A passionate instigator and dynamic problem solver. Doctor Kevin ross Emery, the host
of the Doctor Kevin Radio Show. We'll be taking you outside the box,
behind the curtain and identifying the load of bs we are fed every day.
And now Doctor Kevin, Hello, Hello, hello, and welcome to the
Doctor Kevin Show here on Home Times, where we're changing the world wait for
it, one ooo mant a time. And here on the last Thursday of
the month, as we have been doing all year on the last thursdays of
the month, I am joined by my co host, Lori Powers Auto and
Lori, We're always so glad to have you back. And I know that
for some unforeseeable period of time this is going to be your last show with
us. You have some other stuff going on, but I know I'm thrilled
and the audience is thrilled that we get one more shot at having you on
air with us. How are you doing. I'm doing fine. I'm just
you know, you know life, But I always have always thrilled the co
host with you and I it hurts me that I have to take some time
off, but that you know life and the way it goes. But thank
you for letting me be here tonight. I'm super super excited about our guests.
I cannot wait to hear everything she has to say. Yep, you
know I do. I am as well. And you know, just this
week I was having a conversation going on one of my social media lines that
about loving a child does not require blood a blood connection. Yes, and
you know, there was some really interesting conversations we were having. But you
know, I think that our inability at times in this society to recognize that
children are not at fault for anything, and yet so often get punished for
everything by you know, the people in charge intentionally unintentionally decisions that are made
that hurt them down the road. And these four kids are coming in and
it's just like, baby, I'm sorry first of all for this world we're
handing you, but also that, you know, somehow you get put into
a category of greater or lesser than by all sorts of things you had no
control over, from socioeconomy, US standards, economic standards, to gender,
to race, I mean, you name it. Some of these four kids
come in and they've got nothing but a world to hurt waiting for them that
they're going to have to fight through and in some cases they're the ones that
are changing the world. Yeah, so would you, So let me introduce
tonight's guest. We'll get this conversation under way. I do want to remind
our audience that this is a live call in show. So if you'd like
to call in and have a conversation, be part of this conversation, ask
questions, share comments, or life experiences, you are welcome to do.
So you call in at two O two five seven H seven O five seven.
Again, that's two O two five seven H seven O five seven.
Tonight's guest is Lorraine Dusky. She's an advocate for adopted adoptees rights fought for
legislation that would unseal original birth certificates. But she's not only a courageous woman
who wrote about having given up a child on other topics. She was a
finalist for the National Magazine Award and won two Exceptional Merit Media Awards, also
known as Emma's from the National Woman's Political Caucus, for writing on the political
issues of the day. We have political issues today. I didn't know that
they've been hiding from me. Lorain has released a second book, her first
in nineteen seventy nine her Memoi birthmark Whole in my Heart. It is a
story of love, loss and redemption. There's a story of a woman's heart
broken and mended. You can find out more about Lorraine Lorraine's website First motherfum
dot com. That is First mother Forum dot com. Lorraine, welcome,
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. LORI would you would you
like to kick us off with some questions? Well, I I do have
questions. I'm not going I'm trying to figure out how to phrase them.
I have six cousins that are adopted, and I know that at least one
of them had to fight, like the Dickens will keep it clean to just
mind any information about his birth family, and that just seems so wrong to
me. So I am so excited that you are an advocate for not only
the children, but the parents that had to give up the children for whatever
reason. My one of my stepmothers was forced to give up her children when
they were very little and didn't get to reconnect to them with them until they
were in their forties. So this just seems wrong to me, right that
you so? So I cannot tell you how I cannot tell you how.
I mean, I'm kind of teary already because so often people come at this
from the other side. I mean, my first memoir was published in nineteen
seventy nine, and I had, in a way come out of my closet,
which I'm not gay because I say that people sometimes think that, but
my closet of being secret birth mother in nineteen seventy five, and it was
early, no one had done it yet, and I got to tell you,
I mean, I had the I want to keep it clean thrown at
me from at at dinner tables behind my back. So to hear you say
that is is I just think how far the world has because it's so true.
