2020 National Adoption Awareness Month – Adoptee Podcaster Perspectives

Adoptees have the ultimate voice about the adoption experience. Adoptee podcasters are offering fellow adoptees outlets for sharing their inner thoughts and deepest emotions about their adoption journeys — the happy and sad, incredible experiences and the awful outcomes. 

For National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM) I asked  the hosts of some of the leading adoptee hosted podcasts “Adoptees On“ with Haley Radke, “Born In June Raised In April“ with April Dinwoodie to join me for an online meetup. They share some of their insights from several years and hundreds of episodes podcasting about adoption.

Haley talked about some of the challenges of reunion, being related to your natural family and wanting to get along but realizing they’re strangers and there is some hard work to be done to make strong connections. After four years of podcasting about adoption, interviewing adoptees and trauma professionals, Haley shared that she’s learned how deep the pain is for so many adoptees. She also acknowledges there are so many ways adoptees can take care of themselves along their journey. 

April is a transracial adoptee who attempted to connect with her mother of origin but was unable to meet her face to face before she passed away. Interviewing adoptee guests has shown April the various intricacies of adoption and revealed the need to deconstruct adoption to process the trauma while bringing about heightened expectations for how natural parents and adoptive parents interact with adoptees. 

If you’d like to listen in on my conversation with April and Haley, click here

Here’s Haley’s episode 100, and here’s April’s episode 117.