Episode 402 Podcast > Full Transcript
Adoptive parenting has this in common with regular old parenting: Just when you start to feel like you've mastered a stage like babyhood, toddlerhood, tweenhood or beyond, your child keeps growing and enters a new stage and you're back at square one, learning the ropes all over again. This is why it's so important, all along the journey, to update and refresh your parenting credential or the knowledge behind it at least. Sure, you can do this the hard way, as we all do, with the school of hard knocks. But do you really want to start from scratch with every new thing? I didn't. I wanted as many heads up as I could get.
I found Creating a Family early in my journey, and 15 years later, it's still a top resource for me and for others living adoption. For one thing, it offers a wealth of educational content on its website and through its podcast. And for another, it has a vibrant and well moderated Facebook group that avoids being an echo chamber of similar voices that somehow narrow each other's views rather than expand them.
Creating a Family has built and maintained a group that's 10,000 strong, comprising adoptees, birth parents, people going through infertility and adoptive parents from all types of adoption; infant, foster, kinship, international with respectful discourse and levity built into the group's culture. If you ever want perspective on a tricky adoptive parenting issue, this is a place to tune in.
There are many ways and places to continue your adoption education and hear from cross triad voices. And today, we are speaking with Dawn Davenport, adoptive mom herself and longtime Executive Director of Creating a Family.
Let me tell you a little bit more about Dawn. She's an attorney, educator, training developer and trauma-informed adoption foster kinship specialist. She's the host of Creating a Family Radio Show podcast, which began in 2007 and is now ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts in the US. She's the author of a book on adoption published by Random House and has had articles published in many national and regional publications. She's a mom of four by birth and adoption.
Lori Holden:
It's so great to have you here today talking with us, Dawn. Thank you.
Dawn Davenport:
It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Lori:
I always love talking with you. I always get so many good things. So, let's start out by would you first briefly tell us about how you entered the world of adoption?
Dawn:
Well, through my family, obviously. As we adopted, we then had needs for more information. And so, really, for me, it came through my own personal adoptions.
Lori:
And was yours an international adoption?
Dawn:
Yeah, it is.
Lori:
And at what era are we talking about? Around how long ago was this?
Dawn:
In the 1990s.
Lori:
Okay.
Dawn:
So, prior to a lot of the changes in international adoption. Yeah, late nineties.
Lori:
So, you've been doing the parenting thing a while.
Dawn:
I have been parenting for a while. Yes, I'd like to say it gets easier. It does get easier. It gets, in some ways, it's more fun. Some ways, you know, it's just your job. I always say your job as a parent is to put yourself out of work. If you do your job well, you won't be actively parenting. You're always parenting. And you're parenting in your heart and parenting and your worries. But yeah, so I'm actually an empty nester now, which is not bad. I'm going to tell you.
Lori:
You did work yourself out of a job.
Dawn:
Yeah.
Lori:
And I think you're right; every stage has something charming about it and something challenging about it.
Dawn:
Yes.
Lori:
And what we're talking about today is more how to meet those challenges. Talk to us about how creating a family came about. What was the need you were seeking to fill when you created this? What is it, 15, 16 years ago?
Dawn:
Yeah, 2007. The need that we were seeking to fill was for unbiased, accurate information. It seemed like when – Now, this was back in the, you know what like, 2007. So, you have to take yourself back then. And yes, we had the Internet. But even today, there's a lot of information online, but it's not a lot of good information online; information that's based in research or information that's based on more than just somebody's personal experience. And at my heart, I am a researcher. In a way, I'm sure it's a cloak for thinking I have control. You know, that if I do enough research that I will make all right decisions, which of course is silly. And it doesn't work that way. But I do like to research and I like to have, when possible, my decisions based on fact. And there just didn't seem to be good information online. And so, I kind of backed myself into it.
I had published the book, and as part of what Doubleday Broadway required was that you have a – I'm using air quotes here – platform. And one of the platforms they expected was a website. So, I thought, “Fine, I’ll put up a website.” But the funny thing was that we started getting all these questions. And because I am interested in this, so I started researching and I published (just an article blog or whatever) what I was finding. And the questions kept coming. And finally, it was like, “Okay, we need to get organized.” First of all, we needed to organize the website. We had all these topics that we were covering randomly and they need to be organized. So, it just kind of grew from there.
