Adoptee Centered Approaches: Walking with Those Impacted by Adoption with Cameron Lee Small

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Transcription

Welcome to the a World of Difference podcast. I'm Lori Adams Brown and this is a podcast for those who are different and want to make a difference. Sometimes we face things in life, in relationships and circumstances. In news we didn't want to hear from a doctor, in news we didn't want to hear from our boss, such as a layoff and you need somebody to help you walk through something. The therapists at Betterhelp are there, ready and available to help you walk through whatever that is going on in your life, and they sponsor this podcast.

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And all of you listening around the world can have access to a 10% off if you join today by going to www.betterhelp.com difference. You'll get 10% off your first month if you find a therapist right away and you're a good fit. Awesome. Sometimes that doesn't happen though, and they make it really easy to switch. I myself have benefited from an incredible therapist at Betterhelp who's helped me walk through some difficult issues in a workplace environment where I experience bullying and mobbing and retaliation and the healing I received from this therapist.

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I just am so grateful. So if you are finding yourself stuck in a place and you need a little help from a professional, the professionals at Betterhelp are ready there to help you. Go to www.betterhelp.com difference for 10% off today. For all of you out there who have adopted children into your family or who are adoptees yourself today we have Cameroneron Lee Small, a licensed clinical counselor, transracial adoptee and mental health advocate who's based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was born in South Korea and relinquished into foster care at age of three.

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He was then adopted into a family in 1984 in the United States. He has a private practice called therapy redeemed and specializes in the mental health needs of adoptees and their families, wherever they may be, in their adoption journey. After he graduated from University of Madison, Wisconsin with a b's in psychology, Cameron also earned a master's in counseling psychology, and he published his memoir, this is why I was adopted, as an interactive workbook for adoptees and families to explore the grief, the loss, the restoration, and the hope in the adoptee journey. And Kam has also written adoption informed essays for several public spoken on panels and speaks and trains on adoptee centered approaches. Today he's on the show talking about his newly releasing book called the Adoptee's journey from loss and trauma to healing and empowerment.

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So excited to have Cameroneron on the show today to talk about his own journey and the work that he does with families who have adopted and with adoptees themselves. So welcome to the show. Cameroneron Lee Small.

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Hi, Cameron, and a warm welcome to a world of Difference podcast today. Thank you for having me, Lori. Awesome to be here. It is awesome. I'm really excited to get to know you better.

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I feel like whenever I read people's personal narratives in their books, like what you've written so beautifully here and the adoptees journey, that I already feel like I know you somewhat. But it's great to meet you here on the screen and get to hear your voice and see your face. I'm really excited that you have written this because it's such an important book, such a hard and beautiful conversation, and it's full of opportunities for us to listen and learn from a perspective that may not have been heard as much. And so I'd love for you just to start off with giving us a little short version of your background and your personal journey as an international adoptee from Korea and how it shaped your professional path in leading you into this. Well, thank you again, Lori, for this space and chance to share with y'all and to be here with the listeners.

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I was born in Busan, South Korea, and lived there with my family for around three years until my father passed away. And then the months that followed, my mom went through her decision making process and kind of different counselors, so to speak, and eventually made the decision to relinquish me for international adoption. So about after six months in foster care, I was placed with a family in Wisconsin and grew up there. And throughout the following 30 years until I was actually able to reunite and meet my mom and Korea again, there were different seasons that I went through that. Right now, I currently serve as a mental health provider, and we're sort of co creating the language of what that experience is like for folks who've been through that or similar types of experiences.

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So as a licensed professional clinical counselor, that's really my daily work. And I do that really to give folks access to folks who get it to say, hey, you're not alone. And as an adoptee, yes, you're allowed to have feelings of gratitude and joy. And we can also give space in case there are other elements to your story that you haven't been able to talk through. So that's what brings me here, and I'm so excited to release this book and really contribute to an ongoing kind of conversation that really just invites folks to the table that we can share together.

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I just love that you're in a space where from your experience, you can give others that space to talk. You've been inspired to create your private practice, therapy, redeem. So you mentioned some of the unique services you offer to adoptees and their families. But as you were getting started with that, and as you've kind of gone along, what kind of transformation are you seeing in people's lives and, and how does that help you as you continue to heal as well?

