American Baby: Author Gabrielle Glaser

Speaker 1: (00:02)

I’d like to promise you that it’s more graceful than this normally,  

Speaker 2: (00:06)

But I wouldn’t worry about it if I read it, 

Speaker 1: (00:10)

But that would be a lie. It would be a lie. Hi. Hi. How are you and how do you pronounce your last name? Glaser. Gabrielle laser. Not Glasser. Okay, ladies. Okay, great. Good morning. 

Speaker 2: (00:31)

Um, you want to take a breath? Take a breath, take it out. Let me just take a breath. Let’s just talk and you get over your, um, please. Don’t worry. I’m not a fancy person. I am completely. We’re all, you know, we’ve all had these, these glitches, please. Don’t give it a second thought. What’d you have for breakfast?  

Speaker 1: (00:52)

I didn’t have breakfast. You didn’t have breakfast? No, but I had two cups of coffee. Okay. Um, are you in New York?  

Speaker 2: (01:00)

I am in New Jersey. Oh, where is miles? West of the empire state building.

Speaker 1: (01:06)

Okay. I kind of only barely can place that in my mind. I, but 

Speaker 2: (01:13)

It’s a very journalistic town. 

Speaker 1: (01:16)

What’s it called? Montclair. Oh, I didn’t realize it was. I know, I know people have moved to Montclair. Everybody’s moving to Montclair. Oh, everybody’s leaving Brooklyn. Everybody’s moving there. I didn’t know it was that far away. I thought it was more like a Hoboken.  

Speaker 2: (01:31)

Oh no, it’s a little, yeah, it’s a little bit for their way. It’s the reason it’s not Hoboken. He is because it’s full of trees and parks and it’s really pretty. Are all your friends from Brooklyn moving here?  

Speaker 1: (01:44)

Everybody’s moving there. Yeah. I mean, when I say everybody, but it’s just like, I mean of the people I know that are moving, it’s like comes up with them.  

Speaker 2: (01:53)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s a cool town. It’s um, well it’s becoming wider. It didn’t used to have a really sizable, um, black middle-class, which made it not a lily-white place to raise your kids. And I think the prep, the housing prices have just that’s changed. It’s changed a lot. We’ve been here 12 years and I think my kids are grown. I have three girls and they’re all at the house. So we’re just in this big rambling house that we want to probably try to sell cinnamon little thing. Oh my God.  

Speaker 1: (02:28)

At the end of the summer. And it’s just looming like at F almost at all moments of the day, it is there.  

Speaker 2: (02:36)

Where are you moving to?  

Speaker 1: (02:37)

We don’t know, but it will be in the air. It’ll still be in Los Angeles. But my, um, my it’s not a complicated story, but my in-laws own our house and they would like to sell it. So, so they have asked us to vacate. So we have said, okay, we will tell them. So, um, it’s okay. We always knew it was going to happen. So it had been an ongoing conversation and his parents are very nice and very patient. So it’s but yeah, so it’s been an on and off conversation. So they’d like us to be out by September. My daughter’s going to college at the end of August. Um, we don’t yet have a destination to move into. So in the meantime, I’m just, we’re just purging an order.  

Speaker 2: (03:25)

Yeah. I’ve got, I just figured the rest of the details will fall into place. I have to purge and it’s just, yeah. I mean, and I’m not a hanger on her. We’ve moved a lot and even so it’s, you know, 12 years in one spot, you still, you accumulate a lot of gunk. It just piles up. Yeah. I, I did a big like purge  

Speaker 1: (03:49)

Year ago or two years ago, a year ago. Um, but a lot of it, I didn’t get rid of, I just put it in the garage and it was just to see if we ever thought of it or needed it. And I don’t think we did. So now it’s a matter of convincing my husband that we never thought of these things. It’s been two years. Have you noticed that  

Speaker 2: (04:07)

This was missing? Right? We’ll see. We’ll see. Right? Yeah. So  

Speaker 1: (04:16)

You’re Gabrielle Glaser, you wrote American baby. And I have to tell you that people in the end, I come from the NPE world, which I’m sure you know, what that is now. Um, and this book was, it was sort of, it was circulate. People were talking about it, you know, on the, in the, in the support groups. And I saw it and I, um, I was like, Oh good. And you know, another book and kind of put him down a distant one day, one day, I’ll read it, reading lists that I have that always. And, um, and then Pamela contacted me and sent me the book and I was excited. I was excited for lots of reasons, but I was excited, um, that I didn’t even know it would apply. I didn’t even know. I honestly didn’t know what it was about. All I saw was that people were reading it and had something to do with adoption. And so I was like, um, well that doesn’t exactly apply to me. And um, so starting reading it, um, after, yeah. Can’t, I don’t even know,  

