away from him.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
And when I met with him, I literally walked to
his house and told him like I had a boyfriend
that lived up the block, so I used to pass
his house. There was a store that he used to
work at as a child that was like a gaming
store that I used to come into when I was
a teenager, and he said, I remember used to seeing
you for at least two to three years, and I
used to curry you out because I have my mother's
(38:01):
face and I used to tour them at me like I
used to hate going to the store and I'm you know,
I'm an original anime.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
No, he just thought I was.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
A kid that just happened to have her face.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
He didn't know I was his daughter. He never knew.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
So when I showed up at his house, I was
in my forties and he saw my face and he
just was like, you were the kid.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
You were the kid from the store. And I had
to call like people from high school who I used
to hang out with, whoy didn't speak two in years.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
It's like, remember the skinny guy that used to draw,
Because my dad can draw like the wind blows. He
can draw your face and he's a natural artist. So
he used to work in this store and.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
He used he hated to.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
See me coming that he had to take a break
because he said he had I had the face of him,
the woman he hated.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So I've known my father and that's the cruelty of.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Life, that is that I've.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Seen him when I was a teenager for multiple years,
that I've lived in walking distance from him, that I've
had multiple friends live around where he lives. I've passed
him on the streets and I and he passed away
during COVID in twenty twenty and I'm thank you and
I've that was hard that I took life really really hard.
(39:30):
And I was really mad at the New York system
because I felt like they took my dad away and
they took what he should have, you know, raised his
daughter because he wanted to raise an artist.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
He wanted you know, he wanted to raise a kid
in his life.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
And he never wanted to go to the military because
he's a you know part like you said, I'm a
pot smoking artist.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
He was like, they lied, they lie.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
And that's what me about the system because you had
somebody there and we always talk about old father never
step up.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
He did him and his family did did.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, And you wanted the money so bad that you
would destroy this man, because it did.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
It destroyed him. He lived alone for his whole life.
He died alone because he didn't children. Yes he did.
He had three sons.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
And I was told by the New York system, I
can't find my brothers because there's no way to prove
that they're my brothers. Yes, wow, he had given me
their names.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
But it's like a fight. And if you have knocked
on as many doors as I've knocked.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
On, and it takes from you, and you try to recover,
and it takes from you, and then you try to recover,
and then you have two deceased birth parents, and you
know you're in your forties now, and you go to
the hunters, and it takes from you.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
I want to find my brothers, but in the back.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Of my mind, I don't know what I'm looking for,
and I don't know what I'm gonna get because I
don't know what experience they have had, and I don't
know if I can internalize and save them, because I
feel like sometimes I'm drowning with the things that I
see just for strangers.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
I just recently my brother reunite it like officially because
he got out of prison, and he asked that he
could move in. And it's something to try to help
your family, mon story. Sure, he stay here for forty
seven days. I tried to help. He decided that it
was too hard, he said, he said, life is too
hard doing it the right way. And it was just
so helpful because like I had that question, like what
(41:39):
was I hoping for? Like I was truly hoping that,
like we could help you better your life, but the
system has just intitutionalized him so much where it's just
like he can't do anything without the help of a system,
and it's crazy that they can continue to do this.
And it's not just him. I see this in my
work too. These kids they don't have a high school diploma,
(42:02):
they don't have any education, they don't have driver's license,
they've never had a bank account. Then they go from
foster care to trouble team institution to juvenile to prison,
and then you get out at thirty forty years old
and you're like, you have nothing, What do you do?
What do you do? And then it it kind of
makes me have like survivorskuilled almost Like one thing about reunification.
(42:25):
I loved reuniting with both sides of my family, but
like one thing that it really hurts is that, like
I really do see that, like, hey, I had a
bad childhood, Like my adopted parents did not do great
by me, but something happened there because I chose a
different path, even going through the horribleness that I went
through my adoption, I still chose a different path. And
(42:47):
it just gets me frustrated because they say, oh, it
was easier for you, and I'm like, it honestly wasn't Yeah,
it was. Actually I feel like it was hard because
I was alone. At least you guys had each other
in the hood, yeah, but I had no one and
a small white town, and then I was abandoned at
fifteen years old, and like you like had my own
apartment at seventeen, and having to deal with being human
(43:08):
trafficked and having to deal like not trusting every adult
because some adults like, how do you trust an adult
after they've trafficked you? Right, And it's just really really hard.
But reunification sometimes, like you said, it just like it's like,
what are you expecting? So I always used to like
push people like you, reunify, reunify, but now I'm just like, girl,
(43:29):
take your time and do it on your own. It's
not gonna be it. But on the same token, on
the flip side, the other side of the coin, time
is not promising nobody, as you know, So if you
fill it in your heart, just don't go in with
like you know, these fantasies going with reality. They may
(43:50):
be great, they may be crackheads.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
You know, Hey, since let me borrow fifty, you got
a single sick he got something from the corner stone, right, nice?
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Right, you mean your brother, you're missing your whole jewelry
sent but no, but it might. They might be a
fantastic people. My husband met his dad through ancestry. He
was he never knew who his father was. His dad
is amazing. He looks like the picture thing that you said.
My husband never looked like anyone in his family because yeah,
like he knew his mom, but like he kind of
liked this grandma a little bit, but like not somewhere
like that's your family. When we found his dad and
(44:29):
through our genealogies and they sent us the first photos,
I was like, he looked just like my husband did
in a college. I was like, that's without a doubt, yeah,
like that's your dad, right, And then it was crazy.
He had a half brother who is also We called
him the Bastard because his dad was a rolling stone.
He had his five children with his wife and so
(44:51):
far they've had two have popped up through ancestry the
last twenty years. So his other Bastard brother and then
Christopher popped up this year. So we don't know how
many anymore are gonna pop up, but they seem to
be popping up. And him, Chris and his baster brothers.