Adopted, I mean, let me let me just say that. When
I gave up my child for adoption in nineteen sixty six, I was going
I mean I wasn't married. I didn't. I just didn't feel I had
a choice, and the father wanted this to happen, and I mean I
ended up there, but it was somewhere along the line discouraged that my daught
I didn't it was a boy or a girl at that point to find out
who I I wasn't there saying, you know, I demand this to that,
but I just couldn't believe the laws were like that, because it seems
so inhumane on the face of it to tell a person not yet born,
we're going to take your your actual identity at birth away from you and never
give it back you. And I argued with my social worker at the time
because I thought, well, we're to college graduate. You know, we're
good people. I'm not a drug addict enough. You know I can find
they certainly they can find a parent. They can find parents for me.
That will not go along with having an open adoption. I mean, I
didn't know the word open adoption, but that's what I was asking for.
And finally my social worker, who I got along with extremely well, looked
at me and said, if you're going to insist on that, we can't
help you. I cannot help you. You will have to find another way
to this adoption. I was twenty two, I was in a thousand miles
from my parents, who did not know that I was pregnant, and I
resources, except you know the fact that the father was at that time supporting
me, didn't have a choice. I just had to go along with the
law that was in place with put place in New York nineteen thirty six,
which is the laws is that time still before that and up and through the
sixties, some states had open records and at that time and Alabama had open
did not have still they never took the the adopted person, and so but
I had to go on. And when I read about a group of adoptees
in the in the some theas in the New York Times called the Adopting Liberty
Movement Association, it was like a warm bath rain rain that came over me
because I was suffering in silence, and just to know that the adopted people
wanted to know who what their roots, for who their parents were, was
like manner from heaven for me. And soon after that I got involved in
the movement myself and realized eventually as I was testifying in court for a woman
who wanted to find your records in nineteen seventy five, seventy four, seventy
five, I can't remember the years. Then it's in my book. I
should know it that I needed to testify not as a woman, as an
anonymous mother, because who would believe me? You could hire an actor to
do that. I guess even if I swore so I at that point I
used my real name, and soon after that, knowing that the press could
have covered this case but hadn't, I went home to Michigan and told my
mother and my two brothers. My father was deceased by then, And soon
after that I wrote a piece about that case was in the New York Times
called Yearney in March of nineteen seventy five, and I guess that was the
that that that obviously changed my life. And after that I really was very
much involved in opening up the records for adopted people. Well, thank you,
because that was incredibly brave. Well, and there there are all sorts
of closets we get to come out of day only being one of them.
Uh, But you know it's not only is it from a connect to my
ancestors. Where did I come from? What is? My family? Can
be so important in the foundation of a person's life, but now more than
ever, And I know it's different today, but this has always been true.
Knowing the medical history of your ancestors can be crucial. Yes, yes,
show up well one of I mean I met a NADALPHI once who lobbying
with me when we were lobbing in New York and she was saying she was
being put through all kinds of expensive and then the test. You never medical
records. If you go in and you don't, you're the first thing that
happens that any doc you go to is you get pages to fill out about
a medical history. And that, in fact, is what galvanized a woman
named Florence Sisher who had started them association after an accident. When the doctor's
office hand a piece of paper, she just had to write and I have
no medical history. And she decided then she was going to do what was
changed. And that was an article about her and other people in the New
York Times that just opened. I feel like the scales fell from my eyes
that I could do this. I wasn't crazy, I wasn't wrong. And
just as they wanted to know who I was, maybe my daughter oh and
would be one of them. And I was going to do what I could
to change the law. So medical records are crucial. Now. DNA is
changing the situation a little bit because people are finding relatives. You can find
a cousin or something like that, and ultimately somebody in that family, if
you connect to them, usually can Usually you can figure out, but not
always who the mother is, but not only but that's in a way,
a way around the law. I mean about only about I think it's fourteen
states right now give adopted people the unadulterated right to just go in and get
their birth certificate. Whatever name is on it. Now, in the case
of most adoptees, it will not have a father's name, and unfortunately,
instead of saying father unnamed, it says father unknown, which gives the adoptees
the feeling that their mother was a loose woman and she didn't know whose name
to put down. But that was the legal thing that is designed by some
person I'm going to say man, because they probably was thought about what would
it actually mean to the adopted perse coming back. I mean, it's until
they began realizing that all states up that way, and that it didn't mean
that the mother didn't know who the father was. It just meant that that's
what that was the lingo that the state decided to use on the birth certificates.