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A main theme that I witness in my own story and then with folks that I meet in the community is kind of going from a place of confusion or guilt or shame, or even just kind of curiosity to I'm connected with others who have this experience. I'm invited to speak and even ask more questions. I don't have to stay silent in the shadows for fear that it might hurt someone else's feelings or that there are too many emotions, or that my experience will be too overwhelming for me. We're just kind of going from that place of potential fear or layers of pain. And we're not saying that the pain is going to disappear right away, but we're really making it possible.

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Putting out a vision for healing, a pathway for healing, and expanded range of joy and being in relationship with other people. And the way that I personally do that is through a context of mental health and formal and informal counseling. And it really is a privilege to walk alongside folks. Such an ongoing journey, not that we can have complete 100% healing overnight or even through a season of counseling, but really practice the idea of holding space for our stories and knowing more about ourself. There's self revelation, revelation about elements and forces and realities beyond ourselves, and then also increased capacity for decision making responsibility.

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What can I own in my story? What are some new ways of being that I can explore and really experience so that I can live a meaningful, satisfying life? I don't have to be a prisoner to things that happen to me, but are there layers of empowerment that I can really embody right now and for seasons to come? So it's so amazing. I know that this conversation can be hard, both from a perspective of an adoptee as well as people listening, who have pursued adoption, have people out in the world who are, they want to make a difference, and they may have been in their late twenties, early thirties, a period of life where we don't really know everything yet.

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And realizing that adopting a child from a family overseas for a variety of reasons, that that could happen, that the best case scenario for that child would be to be welcomed into, you know, a white, middle class family living in the US or living overseas, maybe as missionaries or working in nonprofit. But I think that some of the. Stories coming out from some of the adoptees as they've gotten older, like you, and they're looking back on their story with nuance, with firsthand experience of what it felt in an embodied way, to be a child of a different race, of a different nation, placed into a family, particularly when that child is the only one who doesn't look like the parents and maybe the rest of the siblings in a very white place, for example, like Minneapolis, excuse me, or. Or anywhere in a suburban american setting where there might be a white christian school and church they're put in. And so it can be hard sometimes for the parents or even the siblings to hear that it wasn't always rosy for the perspective of that child.

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How have you approached that conversation and how has your journey been? Maybe difficult in that way.

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As a professional, when I do trainings and deliver presentations and workshops, I think for the most part, the people who are already present in those types of spaces are hungry and they desire to learn more and listen in, and there can be pushback. And of course, I'm biased. And maybe through my training, my initial reaction to that is curiosity. I wonder what's coming up for this parent right now that makes it really difficult to enter this conversation about race? Am I being too divisive, or is there something about your worldview that I might have kind of touched on a little bit?

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And, you know, what is that for us? So, in my work, it's really trying to meet folks where they're at and provide some information. And I don't want to tell people what to believe, but I think about an adopted youth who is very curious about, why do I look like this? And why is our family a little different? And why do I have some of these feelings when I interact with people at school or in the community?

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And yet their family just kind of tells them, well, you know, you're our son and you belong to us, we treat you the same, and you really gotta just kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, just walk it off idea. And the problem with that, I think, is when they show up to my door, let's just say clinically, and I'm working with a client who's an adoptee and working through some of these complexities, the first thing that they might not need is for me to show them articles and journals and data that says, look, 90% of adoptees that reported in this study, they reported feeling positive about their adoption. Why don't we sit through that together? No, that's generally not what people need when we're experiencing suffering. We need refuge.

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We need a haven. We need someone to sit with us and see us and listen in. Tell me more about what's going on. I think that approach is sometimes difficult for. For parents to really grapple with because it means that maybe trauma is something for us to explore, which isn't a very common kind of idea that the church, local church is studying through.

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And there might be realities around race and the history of racism in the US and maybe around the world that also, again, if we don't see color, if I'm an adoptive parent, a white adoptive parent, I may need to suspend some of my beliefs for a moment and just consider, when my child leaves my house, how do other people see them when Cameron goes to school? What are they thinking about? What kind of. What's fueling some of those jokes? When he's walking down the hallway, what are they looking at?

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And we're given space for that whole conversation. So I think that right now, currently, there are more folks willing to come and listen in. And that's been a multi layered, even joyful experience for me to know that parents are pressing into that for the benefit of the children that they've promised to care for, because part of love is showing up specifically. How do you show up specifically for an asian american child being raised by white parents? What might that look like?

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Love that. Yeah. The curiosity piece is so important in so many different realms and so many, I would say if we're talking white evangelical families in the United States over the last several generations weren't necessarily given skills to be curious about race at all, but even about just the, you know, the embodied experience. Experience of what we're talking about. I've had a lot of people speak about it in this way, that there's a lot of body denial in this white community.

