0:00

Hey their listeners. For this bonus

0:02

episode, we wanted to reach out to an expert,

0:05

someone who knows a thing or two about what adoptees

0:07

experience when they reach out to their birth

0:09

family, or what happens when someone

0:12

finds out they're adopted later in life, like

0:14

Steve Patterson. Then our

0:17

producer Kate Mischkin taught with doctor Amanda

0:20

Baten, a licensed psychologist in New

0:22

York City who's worked with adoptees, adoptive

0:24

families, and has adopted ourself. We

0:26

were lucky to sit down with them.

0:33

This is chapter twelve, Doctor

0:35

Amanda Beten on adoption. Just

0:39

to start out, would you mind telling us who you are

0:41

and what kind of work you do.

0:43

My name's Amanda Beten. I'm a licensed

0:45

psychologist in New York City, and

0:47

I'm also a professor at

0:50

Montclair State University, where I also serve

0:52

as the doctoral program director. At

0:55

Montclair State, we train future

0:57

counselors, and in the doctoral program

1:00

we train counselor educators, those who are

1:02

going to be professors. Training future counselors,

1:04

it's very matter. And then in my practice,

1:07

I have a clinical practice in New York where

1:09

I work with primarily adult

1:11

adoptees and adoptive families.

1:14

I'm wondering if you're if you're open to telling

1:16

me a little bit about how your own experience

1:18

has informed your practice.

1:20

I think you know, having grown up as a

1:23

transracial international adoptee

1:25

myself, of course, I understand

1:27

a lot of the struggles. I know what they look like at

1:29

various points. I've been working

1:31

with adoptees for over twenty five years.

1:35

I have a lot of stories, a lot of histories

1:37

that people have shared that some

1:39

of which overlap with mine and some which

1:41

diverge completely. I try

1:43

to make sure that I have very good sense

1:46

of what's my history and what's

1:48

theirs, not to confuse them,

1:51

but I definitely can see that there's

1:53

a lot of shared experiences. I shared history

1:55

of how adoptees have

1:57

an internal message

2:00

system that they might use to themselves

2:02

about what it means to be adopted. For

2:05

kids and adolescents can be hard to articulate,

2:08

so some of what I do is really helping

2:10

them find words to explain

2:13

their experience and to normalize

2:15

it, to recognize it. They weren't the only ones who

2:17

had that experience, and

2:20

therefore it can be very

2:22

empowering to recognize like there's a real community

2:24

out there that can share some of

2:26

this.

2:27

I was wondering if just something we could start

2:29

out with. Is some reasons

2:31

adoptees seek out therapy in general?

2:34

Oh sure, I think everyone

2:36

is always looking to understand themselves a little

2:39

bit better, looking for support

2:41

when things might get a little challenging or tough.

2:43

The adults that I see primarily have

2:46

come for various reasons. Sometimes it's the

2:48

traditional reasons we understand is different

2:51

kinds of mood disorders like depression or

2:54

anxiety, But a lot of it's about identity.

2:57

Understanding themselves is people

2:59

of color understanding themselves as adopted

3:01

people. Many

3:06

of them have been in therapy with other clinicians

3:09

who don't have adoption backgrounds, and

3:12

so in many of those cases,

3:14

they might say that person was

3:16

supportive and kind, but maybe didn't quite

3:18

understand the nuances of

3:20

adoption, or they

3:23

felt they had to teach them so

3:25

much that it wasn't as helpful as they wanted

3:27

it to be. And more recently, sometimes

3:29

it's also about connections with you

3:31

know, relationship issues, romantic

3:34

kinds of relationships, friendships

3:36

and relationships with adoptive family

3:38

members and birth family searches. Those are

3:41

all different reasons that people

3:43

might seek therapy.

3:44

And so I just want to clarify, for the most part, you're talking

3:46

to folks who have been adopted.

3:48

You're not necessarily talking to the adoptive

3:50

families.

3:51

I do work with some adoptive families,

3:54

so whenever I'm working with adult adoptees,

3:56

at times we'll find it might be very useful

3:58

for them to have session where they bring

4:00

in their parents. We're working

4:03

on them developing agency to be

4:05

able to express what they want, and me

4:07

to serve in the role of helping improve

4:10

communication, help the adopted

4:13

person advocate for themselves, help

4:16

interpret some of the things that the

4:19

parents may struggle to understand because they

4:21

didn't live it in the same way.

4:26

What's a big misconception about adoption.