Speaker 2: (05:23)

Could  

Speaker 1: (05:23)

Not put it down. I’m not quite finished. Um, but, uh, I’m totally blown away. So I don’t want to, I don’t want to talk about the whole book because I want people to read it. Um, so what I want to tell anybody what, everything that goes on, but, but it is, it is a book about adoption, but that is not what this book is about. Look, if I, if I may say so, um, this book is it’s about the adoption industry, but it’s about, um, American society and it’s about the boom and it’s really about people and humans, um, and women, young, young women. Um, and so I, I have my list of questions to ask you, but I have to say that like I, um, I even was, was messaging with some, some groups of, of NPE and LDS and, um, DCS that I, um, kind of am in regular communication with it.  

Speaker 1: (06:18)

And I kept saying like, you guys, I can’t stop crying. Like this book just like crushed me. And I’m not somebody that I’m a very emotional person, but generally if a book weaves story with historical information or, um, like, like, you know, narrative with fact, or like, I, I can, I can stay a little bit distant, but this time, um, this time I just couldn’t do it. And my, um, it could be because I have a daughter that’s 17, it could be that I had her when I was 22 and unmarried. Um, and those were just two. It was just sudden all of a sudden this whole concept was too close to home. Um, but it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. And it’s powerful. Um, yeah. Well, I’m, I kind of know what some of the things that happened, but I’m just really still sort of on the edge of my seat for Margaret. And, um, so I’m gonna, um, have other people responded with, had emotional experiences like that with you, with this book? Have they,  

Speaker 2: (07:28)

Yeah. Um, first of all, thank you for that. I really appreciate that. Um, introduction to your introduction and also for sharing with me, your reaction, a lot of people adoptees I’ve heard from, well, I’ve had a lot of emotional reactions, um, adoptees, particularly who were, um, adopted in the baby scoop era. Many people have contacted me from who were adopted through that same agency, that Louise wise, New York city. Oh, wow. Um, many people have reacted, many adoptees have reacted with shock and bewildered meant wondering w w you know, without giving too much away, we can, I don’t know if we’re going to get to this or not, but, um, you know, I, I discovered with the help of, uh, adoptive rights activists, I discovered some really serious, um, barbaric experiments that had taken place on adoptees surrendered through Louise wise services. And many people have reacted to that with utter shock and horror.  

Speaker 2: (08:45)

Wondering if they were part of those, you know, part of that experimentation. They want to know if it’s possible to find out if they, of course, unfortunately it’s not. Um, we can get to that too. Uh, birth mothers have also responded very emotionally, many women from who are not politically active in the adoptee rights movement. They may have seen me New York times book review, or heard me on a podcast and then bought the book. I’ve heard read the book. I’ve heard from many women who have been unclear about whether they should try to reunite with their lost sons and daughters. And I think for them, it gave them an under it, it lessened the loneliness and the shame that they’ve been experiencing for 40, 50, 60 years. Um, I heard from one woman at an extraordinary woman in Maine who said that her life really mirrored Margaret’s in many aspects. And she couldn’t, you know, she was told to forget that she’d ever had her son. And of course she, she, she couldn’t, and it gave her the, um, wherewithal, I believe, to, to try to locate her daughter. Um, so yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’ve heard from a lot of people crying and, and, and, um, moving and, um, w it, writing that book was the challenge and the honor of a lifetime. It was, it was a lot, there was a lot there.  

Speaker 1: (10:34)

Yeah. I couldn’t imagine what that was like to sort of, well, you can tell me, I need to open my, I wrote out questions, but then in all of my turning off and turning back on the computer pave disappeared, so I’m going to find them. Um, but I can, I, I mean, I want to know what the process was like, but I imagine there was a sort of can of worms that you opened, or a Pandora’s box experience of thinking you were looking a little bit into the adoption industry, and you had, you had, in the beginning, you talk about being inspired by this friend of yours, um, uh, who was an adoptee and, um, was, did you just, was it just bigger and more than you ever imagined what you weren’t going to?  

Speaker 2: (11:21)

Yes, it was much bigger than I had imagined. I covered adoption and assisted reproductive technology as a beat in the early two thousands in Oregon. So I was aware I’m having, well, let me back up. So one of the first stories that I ever covered as a reporter about adoption involved the following, I was in my Portland coffee shop, and I saw a flyer. These were the days before social media, and I saw a flyer that said it had, um, yellow stick figures, highlighter, yellow stick figures with Asian features and black hair. And I thought, what? This is so racist, what is, what, what is this depiction? And then the words of the flyer, then I looked up and it said, are you an angry Korean American adoptee? If so, so are we call this number? Here’s a support group. So I called the number.  