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So people might throw things around in previous generations that say things like, I don't see color, which is really, you know, offensive or even not even always necessarily offensive, but just missing, like, a huge opportunity to understand that while you may not see it, I, you know, as the adopted child from Busan, Korea, I live this whether you see it or not, I'm getting jokes at school. And so how have you encountered those realms as you kind of lean into those conversations with people? I think, you know, even what we're going through right now, it's just sense of mutual empathy. And, you know, when I work with parents. A lot of my work is with adoptees, adult adoptees and teens.

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And part of that is imparting information and just encouraging dialogue with adoptive parents. It's helping develop that empathic lens, mutual empathy, to really kind of allow them space to imagine what it could be like to have this embodied experience and what might be some feelings and reactions, what might be some questions that they might be looking to you for. And again, you know, this work, I think it can be, it's so emotionally charged because different values are at stake here and different beliefs about what's right and wrong. But it's really about when your child is holding so many layers, you as the parent, as the caregiver, you know, part of your job, part of, part of your work is to scaffold and lead them through that, follow their lead, but really co create the language with them. And it's not necessarily about who's right or who's wrong.

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It's about what's your child going through right now and really developing that relationship. And, yeah, without going too far into the weeds, we're in a lot of ways talking about, you know, attachment and how a child can feel safe with their caregiver. If I can't ask some of these real questions, why was I adopted? Where's my family now? How come I get treated like this in school?

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And again, I don't want to, I'm not trying to say all adoptees are having this, you know, tragic experience at school every day, but if I can't ask these very real, honest questions to my caregivers, then I'm going to learn that they are not viable sources of support for me in, in that realm of my life, or I'm going to look to other places to get that. But what we're trying to facilitate, at least in my work, is that you're in their life and they're in your household 24/7 or kind of throughout the adolescent years. We want to give them practice and skills and knowledge and strategies and widened capacities to navigate the world when they leave your home, you know, whatever age that is, so that they can understand, learn and realize their skills, cope with stress in response to stress, contribute to the community. And if the first time they think about their adoption is freshman year of college, that might be a lot, you know, but I wonder, what would it be like if they had a trail of blessing, a trail of dialogue with my, my mom, with my dad, with my parents, where we've talked about this before, I've worked with others, you know, about my identity, belonging, grieving and, you know, different stages of my life, I can then be prepared and equipped not to say that my whole life is going to be a cakewalk just because I talked about it with my parents, but there's that. It's a sense of rehearsal, that I'm equipped and then I'm empowered and I have these choices that I can make because I've thought through them before.

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So that's really the pathway that I'm trying to cultivate through my work as a mental health professional and speaker. Trainer. Educator. Yeah, it's such good work. It's such important work because this.

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I feel like in this generation, we're talking about it in different ways than we previously did. And I think that there's more awareness. Like, anybody who watched the show, this is us, they sort of, if you ever saw that show, they dealt with not an international adoption, but bringing in a black child into a white family. And there's one particular scene I remember where, you know, the mom is at the pool and she's trying to figure out sunscreen. Well, she knew about sunscreen for white skinned kids, but suddenly she's like, what do I do with this black child who I love?

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And we adopted him as a baby, newborn, you know, so she goes over to these. This black family at the pool to ask them because she doesn't have the skills. And so that's, you know, it's just those little things that sometimes, often the narratives around, especially sometimes in churches where you have these people who glamorize international adoption as if you're saving this child from this horrible situation. And the best case scenario is they come into your, you know, white evangelical Christian family and that you have gone through so much as a parent to get them? Because various countries can be very difficult, whether you're going into Ethiopia or Ukraine or all these different places.

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And parents have their own even traumatic stories of how hard that was and how long they waited and the red tape and all of that. And they center themselves sometimes in that narrative as if this child should just be grateful for all they've gone through without realizing they have so much work throughout that child's life to continue to learn to help them even into adulthood. And instead of just portraying themselves as the saviors that this child should be grateful for, the deeper, harder work is what you're helping inviting people into, which is helping them realize there's so much nuance there. And so. Yeah, how did that sort of go for you as you were growing up?

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How's that going for your clients as you're leaning into those kind of conversations. Mm hmm.