Lori:
So, you talk with people who are exploring infertility. You talk with people who are looking to adopt. You talk with people who have already adopted through all different ways. Have you found that there's one group of people that you're really tuning in on more than the others, or is it pretty evenly based?
Dawn:
Primarily, we say our demographics are foster, adoptive and kinship parents.
Lori:
Are you doing much in donor conception at this point?
Dawn Lori:
Let’s say no, we really are not doing as much. It's an area that I'm personally fascinated by. And I think that there is so much overlap. I think what I really believe is that the third party reproduction; donor conception, embryo donation, surrogacy, that community could learn so much from the adoption community. I have often felt like I was standing on a train track and I saw a wreck happening and I'm wanting to scream, “Listen. Okay, no, we've been there. We've got information.”
Quite a few years ago, we started moving – There was so much need and the foster, adoptive and kin space that we needed to really narrow down. So, we aren't doing as much now, but not because I – I still read anything I can find on the donor conception and, well, third party reproduction in general.
Lori:
I so agree with you about seeing the train wrecks coming and that we've already figured some things out in this space, “So look over here. We can help shortcut your learning curve.”
Dawn:
Yeah. We did a podcast on that, quite a few years ago, about what third party reproduction, which includes donor egg, donor sperm, donor embryo and surrogacy; what they could learn from the adoption world. And it was a great show. I'm not sure they're learning.
Lori:
You have been in the space for a long time. You've seen a lot of people come in fresh and become seasoned. What are some of the rookie mistakes that people new to adoption, specifically, tend to make?
Dawn:
I'd like to divide that probably into the different types of adoption because I think it may differ depending on the types of adoption. If we're talking about domestic private infant adoption: I think that it is easy to forget when you're focusing on getting that infant into your home. It's easy to forget that they come with their birth family. And there's a thought that the birth family is simply going to just fade away. And it's an unconscious – because I think if you were to ask these families, they would say, “No, that's not at all what I mean.” But that the expectation is that if we're good enough, the child will never have any interest or any need, even if it's what the agency is calling an open adoption. So, probably that for domestic private infant.
For foster care adoption, I would say that it's going in to fostering. I mean, there's two ways to adopt through foster care. One, of course, is legally free children, most of which are either in larger sibling groups or over the age of eight. But you can also go in as a foster parent. And I think that sometimes people go in as a foster parent because they're told that's the best way to get young children. And in fact, that probably would be an accurate statement. But one of our challenges as educators is to prepare them for the reality that they're going to be a soft landing place for a number of children before a child comes into their home, that they're going to be given the option of adoption. And so, I think that helping set those expectations or going in without those expectations would probably be the biggest rookie mistake for foster care.
And for international, and I think this is changing, but I would say certainly, and I think it still exists, it's not realizing that the children available to adopt from abroad look very similar to the kids in the US foster care system. Kids come into government care across the world for much the same reasons. There are slight differences, but they look more alike than they look different.
Lori:
As I'm listening to you go through all three groups, I'm thinking what's common underneath there on these rookie mistakes is this idea that we had for so long that adoption was not trauma, that separation was not trauma, that relinquishment was not trauma. So, in all three groups that you were mentioning, you're right; birth parents walk in the door with our kids because they are in our kids’ bodies, they're in our kids’ psyches. And that separation, even if it's necessary, is something to that child. And so, we as adoptive parents, the more we can acknowledge that, honor it and not have it color how we parent and how we adoptive parent, I think that's probably an important lesson that people learn along the adoptive parenting journeys, if they're being really child centered.
Dawn:
I would agree.
Lori:
With all the people you've interacted with, can you tell us a couple of the – maybe two or three of the big aha’s you've had over the years?
Dawn:
Well, the first one is going to be a little on the sappy side. You know, I just think there are so many good people in this world. There really are. And I do think that the foster, adoptive and kinship world has more than our good share of them. So, I think that is, whether or not it's an aha, I don't know.