Look they look like twins. And they're only six months apart,
and they look exactly like twins. I was like, genetics
(45:12):
is crazy, Yo, Like, genetics is crazy. And the funny
thing is his other children don't look as much like him.
They look more like their momie.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Because because those women were thinking about him, that's.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Why women were thinking about him. They was like, when
is he going to come back by? When is he
going to come help take care these kids? That woman
wasn't thinking about him here every day.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Right, but it was. His reunification has been beautiful. They're
like a traditional old black family. They have a family
union every year. He's still with his wife. I feel
like it's like, so I'm like, oh hi, miss Cynthia,
how you doing like this? She always reminds me she
was like Carlos, we were separated at that time.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
I said, oh kay, whatever, it's a lot of separation.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Two came up, Oh, ain't no way, but ain't my business,
you know. But I'm just so happy that he has
like his family, So it does work out sometimes, and
he has his brothers and his siblings and they're amazing
and they all love each other and they've accepted him
and it's just beautiful. It's really it so like you said,
it could be mine if we don't know. But I
think it's worth giving yourself a shot right when you
(46:23):
feel ready and when you feel healed right to do so. Priscilla,
thank you so much for coming on the Wards to
This Day podcast. I ask every guest at the end
of the show, what's one piece of advice that you
would give foster youth or an adoptee that would have
a similar experience as you. What's one piece of advice
you would give up.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Be honest with yourself.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
If adoption is what you want, do the research, but
not on the child, but do the research on yourself.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Are you ready to take it a forth a child?
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Are you ready to take in a you know, to
be an adoptee parent, and not just on the surface
for you know, Instagram likes, you know, for your pictures,
but through the tough times, because a lot of these
children come with problems and we need that you know,
strong individual to sometimes put themselves aside and pour into
(47:12):
these children like you would pour into your own child.
Advice that I have If you're gonna do this, really
research and think Am I gonna treat this child the
way I would treat my natural child? My natural child
called me up and they said they murdered somebody and
don't say nothing, and I don't say nothing. Am I
gonna treat this child the same exact way? Or am
I gonna be like, Oh, that ain't my kid.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I'm abouna tell on them.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Then that's not the child. You know, Then that's not
the situation for you, because that's the.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Difference that I love that. Well, Priscilla, thank you so
much for coming on the show and Light Shiners. Like
I said, I always shine your light. That's my slogan
because you never know who you might inspire. Definitely inspire me.
You know, you have a light and like a hope
and like your dad was right, a fire, right a fire.
I can feel it, right, I can feel it. So
I appreciate you coming on and sharing your fire with
(48:01):
us and Life Shiners. Until next time, always shine your life.
Thank you awesome, well, thank you so much for Scilla
Content warning. The Wards of the State podcast may contain
material that may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. Hello, Hello, Hello light Shiners, Welcome
(00:44):
back to another episode of Wards of the State podcast.
We are getting so close to one hundred episodes, y'all.
It has been five years, going on five years. I think, no,
just July will be four years. We will be at
four years. It's been a wonderful, wonderful journey, and we
continue to provide you guys with weekly episodes uplived experiences
(01:05):
from all different types of external childcare, from adoption to kinship,
to guardianship to we even had some Crown Wars across
the pond give their experiences. I also want to think
a lot of the birth parents right now, there's a
whole conversation surrounding birth parents. Should they be included in
the conversation of reform? And I believe so. But I
(01:26):
do believe that they should have a purpose at the
table and children should be always at the lead and
the ones adopted or the ones affected by their adoption right.
And this is why once a year we do have
birth parents on the podcast, but this year we didn't
do it, guys because I ran out of time. So
I want to say we are wanting you guys to
(01:46):
still have three to four episodes from birth parents. So
if you're birth parents, we miss Mothers Month so we
can still slighte you guys in for June or July
and making sure that your story is shared. I do
think that y'all story is and we do try to
slide in three or four of those a year for
our audience. Speaking of the audience, can y'all make sure
y'all go to Apple Apple Podcasts and leave us a review.
(02:08):
We haven't had a review since I think last January,
so a couple months. It's now June. That's the six months.
So if you guys are listening, and I see you
guys are listening because the numbers are there, can you
guys go let other folks know how you're liking it
just by simply leaving a one, two, three for five star,
writing a review on Apple Podcasts and also subscribing to
us on Spotify and it'll remind you guys. You can
also watch the podcast live on YouTube as I record it.
(02:31):
You can just go on my YouTube which is my
name Carlos Dillard and you can also watch the edited
version of the videos on YouTube once the podcast comes out.
So I think those are all the announcements. As always,
my books are always on sale. Go grab you one.
These available everywhere books are sold. Order the state, aboard
the adoption, and order the state. I me, Mr Foster,
care I am releasing the audiobook. I know a lot
(02:51):
of y'all have been waiting for the audiobook for what
are the state upboard the adoption? That will be out
on Christmas, So that'll be a great Christmas gill for everyone.
And just like four years five years ago when we
came out with Book one, I will be giving away
thirty free audiobooks to make sure you stay tuned on
that giveaway. And I think that's all the announcements we
have over here. So I'm so excited to hear our
(03:11):
next guests in their lift experience of Priscilla. How are
you doing today?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I'm doing great? How are you?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I am fantastic? So welcome, welcome, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So if you guys can see listeners, Priscilla has the
most beautiful, beautiful, curly hair. The people on YouTube, look look, look,
you made me. I might have to undo this hair.
The curls are curling. The curls are curling. Stay here,
it's a good day. It's a good I know I
have those good days. Right, Your curls are just perfect.
So Priscilla, let's just start off with your lift experience.