4:29

I think the most common misconception is

4:31

that people think they understand what adoption

4:33

is because they've heard stories

4:36

and seen movies. Almost

4:38

all Disney movies have an adoption theme

4:40

of some sort. So these arcs

4:43

tell these stories I think that can

4:45

problematize adoption and also

4:47

make it seem so rainbows

4:50

and flowers and stars like it's so wonderful

4:52

all the time. And the fact is

4:54

adoptions complex and the issues

4:57

are complex. So a lot of times

4:59

I think people think if a child's

5:01

been adopted, that they're lucky, that

5:03

they should be grateful, that the

5:05

adoptive parents have done a wonderful thing,

5:08

that they're do gooders, and

5:10

look what a wonderful life they've been given. Those

5:13

kinds of things I think come into play

5:15

a lot because it

5:18

calls into question motives

5:20

for adopting. It calls into question things

5:23

like how an adoptee's supposed to process

5:26

and think about their experience. That

5:28

can make it hard, because if they

5:31

have this message that they should never complain

5:34

and never be unhappy and never grieve anything

5:36

that's related to their adoption, then

5:39

that is going to become a big barrier in

5:42

the relationship they have with their families

5:44

and in their own processing and

5:46

navigating of the feelings that come with adoption.

5:50

I want to travel back in time a little bit,

5:52

to the nineteen seventies. That's kind of where the sort

5:54

that we're focused on takes

5:56

place. In our story. This man

5:58

didn't know that he was adopted to very late

6:01

in life. He stumbled upon a

6:03

Manila envelope with the name he was assigned at

6:05

birth, but really didn't ask any

6:08

further questions, and finally, when

6:10

his adoptive father died in twenty

6:12

nineteen, he started kind of unpacking.

6:15

So I was wondering, you know, back in the seventies,

6:17

how common was that for adopted

6:19

children to not be told that they were adopted

6:22

and to have kept it a secret.

6:24

I wish I could tell you explicitly,

6:26

because again, we don't have numbers on these kinds

6:28

of things. We would not be able

6:31

to estimate who's telling and who's not telling.

6:34

I can say, though, that it still.

6:35

Happens, and why do you think that happens.

6:38

I think that there's a lot of answers to

6:40

that, and they're

6:43

somewhat individual to the parent to

6:45

some degree. But I think the standard

6:48

answers people give are that they

6:50

want the adopted person to understand

6:53

it fully, they don't know when

6:55

a good time is to tell them. They

6:57

think it will upset them and make them feel

6:59

less part of the family. These

7:02

are all kind of common

7:04

answers, but I also think that

7:07

there's a lot of fear

7:10

involved, a fear that the child

7:12

may not feel part of the family. They may have questions,

7:15

they may want to reach out and find

7:17

birth family. There's an attempt

7:19

to if you pretend that

7:21

we're all biologically related, then

7:24

we'll all pretend and everything will be the same.

7:27

I think that some folks might

7:30

frame it as having protected the child, when

7:32

we know that's not always the sole motivator

7:35

or necessarily an accurate

7:39

explanation. I've actually worked

7:42

with a person once who

7:45

had suspected for many years that

7:47

they were adopted and had been

7:49

looking into this for years, and there had been

7:51

denials and denials and denials from the

7:54

adoptive parents, and

7:56

the person finally confronted the parent

7:58

and said, look, I'm about to do this DNA test.

8:01

It's going to come out, so

8:03

here's your chance to tell me. And this this

8:05

person was in their fifties at the time. The

8:07

adoptive parents still refused, and

8:10

of course the DNA test proved

8:12

it, and they finally had

8:14

to have the conversation. Ultimately, I

8:17

don't know if they actually had a logical stream

8:19

of thought around how this might

8:21

play out or not, but they

8:24

had been locked into this narrative for over

8:26

fifty years.

8:28

I canmuchure it's hard to break that after fifty years

8:30

telling the same story based on

8:32

your experience and your expertise,

8:35

when is a good time to tell a kid.

8:37

That's a great question. And we have a lot of colleagues

8:39

who do adoption research as

8:41

well, and one of them who's quite

8:43

well known in the field, David Brezinski, had sent

8:46

two independent researchers to me to

8:48

say, hey, maybe Amanda

8:50

will do this study with you, because they

8:52

were both what they called late discovery

8:54

adoptees LDAs, and

8:57

so they came to me with this idea

8:59

and I was entruy. So

9:02

what we did was we did a survey

9:04

to look at the impact

9:07

of when you found out you were

9:09

adopted, and the

9:12

results were very compelling. What

9:14

we basically found out was that if

9:16

an adopted person has a memory

9:18

of finding out they were adopted, then

9:22

that's already a little late for them.

9:24

They've already experienced some distress.

