INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION by VANESSA BORK Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with Distinction, Simon Fraser University, 2013 Associate of Arts, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 2007 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTERS OF ARTS IN COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY in the FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY September 13, 2019 © Vanessa Bork, 2019 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION ii ABSTRACT Little is known about adoptees experiences through adulthood. Individuals sometimes make sense of their heritage, and come to understand and express themselves in their unique voices, through storytelling. Five mother-child(ren) dyads and triads participated. The mothers had been adopted in infancy and raised by an adoptive family. Their biological child(ren) had grown up aware their mother was an adoptee. The feminist relational method of the listening guide (Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, & Bertsch, 2003) was employed to hear the adoption stories passed from one generation to the next. Parent and adult child(ren) were interviewed together to witness the relational dynamics of their story. Interviews were analyzed for the different voices. The findings suggest parents passed down stories of positive adoption experiences through voices that were both embracing of adoption and sometimes cautious. The children spoke from voices of embrace and curiosity. Both generations stated the meaningfulness of co-constructing family adoption narratives. Keywords: adoption; adult adoptees; narrative inheritance; family stories; listening guide. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 Key Terms ............................................................................................................... 3 Adult Adoptee ............................................................................................. 3 Second-Generation Adoptee ....................................................................... 3 Intergenerational ......................................................................................... 3 Narrative Inheritance................................................................................... 3 Voices ......................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 5 Narrative Inheritance of Adoption Stories .............................................................. 5 The Adoptive Experience............................................................................ 5 Complexities ................................................................................... 5 Long-Term Impacts ........................................................................ 8 Protective Factors .......................................................................... 10 Open Communication ....................................................... 10 Access to Information ....................................................... 11 Family Stories ........................................................................................... 13 Intergenerational Transmission ..................................................... 14 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION iv Adoption Stories ........................................................................... 16 Narrative Inheritance..................................................................... 18 Rationale for this Study ......................................................................................... 20 Personal Interest ........................................................................................ 20 Purpose of This Study ............................................................................... 21 CHAPTER 3: METHOD .................................................................................................. 24 Paradigmatic Considerations ................................................................................ 24 Ontology ................................................................................................... 24 Epistemology ............................................................................................ 25 Axiology ................................................................................................... 27 Perspectival Subjectivity ............................................................... 28 Research Design .................................................................................................... 30 The Listening Guide ................................................................................. 30 Rationale for Using the Listening Guide ...................................... 30 Listening Guide Interviews ........................................................... 31 Artifacts ..................................................................................................... 31 Research Participants ............................................................................................ 32 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria ............................................................... 35 Recruitment and Sampling ........................................................................ 36 Data Collection Procedure .................................................................................... 37 Analytic Procedure................................................................................................ 41 The Listening Guide Procedure ................................................................ 42 Step One: Listening for the Plot and Forming an Impression....... 42 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION v Step Two: Constructing I Poems .................................................. 43 Step Three: Listening for Contrapuntal Voices ............................ 44 Step Four: Composing an Analysis............................................... 46 Methodological Rigour ......................................................................................... 46 Pilot Interview ........................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS .................................................................................................. 50 Participant Family Stories ..................................................................................... 51 Susan and Jackie ....................................................................................... 51 Debbie and Olivia ..................................................................................... 59 Ruth, Michael, and James ......................................................................... 67 Lisa and Ashley ......................................................................................... 76 Mama Bear, Emily, and Hunter ................................................................ 84 Voices ................................................................................................................... 95 Voice of Curiosity ..................................................................................... 96 Voice of Restricted Curiosity........................................................ 97 Voice of Open Curiosity ............................................................. 100 Voice of Selectivity................................................................................. 102 Voice of Distance .................................................................................... 104 Voice of Disconnect ................................................................................ 106 Voice of Choice ...................................................................................... 108 Voice of Yearning ................................................................................... 109 Voice of Morality .................................................................................... 111 Voice of Embrace.................................................................................... 113 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION vi Voice of Conviction ................................................................................ 116 Voice of Admiration ............................................................................... 117 Voice of Love ......................................................................................... 119 Summary of Stories and Voices .......................................................................... 122 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION .......................................................................................... 125 Overview of This Study ...................................................................................... 125 Strengths and Limitations ................................................................................... 129 Implications ......................................................................................................... 132 Theoretical .............................................................................................. 132 Clinical .................................................................................................... 135 Community ............................................................................................. 138 Recommendations for Future Research .............................................................. 140 Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 142 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 145 APPENDIX A: Interview Guide for First- and Second-generation Adoptee Joint Interviews ........................................................................................................................ 152 APPENDIX B: Screening Interview ............................................................................... 154 APPENDIX C: Online Recruitment Advertisement ....................................................... 156 APPENDIX D: Detailed Description of the Study and Participation ............................. 157 APPENDIX E: Counselling and Adoption Resources.................................................... 159 APPENDIX F: Informed Consent Form ......................................................................... 160 APPENDIX G: Demographics Sheet.............................................................................. 163 APPENDIX H: Debriefing Script ................................................................................... 164 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION vii APPENDIX I: Thank You Message to Participants ....................................................... 165 APPENDIX J: Confidentiality Agreement for Transcriptionist ..................................... 166 APPENDIX K: Confidentiality Agreement for Research Assistants ............................. 167 APPENDIX L: Consent to the Release of Research Data to Other Participants ............ 168 APPENDIX M: Agreement for Use of Data ................................................................... 169 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Spectrum of Voices Identified by the Research Team ...................................... 96 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Participant Families ............................................................................................ 34 Table 2: Comparison of First- and Second-Generation Voices ...................................... 124 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Mom: Thank you for sharing your story with me, and for allowing us to journey together into new and exciting chapters. This project started in my heart for you, and has grown into something so much bigger than the two of us—a beautiful story of a collection of families all sharing voices of adoption. To the families of this study: Thank you for allowing me into the sacred space of your stories. I have been deeply moved by the love and insights you have contributed to this project. You embody everything about this research I hold dear. To Janelle Kwee, my supervisor: The warmth and appreciation you have held for this study since the earliest days is the reason I felt I could pursue it. Thank you for your unwavering support—not only of this project, but for me as an academic and a person. To Krista Socholotiuk, my second reader: Thank you for your generosity in guiding me to refine this project into something even stronger than I had envisioned. Thank you for your confidence in my abilities, and for pushing me in the loving way you do. To Darcie, Sharon, Trish, and Neeta: It has been a joy to work alongside each of you. You have each enriched this study in ways no one else could. Thank you. Oliver and Holly: Thank you for taking this journey with me as fellow secondgeneration adoptees. I could not imagine any journey of importance without you two. To Dad: You are an integral piece of our family system. Thank you for filling my childhood with stories—of your family and of fiction. You fostered in me my love for family roots and a well-told story. This love brought me here to this project. To Hubert Van Puyenbroeck, my external examiner: Thank you for your contributions and encouragement. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) (E. E. Cummings, 1952) Most of us grow up hearing the stories of our parents and grandparents. We take them in and try to understand what they say about our family and about us as individuals. We carry these stories with us and allow them to shape—in small or large ways—our own sense of self. These are the people, places, and circumstances from which we have come. These stories are part of how we understand of who we are. Every family has a different story to tell. One type of family story centres around adoption, which is the focus of the current study. For a very long time, adoption was considered a positive and straightforward solution to problems such as unexpected pregnancies, family tragedies or other insurmountable obstacles to biological parents raising the child, or children not being properly cared for. It was not until the 1960s that researchers began to recognize the complexities associated with the adoptive experience (Brodzinsky, 1993). These complexities encompass many issues such as belonging, security, and identity (Colaner, Halliwell, & Guignon, 2014; Grotevant, Lo, Fiorenzo, & Dunbar, 2017; Kalus, 2016; Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011; Von Korff, Grotevant, & McRoy, 2006). The literature shows that these complexities can persist into adulthood, but little is actually known about the experiences of adult adoptees (Penny, Borders, & Portnoy, 2007). Even less is known about what stories adoptees pass on to their own children, and in what ways these stories shape the next generation. This knowledge gap is worth considering in the field of counselling psychology because there are many adult adoptees in the world still longing to heal or continue to grow in relation to their adoptive INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 2 experience. There may very well be resiliencies developed through the adoptive experience, but there is still a sort of primal wound (Verrier, 1993) and initial attachment disruption that occurred. There is likely to be a spectrum of needed healing and growth. Research shows that the collaborative process of contributing to and sharing family stories can have profound therapeutic influences on individual family members (Ballard & Ballard, 2011; Goodall, 2005; Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011). The aim of this study is to bring the voices of adult adoptees forward and give them a platform to highlight the narratives that help them understand their adoptive experience, and what they choose to pass on to their children. In this regard, a secondary and merely exploratory focus for this study is to identify a starting point for understanding what needs to be asked about second-generation adoptees (i.e., the biological children of adoptees), as they act as the recipients of their parent’s adoption story. The broad research question that will guide this study is as follows: What are the intergenerational voices of adoption? More specifically, what voices are heard in the passing down of an adoption story? What voices are heard in the adoptees? What voices are heard in the adult children encountering their parents’ narratives? To answer these questions, I1 will follow the method of the listening guide (Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, & Bertsch, 2003). The listening guide is a feminist approach to research that emphasizes voices and relationship when exploring issues that 1 The use of the first person throughout this document is an intentional way to indicate my presence in this project—as writer, researcher, and a person who carries her own intergenerational narrative of adoption. It is my aim to enter fully into the relational nature of listening guide research, as is appropriate for this method, despite the fact that this is inconsistent with publication standards set out by the American Psychological Association (2010). I choose to give space to all the voices—participants, research team, and myself—that have come together in creating this research project. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 3 depend on coming to understand the inner world of a person (Gilligan et al., 2003). It is through the power of voice that I hope to begin to develop an understanding of the poignant narratives of adoption that have shaped adoptees—the very stories that their children now carry with them in their hearts. Key Terms Adult adoptee. Any individual who was adopted during childhood who is now an adult. Research often focuses on childhood experiences of adoption and it is important to note that adoption is actually a life-long journey that continues to impact the adoptee even once they are adults (Penny et al., 2007). Second-generation adoptee. This term is not currently being attended to by researchers. However, I will use this term throughout this document in referring to the biological children of adoptees. I believe it is a logical way to label the children of adoptees when discussing adoption in an intergenerational context, and I will be referring to the adoptees themselves as first-generation adoptees. Intergenerational. This term refers to relationships between individuals of different generations. It is not merely that members of different generations are both being considered together, but that relational exchanges and dynamics between members of different generations are the focus of interest (Brownell & Resnick, 2005). Narrative inheritance. This is the concept that the family stories passed down from the people who came before us play a part in shaping our own sense of self (Goodall, 2005). Voices. Feminist scholarship refers to “voice” as a metaphor of the embodied experience of self-in-relationships. Each person’s voice, or way of communicating, is INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 4 comprised of a multitude of voices that represent the layered nature of their personhood (Gilligan et al., 2003). INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Mama sewed the rags together, sewing every piece with love (Parton, 1971) The aim of this chapter is to situate my study within the existing literature on adoption and family narratives. I will review the relevant literature on the impacts of adoption on the adoptee through childhood and into adulthood. Then I will link all of this with the concept of intergenerational family narratives and their role in helping individuals make meaning of their experiences, including the adoptive experience. I will finally conclude by providing a rationale for this study. Narrative Inheritance of Adoption Stories The adoptive experience. Throughout history, adoption has been practiced within many different cultures around the world (Brodzinsky, 1993). It may be impossible to pinpoint precisely when and where this custom originated, but in current times it has become quite commonplace (Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011). The extant literature on adoption has been predominantly conducted in the United States, but is largely representative of the North American experience in general. According to Brodzinsky (1993), adoption had largely been considered a simple and straightforward solution to the problem of children who, for whatever reason, could not be adequately cared for by their biological parents. In the 1960s, however, a body of research began to emerge acknowledging the complexities and potential emotional, social and cultural risk factors connected to adoption (Brodzinsky, 1993). Complexities. Growing up in an adoptive family is a multifaceted experience in which benefits and impediments intertwine. Schechter (1960); Schechter, Carlson, Simmons, and Work (1964) were among the first researchers in this area, and worked to INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 6 explore the adjustment difficulties some adoptees and their families face. From then on, there has been growing interest in the complexities of the adoptive experience. Currently, there is a substantial number of studies which highlight some of the challenges adoptees face in association with their adoptive experience. These difficulties range from increased risks of turning negative feelings and behaviours inward (e. g., anxiety; Grotevant et al., 2017); to wrestling with feelings of abandonment and rejection; to grappling with questions and a lack of information about their birth families; to needing to reconceptualise their idea of family (Kalus, 2016), to struggling with identity formation (Colaner et al., 2014; Kalus, 2016). The challenges to identity formation has received the most attention in terms of life areas influenced by the adoptive experience. Colaner et al. (2014) sought to understand how relationships with both adoptive and birth families influence adoptee identity formation. They argued that adoptees have an added layer of identity development to contend with in their quest to construct their self-concept. The study was comprised of 7 focus groups with 3 to 7 participants in each. The participants were a sample of men (n = 5) and women (n = 20) between the ages of 18 and 62, and interviews focused on a conversation around adoptive identity. Thematic analysis revealed both familial relationships (adoptive and birth) contributed in meaningful ways to the adoptee’s identity. The researchers concluded that fostering connections to both families was important for the adoptee’s identity formation. Given the range of participant ages in this study, the authors did note that participants’ ages may have influenced their identity formation (Colaner et al., 2014). Although the authors did not offer an age-based sub-analysis in this study, it is important to note that the diverse age- INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 7 range of the participants might suggest the adoptive experience continued to shape the adoptees throughout their adulthood. Apart from the large body of research looking at the complexities associated with adoptee identity, as part of a larger nationwide longitudinal study on adoption (i.e., Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project, 2018), Grotevant et al. (2017) investigated the extent to which youth (N = 145; age range: 15-25 years) adopted domestically in infancy experienced behavioural problems. Self-report measures were used to test for different internalizing and externalizing behaviours, and semi-structured interviews were used to ask participants about 4 different domains of identity: occupation, friendship, religion, and adoption. Participants were also evaluated based on the 4 adoptive identity subgroups identified in a previous study (Dunbar, 2003; Dunbar & Grotevant, 2004): unexamined, limited, unsettled, and integrated. The results revealed that internalizing problems, such as anxiety, were significant for participants in emerging adulthood (mean age = 25): F(3, 840.72) 3.724, p .011, partial η2 = 0.085. Specifically, the data revealed that adoptees who were categorized as having an “unsettled identity” had significantly higher scores on overall behavioural problems turned inward than other groups on these issues. The main effect for adoptive identity cluster was significant: F(3, 840.72) = 3.724, p = .011 (Grotevant et al., 2017). Although the study did not follow these young people into adulthood, given what is known about the developmental trajectory of behavioural internalizing problems, it is reasonable to expect that internalized negative affect associated with an unsettled identity for a sub-set of the study population would persist, and indicate that on-going identity work may be an important factor in the wellbeing of adoptees. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 8 Long-term impacts. The adoptive experience is a life-long journey. With the exception of a few studies (e.g., Penny, Borders & Portnoy, 2007 & Pérez, Sala, & Ortega, 2016), the majority of the adoptee research has primarily focused on childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood, with relatively little literature on adult adoptees. This is an unfortunate oversight in the research to date, and one that warrants further attention because developmental and lifespan psychology, as well as the current research, does suggest that adoptees can expect to carry forward these unresolved questions about belonging and identity with them into their adulthood (Horstman, Colaner, & Rittenour, 2016; Penny et al., 2007; Pérez et al., 2016). It is also reasonable to expect that, as adult adoptees move through the stages of life, they might even encounter new struggles and concerns they did not or could not have experienced in their youth. According to Erikson and Erikson (1998), adulthood is a time of building relationships and being involved with work, family, and community. Adult adoptees working to foster familial relationships, especially with their own biological children, may provoke reflection on their adoption stories and adoptive upbringing. The challenges adult adoptees face in trying to make sense of their adoptive experience were explored by Penny et al. (2007). Participants (N = 100; age range 35-55 years) were asked to offer narrative responses to a questionnaire administered on topics such as life satisfaction, intimacy, emotional functioning, and adoption. Several scales were also used to gather information on each participant’s overall sense of wellbeing based on constructs such as self-esteem and adult attachment. Through analysis of the narratives, the researchers were able to identify different phases of adoptionreconstruction in the process of adoptees making sense of their adoption stories. The INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 9 data revealed 5 phases of adoption reconstruction which describe differences in the participants’ experiences with adoption issues in adulthood. The first phase was No Awareness/Denying Awareness, followed by Emerging Awareness, Drowning in Awareness/Re-emerging From Awareness, and finally Finding Peace (Penny et al., 2007). While the focus of this study was narratives of adoption-reconstruction, a key contribution of this study in relation to this project was that it was among the first to confirm that adoption-related struggles with issues such as identity and self-esteem have lasting impacts that may even persist through the lifetime of an adoptee. A second study confirming the enduring effects of adoption on the adult adoptee is Pérez et al.’s (2016) investigation with a Spanish sample of female adoptees who went on to become mothers to their own biological children. Participants consisted of 2 groups of 15 women—one adoptees and the other non-adopted. The researchers’ aim was to better understand how the identity of self as mother is constructed, and in what ways this might be different for adopted women. The researchers used a tool called a social self grid that asked participants to reflect on their different roles during individual interviews. The content of these interviews was coded and then analyzed using a correlation analysis. The results indicated that adopted mothers and non-adopted mothers construct their roles as mothers in similar ways (i.e., based on family relationships), but that the adopted mothers relied more heavily on their couple relationship to help them form stable attachments (Pérez et al., 2016). In this study, the researchers attended to the initial construction of the role of mother even though the journey of motherhood is lifelong. Motherhood is perhaps one of the clearest life milestones in which adoptees might re-encounter feelings about their own adoption. It is INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 10 reasonable to expected that on-going work related to parenting and mother-child relationships could be likely for adopted women. This may even include sharing their adoption story as a piece in the relationships they build with their children. Protective factors. In addition to the various short- and long-term struggles and complexities adoptees face, there is research to support open communication styles within the adoptive family (Brodzinsky, 2006; Horstman et al., 2016), and access to information about the adoptee’s birth family (Von Korff et al., 2006; Wrobel, AyersLopez, Grotevant, McRoy, & Friedrick, 1996), can help to abate some of the adoptee’s concerns surrounding their adoption experience. Open communication. A number of studies support the claim that open communication related to adoption narratives is beneficial to the adoptee’s mental health—both during childhood and into adulthood—because it helps the adoptee to develop a sense of understanding about their adoption story (Horstman et al., 2016; Von Korff et al., 2006; Wrobel et al., 1996). Working quantitatively, Brodzinsky (2006) investigated the role of open communication within the family about the adoption experience, and found the presence of open communication to be predictive of adoptee’s adjustment. The sample included children ages 8 to 13 (N = 73) and their parents, who each completed measures of communication openness and child adjustment. In families that communicated openly about their adoption story, children self-reported higher levels of self-esteem and their adoptive parents reported the children had lower rates of behaviour problems. This positive correlation between child well-being and how the family communicated about the adoption is of interest when considering stories of adult adoptees as it may continue INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 11 to be the case that they find benefits from open communication about their adoption story. Extending the work of Brodzinsky (2006), Horstman et al. (2016) explored the relationship between family communication patterns and self-esteem of adult adoptees (N = 143; age range 18-72 years). Several scales were administered, including measures self-esteem, identity work, family communication, and adoption communication. The results indicated that parent-child openness in communication about adoption was associated with lower levels of adoptee’s rumination about their adoption and was correlated with higher self-esteem scores in adulthood (Horstman et al., 2016). This study offers support for a connection between family communication and the self-esteem of adult adoptees. Access to information. In some instances, adoptees have access to information about their adoption, in other instances adoptees can be faced with a lack of information surrounding their own adoptive experience. Wrobel et al. (1996) conducted a study in which they explored the impacts of openness about adoption information on the adoptee’s understanding of their adoption. Participants were children (N = 171) between the ages of 4 and 12, who were interviewed in their homes. A self-report measure assessing child’s self-esteem was administered at the time of the interview, and parent interviews were also conducted. The interviews were coded and then analyzed, alongside the self-esteem scale. The researchers were curious about several specific questions related to the degree of openness in adoptive relationships, but the overarching findings were that the more information the child had about their own adoption, the more they were able to understand their story. As with the above research, this finding points INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 12 to the significance of communication within the adoptive family system. It is also important to note that the researchers were curious about the long-term impacts of open sharing of information about adoption within the family, which is relevant to this proposed research project that aims to explore family storytelling in adult adoptees. Building on the work of Wrobel et al. (1996), Von Korff et al. (2006) were curious about whether the level of openness between adolescent adoptees and their biological parents was connected to the emotional and behavioural adjustment. This study was a part of the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project (2018), and participants included infant-placed, domestic adoptees (N = 170) between ages 4 and 12 years. The results indicated that adoptees who maintained ongoing contact with their birth parents may be less likely to exhibit behavioural and emotional F(2, 70) = 3.21, p = .046, η ́ = .29 (Von Korff et al., 2006). This is valuable research because it is yet another indicator that the adoptees wellbeing is enhanced by openness in connection to information and communication about their adoption. This could point to the idea that there may be benefit in adoptees sharing their adoption stories with the own children. Overall, research on the adoptive experience demonstrates that growing up in an adoptive family may pose several psychosocial complications for the adoptee. Many of these individuals experience complexities in identity formation and adjustment that a small amount of research is now suggesting does persist into adulthood. As such, there may be many adult adoptees who still carry with them the unresolved wounds related to their adoption. One key finding in the adoption literature reviewed above is the protective role that open communication plays when it comes to adoptee’s general wellbeing and making sense of their story (Brodzinsky, 2006; Horstman et al., 2016; Von INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 13 Korff, Grotevant, & McRoy, 2006; Wrobel et al., 1996). In this sense, it might be expected that the process of shaping the adoption narrative extends throughout a lifetime, and some adoptees may benefit from strategies for integrating, making meaning, and perhaps even healing, at various points throughout their adulthood. People often use storytelling as a means of making sense of their own experiences. Both constructing and sharing these stories can be beneficial in helping adoptees shape their understanding of their story as they move through adulthood (Ballard & Ballard, 2011). Family stories. McAdams (1993) suggests all people work to construct their own personal myth by piecing together all the different aspects of who they are into one unified sense of self. Storytelling has been found to be so powerful that the listener need not even have a personal connection to the story in order to be influenced by it, as evidenced byBreen, McLean, Cairney, and McAdams’s (2016) investigation of the cultural stories portrayed in the media and personal identity. Although this study does not look at family stories and personal identity specifically, it does lend support to the role of social storytelling and identity processes. The aim of this study was to develop an initial framework for further research in this area. Narrative interviews were first used with a sample of white female university students (N = 10) between the ages of 19 and 23, and again with African American and Anglo-American adults (N = 19) between the ages of 35 and 65. Participants were asked about their experiences with stories that have played a part in shaping their own sense of self, and how these salient media stories fit into the individual’s larger narrative of their life story. The results indicated that