Speaker 2: (12:18)

I pulled out the little, you know, one of those little things you tabs and I, I, uh, my editor and I, um, just decided, wow, this is a really interesting story. Oregon was the center of the birthplace of, uh, transracial international adoption. There is an agency called Holt based in Eugene that began, um, Korean American adoptions during the Korean war in the 1950s. And there was a whole history of social engineering and cold war politics involved in that that was riveting. But for this one story, I interviewed four different adoptees and we, I didn’t get in the way of their words. I didn’t try to craft it into a story. We just let, it was one of those in their own words, pieces with beautiful portrait photography as well. And the response to that story, which I think ran in 2003, maybe 2004, I think it was late 2003.  

Speaker 2: (13:28)

It was so overwhelming. My, in my inbox, I was inundated the next day with emails from, um, Korean-American adoptees, but also from adoptive parents who were outraged absence on my list of questions, still boot lead outraged. They said, how dare they? How dare you? Oh, and the, and, and, and the, the, the adoptees were, they were angry about their experiences. They were angry about being deracinated. They were angry about their losses. They were angry about not knowing Korean. They were angry about not having access to food. They liked their whole lives. It was, it just opened my eyes so much about the narrative of adoption. And I realized, and I had a wonderful editor. He’s just an incredible guy. And we, you know, with that response, we realized, wow, we’ve hit a nerve we’ve, we’ve touched on something that is sacred in our society. We have this belief that adoption is a beautiful thing.  

Speaker 2: (14:33)

And, you know, the response from the adoptive parents was we rescued these kids. How dare, how dare they, how dare you, they threatened to cancel their subscriptions, and you’re not allowed to talk about that. And so I really hit a nerve. And then I really started examining what adoption meant. I spent quite a long time, maybe a couple of years investigating what really happens, what the research behind it was, the losses, what it meant to have an open adoption, which, you know, that’s another can of worms. Um, but I, so to answer your question, I had a deep sort of understanding of the, um, of the parameters, but I didn’t know, once I returned to this story in 2015, 2016, I didn’t realize the breadth, the depth, the deceit. I knew that it was a deceitful industry, and I knew that it was a lucrative industry. And I knew that there was a lot of money made on the transaction of selling baby. Let’s be honest, the transaction of, of providing an adoptive family with a baby there’s money involved. And I didn’t realize, I didn’t realize for myself how powerfully, um, uh, money-driven the whole enterprise was. So I hope I answered. Did I answer your question?  

Speaker 1: (16:16)

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think, yeah, I think you’re, yeah. You’re yeah, you’re completely, I think you’re saying that you, you had been studying it for a while, and then as you dove in for this book, it just was bigger, bigger and bolder than you had imagined. It was. Um, and I think for most people, I think most people, myself included and you just acknowledged it about yourself. We all have this, um, this one particular, we all, we all who are not adoptees, um, have this like one idea of what adoption is. And it never occurred to me that that was a creative narrative will get me. I thought that accepted it as part of the fabric of, of life or of America or of society or of altruism. I just thought, um, I, I keep thinking that my, that I have a really open mind and I have a really broad imagination and I can, you know, I’m pretty open to, to all possibilities.  

Speaker 1: (17:16)

And then within this NPE experience for the past two years, for me, or three years, it’s like, I just continue to, to find that another layer of something I haven’t thought about, about peop people, about people, the people around me. And, um, I thought also coming to your book, I thought, well, I know two stories. I know one, I know of a person who, who, who pursued finding her, um, the child she had given up for adoption and was devastated to find out that, that her life had been so wonderful. And, and it, um, that story blew my mind. I learned, I heard it in college and, um, it totally blew my mind and I thought it was unique. You know, like I thought until I tell Gabrielle this story, what do I read this book? I’ll know about this one story. Um, and then I know somebody else that had a, um, a really intense experience having a child very young, um, that she did not give up for adoption, but the child, um, uh, uh, became ill and died, passed away.  