(03:42):
How do what is your experience in the external child
welfare system?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Well, I am a New York City adoptee, and if
you know anything about New York City adoptees, you.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Have to go through the foster care system.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And so everybody who's adopted, no matter unless it's a private,
you know, rich person and you know those kind.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Of you're a foster child.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
And my experience was just really eye opening, I would say,
because at the age of nine, I found out I
was adopted at night.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
At nine, Wow, how did you find out your adopted?
At night?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
My adopted mother, we were driving in a car going
to the mall Greenagern Mall which is now shutting down
in Valley Stream, New York, and on the news, like
you know, car radio, it was adopted dog from north
Shore Animal League and you know.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Me a child, I'm like, how do we get this dog?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
What is adoption, and my mom was like, well, adoption
is when me animal and she was trying to describe
the dog at the time. Can't take care of it,
so somebody bought it in so somebody can adopt it
and take care of it.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
And I was like and she was like, well you're adopted.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
That's how said, and that's how I and I guess
in that moment she realized she's wrong and it never
resolved after that.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It was just something like it. It was just there.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
We went shopping that day and that is now a
trigger as a as we talk about childhood things. People
cannot find any things now because in my mind, you
are trying to make up for something that you have
done and that's nothing to that person. That's my unhealed
trauma from that day. I know, you know, sometimes people
(05:27):
don't know it and I know it, but I like
to tell people don't buy any gifts. That's not how
you get made, because that's never gonna heal.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I always think what you got behind that gift.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, so years coming up, I just always tell people
I was adopted after that, and I guess to my mom's.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And your parents are black, I'm assuming yes they are Okay,
sounds like how did you? Hopefully right?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Like, I am very different than everybody in my family,
but I didn't think I was adopted and till that day,
so I would tell anybody.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Who would listen, I'm adopted, Like we will go.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
To family reunions and I'm like not and not like parents,
and my tests to be like yeah, like, people think
I was crazy for a very long time because this
is nineteen seventy eight. Oh, they thought my mother was pregnant.
Everybody had this. No, I seen your mother pregnant. I
don't know what y'all were looking at, but I know
(06:27):
the story. Yeah, so that's how I found out. It
wasn't until I.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Was eighteen and I got a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I figured out how the adoption system worked because I
wanted to find my brother. I always face searched, and
in New York that's a horrible thing because you see
millions of people every day. But I used to ride
the trains and look around and see if I can
see somebody who even looks like me.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, so did you were you in foster care as
an infant? That's why you don't remember being home? Like,
how did you not remember that you were.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
According to them, I was adopted the next day.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
My parents were.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
My mother was fifteen, my father was seventeen. The day
after she gave birth, they took me home and I
was adopted when I started going through my paperwork.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
That's not the legal prob It takes six to twelve months.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Right, and my parents that adopted me were getting paid
up until my eighteenth birthday.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
You don't get paid if you adopted.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
That's not true.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It depends foster adoption.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
If you're foster adoption, you can get paid. But in
New York law, once you have an adoption and offer
any stipens, no, the stipen stop. You adopt you you
left foster care behind. You have now adopted that as
your child.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So that soh some I do know some cases, if
you're like medically fragile or if you have like mental issues,
they'll give you stipens. But not Yeah, that's so were
you just in the whole time.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So that's what my lawyer said. It looks like, and
that's what gets the paperwork. So in New York you
don't ever see that paperwork.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Once you're adopted, it's sealed forever.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Sealed forever, you know, and put away to Iron Mount
and never seen again.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I have my adoption paperwork and.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
No, so that's your foster care paperwork.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Hello, but it's in the adoption. Hello, but it's in
the adoption. My parents have no record of my adoption.
They have a birth certificate and a Social Security card.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
They don't have any of your name.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Their name is not on your birth certificate, yes it is.
How did they do that?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I don't know because I have my mom's original birth
certificate with her name on there.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
So how did they get another birth certificate? Was your
name on?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
They said, that's who. Yeah, so it's like multiple layers.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And then my birth mother remembers a rich couple was
supposed to get me. My adopted father remembers a rich
couple was supposed to get me because he said he
got into it with the gentleman the day they came
and got me. And those people are nowhere on my paperwork.
But then my birth father never, oh, I'm sorry, Hello.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
There you go. You said they're not on your paperwork.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
They're not on my paperwork. And then also my father
never signed a surrender. I was supposed to go to
my father and his family. According to him, when I
found him.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Your biological father. So was he not aware that you
were being born? Why wasn't he at the hospital?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
He was aware I was being born.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
My mom was fifteen and they sent her to live
in a maternity home, and then.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
They made up a.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Lie that my father attacked her and that he was
a vicious individual so and that he was going to
the military and he didn't want anything to do with me.
My father and his family remembers them coming to the house,
his sister being pregnant at the time. Him, his mother
and his other two sisters were like, yes, we'll take
(10:06):
the baby, will raise her, well, raise the baby because
they didn't know at the time, and the lady, the
social worker was like, oh, this is perfect, you know,
wrote it down and never came back. So they waited
the nine months and they expected somebody should be dropping
you off. My father said he saw my mother at
the corner store and said, oh, I gave our baby
(10:26):
up for adoption. And my dad said he lost it
because he was like, he was ready, he was ready
to have a child. He was ready for this experience.
His family prepared for this experience for me and my yeah,
and his rights were violated because as we like I said,
I have our paperwork. He never signed a letter surrender,
(10:48):
so natural laws should have been I should have been
raised by my father and his family instead.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Of putting to the system.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, because somebody got paid.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
And if there was a rich couple that's on nobody's
paperwork that was there to obtain me.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
That day, where was that money was that? You know?
Was that?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
And the more I researched, the more I kept finding
the same lawyer that signed papers not only for me,
but several other people that were looking for their you know,
biological parent around that time. And I was just like, hmm,
why would you be on at least ten of our paperwork?