It's been a long difficult fight though, to open these these records because
now the legislators say, oh, we can't because we promised these mothers,
well, they never really asked mothers. It was really done at the behest
of agencies and adoptive parents, but one single woman who actually stole babies and
tricked mothers, poor mothers into signing papers they didn't understand, and then was
selling these babies to people like Joan Crawford. And in fact, we're pretty
sure of the governor of New York of Governor Layman had two of these children,
and it was in her interest to have the all the records sealed,
so this would prevent the mothers from complaining or there was nothing they could do
if if, if they could never find where what happened to their child.
So this movement took off across the country over the decades that they and state
after state sealed their records without really thinking, I think, without thinking what
this would mean to the adoptive person, because on one level, it's it's
it's like slavery, it's emotional slavery. To just say you came by the
stork and you have no history, you have no medical history, and none
of that was thought through at the time. All I can say about it
is bad social engineering at its very worst, and it's wrong. It's so
I mean an adopted person can do everything else and get married, then go
to war. They get divorced and go to jailic and the crimes and get
a driver's license, but they can't really get in these all these other states.
An unamended copy of the original birth certificate. I have decided on soapbox
it's okay, and one of the things I'd like to point out, and
then I'm gonna see what other questions Laurie has is so I have adoption from
three different perspectives in my life. I was involved with somebody for two and
a half years that was adopted and saw what they went through, you know,
in their late twice. And then my current husband, his sister was
adopted out, but it was a private adoption and everybody knew what everybody was
and when the time was right, he met what was his half sister and
they became very close as teenagers because they decided all the kids were mature enough.
And seeing the difference between what my sister in law and how she functions
in and around her adoption, and hearing the story from her birth mother as
to why she gave her up and why she needed to and what you know,
and how she shows. These people, she knew them, she knew
them personally, she knew they'd been wanting a baby and couldn't have one.
She would be able to watch from a distance, you know, made such
a huge emotional and mental difference to how she handled the concept of adoption.
Where my act was was tortured the whole time I knew him with that,
why did my mother not want me? Why did I Why did my parents
not want me? And then you know, the third perspective is, you
know, I've been a spiritual catalyst for over thirty years, working with people
on all sorts of issues. I've had several clients that had either have given
up kids for adoption or who have been adopted. And the emotional and mental
and even spiritual turmoil of not knowing, especially from the adoptees a point,
not knowing the story. It's so devastating. And I and you know,
the toxical white men in the suits, they don't get it well, I
think is I mean, I've talked to a lot of eleven figures over the
years, and I have and I and I've been attacked quite by many.
I didn McNeil lairb report on on PBS about i'd say twenty years ago at
this point, and the lawyers there just were, you know, like Hyena's
ready to you know, chew me up. The adoption lawyers because their clients
are not the birth mothers. Their clients are not the adoptees. Usually their
clients have the adoptive parents who are fearful of that relationship, which is so
harmful to the adopted person because I mean I have talked to so many adoptees
who say, well, I campering it up at home because I know it
would kill my parents or it would hurt their feelings, and so they never
mentioned it. The adoptive parents tell me, like, well, my daughter
or son they never mention it. Well, they never mention it because they're
afraid to mention it. It should be treated as a fact of life in
this family situation and be and about it. And then it just kind of
it was the release of air of secrecy, and it is. It would
be healthier for everybody. So I just there's so much pain involved in adoption
that goes unrecognized in the world. I do believe that some of my staunchest
appoint opponents, men who have are who have attacked me at dinner parties,
for instance, and that has happened, like out of them think they know
who I am, because when in seventy nine my book came out and I
did on my turn in Newsweek, which really rankled a lot of people.
And I think it was it's called who is My Daughter? And people who
seem to have no connection to adoption, this would be men just would you
know. I heard people talk about it when I wasn't there, and it
was always some guy prounding the table, probably with a little bit too much
wine. And I came to feel in my gut that those men are probably
fathers of children that they that they have never talked about to their families,
and they are afraid of that child coming back. Because there's no reason that
a man would get so exercised about this if it unless it's personally affecting him.