Speaker 1: (18:25)

And I am constantly thinking about the way that when you meet people, you don’t know what they’ve been through. And this, by the time she was 22, she had already had a baby been married, lost the baby, and then divorced and, and she’s. Um, and I just, like, I just think, I think about her a lot. I think about that story a lot and this book, so I thought, I thought, Oh, well, I really have thought of these things. And then this book was so much bigger and I, and I thought, Oh, my one unique story. And then I’m reading. Then you’ve got numbers in there in the millions, millions of young girls, um, young women, having their babies taken from them in all sorts of different ways, coerced from them, um, or they were manipulated into giving them up. Um, and then what has happened to these children and nightmare? Um, um, yeah, yeah, I can, and I hope I don’t sound too dark and heavy and doomsday. It’s an excellent book. I really recommend reading it. It’s, it’s, um, uh, uh, fun and, and sort of intriguing and compelling narrative that carries it along as well. Um, so was what was the biggest surprise for you going through, um, the, because you’ve written a few books before, and you’ve done re you’re a writer you’ve done and your journalists. So, um, so some of this process was practiced. So what, what surprised you about it?  

Speaker 2: (20:05)

What surprised me? There were many things that surprised me. Number one, the numbers, at least between 1946 and 19, the early 1970s, 1972, um, an estimated 3.5 million women conceived babies out of wedlock. And, you know, there was no birth control even for married couples at that time until Griswold versus Connecticut in 1965, legalized the pill, um, for, for married couples, think about that. Um, there was no sex education. Of course there was no birth control. Uh, I just said that, sorry. Um, and no abortion. And the sexual revolution was simmering. And a lot of young women got pregnant. There was privacy and new suburban homes. Uh, there was privacy in the backseat of the family Buick and these children who were conceived or a problem that was supposed to go away and they helped fill the need during the conservative years of the baby boom of couples who were unable to conceive, they helped them have the perfect American family, and this was supposed to just be the best solution for everyone involved.  

Speaker 2: (21:31)

And I was unaware of the secrecy of it. I was unaware that in most cases with the exception of Alaska and Kansas adoptees in every other state were issued an original birth certificate that was sealed everyone, but state officials or adoption agency officials. And then they were issued an amended document listing their adoptive name and their adoptive mother and father as the original parents in its stead, as the, as, as the document that gave people, their origin stories. And as somebody who is, who is an historian, who looks at history, who looks at documents, I was blown away by the fact  

Speaker 1: (22:19)

Dad is one of the things that has just ripple. I don’t know, ripping rippling, rushing, like pounding through the community right now is people discovering them. Birth certificates were the second document, right? And they’re falsified, right?  

Speaker 2: (22:35)

Exactly. These are federal documents that have been falsified their lives. And that, to me, the stolen origin story of millions, of these men and women and for their birth parents and for their adoptive parents, for everyone involved, this was a, this was a foundational lie, a social gigantic social experiment that was built upon a foundational lie. So that part of it was shocking. The part of adoptees still in 41 States unable to be able to access those, those documents. I mean, it is an ongoing legal battle, adoptee rights, uh, um, ability to, you know, the, the, the, the rights of adoptees, the human and civil rights of adoptees to be able to, to obtain their original birth certificates is, is I can’t believe anybody’s still fighting about it, but they are.  

Speaker 1: (23:43)

I have a question that I thought of when I was reading the book and you’re reminding me of it now. Um, and actually it comes up whenever I talked to the late discovery adoptees, especially, but so, so, so the government changes the birth certificate, and then the original one is quote, unquote sealed. Who is that for? Like, if no one can get you, if that’s sealed, like, what I mean is, is it just because sealed is a more, um, civilized for lack of a better word, um, word than burning? Like, why didn’t they just burn? Like if no one can get to them, right. When and how and why, and where would anybody need that sealed docu?  

Speaker 2: (24:30)

That is such a great question. And, you know, part of the, the, the, the, um, history of that is that in the 1920s and thirties, there were baby fever. There was one particular woman who operated out of Memphis, who would steal babies, literally snatched them from women in homes throughout the South, who were to Porsche. Her name was Georgia tan. And she told mothers that she was going to take their sick children to the doctor. And then she would later report that the children had died. She snatched babies from nursery schools. She snatched babies from women who were still under anesthesia after having just given birth. And she had a really elaborate, um, scheme to sell those babies to prominent celebrities politicians, um, in, from Joan Crawford to the sister of the Supreme court justice, Abe Fortas. And if you wanted a baby in those days, there was no w w w the only way to get one was to adopt there.  