9:27

So we looked at whether distress, satisfaction

9:30

with life, and coping

9:32

mechanisms how they all impacted

9:35

this. But if you account for the coping

9:37

mechanisms that people have, adults have more coping

9:39

mechanisms, that the impact

9:42

of finding out that you're adopted

9:44

after the age of three gradually increases.

9:47

The older you get, the more distress.

9:51

So what it meant to me was

9:55

that memory really

9:57

sits in people's minds. In my role

9:59

as a faculty member, I teach a course

10:02

on multicultural counseling, and

10:05

when I do bring in adoption into

10:07

the course, I do a little quiz

10:09

for them and I ask them at

10:11

what age do they think a child should

10:13

be told they're adopted. What's fascinated

10:16

me about it is that there was this

10:18

range. There's always a few

10:20

students who say immediately at birth, as soon

10:22

as you can, but there's far more

10:25

who say five, eight, fifteen,

10:29

eighteen or never, which

10:31

really surprised me. And then my explanation

10:34

my response to them would be, so I

10:37

don't think a child needs to understand

10:39

all of the complexity of adoption to understand

10:41

that they were born in someone else's body

10:44

and that there's another family out

10:47

there. And if

10:49

you wait until they're three, five,

10:52

ten, how many times have you had to

10:54

lie to your child? Most

10:57

of the LDAs they often talk

10:59

about the awareness that they'd been betrayed

11:01

and lied to. It's much harder to

11:03

keep these secrets, and we

11:05

know secrets have a way of coming out often,

11:09

so we try and help

11:11

families recognize that if

11:14

you can't be honest with your child

11:16

about their history, you're going

11:18

to create wedges from the very beginning

11:21

that's going to make it hard to have just

11:23

an honest relationship with them.

11:27

Okay, So, in general, how do late

11:29

discovery adoptees differ from other adoptees.

11:33

Well, I think the difference is more in they

11:35

have a late start. One

11:38

of the things we struggled with when designing the

11:40

study was

11:42

how we wanted to define late, and our

11:44

study finding showed that, yeah, four

11:46

is already a little late. So I

11:49

think that the difference will depend to

11:52

some degree on when they find out. Because

11:54

the person that you're doing this

11:57

podcast about, he's just

11:59

now identifying as an adopted

12:01

person and now just diving

12:03

into that world and has maybe changing

12:06

all the things he's had to think about who he

12:08

was and where he came from.

12:11

Whereas adoptees who've known

12:13

forever have had

12:15

a head start in that. That doesn't mean they've

12:17

always gotten there or done the work or

12:20

had effective progress with it,

12:22

but they've had the opportunities in some

12:24

cases to join adoption communities,

12:27

to be with other adopted people

12:30

to start incorporating

12:33

that into their identity from a very early

12:35

age. And the challenge

12:37

is not being able to incorporate that into your identity

12:40

means it may feel

12:42

like your identity has to alter drastically

12:46

from what you thought it was. And

12:49

knowing that there's this other family out there

12:51

who may or may not have ever

12:54

wanted to reconnect

12:57

or something like that can

12:59

throw people into a tail spin.

13:01

In your experience, how typical is it

13:03

for an adopt you to discover that they were adopted, you

13:06

know, finding paperwork or some other way,

13:08

but to not raise it with their adoptive

13:11

parents.

13:14

I think that there's definitely communication

13:17

problems in all families, and

13:19

I think that some folks are

13:22

more willing to have those challenging

13:25

and difficult conversations than others. Someone

13:28

who has not had a practice of that

13:31

and maybe more unwilling.

13:33

To do it.

13:34

And sometimes people want to close the door on something

13:36

that doesn't fit into their narrative.

13:39

Yeah, two people in this story is that

13:41

they knew and they just didn't want to rock the boat. They didn't want

13:43

to hurt their adoptive

13:46

parents' feelings.

13:48

That goes with the grateful narrative

13:51

too. Who am I to question and

13:53

challenge them? I don't want to rock the boat.

13:55

Maybe I don't want to deal with it either, or

13:57

maybe I like pretending because

14:01

bringing that up is going to change a lot,

14:04

and it's going to force some change

14:07

and a lot of times, as

14:09

humans, we avoid discomfort, we

14:11

avoid change, and

14:14

that's where denial comes into play

14:16

a lot.

14:17

So I'm wondering if that's something we would recommend. Seeking

14:19

out records and finding a birth family.

14:22

Great question. I never say

14:24

that one answer fits for everyone. Back

14:27

in the seventies and eighties, even

14:29

the nineties, the prevailing

14:32

perspective was that any adopted

14:35

person who wanted to find their birth parents

14:38

probably was dysfunctional in

14:40

some way, unhappy with their

14:42

families, had some issues.