cultural stories portrayed in the media do influence aspects of self-concept, including the INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 14 importance of relational themes in the construction of personal identity (Breen, McLean, Cairney, & McAdams, 2016). Given that storytelling is something shared across humanity, as “we are all tellers of tales” (McAdams, 1993, p. 11), it is reasonable to expect some adult adoptees might find meaning through sharing their adoption narrative with their own family. When adult adoptees continue to encounter or address on-going questions concerning identity and belonging, some may find comfort in storytelling as a means of understanding their own experience. Intergenerational transmission. The first place that people acquire information about their identity is from their family stories (McAdams, 1993). Current research on intergenerational transmission indicates that many things are passed down through the generations of a family, often by way of storytelling. Family values are both explicitly and implicitly taught to younger generations, as well as broader themes around family legacy and identity (Pratt, Norris, Hebblethwaite, & Arnold, 2008; Thompson et al., 2009). Families use storytelling as a means of sharing family values, helping to shape identity, attach meaning to circumstances, and teaching life lessons (Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011). Each individual’s self-concept is in part shaped by their shared family’s narratives, influencing well-being and identity into adulthood (Ballard & Ballard, 2011; McAdams, 1993). Each individual in every new generation works with stories about their family to “reinterpret and shape and reshape intergenerational legacies over time” (Thompson et al., 2009, p. 127). Thompson et al. (2009) investigated the impact of intergenerational transmission of family legacy on the individual identities of family. The families in this INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 15 study were biological rather than adoptive. Participants consisted university students (N = 17; male = 5) between the ages of 18 and 25 years. The researchers used semistructured interviews in which participants were asked to share family stories that reflected both positive and negative legacies that had an impact on their personal identity. Interview transcripts were coded for themes related to how stories both impacted identity and how participants embraced or rejected them. The results revealed that participants typically embraced positive legacies and rejected or had difficulty identifying negative ones. For example, legacies that portrayed families as “hardworking, cohesive, and helpful to members outside of the family” (p. 129) tended to be embraced, while negative legacies were reframed in a more positive light or told as useful tales of caution. The authors concluded that family stories help create both individual and family identities across generations, to the extent that each member chooses to embrace the family legacies. The researchers pointed to the limitation of only exploring the perspectives of a single generation (Thompson et al., 2009). While this study captures intergenerational narratives from one family member’s perspective, the relational nature of these stories suggests understanding of the family legacy would be fuller had multiple family voices been captured. Specifically, hearing stories as shared by parent and received by child might offer a glimpse into the relational nature of family storytelling. The research also seems to suggest that even aspects of personality can be transferred through storytelling. Pratt et al. (2008) conducted a longitudinal study in which they explored the interaction between generativity and value lessons. Generativity was operationalized as a personality trait that involves a concern with legacy of the self and guiding future generations. Narrative interviews were employed with adolescents (N INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 16 = 40) and their parents at 2 separate times—first when the participants were the age of 16, and again at the age of 20. The participants were asked to share stories about times in which their parents and grandparents had taught them values, and a generativity scale was also administered. The results supported the notion that parental generativity might influence the sorts of stories the adolescents told about their family, and these adolescents were found to have higher levels of generativity themselves as they moved into adulthood. This study is valuable because it demonstrates that traits such as generativity may be passed down through generations in the form of family narratives. This is important for the current proposed study because it points to a power that lies within story sharing, and perhaps this could be harnessed for healing purposes with adult adoptees. Adoption stories. Adoptees often carry with them a different kind of family story. Adoption narratives are socially constructed, largely by the adoptive parents, and often serve many purposes. Adoption stories can teach the child to develop a sense of familiarity with discussions around adoption, help the child avoid creating fantasies, and offer the child a sense of history (Harrigan, 2010). The literature also supports the idea that openness in communication around adoption is associated with greater wellbeing in adoptees (Brodzinsky, 2006; Horstman et al., 2016; Von Korff et al., 2006; Wrobel et al., 1996), and that narratives are a critical component to identity work (Kalus, 2016). Narratives of adoption play a meaningful role in shaping the adoptee’s selfconcept. Kranstuber and Kellas (2011) note that a child’s birth story is an important family narrative told many times over. Adopted children do not enter the family through birth, however, so it is imperative that adoptive parents create what these authors refer to INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 17 as entrance narratives. These stories of how the child entered the family teach the adoptee the meaning of adoption. In their study, the researchers gathered (N = 105) adult adoptee participants, ranging in age from 18 to 85. Participants shared their entrance narratives and completed measures of self-esteem and generalized trust. Seven themes of entrance narratives emerged from the data: openness, deception, chosen child, fate, difference, rescue, and reconnection. Chosen child, negative reconnection, and difference themes were all associated with differences in each adoptee’s self-concept. This study highlights the importance of narratives from the adoptee’s perspective. Since, the stories told to them by their adoptive parents were so impactful it might be reasonable to assume that the stories adult adoptees tell about their own adoption influence their self-concept as well. Research shows that sharing personal stories can be healing for the individual. Grant (2009) took an autoethnographic approach to sharing her story of adoption. She reflected on her explorative journey of the emotions that had remained stuck inside her. Grant’s story offers insight into what it is like for an adoptee to work through the healing processes connected to wounds associated with adoption and come to a place of acceptance of her story. The awareness she develops through crafting her narrative also teachers her about the kind of mother she hopes to be for her own daughter. For Grant, the process of sharing her story was deeply healing. Grant’s autoethnographic exploration provides support for storytelling as a means of processing and healing, and it is logical to surmise that such a strategy could be beneficial to adult adoptees carrying wounds from their adoptive experiences. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 18 Narrative inheritance. Often, stories are passed down through the generations of a family like heirlooms entrusted to the younger members. This concept of narrative inheritance comes from the communication field. Goodall (2005) posits that family stories help people to better understand themselves by understanding the people who came before them. He says of an inherited narrative: It helps us see our life grammar and working logic as an extension of, or a rebellion against, the way we story how they lived and thought about things, and it allows us to explain to others where we come from and how we were raised in the continuing context of what it all means…But we don’t always inherit that sense of completion. We too often inherit a family’s unfinished business, and when we do, those incomplete narratives are given to us to fulfill (p. 497). Narrative inheritance is this notion that “that which has come before influences what is to come next,” and that those who receive the stories are “listeners who are also co-authors who interrupt, ask questions, and interject their interpretations of what is being talked about” (Ballard & Ballard, 2011, p. 73). Much of the research on narrative inheritance is comprised of family stories told firsthand. Ballard and Ballard (2011) took an autoethnographic approach to family storytelling in relation to international adoption. This study focused on a series of stories that articulate how adoption has played a part in shaping their family’s identity. They argue that narratives aid in making sense of events and circumstances, and that constructing these narratives is a collaborative process. Through this collaboration, meaning in relationships is established and a collective identity is formed. Narrative inheritance exists in this shared experience of each family member engaging with, INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 19 contributing to, and interpreting their family story. In this sense, it could be argued that the adoption stories adoptees pass on to their children are a form of narrative inheritance that play a part in shaping both parent and child. Family narratives are not always robust or even complete. McNay (2009) reflected on her own family story in a paper she wrote about secrets and narrative inheritance. She acknowledged that narratives are not always easily accessed or complete. Sometimes stories are not passed down at all, but kept as secrets or silenced narratives. Sometimes members of the older generations are no longer present or able to share their stories. McNay’s father’s childhood was shrouded in mystery. This left gaps in her understanding of her family’s narrative, and she argues that inherited incomplete narratives are left to the recipient to fulfill (McNay, 2009). This research is helpful because adoptees sometimes inherit incomplete stories about their adoption and birth family that they subsequently pass on to their own children. The extant research on family stories seems to indicate that these narratives can be quite powerful in terms of both shaping individual identity and acting as a means of meaning making (Ballard & Ballard, 2011; Goodall, 2005; Grant, 2009; Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011; McAdams, 1993). This helps to support the idea that many adult adoptees may still encounter struggles in regards to how to understand and make peace with their adoptive experience, and sharing stories with their children may be a form of narrative inherence which offers meaning to both parent and child. The notion of narrative inheritance also speaks to the secondary focus of this proposed study: second-generation adoptees. There are many children of adoptees in the world who may inherit their INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 20 parent’s adoption stories as a part of their broader family narratives, but there is a gap in the research when it comes to narrative inheritance of adoption. Rationale for this Study Personal interest. In embarking on this project, I had many discussions with my mom about her own personal narrative of adoption. This is the story that brought me to this research, after all. I believe it is important for the integrity of this project that I share pieces of this story here. I have my mom’s consent to do so. My mom was adopted in infancy. While I was growing up, adoption was not a topic we ever discussed in much detail—though it was frequently on my mind. My mom instructed me not to tell others that she had been adopted because it was her private and personal story. What this impressed upon me was the notion that adoption was my mom’s story, not mine. I carried and guarded this story, but I was not a part of it. Still, there remained a small and quiet voice inside me that was adamant that my mother’s adoption was indeed a part of my own story too. I kept this to myself—silently fantasizing about uncovering the tantalizingly absent pieces of this story. My mother was raised by an adoptive mother and father whom I called my grandparents. They were a prominent part of our lives, and I loved them. Yet I managed to hold 2 starkly contrasting views about these people: my grandparents, whom I loved very much, were also not my biological family in any sense. There was an unspoken tension. I knew that my mom’s parents were not my “real” grandparents because my mom had always seemed to struggled with this idea a bit herself. This was something I did not understand until after both my grandparents had passed away and my mother began to speak more openly about her adoption story. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 21 As an adult, I now have the honour of discussing this story with my mother. We wonder together about the missing pieces, we reflect on how adoption shapes a family, we give thanks to her adoptive parents while mourning the loss of a biological lineage we may never know. Now, it is as though we are co-constructing this narrative. I see shifts in my mom’s understanding of and relationship with her story each time she engages with it in our discussions. Might she be experiencing healing or growth? I am also still curious about my own role in all of this as a second-generation adoptee. Am I truly a part of this story? Is adoption a part of my story? Or, is it my mother’s story that I merely have the privilege of helping to carry? I also wonder if these questions are just trivial nuances in the one overarching truth: whether or not it is my story too, I carry it with me in my heart. Purpose of this study. The aim of this study is to listen to the voices of adult adoptees and their children as the respective tellers and recipients of adoption narratives. The extant literature on adoption suggests that the adoptive experience complicates matters such as security, belonging, and identity (Colaner et al., 2014; Grotevant et al., 2017; Kalus, 2016; Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011; Von Korff et al., 2006), and it is reasonable to expect these struggles to sometimes linger into adulthood (Penny et al., 2007). Despite these findings, there remains little research on adult adoptees. This is a problem of interest to the field of counselling psychology because there many adult adoptees may still needing to make sense of and peace with their adoption stories. By exploring the intergenerational voices of adoption, we can begin to develop an understanding of the opportunity that storytelling offers adult adoptees for developing new meanings and relational connections through sharing with their children in the spirit INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 22 of narrative inheritance. This is one way in which adult adoptees can give voice to their experience in a way that may help them develop a greater sense of meaning and understanding. The relational nature of the construction and sharing of these stories is paramount to this project. As such, this study embraced a feminist relational orientation situated within a moderate constructivist paradigm (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003; Mertens, 2015). The listening guide method was employed, as it allows for an in-depth exploration of voices and relationship (Gilligan et al., 2003). The population under investigation (adoptees and their families) have not been politically oppressed, thus the study was primarily positioned within a constructivist framework. I retained a feminist perspective for use during data analysis as it seemed reasonable to expect that experiences of marginalization might be heard in some of the participants’ adoption stories. It is my hope that this study will be valuable to clinicians working with adult adoptees or their families, in that it may help them to begin to develop an understanding of intergenerational voices of adoption and the potential that storytelling has for fostering growth and healing. The voices of second-generation adoptees are also important because, through narrative inheritance, they act as the recipients of their parent’s adoption story. They hold space for and carry the story in their hearts, possibly even co-constructing the narrative. In this regard, the current study also provides a starting point for understanding what needs to be asked about second-generation voices of adoption for further research in this area. This is, however, merely a secondary and exploratory focus of the study. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 23 The following research questions will give direction to this study: what are the intergenerational voices of adoption? What voices are heard in the passing down of an adoption story? What voices are heard in the adoptees? What voices are heard in the adult children encountering their parents’ narratives? INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 24 CHAPTER 3: METHOD We are all tellers of tales (McAdams, 1993, p. 11) The purpose of this research was to explore intergenerational stories of adoption. This study investigated the adoption stories that adult adoptees pass on to their children, in the hopes of developing an understanding of the intergenerational voices of adoption. A secondary and exploratory aim was to begin to understand what might need to be asked in future research about second-generation adoptees. The research questions that guided this project were as follows: what are the intergenerational voices of adoption? What voices are heard in the passing down of an adoption story? What voices are heard in the adoptees? What voices are heard in the adult children encountering their parents’ narratives? Paradigmatic Considerations I have situated this research project broadly within a moderate constructivist paradigmatic framework (Chiari & Nuzzo, 1996). I also integrated some other important elements, such as the feminist tradition that gave rise to the listening guide. Below are the ontological, epistemological, and axiological assumptions that guided this research. Ontology. The constructivist ontological standpoint is that reality is a social construction where it is assumed multiple valid realities exist (Mertens, 2015). This is known as a relativist ontology (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011), in which reality is subjective because it is impacted by many different contextual elements such as the individual’s perceptions, environment, and the interaction between participant and researcher (Ponterotto, 2005). This suggests a relativist ontology because each individual interacts INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 25 with the world around them differently, therefore influencing and shaping parts of their own reality. For the purposes of this study I have adopted a feminist relational method within a moderate constructivist paradigm. There are some fundamental ontological incongruencies between these two approaches. While moderate constructivism holds that aspects of reality are socially constructed but still constrained to some degree by the external world, the feminist philosophy asserts the existence of a reality where there are oppressive political, historical, and social power relations influencing the nature of reality (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003; Mertens, 2015). This project was positioned primarily within the constructivist paradigm to acknowledge the population being investigated are not by conventional definitions a disenfranchised or oppressed group (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003; Mertens, 2015). The stories of adult adoptees and their children may be invisible or overlooked experiences, but they have not been marginalized. I chose to retain the feminist perspective the listening guide is grounded in so as to remain true to the method as it was originally developed, and also to allow the data to be considered from a feminist perspective. I believed it was reasonable to expect that experiences of exclusion or stigmatization might come up in some of the stories about adoption, in which case a feminist orientation may be a suitable approach to analysis. As will later be outlined, this did arise, but in an unexpected way. Epistemology. The constructivist ontology means the process of knowledge creation must be congruent with relativism. The ontologies of constructivism and feminism both call for a transactional epistemology (Mertens, 2015). The epistemological aim of constructivist research is to understand rather than explain INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 26 (Ponterotto, 2005). Constructivism holds that knowledge is created through interactions between individuals (Chiari & Nuzzo, 1996). Each person is presumed to develop their own understanding of their surroundings and their experiences. As such, there are a vast number of meanings and interpretations available in any given context. This makes it necessary to access and understand each participant’s unique perceptions of the situation the researcher is studying (Creswell, 2009). The ontological position that reality is subjective also means knowledge is contextual. Knowledge is presumed to be socially constructed and dependent on constantly evolving relational dynamics (Denzin, 2011), including the relational dynamics between the researcher and the participants (Ponterotto, 2005). In this way, constructivists assert that research data is actually co-created during the research process (Denzin, 2011). Feminist philosophy, as applied to research, also approaches knowledge creation in ways that will allow each person’s own subjective experiences to emerge, which is in line with the epistemological assumptions of constructivism (Mertens, 2015). Feminist philosophy (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003; Mertens, 2015) has areas of overlap with constructivism, but there are also incompatibilities. For example, feminist theory is intentional and explicit about the objective reality of inequality within society. As such, feminist epistemology asserts that a person’s experiences are best understood by considering power dynamics within social, political, and historical contexts, and explicitly seeks to integrate these contexts in in the process of knowledge creation. Traditionally, feminist critiques of inequality have focused on gender differences and the oppression of women in particular, but can also apply more broadly INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 27 to any silenced or underrepresented experiences (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003; Mertens, 2015). The way of knowing, as employed by the listening guide, is ideally suited for this project because it fosters collaboration and the co-construction of data, while acknowledging the social and political realities that work to keep some voices silent. As mentioned, adoptees and their families have not been oppressed, but their voices have remained largely silent because their stories are not part of the dominant narrative. The listening guide provides a means of not only hearing these voices, but listening carefully for the nuances and voices in tension within a person’s story. Axiology. Axiological considerations for this project were grounded in constructivism. Feminist and constructivist researchers both value the sharing of power between researcher and participant. Knowledge is socially constructed, so it is important for the researcher and participant to work collaboratively in co-constructing the data (Creswell, 2003). In working together on this project, a relationship between the researcher and participants was constructed. In line with constructivism, each participant is assumed to be unique, so relationships can and ought to be close in order to develop emic understandings of their experiences (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). Collaboration was also used in an effort to avoid reinforcing imbalanced power dynamics within the relationship, from a feminist perspective (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003). From this study’s meta-paradigm, moderate constructivism, where reality is a social construction, relationship becomes the means by which knowledge is created (Chiari & Nuzzo, 1996; Mertens, 2015; Ponterotto, 2005). INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 28 Perspectival subjectivity. As a second-generation adoptee, I bring with me my own experiences in connection with inheriting a narrative of adoption. I am not an objective observer. As a researcher, I chose to honour the subjective experiences of everyone involved in the process. This means that my assumptions and biases, the eyes through which I view this subject, the way I understand the world, and how I interpret all of this made its way into the project. In an effort to hold myself accountable to my own subjectivity, I worked alongside a research team in analyzing the interview transcripts. This team was comprised of 3 MA counselling psychology graduate students in training, and one recent graduate of the same program. All 4 members of this team were women ranging in age between mid-30s and mid-50s. Three of the 4 women were Caucasian, and the 4th was of Indian decent. All 4 members of this research team had previous training and experience working with the listening guide method on other projects. For each transcript, one member of this team and I engaged in open dialogue about the stories of the participants we encountered. Through this relational dynamic we were able to point out things the other person may have missed, and try to ensure that it was the participant’s voice that resonated rather than my own—potentially distorted— interpretation of their voice. Although I engaged with these stories in community, I largely used the first person throughout this document as an indicator that I take responsibility for, but not ownership of, the analysis and conclusions drawn by my research team and myself. I used the collective ‘we’ when I felt it was meaningful to refer to the research team or the receptive body of listeners to this research. The participants, research team, and I worked collaboratively to construct an understanding of intergenerational voices of adoption. My stance as a researcher is ideally suited to a INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 29 constructivist paradigm (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Mertens, 2015; Morrow, 2005; Ponterotto, 2005). I believe strongly in the relational nature of knowledge creation upheld by the feminist perspective as well. I believe our stories are dependent on relationship. This is because speakers require listeners in order for a story to be heard and the speaker to, therefore, have a voice (Gilligan, 1993). Another reason is that we come to know ourselves in relation to other people and the world we live in (Längle, 2003; van Deurzen, 2012). In my undergraduate studies, I minored in history. For as long as I can remember, I have been captivated by stories from history—be it world history or personal familial legacy. Every story seems so different upon first encounter, but carries with it the undercurrents of that which unites us all: our common humanity. I believe it is essential to give voice to the stories and experiences that are often overlooked. I have witnessed the pain of incomplete histories in my mom’s adoption story—what it feels like to have missing inherited stories, or to not have voice given to your experiences. There are many untold stories and unvoiced experiences in the world. The focus of this thesis was on the underrepresented voices of adult adoptees and their biological adult children in the context of narrative inheritance. These are voices telling stories that do not follow conventional norms of our society regarding family structure. From these people, we can begin to learn about their experiences and what they need to be better supported in their lives and familial relationships. Above all, my hope is that their stories will resonate with the underlying human experience universal to each listener who encounters them. In the following sections, I will outline how I conducted this research alongside my participants and research team. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 30 Research Design This was a qualitative study, grounded in the constructivist paradigm. The aim was to gain insight into the stories of adoption passed down to the next generation in hopes of developing the beginnings of an understanding of the intergenerational voices of adoption. By listening to the intergenerational voices of adoption, we were also be able to explore what questions might be worth asking in future research about secondgeneration adoptees. This project used joint interviews with first- and second-generation adoptees. A set of questions was developed in advance in order to ensure that the interviews touch on the sorts of topics of most interest to listening guide (e. g., voices in tension). In the following sections, I will outline the details of my research design. The listening guide. The following is a brief description of the listening guide method. Rationale for using the listening guide. Listening guide is ideally suited to exploring ways of knowing through the voices of people who live out stories counter to the dominant themes within society. As noted, the stories of adult adoptees and their children have yet to be voiced in counselling psychology research, but they have not been politically disempowered or marginalized. Traditionally, feminism is rooted in issues of gender, but the listening guide is a method that gives voice to all stories that do not fit into the confines of the typical societal scripts (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003; Mertens, 2015). The stories of adoption explored within this project did not explicitly focus on gender. Matters of gender did seem to emerge naturally in this study, but they were not the primary target of investigation. Instead, this research attended to intergenerational voices associated with adoption that might be missed within the INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 31 dominant societal norms and expectations around family. Listening guide offered an opportunity for deep and free exploration of the voices in tension that may co-exist in the individual’s story. People who carry with them experiences and identities that do not match the dominant scripts of society struggle with the discord between sociocultural and personal understandings of their story. Listening guide researchers make a point of listening for exactly these voices (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003). It is relationality that makes voice possible. For a person to be heard, at least 1 other person must be listening (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003). This notion was represented twice within this study. First, through the intergenerational sharing of adoption stories between parent and child. Second, through the act of the researcher receiving and engaging with the stories told by the participants (Gilligan, et al., 2003; Mertens, 2015; Morrow, 2005). Listening guide interviews. I conducted single family group interviews including both first- and second-generation adoptee participants of each family (see Appendix A for the interview protocol developed for the purposes of this study). These interviews were designed to capture the complexities in each individual’s narrative in relation to their other family members, by exploring the various voices present in each story. Later in this chapter, I will speak of this method in more detail as I outline the analytic procedure. Artifacts. In addition to the verbal process of knowledge creation in the research interviews, I also incorporated the use of tangible artifacts. I invited each of my participants to bring a memento that could act as an example of their connection to their family’s story of adoption. This could have been anything from jewelry, to a recipe, to a INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 32 childhood toy, and so on. According to Riessman (2008), the use of aesthetic representations as forms of communication has a long history in the social sciences and was popularized in anthropological research by such prominent figures as Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. The use of artifacts as a form of expression in counselling psychology research, however, is still emergent. Typically, researchers would directly analyze these objects as they would any other piece of data (Riessman, 2008). For the purpose of this study, however, I used artifacts merely as a medium of storytelling—a tangible object to ground us and help facilitate discussion. I did not analyze the artifacts themselves. Research Participants Participants in this study consisted of parent and child family dyads (n = 3) and groups (n = 2). The parents were the adoptees themselves, and the children were adults (all over the age of 19) who were the biological offspring of the adoptees. For the purposes of this study, the parents will be referred to as first-generation adoptees and their children will be referred to as second-generation adoptees. Interviews with firstand second-generation adoptees were conducted jointly. According to Haverkamp and Young (2007), “[o]ne of the hallmarks of qualitative research is its ability to explore phenomena in depth” (283). As such, the aim was to recruit 4-6 families each consisting of 1 first-generation adoptee and a minimum of 1 second-generation adoptee. This number of families allowed time for longer more in-depth interviews in order to spend more time exploring the research question. The complexity of conducting group interviews and completing the subsequent analyses were also considered in context of the time constraints of this project. In the end, 5 families were recruited for this study. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 33 Each family consisted of 1 female first-generation adoptee and 1 or 2 of her children (female second-generation adoptees = 4; male second-generation adoptees = 3); 2 families were triads. The composition of the 5 participant families are summarized below (see Table 1), and their family stories of adoption are captured later in the results section of this document. The researcher interviewed the family dyads and triads together. The use of family interviews was a modification to the standard listening guide protocol of single-participant interviews. I decided on family interviews in order to capture the relational nature of the stories mother and child(ren) share, and the jointly constructed meanings they have attributed to their family story of adoption (Van Puyenbroeck, Loots, Grietens, & Jacquet, 2014). My main objective was to listen for what voices and themes were and were not present in each of the generations. 