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The idea that I was a son before I was adopted, that my life didn't begin with my adoptive parents, that was something that a mentor or several mentors sort of, like, invited me into that conversation in my mid twenties. So up until then, there's this idea that for some international adoptees, for some transocial adoptees, assimilation is a survival issue, that in order to receive the care that I need, I better fit in and do exactly as I'm told. Otherwise I may be at risk for further disconnection or further isolation. So I really want to essentially become like my adopters or blend in with the community into which I was adopted. And so that's why they say that in some ways, international adoption, transracial adoption could be seen as an extension of colonization, where the territory seized is not land, its bodies, and also knew the resource of the paper that I cite that from.

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But, you know, that idea might kind of be hard to hear for some folks, but what we're saying is that when. When parents are. So for me, the idea was that when I. When I started thinking through that, you know, a mentor sharing with me that he was searching for his birth family, well, I was in my mid twenties. I didn't know you could even do that.

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And in my mind, I was like, why would you do that? But as I started talking with more adoptees and working at adoptee Cameronps and volunteering with other organizations, it just beCamerone clear to me that, wow, I'm not alone. I have had a lot of these questions before. I remember sitting at the Cameronpfire one night at Cameronp Joseon, which is a local adoptee Cameronp here in Minnesota for korean adoptees. And at the final night, the Cameronpers, like 8th grade to junior year, they get to write a question or say something on a piece of paper, and then they throw it into the fire, and they can choose to say it out loud.

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And, you know, here we are on the edge of Minnesota, and the ambers are crackling the fire and just a very almost sacred space. And they're saying these questions, some of them in tears. And, like, my goodness, I I feel that that's that. Where have you all been my whole life, almost? And I think when.

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When my, you know, the mentor figures in my life invented, invited me further into that conversation, well, then, yes, when I actually got to Korea, you know, I initiated the search, and that's all in my book. But when I finally did get to Korea, it just like hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, I'm from this place. These are people that I am connected to. For so many years of my life, I tried to deny that I had to deal with these layers of self hatred, internalized racism, but there in Korea, just being there in the midst of people who look like me and hearing the language even, which in some ways it's both.

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And it felt familiar. I mean, I grew up with it for three and a half years. Like something was awakened in me. And that really kind of started me on the professional path because even in my reunion trip, I was. I met with a couple other adoptees, and one adoptee was telling me, you know, I think, you know, I've been searching for my birth dad for, like, ten years, and if I could find him, I think just so many things in my life would make sense.

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And that was like, just a day after I had met my birth mom and I still had so many questions and dealing with grief. And in my mind, I'm like, I mean, I believe you. And I, you know, my heart beats for you, and at the same time, my life doesn't make sense. And I met my mom yesterday, face to face. My goodness.

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So when I got back to Cameronpus, I'm talking with my advisor, and I'm like, God, you know, my life has, it's like, in this pivot point of just, like, realizing how deep some of this adoption stuff goes. I don't know what I should do, you know, like, just, you know, choosing major and profession and grad school, all that. And he said, well, have you ever thought about working as a mental health counselor? And it just sounds like the Cameronps that you've been working at, Cameron and the orgs, your volunteer, it just seems like an appropriate fit just in terms of what you're passionate about and what moves your heart. And I'm like, yeah, you know, just something really just sparked, ignited.

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And that, that's what brought me to studying counseling psychology and becoming a licensed professional here. And my practice, therapy redeemed is about inviting folks, like, wherever you are in that whole kind of walk or path, whatever your relationship is to adoption. My only job here is to say you're welcomed here. How can I cheer for you? I'm not the know it all, and I'll be, like, expert on all there is to know.

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I'm simply someone who's been through my personal story. Yes, I've got some training, and there's licensure expertise, all of that, but really, tell me more about what you're going through right now. And I can show you some skills and resources. I can connect you to different opportunities and different ways to think about things, and we can practice strategies and, you know, taking action after each session. And yes, I'm cheering for you, the client or fellow community member, as you're walking through this process, not completely unsupported, like many folks had to do in the eighties and nineties and still today, honestly.

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But you're joined with someone who understands that there's more to it than you've been rescued, you completed our family, you were chosen. There's more to it. And I wonder how we can collaborate on that. So that's been my work that. That I'm seeing right now, merging my personal story with the professional background.

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It's so beautiful. It's so. I think, excuse me, whether people have gone to, you know, I think about it in this way. There are maybe some white families out there who've adopted, and maybe they're curious about their own ancestry. Maybe they had ancestors that flew, fled parts of Europe during difficult times in the past.