14:45

Now the tables

14:47

have turned completely and

14:50

the perspective is if you don't want to find your

14:53

birth families, then you must be in denial

14:56

or something like that. So there's a lot of pressure

14:58

either way. Adoptees are all pathologize

15:01

and they can't win completely. But

15:03

I don't think there's a blanket yes or

15:05

no. I think the individual needs to really

15:08

think about what they want from that, whether they're

15:10

ready for it. I highly

15:13

recommend therapy counseling

15:15

for someone who's considering it, because

15:18

I've worked with lots of adoptees who

15:21

went in with this mission to do

15:23

the detective work and find the birth family

15:26

and then had no idea what they wanted

15:28

to do with that relationship or how to approach it,

15:31

and it became challenging and painful

15:33

for both sides because here

15:35

the birth family thinks, oh, they want

15:38

to know me and want to connect, but they're withdrawing

15:40

and they're withholding, and it's very confusing.

15:43

The communication is challenging. So

15:46

anyone who's an LDA would benefit

15:48

from finding community, and

15:51

if they're able to and willing to get

15:53

some therapy from someone who understands

15:55

this experience, it can be very

15:57

beneficial to them.

16:02

So once you go on that journey and

16:04

you find your birth mother

16:06

and she can't answer all your

16:09

questions, I wonder how that might impact your sense

16:11

of self.

16:12

I think that you know, when you do

16:14

find a birth family member, you're

16:17

never going to have all your questions answered. You

16:20

know, even when you're born to your

16:22

parents, they can't answer everything.

16:24

There's some mystery that's always going to be involved.

16:27

But the sense of self is

16:30

sometimes how we make a sense of

16:32

what we're hearing. Sometimes

16:35

adoptees make their

16:37

interpretation of the relinquishment

16:39

is about them. They think it's

16:41

some deficit they have or

16:44

some punishment for themselves, when

16:46

in fact, most relinquishments

16:48

are about the problems that the birth

16:51

parents are having. Yeah, and

16:53

these are adult problems. When you

16:55

go into a union, it's going to be hard

16:58

because there are back

17:00

and white answers.

17:02

And I wonder if we can talk about the adoptive

17:04

parents a little bit. I can imagine might be a challenging

17:06

time for an adoptive parent when their child is seeking out the

17:08

birth parents and siblings they never knew they had. I'm

17:11

wondering what kind of feelings this might bring up

17:13

for adoptive parents.

17:15

I'm guessing they would feel frustrated

17:20

that they had to reveal the truth, maybe

17:24

they never intended to, or maybe they feel

17:26

some shame about it. I

17:28

think a lot of adoptive parents who keep these

17:30

secrets don't come and present for therapy.

17:33

They may not be willing to confront what's

17:36

happening. One of the reasons

17:38

that they may have decided to keep this secret

17:41

has been their own insecurity

17:43

about their status as parents,

17:46

as rightful parents, as true

17:48

parents, and so I would

17:50

guess that it would raise a lot of those

17:52

issues again for them. I've heard

17:54

many adoptive parents say they didn't want to share

17:56

their child, they want to erase

17:58

the idea that birth parents even exist,

18:02

And in those cases we

18:04

could say with fair certainty

18:06

that those adoptive parents have not worked

18:09

through their own issues

18:11

around deciding to adopt.

18:16

What suggestions might you have

18:18

for someone who wants to find the courage to

18:21

say they'd like to get to know their birth

18:23

family, but doesn't necessarily

18:25

want to disappoint their adoptive

18:27

parents or hurt someone's feelings.

18:31

I'd say that therapy can be a good

18:33

start, because sometimes

18:35

with the work of a solid therapist,

18:38

they can help them find the words, and

18:41

sometimes the therapists can even help navigate

18:44

that discussion. Whenever

18:46

you come against something that feels like a

18:48

barrier, what often

18:51

helps is to empathize with the other

18:53

perspective and then try and inform

18:55

that perspective. So what

18:58

I might suggest someone

19:00

do is empathize

19:03

with their parents' fears and

19:05

their anxieties and insecurities,

19:07

because they may feel that

19:10

they're going to lose their child, or

19:12

something's going to shift and change

19:15

for the worse without recognizing

19:17

that it often can shift for the better

19:19

if they can stay open and engaged

19:22

in loving about it. There's

19:25

a lot of documentaries that exist, a

19:27

lot of movies that exist that

19:29

can be a great conversation starters,

19:32

where then you can talk about this process

19:35

and how these parents, Why were

19:37

those parents so engaged in this search? How

19:39

were they able to make sense that you know, that

19:41

can give that opportunity

19:44

to have some of those discussions that they

19:46

may struggle bringing up themselves.