Speaker 2: (25:50)

Weren’t if you couldn’t conceive, there were no assisted reproductive assisted reproductive technologies that could help you. So if you had the money, you would just buy a baby. And that secretive system began in California. It then, um, sort of ripple throughout the country. It started in Tennessee ripple throughout the country. California was one of the first biggest States to adopt it. New York was right along 19, mid, 1930s. And it was to cover the tracks. That secretive system was to cover the tracks of black market babies. And yet the laws, those anachronistic laws put in place to protect a crime are still, we still have them California’s to have some still has them, Florida still has them. You name it, Virginia. Um, they’re in place throughout the country. And who are those secret sealed birth certificates for? That is a great question. That is a great one.  

Speaker 1: (27:03)

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, I just said, I don’t want to, I don’t want to sound like this is all doom and gloom, but this is really heavy stuff. This is really, um, the thought the thought of, of babies being is, uh, uh, is, is horrifying. And I think one thing that, that struck me is that I think probably if you’d asked me, did I know that, that there were, you know, did I know about babysat teaching in the olden days? I would have said yes. Um, but the dates that you’re saying, I mean, this whole thing was happening up into the seven people I’m talking to people who were those babies. These people are still alive. No. I mean, I’m sorry, P people that were adopted, adopted, you know, people that are discovering, they were adopted, um, you, you mentioned babies being born up through 1972, right? So like, that’s, that’s like yesterday, this, this, this is like very recent history. Um, and, and maybe that’s part of, part of the, the, the heaviness, um, is that this is, this is, this is still alive in people’s. This makes sense. It’s still alive in people’s history. Consciousness is still alive in their, in their living experience. Um, so that being said, um, can you speak at all to the ways that the adoptive industry has changed?  

Speaker 2: (28:39)

I was just going to go there. I was just, I was just, I was just going to go there. Well, the hope is, um, adoption fraud still exists. There are, you know, there is still deceit, um, on all sides of, of the, the deceit that, that I talk about in the book is that birth mothers were deceived, adoptive, families were deceived and adoptees were deceived. They were all deceived. Everybody was told the adoption agencies really played God. They, um, created fictitious origins for about the babies themselves, for the adoptive parents and for the birth parents, they created fictitious, um, destinations, Oh, your baby’s going to go live with the diplomat or your baby’s going to come with college. Professors got a circular driveway that was routine. And adoptees, of course, were deceived with the narrative that their mothers didn’t want them. And, um, their mothers loved them so much. They gave them to someone else to, uh, and that is a foundational lie. Of course. Imagine what that does to your sense of trust. Oh, the person who was supposed to love you most in the world, uh, made the choice not to, not to raise you and to give you to strangers. I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s a very reassuring narrative that’s still used, right? Yes. 

Speaker 3: (30:04)

Okay. So if you, before now, I would have said like, that’s what you said, but  

Speaker 2: (30:09)

Here’s the, here’s what changed. Okay. So in 1973, when Roe V Wade was passed, women had far more reproductive choices. Single motherhood became much more acceptable. Birth control became far more available, and something had to change in this secretive systems. So w across the country, it’s sort of happened, um, organically in a variety of different places. Adoption, social workers realized, look, we have to get these birth parents, these birth mothers, a choice about what’s happening. They already, if they’re unable to raise a child on their own by them, that the research was clear that, um, it was difficult on adoptees to not know their origin stories. And it was certainly difficult on birth mothers to not be able to know what had happened to their sons and daughters. So even w it began with adopt the birth mothers, uh, providing maybe some medical history, full medical history and some photographs, and then evolved to a much more open arrangement where the birth mother actually chose the family with whom she wanted to place her children.  

Speaker 2: (31:34)

And then in the best of all possible worlds can remain a part of the child’s life, a part of the, her son or daughter’s life. And that gives the adoptee the ability to integrate his or her, what, you know, okay, this is my, this is how I came into the world. This is my birth mother. This is my, these are my adoptive parents. And that’s a much more, I mean, it just makes so much sense that you don’t have big secrets that way you understand, okay, well, this is why my birth mother made the choice she did. And these are the people who are raising me and I’ve got this. That’s how that’s how open adoption is when it works. And when it works well, that’s how it is supposed to look, but it is still a very difficult, you know, I don’t want to be able to do doom and gloom either, but, you know, we need to, we need to realize and be very open about the fact that adoption begins with loss period, full stop.  