And everyone is from that same maternity hall that you know,
wayward girls, girls that were prostitutes, girls that were already
(11:31):
in foster care, to throw away girls. You're taking their
babies and so when yeah, basically, and then you're selling
them And that's the bigger part that I have a
problem with.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You're selling them to psychopaths. Sociopath how do they get
you on the foster cur system? Then though I'm in there,
you with, I couldn't I.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Need to see this case low I need this case.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I couldn't.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So when I applied years ago, you know, you applied
for a city job.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I saw it. I said it was acs you could
be there as a clerk. I was like, perfect, I applied.
I heard right back from HR you can never work here.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Why not because I'm in the system and they never
want me accessing like putting my social in and seeing
my paperwork. She said I would never work there, and
she was like, you could work anywhere else in the
New York you know, but they will never hire you
in this office because they know you're a foster Shire
(12:32):
And I was just like, but if I.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Know, and you know, what's.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
The there's something with my case. And it's the bigger
part was my father never signed a letter surrender. That's
illegal either way. My adoptions, the care.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
It sounds crazy, but there was just this I don't
know was that Georgia or North Carolina. They found all
of those young girls, teenage girls who were brought in
from another country and they were literally just like breed,
like they were getting them pregnant and then adopting their children.
Nowt so this is something that's then happened.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, and this is before computers. This is nineteen seventy eight.
How many kids in New York City went through a
system and disappeared? Because you could have came in from
anywhere Connecticut, Massachusetts with money, Jersey with money, and these
are just.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Simple civil workers.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Hey, let me go ahead and slide you ten thousand,
ten thousand, and nineteen seventy eight. It is a lot
of money for a baby. Yeah, young, this young fifteen
year old girl is pregnant. You don't know nothing. We
could just scramble some paperwork up. I got lucky, lucky.
I went to a family that was like, yeah, you know, yeah,
you know. The way it landed on me at nine
(13:46):
was a little rough.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
But after that, yeah, how was your childhood with your
adopted family?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I am very different.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I'm very outspoken, but my dad says I have a
fire and that's been since a childhood.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And they're very.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Requiet and church like, and I'm a questioner, what's this,
what's this?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
What's this?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
And so it was always a fight, especially with my mom,
because I believe she saw a powerful person and a
person that can take a licking and get back up
and keep doing something else. Because that was my whole
childhood was not from them, but from outside sources. Things
would happen and it would be like, all right, well
(14:27):
this is the next day, and I'll keep going. But
they didn't know how to handle a teenager that was
battling with her own identity, who was battling with being adopted,
who was battling who didn't know where she came from
with people really don't know. That really isolates you from people.
(14:48):
When you don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Where you come from, good, bad, or indifferent. You don't
know who you are.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
But you got to present to other people, and you
got to present imperfection because I couldn't be.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I was there, baby girl. So I was always on a.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Level that I could never have that crack, so secretly
I would always have a double light. When I realized
at fourteen that I could hide things from them and
be a different person, I did, and I started to
break away from the family so much so at sixteen
I got my own place and last.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
And I never went back.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Well, I got pregnant in my twenties, we went back,
you know, had my baby, and then left again. But
I never went back because I didn't feel a connection.
And to this day and I hate to say it,
because whoever sees it's hard. I just don't understand why
they raised me from birth. Why don't I have that connection.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Because it's just natural even because and if they raise
you from birth, it doesn't mean that you're gonna connect.
And I think a lot of adopted parents need to
realize that, Like, but that's part of adoption. They did
the best. They gave you a good, stable life, right,
and yeah, that's all they were supposed to give you.
This connection. If it happens, that's beautiful. But that's like,
(16:14):
that's that's like meeting your first boyfriend you ever met
and then thinking you're gonna be a connected forever with them. True,
that's literally insane. That's literally insane.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Because I have and I've been to therapy for many
years kind of battling this, and I have told my
therapist that I have a weird connection where I have
a loyalty, and that's what he sees it as they
saved me from a certain whatever, you know, an unknown
and in my mind, I owe that back.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So anything that comes up that.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Gives us friction, I'll put it to the back of
my mind or I won't talk about it or I'll
bury it and I'll be their child and step up
and do things and just blindly do that and never
address my feelings until one day it actually bubbled up
and it was like filled out and my dad was like.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
He didn't even know what to do with it.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
It was so much, and it was just years of
I look the other way, I don't say anything, and
I feel that you house, you clothed, and brothers and
sisters of foster care and adoption. So you know, you
make these connections when you talk to people and you
hear their stories and you go, yeah, I was too,
and they become your family outside.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Of your family.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
And I've heard the horror stories and I look back
and I'm like, Churchie and CHURCHI weren't that bad Versus
somebody who intentionally takes another person's child and.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Beats them or molested them.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah, Like that's a certain level of like you don't
have to, that's like, you know, that's unnecessary. So if
you're born you know, if you're born to psychopath, that's
if you go out and you hunt, and the fact
that you went and signed paperwork and was like yeah
and presented, and that's why monitoring and stringent psychological evaluations.
(18:15):
We need to get away from this tip tap. If
you care about children and you care about abortion and
all sort stuff, care about the children that are alive,
that are.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Sitting exactly so. I don't know if you've sketched any
of my lives, but I often have this conversation on TikTok,
like should white people be allowed to adopt? Should people
who don't agree with the LGBTQIA be allowed to adopt?