Women have a Women it takes this differently, whether they're not they've had
children or something. I don't mean some of them aren't opposed, but they
under there's a sense of understanding what it means to have a child and give
it up or and women are the ones who are most likely to search,
but not always as you know, but if you look at the adoptee groups,
it's it's highly peopled by women, by you know, like more than
three quarters. It's all women. I'd say seven eighths of the people who
I know who have searched or are involved in trying to change the law are
women. Now are you saying, and I promised to let Laurie ask a
question, but I gotta get this out. Are you saying when you say
seven eighths, are they people looking for their parents or parents looking for their
children. I would say there are many, many, many more children looking
for their parents. I don't know. I have no figures what that seven
eights was was the number of adoptees will be seven at least seven eights women
compared to a very small number of men that I know about. I've never
seen a statistic on this, but I've gone to a lot of adopted groups.
I just came back from a what's called a meet up, like a
weekend retreat. There were about thirty people there and there were four guys.
I think, well, and I think that that number will change, and
I think I bet it has been changing. And the reason why is,
you know, my again, I'm going back to my acts. This was
not in the eighties and the struggle he had with his adoption. But men
oftentimes were trained that they shouldn't have emotions, that they shouldn't go into the
emotions that you don't want to know, and so they're almost made to feel
like it's an unmasculine thing to do. To chase who are your parents doesn't
make anything. And I really think as we wean away from toxic male children,
and it's not fast enough, as far as I'm concerned, that you
will see more male adopted children be like, hey, I get to have
a right to know who my parents were. So I couldn't agree. I
couldn't agree more. I also think that since they're there's been more about searching
and the records are becoming open. It's easy. I mean, look,
if you live in one of these states where the records they are open,
you just right away for your birth certificate. It doesn't come overnight. It
may take a couple of weeks or even a couple of months, but you
will get your birth certificates. Now, not every birth certificate has the truth.
Some of the older birth certificates they're going to be not forged as much
as that that some well meaning person to see for whatever reason, writes down
somebody writes down Mary Smith when it's really in a Brahma Woods. So that
can happen, and that's where DNA and a lot of other things come in.
But at least it's a start, and at least it treats the adopted
person as equal to the rest of us who have always known where we came
from. Right right, And I have not a question but something to support
your argument there. I did work with a girl who didn't know she was
adopted and telling her early twenties she had an act event and they to know
her medical history, her family's medical history. That's when her parents finally told
her she was adopted. It devastated her one They lied to her her entire
life, and she would turn had some inherited medical issues from her birth parents
that if she hadn't had the accident, God only knows when she would have,
you know what would have happened, or she was at least in her
twenties. I've heard stories that I've heard stories of people in their fifties who
you know, when they find out at the funeral of their parents somebody assumes
the you know, wake or the reception afterwards that they have known, and
it the truth of their origins comes out like that, and they talk about
devastated. And I think one of the worst cases I know, and it
was this woman was m'd say, in her thirties. She was having a
fight with her husband and she said something about her mother and he shouted back,
She's not even your mother. You're adopted. The adoptive parents had told
had chosen to tell him, maybe because they were afraid of telling her.
And your reaction is absolutely right. I gasped when I heard that story too,
because it's so horrible. So how can you ever trust your parents again
if they keep this secret. Children need to know as soon as the age
of reason, when they say where did I come from? You have to
tell them the truth. You tell them a truth in a way that they
can understand it. And then, as I mean my unfortunately, my daughter's
adoptive parents did just that. In fact, this is kind of amusing.