Speaker 4: (32:42)

It  begins with a rupture and ruptures are drama. And even if it’s a very happy, wonderful, I mean, I don’t know what celebrity adoptions actually look like, you know, on the, on the inside of them. I mean, Oh, how cool you get to be raised by, uh, you know, uh, a superstar, but what is that like on the inside that super certain mother and that superstar father might be extraordinarily good parents, but even so where is that? You know, where’s that connectivity to, to, to your, your own genetic tree, to your own family tree, to your own family history, to people who look like you, people who  

Speaker 2: (33:35)

Like vinegar. I mean, I hear these stories from people, Oh, I grew up in this household where they were, everybody loves sweets. I can’t stand sweets. I have assault too. That those are the kind of really small, but they’re not small details. They’re huge. If you grow up in a household where you have to be 18 before you really discovered that you can indulge your, your salt tooth, because at that point, you’re able to buy your own food or choose your own food. When you go off to college, it sounds crazy. Right. But it’s not, that is, that is trying to fit a round peg into a square hole, right. For a really long time. And it’s mysterious and difficult.  

Speaker 4: (34:23)

Yeah. Yeah.  

Speaker 1: (34:25)

So, so in the research there are still, what do you, w what would you say still needs to change around the adoption? Um, do we call it the adoption industry, adoption culture?  

Speaker 2: (34:43)

I think adoption should not be secret. Everything about adoption. Shouldn’t be open adoptees, deserve the right to know who and where they come from, regardless of, of, of, of, uh, regardless of whether it is an orphanage in Ethiopia or the girls who were adopted from China, who are now coming of age and are, you know, finishing college and launching their own, you know, early adulthoods, everybody deserves to know more than just the, the, the, you know, the bare outlines of, of their stories. I’ve heard so many. And a lot of it from a lot of adoptive fathers actually, who, Oh, I’m a father of two adopted daughters from China, and they were just plunked down in a rice Patty. And, um, that’s how we got them. And I, to me, I just want to say, Whoa, that is such a reductive story of your daughter’s life, and you owe it to your daughter to try to help her find out more. So we, I just think, I’m not saying that we should not have adoption. Of course, parents are able to raise the children, they conceive and bring into the world, but we should abolish secrecy around adoption. That’s what I believe.  

Speaker 1: (36:24)

Yeah. It’s not all or nothing. It’s so complex. So, but opening up, opening up the conversation, opening up communication, stopping the secrets. That’s really like the, the theme, uh, these days, um, you know, especially in an NPE community, but  

Speaker 4: (36:42)

Yeah. 

Speaker 1: (36:51)

What would you, do you think that you had was the most, cause I already asked you about what surprises there were, but, um, has there been any unexpected outcomes from this project that you, you didn’t see it coming? 

Speaker 2: (37:12)

No. And I think because I had covered adoption as a reporter, I was aware of what some of the reactions were going to be. There has, there has been some defensiveness on the part of adoptive parents. Um, there’s a lot of when I’ll give talks, there’s a lot of response along the lines of my adoptee. Doesn’t think that way. Um, that’s not how my adopting it and it’s, there’s, there’s just, there’s a defensiveness there. So that, that didn’t surprise me. And, uh, I need to find the language to be able to gently, uh, approach that in a way that does provide for more openness, without being accusatory. Um, I’ve heard from a lot of adoptees who are disappointed with their birth families. Yeah. A lot of adoptees are disappointed with their birth families, um, and some, and more than I expected in. So let’s just go, I don’t mean to be so wonky here, but in the States that have allowed birth mothers to redact their names.  

Speaker 2: (38:33)

So couple States, handful States, New Jersey being one of them fewer than one half of 1% of the mother. So, but let me just back up in New Jersey, New Jersey passed a law, allowing the opening of, uh, original birth certificates in 2014, it gave mothers two year birth mothers, a two year window to redact their names. So with the law eventually opening, um, the birth certificates on January 1st, 2017. So again, one half of 1% of all birth mothers chose to redact their names. It could be that many of those mothers may live in California and they weren’t up to date on New Jersey adoption law changes. But even so typically, you know, in the, in the States that have done that have offered that that is, that is a real, it’s a fraction of 1% tiny,  

Speaker 4: (39:31)

Teeny tiny,  

Speaker 2: (39:33)

But I’ve also heard from a number of people who have more than that, you know? So in other words, more than a fraction of 1%, and maybe it’s just, you know, representative who, who chooses to write to me, whose, who adoptees, who, whose birth mothers have refused contact, um, that has been, um, that that’s really sad. Something else that’s so incredibly painful, um, is when, uh, adoptees learned that their, their birth parents have passed away. Yeah. That is, I cry every time I’m going to cry just right now, just thinking about, Oh, I finally worked up the courage to be able to, um, take a DNA test and to, to, uh, file away for vitals, for the, you know, in States that have opened to file from my original birth certificate. And I discovered that my birth mother had died three years before or eight years before, or that is just devastating because along with that loss is the story it’s gone. It’s gone. Not only were those records lost all those years story is gone.  