And people are like anyone, anyone can adopt as song
as they're loving. I'm like no, And what about the.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Family those women who adopted those eight African American children
who went from state to state, defrauding multiple states where
multiple people complained about them, complained that those children were
being mistreated, and sat there and said, those people say
one thing to the social worker, but behind closed doors,
(19:02):
they're like, oh these deep deep to be beep and
nobody said a word, and these children wind up suffering
the ultimate suffering.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Why nobody?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
People don't care about kids?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Right, nobody.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I've spent five six years during this work, and you
can show them the most horrible things that will be like, well,
you know, there are some good stories.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
And in the extent that I've had this argument that
I had to sometimes pull back from social media, especially
debating certain people. I mean, I understand being and you know,
you can have the right to believe in whatever you
believe in, you know, abortion and stuff. But I want
to see you rally for kids that are here the
way you're rallying for abortion rights. I want you outside
(19:46):
of foster care telling them that they need to tear
down the system that they have and rebuild a new system.
And let's take a look at these parents, and let's
take a look at these kids, and let's take a look.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
At these What are some reform that you can see
as far as the background process, What are some things
that you think that they should encourage or like do.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
So if we start doing like a PCL monitoring psycho
valuation that takes out twenty five percent of people who
are just there for monetary reasons, it picks up on
certain psychological behaviors that are not aligning.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
You said a p You said a PCL, pc l
R or PCL K. It's a what that's for.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Psych I have to relook it up because I'm on
my phone.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
It's a psychology tes Yeah. Okay, so I'm seeing this way.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It's a more in depth than what's.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
A the hair psychology checklist revised. It's a psychological assessment
tool used to assess the presence, intent, or an extent
of psych go psychopathy and individuals, particularly those within the
criminal child Okay, yeah, so they just they just making
sure people insane.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Right, that you have a level of capacity to take
care of a child, that you don't have a depraved indifference.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
That suss like. That would also pick up on people
who are just doing it for infertility, because even as
a person who advocates, I pick up on it because
I say, I wanted a child so bad, but I
was infertile, but I'm going to go adopt and I'm
so happy, and I'm like okay, and then we'll talk,
and it keeps going back to, well why are you adopting?
Why I'm infertile? But why are you adopting because I
want a baby? But why are you adopting because I
(21:36):
want a baby? And I'm like, so you don't want
to help a child, You want your own child, So
what if this child is nothing like you, which it
won't be. That's when we get into a problem. Yeah, yeah,
I think that that needs to be looked at.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
That is definitely what it be need like conversations need
to be deeper. And the other bigger part is the
social workers are not paid enough. These are people would
not only bachelor's degrees with master degrees and you're paying
them eleven dollars an hour.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And that's the thing. They're not required. Most states don't
have their social workers are not actually MSWs, They're just
people they found on craigslist. This has been my biggest issue.
Catholic Social Services, Bethany, Christian Services, all of those private
foster care companies. Yes, they don't have to have degrees,
they just train them. They get on the job training.
These are people who literally got They make fifteen to
(22:27):
twenty five dollars an hour and I know this because
I work with them. They don't have any childhood of training.
They didn't go to school for early childhood development. They
definitely didn't go to school for social work. And you know,
I'm not saying that all of them are back because
there are some people who are just really good at
their job because the famis are good at picking up.
But I do think that there should be a little
bit more training. Yeah, and I do think we should
(22:49):
pay them more. Yes, people who have the MSW's. I
don't think that you should be able to get thirty
to sixty hours on the work clock training and work
with these families, because this is very important. This is
really important. Another thing that I often say that people
kind of get upset with me is that I believe
that foster parents should be federal employees. They deserve a
fit paycheck. But there are several reasons behind this one.
(23:10):
It is a job, in my opinion. The fact that
people keep saying it's volunteer work, it is. But this
is why they are weaponizing the money. Right, So instead
of having them weaponize money, let's give them a salary,
and then let's make sure that stipend is paced, put
on like a food stamp type card where we can
actually see where it's being used. You know, we have
the accounting the apartment that I look over and making
(23:32):
sure and then you get audited. So if you went
and bought i'll know a car or something on there
when you weren't supposed to, you're going to have to
pay the federal government back. And there's actually federal laws.
If you break a federal law, you're going to federal prison. Right.
So that's why I believe even foster parents should be
federal employees because if they beat a child, guess what,
You're going to federal prison. If you lie about their
health or their safety, you're going to prison. If you
(23:55):
steal money from them, you're going to prison. Right. Because
a lot of these foster parents just don't get any
consequences because they're volunteers.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
And my parents continued after I aged and moved out
of the house. They continued to be foster parents up
until their seventies, where they were part of an emergency
batch where kids would pulled from another foster care. They
would get to call in the middle of the night,
can you take care of this child? And they would
(24:24):
drop that child off immediately to my parents. So that's
not a volunteer when you're in your sixties and seventies
to get a call in the middle of the night
to get this baby that's been burnt or beaten or
you know.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Whatever, and you got it now.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
And my mom like she cares for these children, like
she sat here, whatever happened, she made sure they were fed,
they went to school that they were loved, that if
this was their last home, this was the home.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
That they remembered.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
And she has pictures will fall out, you know, all
these children. So she's the one I know. Yes, why
does she have to She used to get the you know,
oh we have to go ahead and re certify. And
why is everybody getting the same stuff everybody get? You know,
because they used to go in every year, have to
(25:17):
show paperwork when the last time I lived there, When
the last time my daughter visited?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Wow? Yeah, like crazy.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So they they used to come in with paperwork all
the time, visits from the social worker to see how
their house was kept. And you know my mom old
school in New York, that thing white glove clean.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
She got on the couch, still.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
White glove clean. Nobody, you don't live in the living room,
You live in the kitchen. Go sit in the kitchen.
You know. So never anything.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Wrong up until their seventies, Like they had to be
forced to not take any more children. They had to
be forced. I had to sign paperwork and I was like,
you're now too old. You have to take care of yourself.
