TITLE: Adoptees & Parenting

DESCRIPTION

How does our experience of being adoptees affect our parenting or our decision to even become parents? As panelist we bring a variety of experiences which include (not limited to):

• How adoptees talk with their children about their OWN adoption

• Deciding not to parent as a result of their adoptee experience~ how adoption affects an adoptees attachment with their children

• Being both an adoptee AND an adoptive parent

• Being transracially adopted and trying to navigate how to talk about race with same race or mixed race children

• Adoptees who returned to their birth countries with their children

• How/if adoptee's non~adoptee children identify as members of the adoption constellation

PANELISTS

Jenna is a 37 year old Colombian Transracial Adoptee, raised in CT. She and her partner Tucker have 2 children, 5 and 2 years old. Having children is what pushed Jenna completely “out of the fog” and now she’s focused on connecting with her roots, in a variety of ways, and sharing it all with her children. She feels like motherhood has been her ultimate journey of self-discovery.

Liz was adopted from Seoul and is currently living in the Denver area. At an early age, she knew she did not have a desire to have children and currently has a very high maintenance cat who fulfills a child-like role. While children of her own are not in her future, that does not stop her from being a doting aunt to her friend's kids.

Kathryn is a domestic adoptee in her mid 50’s. She and her wife Sue have two children. They co-parent their oldest, a 22-year-old biological child, with two dads. Their teenage son is, among many other things, an adoptee; he was born in Guatemala. Both Kathryn and Sue have adoptee siblings. With two decades of parenting behind her, Kathryn still has plenty of questions and very few answers, but the journey continues to be incredibly meaningful.

A.J., an Indian adoptee, at 1 year old, was raised in Wisconsin and New Jersey. He is the parent of four-year-old Sonali and eight-month old Valentine and husband to Sasmita, an Indian immigrant. He and Sasmita are raising their children with ties to their Indian roots, while recognizing they live in the U.S and in Western culture. The birth of his daughter Sonali was a profound event for him, as she is his first biological connection in 36 years. Sasmita’s family resides in India and they traveled there in 2017, and have plans to return within the next two years. AJ blogs at www.worldcitizensblog.com and can be found on Twitter @adoptedkeralite.