They started telling her she was adopted, but they didn't really explain what it
meant, and she thought she was five or so. She thought they were
telling her that she was a doctor. Until she replated. Until she got
a little older, she fun and she kept thinking, why are they killing
me? Iland? Doctor? But anyway, so kids need to know is
why when they ask where did I come from? Or when they ask basic
biological questions. So I know any minute now we're going to be going on
break. But as we're closing out the first part of our show, I'm
going to fess up that I accidentally lied about something and I'll fill you in
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the Shoes. Hello, Hello, Hello, and welcome back to the Doctor
Kevin Show. Remember we are a live call in show, so you've been
call in with your questions at two O two five seven H seven O five
seven. That's two O two five seven h seven oh five seven. We
are on tonight. Lorie Auto Power Powers Auto and I are on. Oh
I'd done that for a long time with Lorraine Dusky. Lorraine fought for the
legislation that would unseal original birthtti ticket. She has two books out and her
most recent book is Whole in My Heart, A Story of love, loss
and redemption, the story of a woman's heart broken and mended. You can
find out more about Lorraine at First motherfum dot com. That's First mother Forum
dot com. And as I was saying at break, I accidentally lied because
I said I had three different perspectives on adoption, and you told your story,
and you know it's it's interesting because my two older half brothers were adopted
by my father and but they are no, they were not told. Uh
you know, I came along, they didn't have any memories of their first
father. I'm everything was going fine, and then my parents divorced and my
mother married this man who was insanely jealous of my father and blurted out at
some point out of nowhere that I wasn't even their brother, that they were
adopted and that they had a different father and sprung it on them. And
I think they were like nine and eleven. Well, death, death better
than twenty nine. Death is better than twenty nine and thirty one. Well,
it was used as a weapon though, so yeah, but anyways,
I was like, oh my god, yes I do have another relationship with
adoption, but anyways, would they adopted actually physically, I mean with the
was the paperwork done? Because I have a half brother also, but I
found and there was his father was nowhere around when I was growing up at
all, and I found out when I wanted, I asked my mother.
I went to Catholic school and I was making my first communion and I was
suddenly wondered, why isn't mother going to communion. Now, my dad didn't
go to church except on the holiday, so that wasn't an issue. But
and at that point, that's when she told me that my older brother was
my half brother, and there was another man, another father, et cetera.
And it was I was seven. She cried, I cried, etcetera.
Was because in the late sixties that was a very big deal in the
Catholic church. And but we got through it. And I have always been
grateful that my mother told the true to me at that point. So it
is devastating when it when when it's blurted out, But that does happen to
so many adoptees, like a cousin can know, okay, and adopted cousin
they know because his parents know, and they have talked about it, and
they and and let's say these two boys or whatever are fighting and the one
cousin who knows will say, well, you're adopted. You see, parents
do a lot of damage by not telling. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
my brothers were legally adopted. They had my father's last name. It turned
out to be kind of an ugly story. And I'm not against people.
I think kids should be told. I absolutely think kids should be told.
I don't think that was the right choice, you know, of course,
not of course, to keep it from them. I don't believe that that
that was a right choice. I mean they were like, they were like
nine and eleven, and it's like kind of the age again, at that
age of consciousness and stuff like this. But you know, it was basically
used as a weapon to say they didn't have to have anything to do with
the man they called dad, and I was I was not really related to
them. They were related to each other. So that's why I say it
was an ugly situation. Oh well, no, that is that was a
terrible situation. But you know, if they were legally adopted even though their
mother would you know, they had every they could find out who their father
was because the mother was around, but their their birth certificates were changed.
Yep. And I actually because both my brothers passed at a fairly young age
due to accidents, and I actually have And this is the other way people
kids find out. I actually have their original birth at thiccates. That's saying
the first man, because I inherited all the family paperwork. And that's the
other way an adoptee can find out is that you know, it's not even
somebody mentions that at the funeral if they go through all the paperwork from their
parents, and if you have parents like mine, they kept every last seat
right and uh yeah they would have. They would if it had not come
out, I would have figured it out by having to go through the paperwork,
you know, because I would have seen that they had a different last
name and a different father listed than mine. So anyways, I think the
stories questions I have. I have one more thing to say. Another time
that it comes out is with family jewelry. And this is usually like to
watch the grandfather or father owned or something. I mean, adoptees sometimes find
out when they're going through the family jewelry with other pimper is in the family,
and you know what, the other family man say, Well, you're
adopted, this should go to your cousin, even though you might be the
like the direct descendant who should get it. But you're not blood. And
suddenly that diamond ring that was your grandmother's, let's say, needs to go
to somebody else in the family because quote, you're not blood. And I
have heard stories of people finding out that way. Oh that's horrible, that
is terrible. But I have to admit, Kevin, I also was mistaken.