A definite aha has been in the growth in podcasting. We started in 2007 with the Creating a Family podcast, and oh my gosh, I mean, just the changes. And I always say I wish it were forethought that had gotten us into it. It's not; it was pure luck. But yeah, oh my gosh. Just the huge growth in podcasting has certainly been a pleasant aha. I love podcast, across the board, and love podcasting.
Lori:
Yeah, I think I remember listening to your radio show many years ago, before it was even called podcasting.
Dawn:
Yeah, that's what it was. Yeah, no one had even knew what the word meant. I think podcasting was – Internet radio it was sometimes. It just had all these. Yeah. And now it's like it's so common, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, but it can be killed by choices here.
Lori:
Yeah, here I am, one of the newer interlopers. I will say we're in Season 4. So, we've had a little bit of longevity here.
Dawn:
I was going to say, “Yeah, you're not an interloper. You're not a newbie anymore.”
Lori:
No more newbies. Me, anyway. Tell us a little bit about your educational offerings. I know you have like a very wide variety of ways to meet people where they are; modes of information. Talk to us about all that.
Dawn:
Yeah, we have a number of different – We are the National Adoption, Foster and Kinship Education and Support Nonprofit. So, as you would imagine, we have a lot of different ways to provide education. One, of course, we have our website and we have creatingafamily.org and we've got tons of free resources. We add three pieces of new content every week. We've got just lots and lots and lots of information. We have it well – I hope it's well organized. If you click on our adoption options or adoption topics page, we have it broken down into types of adoption. We have, you name it. We've just got tons of free resources available for families and professionals.
We also have courses. So, for those who need certificates of completion or who want to have a course on the specific topic they're interested in, we have over seventy one-hour courses on adoption, fostering, parenting kids who have experienced trauma, including prenatal trauma, prenatal exposure. And they're all one hour. And if you need a certificate of completion, which if it's post-adoption, honestly, you don't. But if you're struggling with a particular thing; a new stage, a new development, that's a place to go look. And you can find that at creatingafamilyed.org. That's all one word.
And then we have free courses as well that are available, that are mostly focused on parenting. So, again, all sorts of really good topics. And you can get those at – I'll give you the bit.ly thing, bit.ly (B-I-T.L-Y) at J-B-F support, because they're supported through the Joka Ben Family Foundation; bit.ly@jbfsupport.
We also have a (kind of new; only a year or so old) support group curricula for parenting groups, for adoption parent groups, for foster parent groups, or even kinship groups. We have 23 up, now, 23 curricula. Each curriculum comes with a video, a facilitator guide, a handout, and additional resources and a certificate of attendance, depending on who would need it. So, if you have any interest in support groups, the mission with that is to increase the number of high-quality parent support groups by making it blindingly easy to run one. And everything you need is right there. We created the video and there's pauses. It's interactive; it's for discussion. So, that's another thing.
Coming up in 2024, if I can look to the future, we're running another randomized controlled trial on this now. And so, we will not be launching it for the general public, but we'll have a five-hour interactive facilitated training on parenting children with prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs. We are in the midst of a current randomized controlled trial, and we want to run one more, and that will be happening in 2023. So, we're not offering that until 2024.
And I guess I'd round out – some people might argue whether this is educational, but I think it is. And that is our Facebook support group, which you had mentioned earlier, Facebook.com/creatingafamily. At least, I think that's what it is. I'll check in just a minute. And I think that that is a educational resource. So, I would throw that in there.
Lori:
Yeah. And I have loved that space because, as I mentioned earlier, I think we can get ourselves in trouble as adoptive parents if we only talk with other adoptive parents. So, I think it's wholly helpful to have those support groups of people who are in the trenches with you. But I think crossing over sometimes, too, to hear from adoptees and birth parents and adoption coaches and other people who have been in the space longer, I think that's really important and I would consider it that education.
Let me just also say to anybody listening, who's on the go or something, I will have these links in our show notes and I will make sure we include that; the bit.ly link that you offered us too. So, if you didn't get that written down.
Dawn:
Let me correct it.
Lori:
Okay.