Speaker 4: (40:54)

Yeah.  

Speaker 2: (40:55)

So that has been, that has been a very powerful to hear.  

Speaker 4: (41:07)

Yeah. Yep. Um, and, and what do you think, do you have any, anything, um, how do I want to ask this, uh, that you, that you feel like, what would be your, what would, what does do you feel like with this, with this project, you, you have a book, but do you have an ultimate goal?  

Speaker 2: (41:38)

Oh, without a doubt. I, um, absolutely squarely, um, in the camp of every single state opening, giving adoptees absolute open access to their original birth certificates. That is my hope. My hope was to draw attention to this secretive system. And especially during this period of national reckoning of our social injustices, that isn’t gigantic one equality at this moment where we are looking at our own racist history, our own racist present, we need to extend what equality looks like for everybody. And there is a whole class of people who are adoptees, who, who, who are lacking the human and civil right to, you know, I keep, I keep saying it, uh, you know, to access their origin story. There are just think about it. Okay. 3.5 million adoptees from that period, add another, um, about a million and a half other adoptees. Many of whom were adopted from overseas and people who were not counted in those statistics.  

Speaker 2: (43:03)

There are as many there isn’t the government doesn’t track adoptions. It used to, it did briefly and in perfectly, and, and, um, partially there are an estimated five to 6 million adoptees living in the United States today. And just add the millions of people who are connected to those opted people, millions upon millions, their parents, their birth parents, their siblings, their children. This is something that ripples and ripples and ripples and ripples. So, yes, my hope is that we draw attention that I, you know, that, that, that this book, that this work, that these podcasts, that w w your podcasts, the work that you’re doing to draw attention to the secrecy of your experience, it’s, to me, it’s, it’s, it’s high time that we examine our secret pasts, and I have to hand it to you to, you know, do what you’re doing and to not only recover from the shock, but then turn around and, and, and put the shock to work.  

Speaker 4: (44:18)

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I like putting it that way. Absolutely. Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that you wished I had asked you, is there anything that the really good interviewees V viewers always ask? Um, I think you really covered it.  

Speaker 2: (44:43)

I also really love how you, uh, identified with the story of Margaret as a young woman who had had a baby as a single mother. And then as someone who’s got a 17 year old daughter, I also have three daughters. And my youngest was a teenager when I was just still a teenage she’s 19. Um, but she was a teenager when, when I started writing the book and it was about a four year process. So she was probably 13, 14. She was probably 13, 14 when I started. And just watching her go through young adolescents in the late 2000 tens, all the wild talking to Margaret who’s the protagonist of the book, the birth mother, um, involved in the book, Mark and Margaret, and I became extremely close and she lives about 45 minutes from me when there’s no traffic. And it was just these, these bookends of, of looking at this, this woman’s experience, she’s now a grandmother and, and seeing it through my daughter’s eyes and also remembering  

Speaker 4: (46:04)

The shame of  

Speaker 2: (46:12)

The shame of sexuality during the years, even when I was growing up. I remember once I lied to my mother and said that a friend’s parents were going to be home, and then of course they weren’t, and it was a Saturday afternoon. And my mom found out that I had lied and she came back and sort of yanked me out of the basement and, and it was humiliating and, and frightening. And I got grounded and, and, and I still, I w I just wonder what was going through her head. Was she afraid I was going to, what was, you know, what was, was it that she was afraid we were up to no good. Which we weren’t, somebody had a, you know, somebody had a joint.  

Speaker 4: (47:00)

No,  

Speaker 2: (47:04)

Yeah. Just, you know, I I’ve, I’ve, I’ve reflected on my own, you know, my own upbringing, how I brought up three girls, what it’s like today. Um, that’s been, that’s been a powerful thing as well, too, to look at how luckily, how times have changed and how we are accepting of, you know, women’s sexuality in a way that  

Speaker 4: (47:27)

We teach more, so much, so much,  

Speaker 2: (47:30)

But yeah.  