I actually have seven cousins that were adopted, and one was like your
brothers, right, My uncle adopted his wife's son from her previous marriage.
And but they I don't they told him pretty young, because they did,
you know, they well, they tried to let him have a relationship with
his father, and I don't know all the details, but it wasn't a
good situation. So then he, my uncle just flat out adopted him,
and and everybody you know not, Yeah, that's a very that's a such
a different situation from a closed, secret adoption that I mean, closed adoptions
are becoming you know, quite the thing of the past. I mean it's
but open adoptions are often not as open as the mothers were promised. I
mean I and so open adoption rules and regulations are very hard to to make
sure that they're followed. I mean you sometimes the mother, the birth mother
will have to go to court. Does you have the money to hire a
lawyer? I mean, and even then the parents adopt and move across the
country. I mean. I don't want to make all adoptive parents sound bad.
I know some very loving, wonderful adoptive parents. I mean, I
have friends who are adoptive parents. It's just that there are stories that make
your hair curl, and I have very straight hair. So so you know,
the open adoption it sounds like the panacea for the future, but it's
not so wonderful. And it's still not that wonderful because the child. The
problem with being adopted often is that, no matter how much the parents don't
want to, it takes a big heart to accept that the child that you
are raising in many ways is not going to be like you, and that
is often it's difficult to handle. I mean, it's one of the reasons
adoptees are overrepresented in therapy and everything because one of the reasons is because what
might be accepted as just erratic behavior or you know, dad got into trouble
when he was sixteen also, but it becomes if, if, if that
person has adopted into a completely different kind of family, things that small things
much bigger than they would be in the family where different kinds of behaviors is
accepted and tolerated and just part of the way that family is well. And
you know, besides the cultural I mean the cultural differences, and we are
learning more and more every day. I mean, you see these stories of
like twins that were split up at birth and didn't even know they had a
twin, and they meet twenty years later and they had they have the same
favorite color, and they have the same favorite food, and they have to
say, like, you know, you would have thought they'd been raised as
twins and they didn't even know they were a twin. Yes, I mean
there was that movie. Yeah, there is a lot of study about that.
It was done at the University of Minnesota. They found twins and triplets
who had been separated and it just and it's just what you said. They
they they have so many similarities. They crossed their legs the same way.
They have the same kinds of favorite colors, and they were the same kinds
of suits. And it goes on and on and on. I mean when
I found my daughter, and I did find her when she was before she
was sixteen, and her adoptive parents welcomed me into their home and their hearts.
Uh, it wasn't always simple, and it wasn't always pretty as time
went on, but that's what they did at that time. And you would
never never have guessed if you met me and my daughter that we had I
had not raised her. She dressed like me, she sounded like me,
She kind of looked like me, even though I don't. I think she
looked more like her father, but the same size. I mean, we
could wear each other's clothes, we did sometimes. So there's always that all
that all ends up being threatening to the adopted parents, you know, if
they're not very grounded and you know, in this is my child, and
if you have a parent that's having any kind of struggle with I love this
child, but it's not quite mine. It's mine, but it's not quite
mine. Then then the birth parent shows up and is you know, say
manners and stuff like that. It brings all of that insecurity up again.
I've I've dealt with several clients on both sides of the spectrum and dealing with
these issues of finding kids and relationships and all of this stuff. So yeah,
well, but I have a hand for sake. Well before we run
out of time, I mean, we still have some time. But your
most recent book is Hole in My Heart, and I want to make sure
you get a chance. We make sure we put a little time aside to
hear a little bit about the most recent book of yours. I don't know
if it has to do with adoption or not, but I don't want to
show to end then you go. I've never even mentioned my new book that's
out at all. Well, Hole in my Heart is definitely the whole my
heart, this whole adoption situation left and the subtitles love and Loss in the
fault Lines of adoption, and it is not only it's a memoir that is
not only my story. I was a you know, young reporter, and
I landed the dream job at twenty two. I was the only woman's city
side on the Rochester, New York morning newspaper, The Democrat, and chronicle
with about twenty guys. I wasn't in the women's department, and that's where
I met the father of my child. And so while I have this dream
job that would have come not come along easily in nineteen sixty four, I
got pregnant in nineteen sixty five and gave her up in nineteen sixty six and
was in hiding for a while and slowly came out. And so the book
is the story of who I was and the changes in journalism in the world,
and why I gave her up for adoption, and how I changed,
how I came out of the closet in my way, how I found her.