Dawn:
It's facebook.com/groups/creatingafamily.
Lori:
Got it.
Dawn:
I had a feeling it wasn't quite so easy. It had to have something in there. So, anyway.
Lori:
I've been so impressed by you and your moderating team on that Facebook group, because I've been members in other groups on Facebook and elsewhere, and things can go really crazy when you have that tension between competing narratives and competing needs and competing wounds and all of this that's so prevalent in adoption. So, I'm curious, what are some of the challenges you all have had in running a cross triad group and how have you maintained the space as one of respect and education when it can so easily get kind of ugly?
Dawn:
Well, thank you. I agree. It is so true that every group has its own personality. You know, you wouldn't think that it would, but it really does. Why do you think that is?
Lori:
I think it's that all those competing things. We all come in with what we think we know is true, and then we stumble over each other because we hit each other's triggers. And then the hurts come out and you can get explosions so easily.
Dawn:
And we all have our hearts on our sleeves because we're talking about something that is such it's a heart topic. It's a H; not hard. Well, hard too, but heart topic as well.
Lori:
Yes.
Dawn:
If there is a, secret is not the right word, but if there is one, it's going in, having a very clear mission. And I think maybe it's a bit of a conundrum, but our mission, and we had to be very clear on it, and we weren't at the very beginning. but when we realized very early on, and that is that if you come to this space, our mission is to educate and support adoptive, foster and kin parents. We believe in and want to have diversity, all members of the triad, and even beyond the triad; siblings, adopted siblings, foster sibling, anyone who's touched. We want your voices. But you have to come in accepting that our mission, the mission of our group, is to educate and support adoptive, foster and kin parents.
And that's hard sometimes because. It makes some people say, “Well, I want to come in and speak what I feel is the most important thing.” And there's no doubt that what's important to you is valid. And there is a place that you can find likeminded people. But if you join our group, you have to come with that thought in mind that that's what you're there for.
So, I think that probably helps. And then honestly, heavy moderation. And we have a team. You were saying me, but honestly, I'm a smaller percentage of it than – We have a staff person who is very involved. And we also have a group of eight moderators. And we train our moderators. And we have a separate mod group where we get together to talk about, “This is going to be a hot one,” or “How can we help this person who has…” etc. We’re always, in the mod group, talking about how we can better moderate something that's happening. It takes time and effort and quite frankly, a fair amount of our limited nonprofit funds to run. I think people discount that. We've had people who we've made decisions that somebody doesn't like and they will say, “Well, you should do this. You should do that.” And we say, “Start your own group. We will help promote it.” Because if you feel like that this should be allowed, we don't allow, oh, there's a number of things, but for most things we do allow.
But for whatever reason, if you feel like that you – then start a group and we will help promote it, because there's an audience for all these groups.
But I think people underestimate – What we have found is the people who have said, “Yeah, I'm going to start one.” What we find is that the reality is that it's a lot of work.
Lori:
And adoption isn't the only realm that this is tricky, because finding that sweet spot between free speech, where we really want you to be honest and candid here, but also respectful of others and even amid a conflict, that's really tricky to figure out what those rules are that get you to that line.
Dawn:
You are so right. You are so right. And I don't know that we have perfected it. I do think we've gotten better at it. And I think that, yeah, and you're right, it's definitely not just in the world of adoption or the world of Facebook.
Yeah, what we have sometimes been able to say is, “Your words to somebody who has not been respectful in the way they express themselves is to say, “If you want the person that you're talking to, to hear you, you need to say it in a way that they can hear you; where they don't feel attacked. It's not that your point is invalid.” In fact, very often I agree with the person who is yelling at somebody, but I say, “So, how are you going to say it in a way – If ultimately your goal is to impact this person, then you got to say it in a way that they can hear it”.
Lori:
Yeah. I have to say that so much of my early learning came from painful lessons by generous adoptees. Sometimes they were elegant in the way they responded to me, and sometimes they were not. And it was a challenge for me to try to find out what they were saying that had merit, even though it might have been wrapped up in something that was really hard to receive. But I think that's why the cross triad group worked so well.
Dawn:
Yes.