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And even though they weren't born there, there's something in their bones that calls them to go visit that, to understand their history, their DNA, but even more so for a baby who was brought from Busan to the United States. And there's so much narrative, right, in the case of international adoption, in particular, around rescue and salvation. But the identity piece, it does almost require this work. And we do understand, even biologically, mothers who carry children, the infant cells will go into the heart and organs of the mother and remain there to repair parts of the body, but they're always there, even after birth. And so there is this connection that remains.

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And so as you have dug into this identity piece and found other international adoptees that have helped you find yourself, what are some ways you can help both parents who've adopted and their adoptees understand this identity? Need to explore.

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Identity is, it's such a. There's such a large scope that demands our attention there. I think just some basics of identity work that I do. Identity development is we're imagining. So I talked about assimilation, meaning basically, you know, forget about the past.

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You're here with us now. You belong to us. We're your real family. And really trying to identify with the behaviors, values, traditions, beliefs of the people into which I was adopted. So there is another term by Doctor Amanda Baden and her colleagues that studied the idea of reculturation, which essentially means through education, experience, and immersion, an adoptee can develop capacities and decision making and really choose what is the frequency and intensity to which I want to reconnect or embrace my heritage, you know, talking about transracial adoption, international adoption.

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So I think for, for parents to get to that place is really to enter into that journey of humanizing their adoptee because they're a person with feelings. And when, when, if we only look at it, and again, this is part of Amanda Baden's work, is if we only look at it as a win, win win situation, meaning it's a win for the birth mom who first apparently couldn't care for her child. It's a win for the birth parents who maybe through infertility or to plan b or whatever they get a child. If we're talking about sort of like this almost consumeristic avenue. And again, I'm not blaming parents or, you know, charging them with anything in a win for the child who needs a family.

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But if we only take that sort of Annie approach, that predominant narrative, that child is going to be shortchanged when it comes to, well, I've got some layers of grieving to engage in, and if I've got no avenues or support or even people willing to explore some of this language with me, that's going to start to bubble up and I'm going to have to either ignore it and forget about it, or it's going to come out in different ways. In my life, I potentially have layers of trauma to work through, like the body's response to a stressful, overwhelming event, nervous system. We get into all that neuroscience, and, I mean, for listeners, you can do a simple google of Doctor Bruce Perry Seven Slide series, talk about trauma. Bessel van der Kolk Body keeps the score. Of course, yes, I talk about my book, but there are just, when you think about all of that, if a child doesn't have access to support and intervention for that, they're not going to develop the capacities to sort of integrate what happened to me, why did it happen to me?

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And what's still available for me right now, they won't be able to develop that. So what, what we're trying to do is if you can humanize someone, well, you are a person, and maybe that did matter to you, that even however old you were, it could have been like it could be in the delivery room, you are relinquished, or it could be when you're one year old, in my case, three years old, whatever age that is, if we can simply have it on the radar that separation from family can potentially have an impact or has an impact on the child, if we can have that on the radar. Then we can start asking, how can I serve you in this specific way? How can I walk with you? How can we make love become flesh here and now when you're grappling with identity, who am I?

00:31:31

What do I have to work with? Who do I want to become? How do I think and feel about my racial ethnic identity? How am I still potentially connected to my background, heritage? And then we're thinking about ambiguous loss.

00:31:47

My, I mean, right now, my mom, is she alive today? I don't know. But how do you mourn someone where you don't know if they're still alive or not? And I just, you know, last year was in Korea and asking to, you know, if my mom would be willing to meet. And for right now, and I understand because of some context, I understand why we're still in a holding pattern.

00:32:10

But for adoptees to have to hold that all on their own and just be made to feel thankful for what you do have, don't worry about it. Well, maybe there are other ways to walk with someone and carry some of this tension with our neighbors. So it's really about allowing space for all of that. And that can certainly have, it can have an impact on who am I, who is important to me, who's here, who's not here. And we want to honor those people that are still a part of our lives and certainly part of our origin stories.

00:32:48

Yeah, for sure. When you went to visit your birth mom, did you go alone? Did you go, did you go by train to Busan? I'm sure there were no zombies on there. I've not seen that movie, but I've actually taken a train to Busan.

00:33:02

But there were no zombies. But I hear it's a good movie. But did you go alone? And what was that like as you were approaching her? How did you feel as you were traveling and getting there?