We had a relationship for twenty six years. And but because I have
this journalism background, it is also full of facts, research data. It
has a rather large bibliography. It has about one hundred and fifty footnotes.
It has an index, so you can there's it's my story, but it's
my story told against the background of changes in the in the world in the
this period that it covers from from the sort of starts in the fifties,
basically when I argued with my dad about whether or not I could go to
college and ends up basically today. And the last, the penultimate chapter is
the chapter that talked about when the law finally changed in New York, because
we had a very very long fight in New York and nobody gave up,
and we just kept going back and back, and then finally the head of
the Assembly in New York, the government changed and that people in charge changed
in the law passed, and it passed kind of overwhelmingly. But other states
had, you know, had passed as Oregon, you know, had had
plebiscite and people voted to change the law, you know, fifteen years before
this happened in New York. So it's this it's a it's a story of
kind of a lot of people, not just me, because I'm just one
person who just happened too, out of thousands of people who are involved,
millions of people. It's estimated they're between five to seven million adoptees in the
United States. So everybody, everybody who's adopted, has brothers, has family,
has a birth mother, has a birth father, has adoptive parents.
So it really is, you know, a book that I hope will continue
to work to change the law and to and to bring comfort to the adoptees
who are afraid to search and to help birth mothers come out of the closet.
There you go, that's my pitch. I have no idea what the
law is in New Hampshire because I've never needed to know. So that's that's
that's interesting. I know that it's open. It's open, Okay, yeah,
good, good, good on awesome, awesome, Yeah, yeah,
yeah, because I'm gonna say I know that I act was born was adopted
in New York, and I believe was born in New York and was he
was born in nineteen sixty two. So when we were dealing with his frustrations
and he thought he might want to know who his birth parents were, they
would New York would have still been closed because yeah, where all of us
would have been. Idly enough, if he was born in any of the
boroughs of New York City, he would have had a chance, if he
knew about this, to go to the New York Public Library with his amended
birth certificate and sat and looked through all the births on in that year.
I guess it is, and matched the numbers. I mean, I know
people who did this, and when you matched the numbers, you could find
you could see what was on the natural the original birth certificate, but that
was only for New York City. But anyway, uh, your X if
he knows about this, he can just now write for his birth certificate in
New York. Yeah. Yeah, we don't we contact every dog's age.
I mean we're we're fine with each other, but we don't have any regular
communication. I know that his was in Long Island, so oh, well
I lived on Long Island. That's where I live where, that's where he
was born, and that's where his parents adopted him. And yeah, so
I just just just just decide. Note because when when you talked about New
York and going out, I was like, that would have been exactly when
he was doing that and he was studying to become a psychiatrist, said I.
I really think the fact he was adopted was a push, was one
of the pushes why he was studying psychiatry to understand why people did what they
did, which included why did my mother give me up? But did my
birth mother gave me up? I could be wrong, LA, No,
I know a lot. I just let me say this. I know a
lot of people who go into therapy and of one sort of enough who are
adopted, and I think their their own questions that lead them to that that
chapter of their lives. I mean that to pick a career, definitely.
It's funny because I'm listening and I'm thinking about two times in my life where
adoption was brought up. One I vividly remember, and one of course I
have no recollection of. When I had my daughter, my doctor pushed me
very hard to give her up for adoption. Oh No, I was married
and I did not. Luckily, my mother was also completely against it.
And I'm so grateful that I got to watch my daughter grow up and become
the amazing, incredible woman she is. I am one of six children that
my mother had, and when I was born, someone from my grandparents' church
try to buy me from my parents m H. And my mom is still
still a little traumatized ties about that to this day. When she stalked about
it, they told her she had enough kids and they wanted one and could
they have me. And when I was pregnant with my daughter, a woman
came up to me in the mall and asked me if she could adopt my
baby. Oh, did did she know you? No, just a random
stranger walked up to me. She must have milion you No, I was
sixteen, Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you know I
still sort of walk up to someone and ask for their baby. I mean,
that's just weird. So, I mean, adoption is a tricky subject.