And I really have to think, you know, I don't
want you fallen asleep and this kid's running around and
so you done, and I understand how Yeah, there's so
(26:09):
many kids that have come through, and I'm just like,
I can never turn my back. And they're like a
really big reason why I can never turn my back
on anybody and why I fight hard today because they've
never turned their back. In the nineteen seventies, they two
black people decided to adopt a child, you know, for
(26:31):
no reason other than because they.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Had my brother.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
I have an older brother, so it was just like,
there's somebody in need, and they were in the foster
care system, so it's not like they just wanted, you know,
to feel a need from themselves. My mom always you know,
there's so many people out there that need help.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
There's so many people that have that doesn't you know,
the voice of the voiceless.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
And that's one thing I guess I can find a
commonality with mine because my voice is big enough where
I can be the voice of the voiceless. So I
see adoption and foster care as you know, my soapbox,
because stuff does have to change because there's so many
(27:17):
kids that go through the system, and now we have
people violating laws taking kids out of foster care and
deporting them. And that's not a first, it's just now
a known that's been known for how long that kids
have disappeared in foster care. And that's something that needs
to be investigated, reevaluated, and.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Really looked at because we're here for the kids.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
True.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
If we can't, this produces a problem further down the
line that we now turn our backs on. When that
kid ages out and is in a group home or
is homeless on the street, it's an automatic turn to
the back. Nobody wants to deal with anybody homeless. Nobody
cares why you're homeless. You don't care that this kid
came through a horrible situation and a forceter care system
(28:08):
that should have been advocating for him.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
You know. And now you have a homeless teenager.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
With no guidance, living by whatever they know on the
streets and you're turning your back and he's seeing society
or she's the anciety always with the back to what
do you expect mentally? What do you expect this person
to have? And I just want people to see the
trickle effect. Yes it starts at births, but it doesn't
(28:38):
end there. Let's stop thinking about just abortion. Let's think
about Okay, this person.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Did the right thing, gave this baby up. What do
we do after that protect that child? Oh?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
What we got to first up to protect the child
is we got to change the legal process. We shouldn't
be changing birth certificates. You shouldn't be changing identities. Adoption
the United States needs to resemble something like guardianship or
even it can expire at eighteen if the adoptee wants
to write. So I think that's a huge first step.
But I do think and that's why a lot of
peoplehen they come to my platform, they think that I'm
(29:11):
like anti adoption. I'm not. I just think that we
can't continue the same process while it's there's so many issues, Right,
That's like trying to put out a fire while there's
gasoline still going. Maybe let's stop the gasoline first and
then we can put out the fire. Right. But in
the same hand, like you said, to do this, a
lot of policy changes needs to start happening, a lot
(29:31):
of laws need to start happening, or people need to
understand how the process actually works. And that's one thing
that I try to do every day is just like
ask people do you know how the legal process is working.
Do you know about foster care? Do you know the
money that's involved? And a lot of people just don't
because you know, adoption is beautiful, and when we just
have no monolithic idea about something, we don't really care. Right.
(29:53):
And once you start getting more information and looking at
the statistics and looking at what's happening to adoptees and
the mental health that they're having, the addiction crisis that
they're having, this weird connection between I don't know. I
went down this rabbit hole like two years ago. Most
serial killers are adopted, which I just think it's fascinating
for even men and women. Irene, what was she was adopted?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
It's a disconnect. They was like, it's the disconnect from
all adopted.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, they're all the clown adopted.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
It's it's something things like this need to be researched
to see.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Why is it? Environment? Is it you know?
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Something with that original the birth parent. They never got
with my birth record. They never got any medical information
from my mother. My mother died ninety days after I
met her. She battled three different cancers from the age
of eighteen to forty eight.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
That's something that you need to know.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
That's a that's a you know, a gen mark for me,
because now I had to go get tested to.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Make sure you how did you reunite her her?
Speaker 3 (31:00):
So I wind up looking for her through New York
had birth index, and a friend of mine told me
about the birth index, and at that time it was available.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
You could just walk in and go look at them.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
They're not now interesting enough and you could just look
at your year and the last I think four of
your birth certificate number is the same as your adoption number.
They only changed the first batch of numbers, which I
thought was weird. So you literally had to go through
the book and it's very small type and look for
(31:32):
that number.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
So I was the second book, twenty pages from the
last page.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
So it took me two days and I found her
last name. And because I had her last name in
the information that my birth my adopted parents had that
she drew up in Queens, I just went through Facebook
in nineteen seventy eight Queens.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I was harassingingo who.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Was pregniced, who was pregnated in nineteen seventy eight Queens
and the you know who did you hear this?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
One lady was really upset.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
She was like, you're you know, you're really ruffling fever
that I don't care. Yeah, honestly, I understand that y'all
make mistakes, but you didn't have to realize that that
is a lifetime. There's a child out there. You can
never think that that child would never want to contact you,
or you just have to sit and wait.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
This is your day.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
And I happen to stumble on her picture looking at
a bunch of things, and it was like looking in
a mirror.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
It was my exact face.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I sent this picture out to everybody and they thought
it was a picture of myself, and they said, you.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Found her, that is her.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
And I wind up finding her phone number I think
maybe two or three days later, because I sent out
letters to all addresses that I could find of her,
and I just couldn't wait, so I started dialing all
the phone numbers that was available, and I got her
one day and she sounded mean. I just let it
(32:57):
all out. I said, listen, this that's who I am.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Are you my mother? And she said, I've been.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Waiting for this call for thirty three at the time,
I was thirty three. For thirty three years. So when
we reconnected. She told me that she only has little
time left, that she was already eight. Once into a
six six month death sentence, they told her she was
gonna die six months ago. So I rushed back to
New York and I saw her.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
She was eighty pounds maybe, and I knew I just
had to gather information. I had to gather as much
information as I could because I could hope, I could wish,
I could pray, But I saw her, and.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
When I met my dad.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And being how horrible the story is on his end,
he was like it was still closure as bad as
it was, as bad as it seeing her die, because
even when she was dying, she fell into a coma
after Thanksgiving, two days before my birthday.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I stayed in the hospital with her the whole tire time.