19:51

In that vein. What are some things that people

19:53

within the orbit of the adoptee, you know,

19:55

everyone in their life, what can they do to help the

19:57

adoptee and support them.

20:00

I think that it can be helpful to

20:03

listen, certainly without a

20:05

ton of advice giving. I think

20:07

the advice giving can often be

20:11

well meaning, but can

20:13

sometimes reinforce

20:16

a lot of the stereotypes about adoption,

20:19

and a lot of advice giving often

20:21

recreates some of the microaggressions

20:23

that exist. Like for

20:26

example, one of the adoption microaggressions be

20:28

named was the phantom birth parents,

20:31

and that's this idea of trying to make

20:33

them disappear, where the birth

20:35

parents are supposed to go off and not think

20:37

about this. Again, if everyone just does their role,

20:40

then everything will be fine. And it doesn't really work

20:42

that way, And there's a lot

20:45

of adult adoptee communities out there that

20:47

can be supportive. I

20:50

would say for this person, the big

20:52

challenge a lot of times is for

20:55

them not to get stuck in their

20:58

anger and to keep moving through

21:00

it and to get the support to move through it.

21:03

Because what we see is someone

21:05

who's struggling with making

21:07

sense of their identity or something getting stuck

21:09

in that and not making any movement.

21:11

Then yeah, I

21:14

can definitely see that there's something you

21:16

wish people knew about adoption that

21:18

you've gleaned from your work.

21:22

I guess I would say I wish that people would

21:25

recognize that adoptees aren't

21:27

all damaged, that we're not all the same, that

21:31

there's just as much diversity

21:33

among us as there is in

21:35

any other group, and that

21:38

it's not a sexy narrative to put in every movie,

21:40

in every book, even though

21:42

it seems to be a very compelling one to

21:44

put in every

21:47

time I'm watching a show. I'm like, op, yep, there's another

21:49

one. And so

21:51

the point where my family lasts because we

21:54

see you any show that's not

21:56

at all connected to

21:58

an adoption story, that narrative

22:00

still makes its way in as

22:03

a quick and dirty way to explain why

22:05

someone would turn this way or turn that.

22:07

Way, or you know, yeah,

22:10

as a narrator to face in some sort of way.

22:13

It really is, and I guess I wish if

22:16

they're going to use that that they do it

22:18

with real education about it and

22:21

with real caution, because it

22:23

does contribute to the stereotypes

22:26

and the stigma.

22:28

Doctor Rianton, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.

22:30

This is this is great, no.

22:31

Problem, glad to be here.

22:35

Thank you so much to doctor Amanda Baden for taking

22:38

the time to share insight. We'll

22:40

have some links to her work in the episode description.

22:42

Her website is doctor Amandabaden

22:44

dot com.

22:48

Hello, John Doe has and original productions by

22:50

Revelations Entertainment in association

22:52

with First and Life Productions. From

22:54

Revelation. Our executive producers

22:56

are Morgan Freeman and James Younger From

22:59

First to Life. Lindsay Moreno is

23:01

the executive producer our producing

23:03

partner is neo on Home Media. It was

23:05

written and produced by Kate Michigan. Our

23:07

editor is Katherine Saint Louis. She is

23:10

also nei on Home Media's executive editor.

23:12

Our executive producer is Sherah Morris. Our

23:15

development producer is Ian Lindsay. Our

23:17

associate producer is Rufaro

23:19

Faith Maser. Rural sound design

23:22

and mixing by Scott Summerville. Theme

23:24

and original music composed by Jesse Pearlstein.

23:26

Additional music came from Epidemic Sound in

23:28

Blue Dot Sessions. Frendall Faulton

23:31

is our fact checker. Our production manager

23:33

is Samantha Allison from my Heart

23:35

Media. Dylan Fagan as our executive producer.

23:38

Special thanks to Adelia Ruben at ne On

23:40

Hume and Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson

23:42

at iHeartMedia. I'm Todd Matthews.

23:45

You can learn more about name us at NamUs dot

23:47

com. The number for the National

23:49

Center for Missing Exploited Children's Call Center

23:52

is one eight hundred the loss That's

23:54

one eight hundred eight four three five

23:56

six seven eight. The National

23:59

Sexual Assault hot Line from the Rate Abuse

24:01

and Incest National Network is one

24:03

one hundred sixty five six four

24:06

six seventy three. Okay, guys,

24:08

this is the end of the show. If you didn't

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like it and don't do anything. But if you did

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like it, you make sure that your rate and review the

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show. It helps more people to find it and hear

24:16

this wonderful story. Thanks again for listening.