00:33:13

Mm hmm. 00:33:17

So I had initiated a search, I think back in 2008, 2009, I had re initiated it, but from the first initiation, it was about five years until I got an email from eastern saying that we located a candidate. And if you can kind of send in some information, we can potentially set up a meeting. So, yeah, experiencing some of, you know, getting there with my train of thought. Sorry, when you mentioned train to Busan, I started thinking about that. But what's fascinating is actually so going to like going into the reunion trip, it was by myself because I just hearing all of the stories at Holt Cameronp.

00:34:08

I was a volunteer Cameronp counselor at Holt Cameronp. And when I got back that summer in August, before starting the next semester of my training, I had a reconnection with the adoption agency who was supposedly doing a search. And I had thought, hey, I can just, I'm going to go. My, my friend from grade school, high school, he's teaching English over there and I'm going to stay with him. So in a way, I went solo.

00:34:37

I did not go with like an organization or, you know, a family travel program, which there certainly are benefits to that. And I know some, some great programs and folks that lead that, but I just kind of chose to go solo independently. And at that time, I was still, I was connected to a vibrant church, community, faith community. I was connected to a handful of adoptees that I had become friends with through my work as the Cameronp counselor and folks who just kind of knew I was going. So I felt supported.

00:35:09

And at the same time, I was still, I would say, considered, like, young in my adoptee consciousness journey of just how intense some of that grief could be. So, I mean, like, for adoptees now, being able to do some of that work on the front end is very helpful. Of course, you can't plan for everything, but, yeah, so going there solo and then really sitting with, because when I first got there, my mom canceled the meeting. The adoption agency said, I'm sorry, your mom feels too much guilt and shame and she is choosing not to meet with you. And I think that really was devastating to me and opened up so much that I wasn't expecting.

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And so, I mean, yes, in hindsight, I can say that was sort of an entry point into knowing more about myself and even developing more empathy for my birth mom. But at the time, I was just like, why? You know, like, wrestling with God, like, why did this have to happen? Why can't we meet? So, yeah, being able to message some adoptees from, from Cameronp and even meet with a couple adoptees there in person was so helpful.

00:36:19

Having my friend there and being able to kind of have folks that hold space for that. And then when I Camerone back, I think the important piece is to, is to recognize that reunion isn't a one time event either. You know, relinquishment is not a one time event. Adoption is not a one time event. Reunion is not a one time event.

00:36:40

It requires ongoing care and kindness and ongoing intentionality and consciousness and intention to be able to hold that. So in some ways, in the book, I say that I left Korea with more grief than I entered. And that just speaks to the way that hearing from my mom, my birth mom, and some family members there, the complexity of what we're all going through even as we speak. So if my mom is alive right now, as the date of this recording, she may be thinking about me. Where is he song right now?

00:37:18

I wonder what? Is he still alive? Right? So just different folks, different members of the adoption constellation, we're all holding these layers of loss, and I think that we don't want to stay stuck there. We're just acknowledging that it's a thing.

00:37:35

If someone lost a loved one, physical death, we wouldn't just tell them to be thankful for what you do have. We wouldn't show up to the funeral and say, just be thankful for what you gain. And I think for adoptees, if we can just appeal to that similar sense of bereavement, it just allows space for adoptee specific resources to emerge and be promoted. And that's what we're going after here together as a community.

00:38:01

So important. Yeah. That grief and loss and unresolved grief is so important to have as a conversation. I mean, even in the world of third culture kids, which does have some concentric circles in this conversation, unresolved grief is one of those things that well into adult years can get people stuck for a long time. And because especially sometimes in white evangelical spaces, there is this toxic positivity of, you know, all things work together for good for those who love God or, you know, like you mentioned earlier, kind of a pull yourself up by your bootstraps, just move forward.

00:38:41

And denying the deep emotions that exist, not even naming them can be really difficult. So as there's maybe some adoptive parents listening to this and maybe this is all an aha for them, right? They may have even heard even about the concept that international adoption can be put into, on occasion, a category of a white savior situation. They don't want to be that. Maybe they already do things like on the gotcha day, they'll do somali food for the child.

00:39:15

And that's the one time of year they acknowledge that their heritage and their culture is from Somalia. What else would you encourage parents who want to do better, to do as they're raising these kids at all stages of life? I'll return back to that framework from Doctor Amanda Baden. We're talking about on a daily basis or just on a regular sort of, you know, the atmosphere in our household, our home education, experience and immersion education is, you know, information and data and dialogue, discussion that puts that child in conversation with their history, ancestry, culture, literature, books, music, media, people, strengths and needs related to my past and my present, because it's not like I'm no longer like, adoption doesn't erase my culture. It's not like I stopped being korean the moment I landed at Chicago O'Hare airport.