Speaker 1: (47:33)

Work to be done. But indeed, and I can say that as a observer of society. And then also as a mother, it’s hard, it’s very, very hard and complex, harder than I it’s harder than I imagined it would be. Um, not in, I mean, that sounds like I was very naive going into parenting and I was, I was 22, but, um, but I just thought, I thought I’m so open and communicative, and it’s, it’s still, hasn’t been, um, a straight path or, uh, you know, to dealing with, um, my, my own daughter’s development and exploration of the world and what I’m comfortable with and what I want her to be comfortable with and what she’s comfortable with me being calm. You know, it’s just, it’s, um, this is complex  

Speaker 2: (48:18)

And I look back and I think there were things about which I was not terribly, um, intentional. I just sort of was reflexive on some certain things. And, and I wish I wish I could go back and I know this doesn’t really have to do with the book, but I wish I could go back. It has given me really a different lens to go back and look at the messages I was transmitting, the messages I continue to transmit. And, you know, I remember I wouldn’t let my daughters get their ears pierced until they were 12 or 13. Why did that come from, right? Where did that come from? And what did that mean? What was I conveying with that? So,  

Speaker 1: (49:03)

Yeah, so many things, so many small, small things that add up into a life, you know? Um, yeah. And, and I, I keep coming back around to this so often, um, in this podcast and, um, and, uh, it all, it’s just comes back to feminism just so much comes back to the way that women are treated in the rights of women and the, um, legal, legal, littoral rights of women and the, um, societal community conversation, rights of women. And, um, so this, you know, this book is about adoption, but like I said, it’s about so many other things,  

Speaker 2: (49:46)

Really. Yeah. One thing I didn’t, I forgot to mention, which was just shocking to me to discover that premarital sex was actually a crime on the books in New York state until 1971. It was a crime until 1971, Margaret Earl who’s the protagonist of the book did not Margaret Earl cats. She did everything she could to try to keep custody of her son as a young teenage mother. But at the end of the day, she was threatened with legal action. She didn’t sign, surrender papers for the crime of having sex before marriage. It’s, that’s pretty shocking. 1971, finally, those laws were allowed to expire. 

Speaker 1: (50:34)

Okay. There you are. Yeah. Where I lost you was, um, Margaret did everything she could.  

Speaker 2: (50:43)

Oh boy. Wow. That was a long time. Margaret did everything she could to maintain custody of her son as a young teenage mother. Right.  

Speaker 1: (50:51)

She did. She does every, I mean, can you just imagine, I mean, of course you can imagine this was your book, but it just, I just think about all the planning she did and how meticulous they were, and they didn’t even have the internet and how  

Speaker 2: (51:03)

Right. And at the end of the day, she didn’t, even though she was defying her parents, even though she was defining her religious community, even though she was defying, you know, she, she, she sort of went through these concentric circles of how, how, how much she didn’t care, what people thought she was going to keep her baby and marry her baby’s father. At the end of the day, she was thwarted by New York state law, which made premarital sex a crime until 1971. So yeah, that’s, that was shocking to me. She didn’t have a leg to stand on once that was, and then nobody explained it to her of course. But of course. Yeah. So,  

Speaker 1: (51:46)

Yep. Yeah. So difficult. Well, thank you for writing this book. Thank you for sharing these stories. I’m um, I’m so grateful that it, it, it came across my, this, this, this, this, this opportunity came across, kind of came across my lap, um, came across my desk. Um, I am, uh, it’s really, it’s really got me. I mean, just for lack of a more tequila, it’s like really opened my mind or more original way to say it’s really opened my mind, but it’s just got me thinking. Um, there’s just so much to think about the way that we do things, um, in this country when it comes to parenting and family and children and, um, and birth, we just have so, so much to, to think about and work on. Um, and I, and I, and your book, I just can’t even, I can’t recommend it enough to people. It just, I really think people need to know about, um, about what went on and then what there is still to do and, and, you know, legit, legally and logistically, there’s a lot to do, but, but also just within the, just the paradigm, just the paradigm and the conversation around adoption, um, there just needs to be more awareness  

Speaker 2: (53:01)

Well about all sorts of issues that are secret and secretive. And, um, I really have to hand it to you. I really appreciate your having me on and your kind words and your generous appraisal. And, um, I’m really intrigued by, by the work that you do and think it’s just so important. And, um, yeah, there’s lot we have yet to continue to, to, um, to work on.  

Speaker 1: (53:30)

Yeah. Yeah. But maybe if we, you know, between the two of us, um, you know, the conversation is growing and that’s all we can do.  

Speaker 2: (53:39)

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much for your time. You so much. Thank you so much. All the best. Good luck moving. What purging sending your daughter off? It’s hard just to know she going to go far. Does she know where she is in New York? Wow. Where’s she going to be? It’s going to be at the new school. Wow. Congratulations. 

Speaker 1: (54:01)

It’s very exciting. We’re very excited and very proud. Um, so, and we love New York, so that’s great. Won’t be, won’t be such a foreign place. 

Speaker 2: (54:12)

Good, good. Yeah. Wonderful. All right. Have a great day. You too. Bye. Thank you so much. Bye.