Two days after my.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Birthday, we finally cut the machines off, so about four
days in the hospital and I just talked to her
the whole time, just watch TV and warned because even
though what she did was horrible at the age of fifteen,
and she carried that up until, you know, her death,
(34:24):
I had to warn her because she was my mother
and she made a mistake and that was it.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
You know, I.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Couldn't beat her upside the head. She made a mistake either.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
She let and this is what I do believe, she
let that system tell her what to do. That adult
social worker told her this is what she needed to say,
this is what she needed to do, because there was
no way. She was in love with my father and
made up a lot. Her back was against the wall.
(34:57):
She was a fifteen year old foster child herself. She
did whatever she had to do. And that's what I mean.
They manipulated a fifteen year old girl to lie to
destroy my father's Yeah, to destroy my father's life. Because
then she went back to the neighborhood and told that
same lie because she had to because you can't.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Where's the baby? That's what everybody's gonna ask you. Were's
the baby?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Oddly enough, my sister was born the October after I
was born, to his best friend. So it's just an
adult manipulated a child. And she became a manipulator and
just started that because she wasn't like that before she was.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Did she did she keep your sister?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Crazy?
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Because if it was all of that, like, she couldn't
because they were trying to say that she was a
child forster care child, so she couldn't keep me.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
No, that's not what it was.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Because my sister came literally the October after me, and
she said and was treated like a you know, princess.
So what was the difference the money?
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Somebody that money? Yeah, I was gonna say, somebody had
to get paid.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
There was no difference other than the money.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And that's all I can find as the commonality between
my case.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
I say this all the time. Follow the money.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
It's the money.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Follow the money.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Rich family.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
All of a sudden, you know, my parents it's not
an actual adoption because they believe that. They believed up
until the day I told them. I said, you know,
you illegally adopted me, and they were like, are you serious.
I'm like, you don't adopt somebody. The next day you
go to a court, you speak to a judge. If
none of that happened, I'm not adopted. They just changed
(36:39):
the birth certificate and gave it to you. They just
gave you a Social.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Security card with my name and gets gave it to you.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
And then when I started working in the federal government,
I got question a lot because I have two names
to one social Security card.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Because they never shut one off.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
It was just a name change. Yeah that's crazy, yep.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And that's how I.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
They were like, you know you have another name, and
I'm like, oh, yeah, I know d D. And they're
like this, Okay, that's not what that means.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Wow. So yeah, that's my that's and that's still happening.
Se when's your book coming out?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
You wrote it, it's in like notebooks. I've cried over
it because it gets really deep, especially.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
With my dad. I've known my dad.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
For at least four years as a teenager, and we
didn't know that we were father daughter.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
He used to see me. I grew up five minutes
away from him.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
And when I met with him, I literally walked to
his house and told him like I had a boyfriend
that lived up the block, so I used to pass
his house. There was a store that he used to
work at as a child that was like a gaming
store that I used to come into when I was
a teenager, and he said, I remember used to seeing
you for at least two to three years, and I
used to curry you out because I have my mother's
(38:01):
face and I used to tour them at me like I
used to hate going to the store and I'm you know,
I'm an original anime.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
No, he just thought I was.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
A kid that just happened to have her face.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
He didn't know I was his daughter. He never knew.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
So when I showed up at his house, I was
in my forties and he saw my face and he
just was like, you were the kid.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
You were the kid from the store. And I had
to call like people from high school who I used
to hang out with, whoy didn't speak two in years.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
It's like, remember the skinny guy that used to draw,
Because my dad can draw like the wind blows. He
can draw your face and he's a natural artist. So
he used to work in this store and.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
He used he hated to.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
See me coming that he had to take a break
because he said he had I had the face of him,
the woman he hated.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So I've known my father and that's the cruelty of.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Life, that is that I've.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Seen him when I was a teenager for multiple years,
that I've lived in walking distance from him, that I've
had multiple friends live around where he lives. I've passed
him on the streets and I and he passed away
during COVID in twenty twenty and I'm thank you and
I've that was hard that I took life really really hard.
(39:30):
And I was really mad at the New York system
because I felt like they took my dad away and
they took what he should have, you know, raised his
daughter because he wanted to raise an artist.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
He wanted you know, he wanted to raise a kid
in his life.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
And he never wanted to go to the military because
he's a you know part like you said, I'm a
pot smoking artist.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
He was like, they lied, they lie.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
And that's what me about the system because you had
somebody there and we always talk about old father never
step up.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
He did him and his family did did.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, And you wanted the money so bad that you
would destroy this man, because it did.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
It destroyed him. He lived alone for his whole life.
He died alone because he didn't children. Yes he did.
He had three sons.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
And I was told by the New York system, I
can't find my brothers because there's no way to prove
that they're my brothers. Yes, wow, he had given me
their names.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
But it's like a fight. And if you have knocked
on as many doors as I've knocked.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
On, and it takes from you, and you try to recover,
and it takes from you, and then you try to recover,
and then you have two deceased birth parents, and you
know you're in your forties now, and you go to
the hunters, and it takes from you.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
I want to find my brothers, but in the back.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Of my mind, I don't know what I'm looking for,
and I don't know what I'm gonna get because I
don't know what experience they have had, and I don't
know if I can internalize and save them, because I
feel like sometimes I'm drowning with the things that I
see just for strangers.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
I just recently my brother reunite it like officially because
he got out of prison, and he asked that he
could move in. And it's something to try to help
your family, mon story. Sure, he stay here for forty
seven days. I tried to help. He decided that it
was too hard, he said, he said, life is too
hard doing it the right way. And it was just
so helpful because like I had that question, like what
(41:39):
was I hoping for? Like I was truly hoping that,
like we could help you better your life, but the
system has just intitutionalized him so much where it's just
like he can't do anything without the help of a system,
and it's crazy that they can continue to do this.