It's not black and white from any angle, because sometimes the parents don't
have a choice, you know, sometimes it's in the best interests of the
child. You know, some you know, and there's some back into it.
But I love that when a adopted to child wants to find their birth
parents they can now or when a parent that was had to give up their
child for whatever reason can now find them and find out if they're okay,
because well, yes, and yes, I'm just you're saying this is a
flat statement. Yes and no, I I handled an email today or somebody
through Facebook who's looking for her child in New York and not having any luck.
I mean, DNA, if DNA for the birth mother or natural mother
or first mother, if DNA doesn't lead to a child who has also put
their DNA in one. You know, there's several systems. There's ancestry dot
com, there's twenty three and met and so people who are searching. I
recommend that they actually do the DNA with every possible one, because your daughter
or son might have done it with another one and not the one, not
this one, and so I do know it. But it's still more difficult
for mothers to find. But they do find and fathers too. But it
is an a blacant statement, and mothers are not do not have access to
the adoptive parents record. I mean the first mothers don't have any rights to
go in and ask for the names of the adoptees, of the adopts,
the adoptive parents. I just want, I just want to say one thing
because I don't want an adoptive parents to think though you know, this is
like against him. I want I also want to say that in New Hampshire,
the state you mentioned before, it was an adoptive father who was a
very big deal in the legislature who pushed through about ten twelve years ago the
open records law in New Hampshire. It's a very good law, but it
was an adoptive father who was the person who was the push behind it in
that state. Okay, well, good for him, good him loose.
Yeah, the open records doesn't work. Both ways I didn't understand that.
So, yeah, the person who gave optic child for adoption doesn't have the
access to the records of to say where the child went exactly. They do
not not in any state. Now sometimes think that's something that needs to be
changed. Well, I think it will never change, So that would be
a pipe dream. I mean, yes, I mean there should never have
been closed adoption, and so it should be open for those who wanted to
find so they because the adoptive adoptees often are afraid to search because my mother
didn't want me once. I mean, they don't know the situation, but
that what they feel is abandonment and rejection, and so they might want to
search that they're afraid to search, and so they just put it out of
their minds. But I think that would never look. It's hard enough to
open the records up for adoptees. I would get nowhere if I was trying
to open up the records for birth parents. DNA is their only hope.
Or there is an international search Registry called i SSR, and anybody who's listening
should go register there because you might find a search angel, or you might
find that's the way to begin, there is there is hope for I.
Look, I paid somebody twelve hundred dollars in nineteen eighty one, the year
I married my second husband, and I felt like I could do this even
though she wasn't eighteen yet. It was killing me and I knew I wasn't
going to go in there and grab her or anything. But maybe she needed
me. Maybe she was shunted from boarding school to summer camp because the parents
had enough money and they had divorced and the new mother didn't want her.
I mean, there's a lot of scenarios that you don't know about. But
trying to open up the records for birth parents, I think is it would
be a losing issue. But that is why there is there. That is
why open adoption is the way that the country has gone, and it's in
some agencies don't even want to handle any closed adoption, but it's often parents
sometimes have difficulty dealing with it, and but I'm using the word parents there.
Sometimes the natural parents, the actual mother can't deal with it after a
while it's too painful. And sometimes the adoptive parents don't want the natural mother
coming onto the scene in any way, and they don't send pictures like they're
supposed to, or they move away, or they change their name, or
they get on and on and on. So there's a both sides have trouble.
Adoption continues to be complicated and painful and many, many sided. It's
not always terrible, it's not, but it is not the same as as
having an uncomplicated life growing up. Boy, I'd like to find a person
that had that, because I haven't met one in sixty plus years of being
alive. I haven't met a person that had an uncomplicated life growing up.
You send them my way. I'd like to meet him. Alright, okay,
hole in my art. Thank you woman dot Com. Thank you for
being on our show. It was lovely. Thank you, Nick Free.
Think we'll be up at the top of the month again with Mat Cornerton and
find out what's going on politically in the world, which, as we always
know, is uninteresting and very little, but somehow we feel an hour bast
time. Laurie has always a pleasure to have you. I love you.
I love you too. Planny