00:40:20

It's the idea, well, how can we provide you with information and opportunities to make sense of that and allow sort of like, well, how much do you want to incorporate? What does it mean to you? And another resource that you can check out for listeners here is the Darla Henry 357 model. Now, that's generally positioned to help children prepare for permanency or, like, during transfers of custody and foster placements. But we're helping the questions there.

00:40:53

You know, what happened to me? Who am I? When do I know that I belong? Envisioning the future through education, you can develop. I say this before, but a widened range of possibilities of who I can be.

00:41:09

If the only thing that Cameron has seen growing up in the eighties of what an asian person can look like or sound like or be like, if the only thing I have was the asian kid from the goonies or someone pretending to be asian, speaking in broken English, that's a really limited scope of being for me, and especially in the local church environment. This is where it gets kind of tricky because some people might say, well, you're a child of God. We don't see color. And, you know, there are some unspoken messages that we want to hold and name with children. If the only positions of leadership or eldership or whatever are white, you know, is the first person of color in your church, the one you adopted, you know, that that's kind of a question.

00:42:01

And I'm not saying that's going to make or break someone's life, but we're having these conversations, and where can we help children develop kind of a framework that I, too, have strengths and capacities and callings and purposes? I could potentially be a leader. I could potentially, you know, and this isn't like, oh, we want to, you know, have someone become too proud or puffed up. That's not it. We're asking them, though, to address the exposure and just what are the limits and what are the non limits to what an asian american child raised by white parents can be?

00:42:38

Again, if all I can be is grateful, then I might not feel comfortable asking my mom and dad for my birth records or my intake packet if all I did was complete your family and you really have given me this narrative about myself, my birth parents in a negative light or speaking about China as this third world country where people are dirty and the food is weird. I might not invite you on my birth search journey, or I might have fears about that. And so those complexities. So, yeah, I think that there's. There's so many layers to this, but really going back to the idea that we're allowed to have these questions, and if parents can provide us with that sort of like just education on the radar, we can have those conversations and experience in the community.

00:43:34

It was hard growing up in the middle of Wisconsin to meet with other folks from Korea or just asian community, if you think about that. So where or how can we develop in person experiential activities, exchanges of ideas, experiencing joys and, you know, the. The mundaness of everyday life? We can't just ethnic food our way, you know, into healing. You know, that's great to go to a chinese food buffet on your birthday.

00:44:03

But I mean, and just as you're mentioning, if that's, like, the only time, what is the child missing out on? So how can we present more experiences of, hey, here's a peer who's my same age or peers, multiple. What does the racial, ethnic diversity look like? And again, that's not the panacea either, but we're just, how do I interact and do life with. And rub shoulders with people who look like me and have a shared experience with me?

00:44:29

And then finally, immersion. That can be. That can have different levels and frequencies and intensity as well. But just expLoring, what can that look like? You know, that could mean.

00:44:42

That could look like, you know, regular trips or attending events in cultural spaces or racial, ethnic, cultural spaces. A church. You know, my. My first sort of, like, entry point into just acknowledging that I'm asian american as an asian american, korean american person was introduction to an asian american church community, local church community on Cameronpus at University of Wisconsin Madison. And I think that really helped me understand that there's more to being asian american than the stereotypes that I've seen on tv.

00:45:22

To see asian american pastor and just the different ways that we're human. And I don't have to deny this part of myself that was so life giving for me. It was just such a gift in my journey through that. So, I mean, that's just a tip of the iceberg. And, yeah, thank you, Lori, for even putting that on the map.

00:45:40

But there are these tangible ways. And like I said, I mean, there's a load of that that I put in the book. But don't just take my word for it. We want to continue hearing from other adoptee testimonies, other people of color, and sit with that, and then have a collaborative discussion. It's not a one and done discussion, but it's an ongoing conversation that you're going to have with your child as they grow into adolescence and then even when they're out of the home as an adult.

00:46:09

Hey, this just happened in the news. How can I support you? And we don't have to center it on trauma. It's just how's your life going? What are some other pieces and dimensions we can celebrate with you?