And it's not just him. I see this in my
work too. These kids they don't have a high school diploma,
(42:02):
they don't have any education, they don't have driver's license,
they've never had a bank account. Then they go from
foster care to trouble team institution to juvenile to prison,
and then you get out at thirty forty years old
and you're like, you have nothing, What do you do?
What do you do? And then it it kind of
makes me have like survivorskuilled almost Like one thing about reunification.
(42:25):
I loved reuniting with both sides of my family, but
like one thing that it really hurts is that, like
I really do see that, like, hey, I had a
bad childhood, Like my adopted parents did not do great
by me, but something happened there because I chose a
different path, even going through the horribleness that I went
through my adoption, I still chose a different path. And
(42:47):
it just gets me frustrated because they say, oh, it
was easier for you, and I'm like, it honestly wasn't Yeah,
it was. Actually I feel like it was hard because
I was alone. At least you guys had each other
in the hood, yeah, but I had no one and
a small white town, and then I was abandoned at
fifteen years old, and like you like had my own
apartment at seventeen, and having to deal with being human
(43:08):
trafficked and having to deal like not trusting every adult
because some adults like, how do you trust an adult
after they've trafficked you? Right, And it's just really really hard.
But reunification sometimes, like you said, it just like it's like,
what are you expecting? So I always used to like
push people like you, reunify, reunify, but now I'm just like, girl,
(43:29):
take your time and do it on your own. It's
not gonna be it. But on the same token, on
the flip side, the other side of the coin, time
is not promising nobody, as you know, So if you
fill it in your heart, just don't go in with
like you know, these fantasies going with reality. They may
(43:50):
be great, they may be crackheads.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
You know, Hey, since let me borrow fifty, you got
a single sick he got something from the corner stone, right, nice?
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Right, you mean your brother, you're missing your whole jewelry
sent but no, but it might. They might be a
fantastic people. My husband met his dad through ancestry. He
was he never knew who his father was. His dad
is amazing. He looks like the picture thing that you said.
My husband never looked like anyone in his family because yeah,
like he knew his mom, but like he kind of
liked this grandma a little bit, but like not somewhere
like that's your family. When we found his dad and
(44:29):
through our genealogies and they sent us the first photos,
I was like, he looked just like my husband did
in a college. I was like, that's without a doubt, yeah,
like that's your dad, right, And then it was crazy.
He had a half brother who is also We called
him the Bastard because his dad was a rolling stone.
He had his five children with his wife and so
(44:51):
far they've had two have popped up through ancestry the
last twenty years. So his other Bastard brother and then
Christopher popped up this year. So we don't know how
many anymore are gonna pop up, but they seem to
be popping up. And him, Chris and his baster brothers.
Look they look like twins. And they're only six months apart,
and they look exactly like twins. I was like, genetics
(45:12):
is crazy, Yo, Like, genetics is crazy. And the funny
thing is his other children don't look as much like him.
They look more like their momie.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Because because those women were thinking about him, that's.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Why women were thinking about him. They was like, when
is he going to come back by? When is he
going to come help take care these kids? That woman
wasn't thinking about him here every day.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Right, but it was. His reunification has been beautiful. They're
like a traditional old black family. They have a family
union every year. He's still with his wife. I feel
like it's like, so I'm like, oh hi, miss Cynthia,
how you doing like this? She always reminds me she
was like Carlos, we were separated at that time.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
I said, oh kay, whatever, it's a lot of separation.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Two came up, Oh, ain't no way, but ain't my business,
you know. But I'm just so happy that he has
like his family, So it does work out sometimes, and
he has his brothers and his siblings and they're amazing
and they all love each other and they've accepted him
and it's just beautiful. It's really it so like you said,
it could be mine if we don't know. But I
think it's worth giving yourself a shot right when you
(46:23):
feel ready and when you feel healed right to do so. Priscilla,
thank you so much for coming on the Wards to
This Day podcast. I ask every guest at the end
of the show, what's one piece of advice that you
would give foster youth or an adoptee that would have
a similar experience as you. What's one piece of advice
you would give up.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Be honest with yourself.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
If adoption is what you want, do the research, but
not on the child, but do the research on yourself.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Are you ready to take it a forth a child?
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Are you ready to take in a you know, to
be an adoptee parent, and not just on the surface
for you know, Instagram likes, you know, for your pictures,
but through the tough times, because a lot of these
children come with problems and we need that you know,
strong individual to sometimes put themselves aside and pour into
(47:12):
these children like you would pour into your own child.
Advice that I have If you're gonna do this, really
research and think Am I gonna treat this child the
way I would treat my natural child? My natural child
called me up and they said they murdered somebody and
don't say nothing, and I don't say nothing. Am I
gonna treat this child the same exact way? Or am
I gonna be like, Oh, that ain't my kid.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I'm abouna tell on them.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Then that's not the child. You know, Then that's not
the situation for you, because that's the.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Difference that I love that. Well, Priscilla, thank you so
much for coming on the show and Light Shiners. Like
I said, I always shine your light. That's my slogan
because you never know who you might inspire. Definitely inspire me.
You know, you have a light and like a hope
and like your dad was right, a fire, right a fire.
I can feel it, right, I can feel it. So
I appreciate you coming on and sharing your fire with
(48:01):
us and Life Shiners. Until next time, always shine your life.
Thank you awesome, well, thank you so much for Scilla
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