Lori:
I always saw, especially adult adoptees, as being my children of the future, but I could hear them now while I was still raising my children and know things that I needed to know now.
Dawn:
Exactly.
Lori:
Kids wouldn't be able to tell me because they weren't there developmentally yet.
Dawn:
Yeah. And even if they were there developmentally – and mine, I guess all of mine are, there are things that they won't tell me.
Lori:
Right.
Dawn:
Yeah, just as I sometimes want to say to more strident voices, it goes both ways. And also, to adoptive parents; stop being so darn sensitive. This is not about you. You're not that fragile. You can come in and hear stronger words without getting in a huff or pull up your big girl pants. You can handle this. So, it goes both ways.
My exasperation at times is like, “Okay, you could tone down and not be, you know, say it in a way that's easier to hear. But on the other hand, you need to toughen up.”
Lori:
Yeah.
Dawn:
Yeah.
Lori:
And I think that's what your group has done so well at is you took your mission, which you clarified; you probably are continually clarifying, and you turn that into your culture. And so, in some ways I've seen the group kind of moderate itself a little bit. You know, there's a –
Dawn:
A little bit. Yes.
Lori:
– a gentle ushering of people when they start to go a little bit too fragile or too harsh. There's sometimes people there to say, “Hold on.”
Dawn:
And if you notice in that group that if somebody posts, let's say it's an adoptive parent who is posting, it is often other adoptive parents that are also correcting and saying, “This may just be you thinking it's all about you. Have you thought about the fact that this is really your kid's story?” or whatever; whatever the situation is. So, it tends to be a group that seems to be moderating the person. And it's not just one adoptee or one birth parent who is having to carry the load, which I think is helpful because that's a that's a wearying burden to have to always be the one who feels like you've got to be the spokesperson.
Lori:
Right. I have found over the years, too, that being able to be in these cross triad spaces is good practice for parenting; adoptive parenting, because you're trying to figure out how to listen and validate and have boundaries with either your child or your child's birth family members or something and remain connected to them even when you might have gotten triggered by something. So, that kind of being in the space, but also have an internal check of going on of, “What am I bringing to this?” So, being in these spaces I think is really good training for adoptive parenting.
Dawn:
Even if you're just lurking; you're not posting, but you're reading. It's like reading an advice column, because somebody will post with an issue and you get all of this advice, much of it really good. Yeah, I agree with you. It has definitely –
Lori:
And with all the perspectives around it. They come at the problem from different angles and each piece can have its own value.
Dawn:
Yes. Yes. A former foster youth might say, “How do you think we would feel in this situation?” So, you're right. And so, think it stop a moment and think, “Oh, yeah, I bet that would be hard.”
Lori:
Yeah. And how do I stay connected? How do I stay connected?
Dawn:
Yeah.
Lori:
Because I'm always asking myself that as a parent, “How do I stay connected? What's the connected thing to do here?” And the stakes are a lot lower in a group than it is here in my house.
Dawn:
Yes. Yes. It's easier in a group than in your house.
Lori:
Yes, yes, yes. This is what we're asking all Season 4 guests. So, give some thought to this: How can we best support adoptees in building healthy identities and connections right from the start?
Dawn:
I think that as adoptive parents, we have to accept that our kids are not us and that their curiosity about, and connections with, their first family is not a threat to us. It's not all about us. And not feeling threatened allows us to open ourselves up to walk alongside them in this journey.
Lori:
I love that. And I feel like maybe you've encapsulated the whole thing right there with, “It's not all about us.” And it's normal, I think, when you come into it that it is all about you, when you're starting this journey of adopting; whatever method you use. But at some point, that has to fall away because you go from a “You” to an “Us” and you just have to make space for that other person to be themselves and have their own feelings and emotions about it.
Dawn:
Exactly.
Lori:
Well, thank you so much, Dawn. I really appreciate your sharing everything about creating a family today, about getting out of our echo chambers and keeping ourselves in the state of education around adoptive parenting. And I think Creating a Family is such a wonderful resource to be able to do that, among others. So, thank you.
Dawn:
Thank you so much, Lori. This has been fun.
Lori:
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