00:46:19

And how can we display that? Hey, we know that you have this other layer of your lived experience that we might not be able to fully touch or understand, and yet we are cheering for you. So well put. So well put. And as your book is already out here in the world, ready for summer, poolside, beachside reading wherever you're going on a cruise this summer, you have detailed your own journey as an adoptee.

00:46:46

And yet, as you mentioned, it's ongoing. There's different stages of life. And so your book is still being written in your own life. And thank you for being so vulnerable both to write it down and to bring yourself into this conversation as you're trying to make a difference for adoptees and their families in a conversation that's not easy to have, that we're still figuring out in a lot of ways. And so I just appreciate your perspective today.

00:47:09

I've learned so much just from you and your book and what you've shared today. So for this conversation, I just want to say thank you and I will ask you to stay over and talk to our difference maker community. We're going to go a little bit deeper into systems and I want to get your thoughts on that and how we can do a better job in just the system itself and hear what you have to say. But thank you so much for being on today. I wish you all the best as this book is launching into the world.

00:47:32

Thank you so much, Lori. I learned so much from Cameroneron just from hearing him talk today, both about his own story and of the work that he does. But really just reading his book, I felt like I really got to know him in a really deep way. He's very vulnerable in his book, but he also shares so many things in his book about how his practice is helping so many others. And I wanted to read you a little portion of his book that really stood out to me.

00:47:56

Cameron says when grief related to adoption can be openly acknowledged and socially accepted, adoptees are free to mourn in private and public in ways specific to them, so that true life would break through joints and marrow. Grief support happens when another person travels to the darkest, most isolated corner of the inner universe and sees you, sits beside you where deep wounds need not be kept in your heart for you alone to bear, but recognized and treated with compassionate attention. No timeline, no judgment. Perhaps even the edges of your lives overlap where your testimonies hurt the most. His book is full of that kind of deep understanding of the adoptee's journey, both from his own personal experience and those that he knows and works with in his therapy practice.

00:48:54

Therapy redeemed and I really hope that you pick up this book and read it. If you have anyone in your life that has been adopted or families that you know that are considering adoption, or anybody just in this whole community of adoption worldwide. This book is a really important book and I do really appreciate his training and his writing and his speaking to help us understand how to have more adoptee centered approaches. These are children who are vulnerable, who didn't really make choices, but life was chosen for them. And in their process of grief and loss and expressing what it meant and the nuances of it all, it's so important to center their experience and to allow for all the feelings that are involved in it.

00:49:46

The beautiful, the difficult and terrible and the moments of joy and gratitude are all mixed in. But if gratitude is all you're allowed to have, I can only imagine how difficult that journey must be. And so, as we make a difference together, I'm really glad we could have Cameroneron on sharing his perspective, both as an adoptee and as somebody who works in therapy with so many and knows so many stories that he holds in confidence. But as he's writing this book, he's thinking of all of those, and he's bringing it all together in a way that can help us understand. So pick up his book, the Adoptee's journey from loss and trauma to healing and empowerment, and I would love to hear how it resonates with you and how you are coming away with ways we can make a difference together.

00:50:32

Please join us for a deeper conversation with him in the difference maker community where we do an exclusive episode with him there, as we do with all of our guests. And once again, you can join for as little as $5 a month and get all kinds of exclusive content there, including many exclusive episodes with our guests and other things that we post on there. For just centering around making a difference together. We'd love to have you join us. It's a very special place, the difference makers.

00:50:58

You can go there at www.patreon.com aworldofdifference and join us there. We'd love to have you. You can actually join for free. Check it out if you like it, join in for more content. It's a lot of fun there and we go a lot deeper and make a difference together.

00:51:14

So I'd love to have you there. In the meantime, let me know how you resonated with this episode, what you're thinking about this book, and reach out to me on social media. Or you can find me once again in the difference maker community where we talk a little more deeply about these episodes together. In the meantime, wherever you are in the world when you're listening to this podcast, whether you're washing dishes on a train, in your car, commuting to or from work, or on a road trip somewhere, flying on a plane across the Pacific, washing your dishes, getting your morning jog in, just thank you so much for listening and please reach out. I love to know who you are and where you're listening in the world.

00:51:55

It's a lot of fun to hear from each of you when you do reach out. I really appreciate that. That's my why I do this for you. And I love the connection. And it is so exciting to have people in 92 different countries that listen to this podcast.

00:52:08

So you are such difference makers. You make a difference in my life to just know the cool things you're doing around the world, the deep ways you're thinking because of the guests that we bring on, and as always, keep making a difference wherever you are.