34 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION Table 1 Participant Families Family Generation Name Age Adoptee Mode and Mode and Length of Length of Interview Follow-Up Interview 1 First Second 2 First Second 3 First Second Second 4 First Second Susan Jackie Debbie Olivia Ruth Michael James Lisa Ashley 62 23 55 25 64 33 28 56 26 Online Email 1:30:29 — Online Email 1:30:29 — In Person In Person 1:20:50 0:24:30 In Person In Person 1:20:50 0:24:30 In Person Email 1:21:37 — Online Email 1:21:37 — In Person Email 1:21:37 — Online Online 1:14:20 0:30:00 Online Online 35 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 5 First Second Second Mama Bear Emily Hunter 56 34 28 1:14:20 0:30:00 Online Email 1:34:36 — Online Email 1:34:36 — Online Email 1:34:36 — Inclusion and exclusion criteria. General criteria relevant to all participants included that they be English speaking, and have a parent or child who met the following criteria and was willing to participate. The rest of the criteria was specific to either firstor second-generation adoptees (see Appendix B for Screening Interview). In terms of the first-generation adoptee participants, participation in the study required they were raised by their adoptive parent from infancy, and had a biological adult child willing to participate in this study. Excluded were adult adoptees raised by their adoptive parent from infancy. This excludes children who were raised by an adopted parent part-time due to custody arrangements; they would have been raised by at least 1 of their biological parents, and this was considered a different experience than what this study aimed to investigate. No criteria were set on whether the adoption was closed or open, or if the adoptee has had any contact with their birth parents whatsoever due to the wide variety of experiences within Canada (Miall & March, 2005). I also did not exclude based on whether the adoption experience was positive or negative from the adoptee’s point of view. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 36 The second-generation adoptee participants were also chosen purposively. They were to be 19 years of age or older to ensure that they had had adequate time carry their parent’s story and develop a sense of understanding and meaning in relation to this narrative inheritance. The study also required these participants must have been aware, while growing up, that their parent was an adoptee. It must also be noted that the other parents (the adoptees’ partners) were excluded from this study. It is likely that this person played a role in the construction and sharing of the family story of adoption as well—even their silence would be just as meaningful as their voice. The focus of this study, however, was on the voices of inheritance regarding adoption stories that an adoptee passes to their child. Recruitment and sampling. True to the paradigmatic stance of constructivism, diversity in adoption experiences is assumed to exist within the participant sample (Mertens, 2015). I used diverse methods of recruitment to achieve this (see Appendix B). I recruited participants by word of mouth by informing my colleagues of my study so that they could spread the word to anyone they believed may be have been interested. I also posted an advertisement I created (see Appendix C) to various social media platforms (e. g., Facebook and Instagram). As interested individuals contacted me via email, I conducted screening interviews by phone (and email when the participant preferred; see Appendix B). This ensured that the individuals met all necessary criteria for participation in this study, and were given a detailed description of the study and what participation would entail (see Appendix D). When the individual did not qualify for the study, I explained why, offered relevant resources (see Appendix E), and asked if they would like to be notified about future studies that might pertain to their experiences. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 37 I was contacted by several first-generation adoptees who did not have children, thus did not qualify for the study. These applicants misunderstood the advertisement. There were also 3 families who came forward, only to withdraw their interest because the firstgeneration adoptee felt it would be too upsetting for them to discuss their story. When the individual was a good match, I ensured that their parent or child also met criteria and were interested in participating. Steps were taken to ensure any decision to take part was truly voluntary and not unduly influenced by either parent or child. Both parent and child(ren) must have met inclusion criteria for either to participate, so I refrained from informing potential participants of their eligibility until I had screened both parent and child. If 1 did not qualify I informed them that they were not qualified as a dyad or triad at this time, without disclosing personal information to the other family member(s). When the dyad or triad was qualified to participate in this study, I set up an interview with the participants. Data Collection Procedure Dyadic or triadic interviews were scheduled at a time and location convenient to both participants and researcher. As participants began to come forward, 8 of the individuals lived in different provinces, or different countries, or individual members of a family lived at a distance from each other. I decided to amend the data collection procedure to include online interviews in order to accommodate these participant families. Given the paradigm of this research study, it is important to acknowledge that there are some real challenges associated with the use of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technologies of video-conferencing programs in data creation. The absence of physical presence changes how rapport is built or how well non-verbal cues are noticed INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 38 and considered (Weller, 2017). This posed a risk of interfering with the relational epistemology of both constructivist and listening guide approaches. Interactions between myself and participants were limited by virtue of our physical separation. It could be argued that this in turn impacted the knowledge created within this social context. Video-conferencing, however, has the benefit of gaining access to distant participants without the time and monetary costs of travel. These technologies cannot replicate the interpersonal reality of face-to-face interviews, in situations where stories would not be heard due to geographic constraints, they may be suitable alternate (Lo Iacono, Symonds, & Brown, 2016). Two of the interviews were conducted on the university campus in a comfortable and private counselling room. One of these interviews was entirely inperson, and the second consisted of 2 members (mother and son) participating in-person, and a second son joining the interview via an online video-conferencing program called Zoom (Zoom Video Communications, 2019). The 3 remaining interviews were conducted from the researcher’s home via Zoom. One of the in-person interviews consisted of mother, son, and a second son who joined the interview via Zoom. After greeting the participants, welcoming them to the study, and ensuring their comfort in the space, I explained the details of informed consent and the limits of confidentiality to all participants. The informed consent document was emailed in advance to participants being interviewed online, and then discussed during the call before commencing the interview. All participants were reminded of the voluntary nature of this study, and that anonymity would be upheld to the greatest extent possible with pseudonyms and the restriction of identifying details. However, the participants’ stories, especially in connection to the stories also shared in this study by their parent or INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 39 child, may make it possible for some readers to identify the individuals. At this time, participants were offered the opportunity to select their own pseudonym. Susan and Jackie asked that their real names be used, stating that they were happy to share their story openly. The members of the 4 other families either offered me a pseudonym or asked me to pick one on their behalf. There was also opportunity to discuss any questions or concerns the participants had, and once I felt confident the participants understand and accept the terms, I invited them each to sign separate study consent agreements (see Appendix F). For the online interviews, I asked the participants for verbal consent in the moment, and to email (or mail) me back their signed forms at their earliest convenience. At this time, I also asked the participants to complete a short demographic survey created for the purposes of this study (see Appendix G). Each interview lasted approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes, and followed the protocol I designed as my guide (see Appendix A). The interviews were audio and video recorded on a laptop. Video was used in addition to audio for the transcriptionist to more easily identify each speaker, and to aid with my own audit of the transcripts in lieu of transcribing myself (I explain this in further detail later in this document). I used my own laptop for my personal accessibility reasons; as a person with a disability, as setting up other recording equipment would have been too challenging for me physically. I saved the recordings to an external hard drive that remained locked in my home. I opened each interview by inviting each of the participants to share about their artifact to embrace a tangible object that could act as an entry point into conversations about family and adoption stories. First- and second-generation participants each brought their own artifact to the interview. This sharing of the artifact also served as a INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 40 warm up to begin building rapport between researcher and participants, which is an element of quality in constructivist research given that reality is socially constructed. Following the interviews, I debriefed the process with the participants (see Appendix H), and explained that I would be reaching out to them again within a few months to share what had been learned from their story. I also sent each participant a thank-you email (see Appendix I) after completing our interview. For the sake of time, and my physical limitations, I opted to hire a transcriptionist to transcribe all of the interviews. Before receiving the interview recordings, the transcriptionist signed a confidentiality agreement (see Appendix J), similar to the agreement signed by the research assistants on my research team (see Appendix K). This is not my idea of ideal rigour, and I speak to this in greater detail later in this chapter. Electronic copies of the transcripts were also stored on the encrypted external hard drive during and after analysis was finished. It must be noted that 1 participant requested a copy of the interview recording for her own personal use. She stated that she had been so moved by the experience that she wanted to share it with her (adoptive) mom. As such, I created a consent form for the other participants to release their interview data to her (see Appendix L), and an agreement on the use of the data (see Appendix M). Once all documents had been signed, I couriered the recording to her on an encrypted USB. Once transcription analysis was completed, 6 months later, the participants and I met for follow-up interviews. In qualitative research, these are often referred to as member checks, and are used as a means of ensuring meanings created from the data analysis do map onto the participants’ experiences (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). I wrote a letter for each family and gave every member a copy. In this letter, I thanked them for INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 41 their unique contribution, and outlined what the research team and I had learned from their story. This included all the voices we heard from each of them and a brief description of how we understood the voices. I also shared all the other voices we heard in this study and some of the common themes. I met with 1 family in-person, another via Zoom video call, and the remaining 3 families requested that I email the letter due to scheduling constraints. The live meetings took about 30 minutes, and were an opportunity for participants to reflect on the research team’s understanding of the voices they heard in the family stories. The participants were invited to ask questions any questions they had for me, and to also comment on whether any of the voices heard from the other families may have resonated with them as well. At least 1 member from each of the 3 families who opted for emailed versions of the letter replied with their own reflections via email, shortly after. The in-person and Zoom meetings were audio and video recorded, so that the participant’s own words could be captured for the researcher to use in the final write up. These follow-up interviews were also a chance for the participants to continue co-constructing their narratives by offering any clarifications or requesting for any changes to be made. None of the participants wanted anything changed, but a couple added some additional comments and asked for certain themes to be emphasized over others. Analytic Procedure The mode of analysis embedded within the listening guide was used in this study. As mentioned, the transcription of the interview formed the primary data set, and the artifacts each participant brought to the interview were not analyzed directly. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 42 The listening guide procedure. The listening guide emphasizes the power in multiple listens. Each additional time a story is heard by an individual, or by a new listener, different aspects of the story become more salient. In this regard, analysis is strengthened by the engagement of multiple listeners in order to explore a variety of resonances and interpretations of the story. A research team consisting of myself and at least 1 other counsellor-researcher was assembled to read through the interview transcripts in 4 distinct steps. Each listener brought with them their own subjective understandings as they listened to the participant’s story. Multiple readings of the same transcript was essential to capturing the various layers within the individual’s story. Through multiple readings by multiple individuals the researchers became familiar with the different voices that co-existed within each storyteller. When 2 or more people have engaged with the narrative, it becomes possible for them to partake in a rich discussion of possible themes and voices that arise in the narrative (Gilligan et al., 2003). Gilligan et al. (2003) have carefully outlined 4 stages of analysis. These steps are as follows. Step one: Listening for the plot and forming an impression. The focus of the first listening was for the listeners to hear the plot and allow it to impress upon them. The listeners attended to the stories being told, as well as to the context of the stories. The sociocultural contexts in which the person’s story was embedded was vital information, as were the dominant themes and omissions in their narrative. The context of the relationship between researcher and participant, and the circumstances under which they were meeting, were also important to note at this stage. After reading through the interview transcript, the listeners summarized the plot (Gilligan et al., 2003). INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 43 In addition to hearing the basic plot of the story, the listeners also took the time to engage with their subjective reactions to the narrative and the speaker. Researchers who employ the listening guide method do not assume neutrality is achievable or desirable, and are always processing circumstances from their unique subjective perspective. Rather than attempt to stifle what they bring into the room with them, they embrace the unique perspectives they have to offer to the situation. The listeners in this study, therefore, noted their own social location, the nature of the relationship to the participant, thoughts, and emotional responses. The listeners considered where they did and did not feel connected to the speaker, what parts of the story moved them, the ways in which their own experiences and assumptions shaped how they may have come to understand the person. These impressions were summarized alongside the plot (Gilligan et al., 2003). Step two: Constructing I poems. The aim of the second listening was to hone in on the voice of self by listening for first-person pronouns the speaker used in their story. These pronouns, and the verbs that followed, were assembled into what listening guide researchers refer to as “I poems.” Each “I” and important words that accompany it were extracted from the story, but kept in their original sequence. Each I-statement was placed on a new line, as in lines of poetry. Through paying careful attention to the first-person voice, the researchers were able to develop a sense of how the individual speaks about his- or herself. This was crucial to the relational aspect of this method because it offered an opportunity for the listener to better understand how the person knows him- or herself before speaking of them ourselves so as not to objectify the person (Gilligan et al., 2003). INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 44 Voices in relation were a central element in this study. The stories of adoption that parent passes to child becomes a shared and co-constructed narrative. As such, I believe that the way one speaks of the other is vital to the understanding of self in relationship. In addition to the traditional I Poems, I also elected to include salient ‘we,’ ‘she,’ and ‘he’ statements to expand on the poems in a way that encapsulated how parent and child spoke of each other in addition to—or in conjunction with—their self. Given the number of speakers in each interview, I used variations in the text of the poem (such as boldface and italics) to identify and organize the poems generationally as this speaks directly to the research question about intergenerational voices of adoption. In the context of family interviews there is a great deal of flexibility available for creating I Poems. In the final construction of each family’s poem, I decided to focus on a theme of narrative cohesion because of the emphasis on stories in this project. This resulted in a lengthier poem in which all speakers were represented, and ‘I,’ ‘we,’ ‘she,’ and ‘he’ statements were all captured in a flow that was intended to depict the essence of the family narrative they shared. I maintained the sequence in which the phrases appear in the interview transcript in order to feature the “drama” of the interview. I decided on this approach because it felt like a fitting portrayal of the two generations speaking of each other and their selves as they co-constructed their family narrative of adoption. Each of the I poems are included in the results chapter. Step three: Listening for contrapuntal voices. In this phase, the researchers reengaged with the research question. The listeners took the time to hear all the different layers of the speakers’ story which formed the complex and multidimensional answer to the research question. This was an opportunity to listen for the different—and INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 45 sometimes conflicting—voices present in the individual’s narrative. The term contrapuntal voice is borrowed from music composition—counterpoint is when 2 or more lines of melody are played simultaneously. The lines of music are played together and are related, but can sound quite different from each other. Likewise, a storyteller may speak in voices that are related, but may sometimes sound different or even contradictory (Gilligan et al., 2003). At this point in analysis, the transcript was read several times over in order to identify all the different voices and begin to understand how to recognize each one as it appears. The research team focused on 1 voice per reading. This way it was possible to come to understand a single statement in more than one way—through more than one voice. The research team colour-coded the transcripts by voice, allowing each voice to be represented visually. This made it possible to see any patterns and identify which voices were present in which parts of the story. Readings continued until all the voices that pertained to the research question were identified (Gilligan et al., 2003). Since the dyadic and triadic nature of these interviews diverged from the original listening guide protocol, I also modified the analytic coding accordingly. As each voice was listened for, and then colour-coded, it was the voice we focused on rather than the speaker. After all the voices were identified and colour-coded in a particular transcript, we then went back and noted which participant was using this voice. Sometimes the voice was heard from only 1 family member, but often the voice was shared by members of the family. This process allowed the research team to identify all the voices before considering whether each was a first-generation, second-generation, or shared voice. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 46 This way we were not making assumptions about each generation’s voices, but allowing the voices themselves to emerge and then noticing from whom they arose. Step four: Composing an analysis. A final listening of each transcript was conducted at this point. Then the research team discussed the plot, the poems, the voices, and everything else they learned from each participant in relation to the research question. All voices were reunited to expose the full and intricate story each family had shared (Gilligan et al., 2003), as well as highlighting the individual generational voices. The research team was guided by questions such as the following. What did we learn that is pertinent to the research question? How did we learn it? Methodological Rigour The quality of research can only be assessed in the context of the paradigm in which it is embedded, and of the method employed. Constructivism focuses on developing a deeper understanding of a particular person’s experiences and aiming for confirmability by ensuring the data can be traced back to its source and that the researcher’s interpretations are made explicit and can be reasonably explained (Mertens, 2015). Guba and Lincoln (1989) set out criteria for constructivist research which includes prolonged engagement with the participants, fairness in regard to the representations of different constructions, and authenticity of participant’s shared experiences and understandings. I demonstrated prolonged engagement with my participants through multiple meetings, including the screening interviews, in-depth listening guide interviews, and follow-up member checks. I upheld the standards of richness of descriptions and resonance (Haverkamp, 2005; Mertens, 2015; Morrow, 2005) by spending time encouraging participants to INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 47 reflect deeply and prompting them to elaborate during our interview. I assembled a research team to offer multiple interpretations of the data and to engage in meaningful discussions around voice and themes. This also complies with the standard of the listening guide (Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003), and was of particular importance during step 1 of the listening guide analytic procedure. This step involved me and my co-researchers reading the stories and giving our personal reactions and responses. It was crucial to remain aware of our subjectivity at this point, as researchers who employ the listening guide method hold that neutrality is neither achievable nor desirable. Instead, we embraced our own perspectives and impressions, and made note of them as a part of the analytic procedure. The voices of both the researcher and participant had a place in this study. The research was done collaboratively to ensure power was shared as equally as possible (Mertens, 2015). In line with the paradigm assumptions of constructivism, first-person voice is central to the listening guide. The experiences and interpretations of the researcher, research team, and participants were deeply valued as the research process was fundamentally relational. As such, first-person voices of all these individuals were represented here. In order to fully receive the participants’ stories, the researcher must bring his or her entire being into the research process. The participant’s and researcher’s subjectivity, and their dyadic interaction, were all harnessed to give depth and richness to the study (Gilligan, et al., 2003; Mertens, 2015; Morrow, 2005). To support researcher reflexivity and perspectival subjectivity (Creswell, 2003; Haverkamp, 2005; Mertens, 2015; Morrow, 2005), I kept notes along the way tracking my thoughts, feelings, and interpretations of the entire research process. To further foster INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 48 researcher engagement and reflexivity, many researchers elect to transcribe his or her own interviews. For the sake of time and difficulty transcribing costs me—due to my physical disability—I enlisted the help of a transcriptionist. Since I was aware that this would reduce my level of engagement with the data, I attempted to remedy this by listening to the recordings while following along with the transcripts before beginning the analysis of the transcripts. I did this both to ensure accuracy of the transcription, and to deepen my degree of intimacy with the participants and their stories. Pilot interview. In the spirit of rigour, I also ran a pilot interview to test out my interview protocol. Since this research was inspired by my own family, I thought it fitting to start there. I familiarized a colleague of mine with the interview protocol, and she in turn interviewed my family and me. My mom, my sister, and I gathered with our interviewer in the very same counselling room I later used to interview my participants. My brother joined us from another province via Zoom. My family members formally consented to being included in the study in this manner. We opened the interview by each of us sharing and discussing the artifacts we had brought. Then the interviewer guided us through the semi-structured set of questions I had designed. The whole process took an hour and a half to complete, as we were a 4participant group. At times some of us were feeling emotional—particularly my mom, as she shared of her adoptive experience and some of the challenges it brought her. There were also a number of surprises, as we shared with each other memories or feelings that not everyone had heard before. Most of the surprises came from my brother, and upon later debriefing the interview together, we reflected that this was because he had not been as vocal a participant in our family adoption narrative over the years as my mom, sister, INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 49 and I had been. This made me wonder if it might be an experience my participants would share in as well. Altogether, the interview proved to be a much richer experience than any of the 4 of us had anticipated. My mom reflected that it was a really nice opportunity to get to speak together with all 3 of her children about her adoption story. My sister admitted that she did not believe we would be able to carry on an hour and a half long conversation about our mom’s adoption because we could not possibly expand on the narrative that much. She said she was pleasantly surprised to realize how rich and meaningful our story truly was. I was satisfied that my interview protocol would be sufficient to guide my participants through what I hoped would be equally rich and enlightening conversations about their own family narratives of adoption. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 50 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS We seek to ground our work empirically, in experience, and in the realities of relationship and of difference, of time and place (Gilligan, 1993, p. 23) This study was designed to explore the intergenerational voices of adoption. The research was guided by the following questions: what are the intergenerational voices of adoption? What voices are heard in the passing down of an adoption story? What voices are heard in the adoptees? What voices are heard in the adult children encountering their parents’ narratives? In this study, first- and second-generation adoptees were interviewed together in mother-child dyads and triads. The aim was to begin to develop an understanding of the narratives of adoption that have shaped adoptees and have been passed down to their children. By listening to the participants’ stories, we learned that there were varying degrees to which each of these individuals integrated adoption into their personal life narrative. First- and second-generation adoptees within a family often embodied the same or similar voices of adoption, but not in all instances. The following chapter includes summaries of each family story as understood through the voices that were present for each family member in the interview. As a part of the family interviews, participants shared artifacts that represented to them a meaningful aspect of their family adoption story. The sharing of these artifacts often gave way to stories about family members or the adoptive experience. The artifacts were not analysed separately, but taken as part of the participant’s narrative. As such, artifacts are referenced from time to time throughout this chapter anytime they were relevant to the specific voices or overarching family story. The participant stories are followed by INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 51 descriptions of each of the voices, including examples for each voice from the participants’ own words, and how each voice relates to the other voices. Participant Family Stories The fourth and final step of the listening guide method is to compose an analysis by returning to the participants’ stories and hearing them in the context of the voices that have been identified. The following section provides a summary of each separate family interview. In each summary I have tried to capture the essence of the narrative the families shared with me during our initial interviews, and any additional pieces that came to light during our follow-up interview. As I tell their story, I also note where each voice emerges. The artifacts each participant brought to the interview hold a bigger role in some of the narratives than others, and will be addressed accordingly in the summary. The I-Poems I constructed during step three of the listening guide protocol are also included in the participants family summaries below. Susan and Jackie. Susan, 62, was a professional dog trainer. Her daughter Jackie, 23, worked as a sandwich artist and cashier. Mother and daughter were of European-Canadian descent, and lived together in Nova Scotia, Canada. Susan initiated contact with me, and the 2 of them met with me from their home via Zoom. Susan’s artifact was a package of non-identifying birth and adoptions records, and Jackie elected not to bring an artifact because she felt their story had been best captured in dialogue between the two of them. The following is a summary of the story captured in our interview. Susan and Jackie sit shoulder to shoulder. The strength of their mother-daughter bond is palpable. The have come to share their story of late-night chats and learning INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 52 about each other’s lives. Susan has always shared with Jackie her personal story of adoption, and Jackie has always appreciated her mother’s openness and frankness on the matter. Through the years, these two women often sat side by side on the couch, confiding in each other and offering each other support. Susan and Jackie accompany each other through life, and their family narrative of adoption has always been a part of their shared journey. It is within the framework of their relationship that the voice of love is heard most clearly from each of these women—for each other, and for the other family members who have helped shape their story. Susan, adopted at 4 months old, tells a story of love, belonging, respect, and gratitude. Her adoptive parents passed away tragically when Susan was only 12. Though she has a great deal of respect and admiration for her birth mother’s decision to bring her to term and putting her up for adoption in the hope that she may have a good life, she is emphatic in her assertion that her adoptive parents were her real parents. Losing them was a more pivotal moment to Susan than she ever would have considered her own adoption to be. Susan speaks of her deep gratitude for all the love and acceptance she has received in her lifetime: I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve always been wanted. Um, my mother wanted me enough and brought me to term knowing she couldn’t raise me, she put me into the adoption system. My adoptive mom and dad wanted me and brought me and joined me into their family...And then they passed when I was 12. And when I was 13 another family brought me in. These relationships were all undeniably filled with love. “I’ve never known anything but welcoming families,” Susan marvels. Yet the love Susan shares with her INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 53 daughters is even more precious. Referring to Jackie and her other daughter who was not present for the interview, Susan explains that—on top of being her daughters—they are her only known blood relatives. “These are my true and first and absolute blood relatives, my two girls,” She beams at Jackie and Jackie smiles back warmly. Jackie’s replies that “being someone’s only living blood relative is pretty important.” Both women become emotional at the recognition of this beautiful bond they share. “We journey together,” Susan says. The voice of love is the strongest voice heard from both Susan and Jackie. Jackie openly receives and continues to embrace this voice. It is a voice that turns full heartedly toward embracing adoption as an integral part of their life narrative. At the point in the interview in which participants are invited to share artifacts they feel represented their family story of adoption, Jackie says she did not bring anything because their connection to this story “has been mostly verbal and hasn’t really been in a form of like any tangible object.” She says that it has unfolded between them during “late nights talking at like midnight.” The voice of love lives through their relationships. Jackie bursts with the love and gratitude she has for her mother. She believes she has inherited beautiful stories of wonderfully strong women—both Susan’s adoptive and biological mothers, and Susan herself. Through this inheritance, she has also developed a strong moral code to which she is committed. This code comes from a place of deep gratitude for the opportunities bestowed on her mother. Jackie states clearly and firmly that she is “very much of the opinion that all life is cherished and essential”. She spoke passionately about her moral code throughout the interview: INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 54 It just sucks because there’s a lot of families thrown away because of [abortion]. And a lot of lack of responsibility…to continue life onwards, and the fact that it’s normalized to the extent that it is…really is terrifying to me…And it’s also um, it’s also very odd for me because I used to be incredibly left wing and um very adamantly pro-choice and um learning more about my mom’s background definitely was a huge factor in uh my change of heart on it. Mother and daughter both express respect and appreciation for the people before them that they believe made good and honourable choices for their families. Referring to the notion that Susan’s birth mother could have chosen to abort the pregnancy instead putting her up for adoption, Susan says “for me at the end of the day, you’re talking about life and it could have been mine, it could have been anyone, there’s a lot of couldhave-beens.” Closely connected to the voice of morality, is the voice of admiration. These are the voices that speak to Susan’s and Jackie’s respect for the individuals in their family narrative they believe made morally sound decisions. It is also a voice of turning toward adoption as a prominent part of their story. This admiration extends all the way back to the birth mom that neither Susan nor Jackie ever knew. Susan says: I’m very…very impressed, very respectful, um a little bit in awe because having two girls of my own, carrying a child to term and then saying I cannot properly raise this child, I’m going to put this child in to the adoption system…I don’t know how you do that. I don’t know what kind of strength it would take to do that. That’s rather remarkable. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 55 Jackie also says that she: Really respect[s] the fact that [Susan’s] birth mom was able to go through bringing a baby to term and still, you know, giving it to a good home. And recognizing that she wasn’t able to um, she wasn’t able to do it herself but still wanted my mom to have life obviously. Susan crafts her story of gratitude. She is a self-proclaimed “poster kid for good stuff.” She believes she has had a fortunate life and that this stems from the decision her birth mother made to carry her to term. Susan acknowledges that the pregnancy could have been terminated, and then neither she nor her daughters would have existed. For this, both Susan and Jackie are grateful. In fashioning this narrative, Susan also decides to exclude the less pleasant aspects of her story. This is the voice of selectivity. Susan turns away from certain parts of her story and chooses not to integrate them into her larger narrative of adoption. She uses absolute statements such as “There was nothing negative about adoption for me,” and avoids particular storylines by saying “Um, anyway, don’t wanna go down that path.” Susan circumvents speaking about the death of her parents when she was 12 years old by referring to the event as “another small side note.” This voice of selectivity is rooted in love and respect, it is not a diminishing voice. The depth of gratitude and appreciation Susan holds for all that she has been given seems to outweigh any of the harder experiences she has faced. At our follow-up, Susan said that this “hit the nail on the head.” Jackie carriers forward this voice of selectivity: “she said it was never a negative thing for her, so I never looked down on it in anyway, or saw it as a negative aspect.” INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 56 One of the most striking aspects of this story is how closely paralleled the voices of Susan and Jackie are. They overlap harmoniously. The voices Susan has passed down to Jackie in regard to their family narrative of adoption are the voices Jackie choses to carry with her. The only time their voices diverge is when Susan expresses a lack of information around the facts of her birth and lineage. Jackie’s experience is that she and her mom have always been very open with each other. She does not express an interest in learning more about the missing elements of her mom’s story. These missing pieces do not particularly concern Susan either, but she does acknowledge their absence more than Jackie does. She says, “I was curious about my birth mother but it wasn’t a driving need.” Although both women are content with the knowledge they have, they share a voice of curiosity about their family story of adoption. With this voice, they turn toward adoption as part of their narrative and embrace it. The artifact that Susan brought to the interview was a package of her non-disclosure documents. These are the details on record surrounding the baby’s adoption and any available non-identifying information on her birth family. Adoptees can request these documents from the government. Having access to this information means a lot to Susan. She says: it’s kinda neat that, because most people when they’re growing up they’ve been that parent’s child from day one, our girl [daughter] has been our girl from day one. Um, I wasn’t [adoptive parents]’s daughter from day one…I guess with the adoption…my life started at 4 months… the memories and the pictures and the baby photos and all the stories all started at 4 months. And all the sudden with INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 57 this, when this arrived, it got to start from the beginning…So it was kinda cool that way. Jackie is eager to explore these documents herself. She says “I’m also very interested. Like, it is fascinating to be able to uh, to look into my mom’s beginnings… it means a lot. She’s sharing quite a lot.” Susan and Jackie have a beautifully intimate relationship—one they both plainly treasure dearly. These are close familial bonds that seem strengthened by the exclusivity of their blood bond. Both women express believing that adoption does not weaken the bonds of family, but that to share the added connection of biology makes what these two have all the more special. The only blood relatives Susan knows are her two daughters. Jackie describes this knowledge as intense. The three of them seem to belong to an exclusive “club of three.” Together, these two women work to weave a unified loving tale of adoption, in which they share all 5 voices we hear resonating throughout their narrative. Theirs is a story they are both equally honoured to carry. Below is an I-Poem I have crafted from Susan’s and Jackie’s own words. They speak for their selves, for each other, for the mothers—both adoptive and biological—who came before them, and for their collective self. Susan’s voice appears first, and Jackie’s voice is highlighted by the italicized text. I was born she couldn’t raise me she put me into the adoption system I have been wanted throughout my whole life I had my real parents INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION I have a birth mother who I respect greatly we talk a lot I really respect I am we’re very upfront about everything I feel I had I have I could I can I believe I know I was I respect she gave me everything she could we are her only blood relatives I was shaped she taught me I lost them I think I am I care quite a lot I believe We journey together a lot of times 58 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 59 I never felt anything but proud She was badass! she was we lost we land All 4 voices of Susan and Jackie are undergirded by gratitude and reverence. Their voices of love, admiration, morality, curiosity, and selectivity all stem from a place of deep appreciation for all that has been bestowed upon them by the people who came before them. They choose to see the positives in life, rather than focus on the negatives. This comes through powerfully in their appreciation for each other and through the love and respect they express for the family members who have come before them. From these two women we hear how the voices of adoption can be passed down to a secondgeneration adoptee who chooses to receive the voices as they are and carry them on with love. Debbie and Olivia. I was initially contacted by Olivia, 25, who was working as a counsellor in British Columbia. She and her mom Debbie, 55, met me in person for our interview on my university campus. Debbie was a workplace mediator and arbitrator. Olivia identified as Canadian of European descent, while Debbie noted that she believes her biological parents were of Armenian descent. Debbie presented a family recipe, that had been passed down through her adoptive family, as her artifact. Olivia’s artifact was a picture of musician Steven Tyler as it symbolized for her a time in which her family adoption story had a meaningful impact on her personally. What follows is a summary of the story captured in our interview. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 60 Debbie and Olivia are well acquainted with the concept of adoption. Debbie grew up as 1 of 4 adopted siblings—each adopted from a separate family. Her daughter Olivia grew up with a mom, an aunt, uncles, and cousins who were all adoptees. As Debbie puts it, “adoption has actually been a very big part of our lives as an extended family.” These two women begin their story with this sense of normalcy around adoption. At first, it seems as though this is the extent of their outlook on the matter, but then they begin to dialogue. Debbie begins by sharing her chosen artifact. It is a family pierogi recipe that has been passed down through the generations. This recipe means a lot to Debbie. “they’re one of our family’s favourite foods to eat and we do them as a family…three generations of people involved.” This tradition belongs to her adoptive family, which is the only family Debbie considers to be her own. As she shares about the pierogi tradition and how her family comes together, a warm voice of embrace emanates from deep within her. With this voice, Debbie turns toward the idea of adoption and happily claims it as an integral piece of her life story. She smiles affectionately as she talks of her mom guiding the family in making the pierogis, “she’s the matriarch and she leads the charge.” Debbie is proud of her family. “I feel just so privileged to have grown up in the family that I have, and I think it’s amazing of my parents to have adopted 4 children,” she beams. The voice of admiration also emerges as closely related to the voice of embrace for Debbie. Once again, she turns toward adoption with deep appreciation for its place in her narrative. She marvels at the extent of kindness and generosity she believes her parents displayed in adopting her and her siblings, “I think it’s amazing of my parents to INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 61 have adopted 4 children, right. Like I just think wow, who does that right?” Debbie also speaks from a voice of admiration when discussing her birth mother: A woman who’s decided to put up her baby for adoption, go through her whole term of pregnancy, I think that is an amazing thing, right. That especially in this day and age that someone, having the option to get an abortion so easily, has chosen to do that, just says a tremendous amount about that person as a human being, right. For all the love and respect Debbie holds for the people involved in her adoption story, Olivia’s contrapuntal voice of conviction is heard. She wonders if her mom is overlooking more challenging aspects of her story, and worries that adoption may have had more significant negative impacts on their family than Debbie choses to acknowledge. Olivia recognizes that her grandparents’ choice to adopt their children was ultimately a positive decision, but adds “I think there’s also been a lot of pain on that side that family as well, which doesn’t go acknowledged very often and that bothers me.” Olivia expresses these questions and concerns through a powerful voice of conviction. Through this voice, she turns toward adoption as an integral piece of her narrative. She does not simply embrace all the positive components of the story, but strives to see it in an accurate light that may unveil positive, negative, and ambiguous pieces of the narrative. She campaigns for her family to explore their history, relationships, and the potential impacts of their adoption more deeply. “I feel very strongly about that,” Olivia asserts. This voice resonated with importance and it was clear that it came straight from a very special place in her heart. Throughout the interview, this voice remains present and unwavering for her. She speaks about how difficult topics are not discussed in their INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 62 family, “that’s kind of the culture of our family, to not talk about things really openly because we don’t want to cause people to be upset. And that culture bothers me that things get swept under the rug.” Olivia points to struggles her aunt and uncle have gone through, and suggests they are directly related to the complex impacts of adoption. Debbie disagrees, “I have to say that I don’t think that may necessarily be tied to adoption, right. I think that um, that’s just a family experience as a whole.” Debbie is visibly uncomfortable with her daughter’s interpretation. She sits quietly, allowing Olivia’s voice to be heard, and speaks up from time to time to disagree. Olivia posits that Debbie may be “shut down from [her] emotions when it comes to [her] personal stuff.” Debbie says, “when I hear you say that, that um, I don’t necessarily agree with that.” This is one example of the voice of disconnect that both women share. This voice is neither a turning away from nor turning toward adoption as a part of their family story. Rather, the women find themselves at a stalemate in their view on how adoption has impacted their family. Not only does Olivia question how ideal her mom’s adoption story is, but the two of them struggle to see each other’s perspectives on what aspects of their story they each find meaningful. As Debbie shared about her family pierogi tradition, she expresses a sense of loss over not being able to pass down this meaningful piece of her story to her daughter because Olivia is vegan and will not make or eat this recipe. “So, well with Olivia, she— she won’t uh be carrying the torch I guess which is, you know, sad for me but I understand at the same time.” Olivia tries to compromise, “I think it could be very easily tweaked but they’re very attached to this recipe.” The two women attempt to meet each other, but seem to still miss each other somewhat. This happens again when Olivia INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 63 shares her artifact. It is a picture that represents a time during her teenage years in which she wanted to apply for U.S. citizenship. She knew her mom’s biological parents were American, so she asked her mom to reach out and make the necessary connections in order help her apply for citizenship. “I remember begging you to do this,” Olivia says. Debbie would not oblige, “she didn’t really understand what would be involved with that kind of endeavour.” Olivia agrees now that she did not appreciate, back then, the gravity of what she was asking, but still feels her mom does not appreciate how much the request had meant to her. Despite their close bond, and efforts to understand each other, there are still elements of disconnect between Debbie and Olivia in their perspectives on their family adoption narrative. This is particularly noticeable in Debbie’s reaction to her daughter’s conviction about the unspoken negative impacts of adoption on their family. For Debbie, all of Olivia’s concerns relate more to her siblings’ experiences that to her own. In this assertion, a voice of distance can be heard from Debbie. She attempts to turn away from particular aspects of her family story of adoption by making clear distinctions between her personal experiences as an adoptee and those of her siblings. Debbie explains, “I would say I probably had an easier path of it because um I was more aligned to my parents and their, their expectations as parents and children.” She speaks of getting along with her parents better than her siblings often did, “I was easily um, willing to accept their parental guidance and do what I was told, and kind of um follow the, kind of the straight path, let’s put it that way.” As for her three siblings, “they’ve struggled,” she says. Debbie holds that these struggles were not her own, and that her experience as an adoptee has been wholly positive. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 64 Although Debbie is not as intrigued by some of the elements of her family adoption narrative as is Olivia, she does occasionally speak from small voice of curiosity: I think it’s natural human nature to be curious and think oh, do I look like somebody else? You know…what is my heritage? You know, get to know the extended family… what has held me back is it could perhaps open a lot of wounds for people…on the other hand I think well maybe they’d be happy you know to reconnect, to know that I’ve had you know a very happy life and all of that, they might be relieved to hear all that and that the decision they made was the right one…I would like to know what my um medical history is…So, is that a good enough reason to do it? I don’t know. So still kind of pondering that. Some of the questions Debbie poses about her biological lineage, suggest a slight turning toward emphasizing adoption as a part of her narrative. Her adoptive family is the part of her adoption story she embraces fully and with ease, but she finds it more challenging to make room for her biological heritage. Debbie has not completely shut out these parts, though. She continues to wrestle with whether or not she is able to make space for some of her curiosities. At our follow-up interview, Debbie says that she has been thinking about all of this more lately, and has decided that she would like to take a DNA test to find more information about her genetic makeup and maybe even about her birth family. Her commitment to this pursuit is still tentative, but her level of curiosity for her biological heritage has expanded in the past 5 months. Debbie and Olivia tell a story of commitment to each other and to their family adoption narrative, despite some disagreements in their perspectives. Not all the voices INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 65 Debbie passes down are received by Olivia, and there is sometimes tension between these voices. Yet the two women forge this story together. Below is an I-Poem I have composed from Debbie’s and Olivia’s own words. Debbie’s voice appears first, followed by Olivia’s contributions in italicized text. They speak for their selves, for each other, for other family members, and for their collective self. she’s the matriarch and she leads the charge I remember begging you to do this she wouldn’t do that we never really talked about it she didn’t really understand I’ve always known I was adopted we were always told we were chosen we were raised with my parent’s traditions and cultural traditions she was missing something she had to I’ve never felt like I was missing out on anything I mean I think I look I certainly would’ve considered adoption I wanted to pass it on to her she doesn’t want to have children period INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 66 we have a very close connection to adoption We see the huge benefit of it I feel just so privileged I look at it as a positive I want her to know I’m starting to put things more together in my family I know she describes it as being really nice she was kind of the golden child I understand she didn’t go through it the same way I think maybe she also went through some hard times and doesn’t acknowledge that we don’t talk about it I probably had an easier path I’m feeling anxious I mean I guess I understand she can be quite shut down from her emotions I’ve learned to be shut down I don’t feel I was missing anything I hear you I don’t necessarily agree with that INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 67 maybe she is also experiencing some sense of something missing I don’t know how I feel about that I wish she would also acknowledge that we don’t really think about I’m glad that the adoption happened, I just don’t like that the difficulties that come with it aren’t talked about I’m trying to say I feel very strongly about that I don’t know I mean I guess we were adopted I get emotional when I think about that Underneath all the voices Debbie and Olivia embody are prominent themes of love, care, and commitment. Their voices of embrace, admiration, conviction, disconnect, distance, and curiosity express a complex narrative of mother and daughter trying to come to their own understandings of their shared family story. I have the sense that though they may not always see things quite the same way, their relationship—and their broader sense of family—is something the two women hold dearly and are willing to fight to strengthen and protect. We learn from this family how voices received can be different from those passed down. Ruth, Michael, and James. Ruth, 64, initiated contact with me for participation in this study. She was a retired librarian. One of her sons Michael, 33, was an engineer. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 68 Her other son James, 28, worked as a software developer. All three family members identified as Canadian of European descent. I met with Ruth and James in person on my university campus, and Michael joined the interview via Zoom from his home in Nova Scotia. Ruth’s artifacts were a small collection of her baby photos and a storybook about adoption that social services issued new adoptive parents—including her own. Michael brought a photograph of his grandparents (Ruth’s biological parents) and a stuffed animal that Ruth’s new-found biological half-sister had given his daughter. James also brought a photograph of his grandparents (Ruth’s biological parents) as his artifact. The following is a summary of the story captured in our interview. Ruth and her two sons have come to talk about their family story of adoption. Ruth was adopted as an infant and raised alongside an adoptive brother and a sister who was the biological child of their parents. She shares of how grateful she is to have been raised in a good family, rather than any other alternative she can imagine. Ruth also notes, “we didn’t, didn’t talk about it a lot” growing up. Michael and James claim they do not think about this part of their family narrative very often, either. As James puts it, “I don’t know if I necessarily spent that much time wondering about like [my mom’s] birth parents that much. I mean, I always knew it was a thing, but I didn’t spend that much time thinking about it, really.” Initially, the family is soft spoken and a bit reserved. It seems they may not have much to say about their family adoption narrative. As we tentatively move forward, a rich family story unfolds. The first voice to emerge in their story is the voice of distance. All three members of this family embody the voice of distance as they emphasize that their family story of adoption is an accepted fact rather than information that strongly impacts their INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 69 day-to-day lives. It is not something that any of them give much thought to, because they have created such a sense of normalcy around it. Ruth reflects on how commonplace adoption was in her extended family and local community. She recalls one particular gathering out of town, in a community in which adoption was much less common: I remember…we were visiting family friends, they had an adopted daughter…a bunch of us were visiting—my uncle and aunt then and my family, and…my sister was the only one who was not an adopted child who was in that room…And I guess this girl had always felt more distinctive, their daughter. And they said to her: Oh, didn’t you know, all of these are adopted except for her! And that just really blew away that young girl. For Ruth, adoption is ordinary. Through the voice of distance, she normalizes her adoptive experience by describing it as so commonplace that it is almost not worth mentioning. In this regard, the voice of distance is actually more of a turning-toward integrating adoption into her story. Ruth is not trying to distance herself from her adoption so much as she is attempting to embrace it as a concept that is familiar to many people, and thus unremarkable in many ways: it was just…the normal thing…I was treated the same by my grandparents…well, all of the family, you were just treated the same way as all the others…my uncle and aunt, they had 4 adopted children [too]. So, it was just…the way it was. As a result of how commonplace adoption is within the family narrative, Ruth’s two sons also carry a similar voice of distance. For them, this voice is more turned-away from including it in their stories than it is for Ruth. James says that their family adoption INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 70 narrative is “not directly about me so much,” and Michael agrees. Both men consider their mom’s adoption to be simply a “fact of life.” James says, “I didn’t really think about it that much, um, but just sort of a fact of our family. Um, it doesn’t really come up that much.” Michael adds: But, um, it is what it is right? It was just…yeah, sort of a fact of life I suppose. Yeah we didn’t really talk about it too much. I remember Mom talking about it. I do remember Mom looking up the, well I don’t remember, just like James I remember being at the library looking up microfilm and Mom telling us what microfilm was and that was… what I remember more than anything else. The microfilm Michael mentions is in reference to a time that Ruth was at the library looking up old newspapers in an attempt to locate the obituary of a woman she believed to be her biological aunt. She had seen the obituary in a university alumni magazine, and “got the weirdest feeling.” Some of the names she knew of her birth family matched with the obituary and her intuition took over. She knew this was her aunt and was determined to confirm it. Both boys have hazy memories of having accompanied their mother to the library that day. It is through stories like this one that a gentle voice of curiosity begins to come through. Although the voice is somewhat restricted, it is undoubtedly present as Ruth hesitantly turns toward the questions she has about her biological heritage. At the outset of our interview, Ruth was firm in 1 assertion: “I was never really curious. I accepted it.” As we moved deeper into the interview, Ruth’s voice of curiosity grew stronger. She started by adding: INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 71 I thought it would upset my mom and dad, my mom particular, if I were, you know, searching, that I think it would feel, she would have been hurt by that, which is partly why I, I never, I never searched early on. Ruth went on to explain, “I had a basic curiosity and over the years just built a little.” Eventually, in her sixties, she did search for her birth family and was able to find a halfsister. She describes this a “neat,” but that she is not as close with her as she is with the family she was raised with. Ruth’s sons speak from an even smaller voice of curiosity. They both seem to acknowledge there is something interesting about finding out more about their family’s adoption story and biological routes, but that they do not have an overwhelming longing for this. James remembers a trip he once took that sparked some interest in him about his biological roots: I had kind of a realization that, oh, well these aren’t actually blood relatives. Our relatives aren’t actually here, really, biologically I guess. But yeah, I mean it wasn’t like a jarring realization, really, it was more like oh, that’s kind of interesting, I wonder if there’s other areas of the world [laughs] with other roots…it’s not like those roots I knew about they’re not relevant anymore, it’s more of a combination of everything. Michael recalls a similar realization of his own: I once remember coming out visit grandma and grandpa. We were at the airport…and I guess maybe we were talking about it not long before… sort of, oh Grandpa and Grandma aren’t mom’s biological parents. And then that was that was like, okay. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 72 Ruth, Michael, and James all speak from a voice of selectivity in which they mostly turn away from the biological components of their family adoption story, and turn instead toward their adoptive family. Ruth also wrestles, throughout the interview, with decisions about which pieces of her story are perhaps more important to her than others. She often uses phrases such as “But that’s not exactly related to this.” This particular type of selectivity from Ruth is heard primarily in relation to the parts of her story that included the half-sister she has found in more recent years. Although Ruth is not exceedingly interested in her biological history, she does highlight the importance of having a biological connection with her sons. This comes through as a soft voice of yearning. This yearning seems difficult to explain, as though she did not know she yearned for it until she actually became a mother. This voice is one of moving toward the family narrative of adoption with gratitude for all she has as well as a longing for that special bond with her own biological children. Ruth says: I’m just very glad [my adoption] happened. But I’m also glad that I have children, then at least you two are you know, related to me. Because at that time I never ever thought that I’d ever search or find…Which is why I was really glad to have at least one and then thank goodness two people on earth that were related to me by blood. I guess that was important to me. As meaningful as it is for Ruth to have this beautiful bond with her sons, the most powerful voice she speaks with is one of embrace. With this voice, she turns fully toward adoption as a part of her narrative and expresses deep love and gratitude for her adoptive family. She says, “I was very glad I was relinquished, I had a wonderful INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 73 home.” Ruth does not feel as though anything was lacking in her upbringing as a result of having been adopted. She says: I was included with the others. And the funny thing is, I almost feel of like three granddaughters, the three of us were all born the same year. I almost feel as if I was the favoured granddaughter, just because I think I clicked with grandma so much. I didn’t live in the same town, so she didn’t see me as much [laughs]. But, no it’s funny how I felt with her. Totally, totally accepted… And the whole family just treated me like all the others. I was just one of the family. Both James and Michael share Ruth’s view that “family is the family you were raised with.” In fact, each of them has brought with them an artifact that represents Ruth’s adoptive parents. “I suppose the term would be shared history,” Michael says, and they all agree that this is the most meaningful bond of all. Michael and James also allude to the idea of being open to adopting children of their own. In this moment Ruth appears visibly moved, but the moment is fleeting. At each of the follow-up interviews, I shared with the participants about all of the other voices represented in other interviews. I explained that they may find that some of the other voices actually resonate with them as well, or that some feel more difficult to connect with. After some reflection, Ruth wrote to me her thoughts on the voice of morality: Morality does resonate with me. People of my generation and earlier are aware of the shame of being an unwed mother and that, for the sake of the child, it was far better to relinquish, even though very difficult. Attitudes have changed over time. There is some financial support from the government now, the stigma is INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 74 not what it once was but I, personally, do still feel that adoption is by far the best option for a child to be raised in a stable home. Together, Ruth, Michael, and James tell a story of love and support. Adoption may not be a topic they discuss in much depth in their daily lives, but each of them embraces their family narrative. Below is an I-Poem I have pieced together from Ruth’s, Michael’s, and James’ own words. In this poem, they speak for their selves, for each other, for other family members—both adoptive and biological, and for their collective self. Ruth’s voice appears first, then James’ in italicized text, and Michael’s in boldface. I’ve always known I was adopted I was in about 5 foster homes I have way more information than I used to I didn’t spend that much time thinking about it, really I was included with the others I almost feel as if I was the favoured granddaughter I think I clicked with grandma I have fond memories of her I vaguely remember we acknowledged it the arrival anniversary…we always called it we didn’t have a lot of information then I was never really curious I never searched early on I went to social services to get non-identifying information INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION I was aware I had a basic curiosity I saw I knew I still remember sitting in the living room I got the weirdest feeling I vaguely remember I don’t know I kept you guys clued I didn’t really think about it that much we didn’t really talk about it too much I remember Mom talking about it I do remember I don’t remember I think I remember thank goodness she gave me up I was the lucky daughter I was very glad I was relinquished I had a wonderful home we were raised quite differently by different people I keep in touch with her I am glad I did finally get the courage 75 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 76 I was really glad to have at least…two people on earth that were related to me by blood I guess that was important to me I don’t really know anything different All 5 voices of Ruth, Michael, and James are undergirded by gratitude. Their voices of distance, curiosity, selectivity, yearning, embrace, and morality arise from a place of respect and appreciation for the adoptive experience. I feel a sense of union between these three as they came together to share in this conversation. It is apparent that they all deeply value family and view adoption as having positively impacted their family. From this family we hear how the voices of adoption can be passed down to second-generation adoptees who receive and embody the voices themselves even though they feel less directly connected to their mother’s narrative of adoption. Lisa and Ashley. Lisa, 56, was a civil engineer. Her daughter Ashley, 26, was a graduate student. Mother and daughter were of European-Canadian descent. It was Ashley who initiated contact with me, and the two of them met with me via Zoom from their respective homes. Lisa joined the call from Alberta, and Ashley from British Columbia. Lisa’s artifact was a cookbook that she had bought at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York City during a visit she had made to find her family immigration records. Similarly, and much to the delight of both women, Ashley also brought recipes. Her artifact was a collection of family recipes (from Lisa’s adoptive family) that Ashley had grown up eating. The following is a summary of the story captured in our interview. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 77 Two fair-haired women appear on my computer screen before me. I am struck by how visibly clear it is that Lisa and Ashley are mother and daughter. They giggle and joke with each other, and appear to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. They agree on a lot, yet they differ in their stance toward their family adoption narrative. This feels like a meaningful difference in the way these two women carry the story. Lisa tells her story of having been adopted initially as a baby, though it was not official until she was almost 4 years old. Her biological parents were known to her adoptive parents, and they continued to have contact and even visits with Lisa’s biological dad for those first few years of Lisa’s life. This fair-haired little girl was adopted by an Italian family and she never looked back. Despite the fact that her adoptive parents had plenty of information about her birth family, Lisa is vehemently not interested. Lisa’s voice of selectivity is strong. With this voice, she turns completely away from the parts of her story that concern her biological history and decides instead to only focus on her adoptive family. In regard to being an adoptee, Lisa says “it’s not something I talk about unless I’m asked about because in my opinion it’s really irrelevant.” Even at our follow-up interview, it is important to Lisa that she has the opportunity to emphasize that her adoption does not matter to her. As far as she is concerned, the Italian family who raised her is her one and only family. Lisa struggles to understand why some adoptees long so deeply to find their birth families. She says: I see so many instances of people that don’t feel fulfilled until they find their biological family and in particular in the media and even with some of the um people that I know, friends and acquaintances that have been adopted that you know are just tortured trying INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 78 to find their biological parents or trying to find their biological siblings and I don’t, I don’t get it. Lisa truly cannot relate to this experience. Closely related to her voice of selectivity, is a voice of embrace. In selecting to turn away from her biological history, and toward the adoptive line of her story, she is fully embracing her adoptive family. Lisa recalls the time she travelled to Ellis Island in New York City to see where her Italian family first arrived in North America. She bought a cookbook there that she has brought to our interview as a symbol of her connection with her family. She explains: Those were my roots. You know, that’s where my Dad came from, that’s where my—you know—uncles and grandma came from. And it didn’t occur to me that I was adopted, that you know, that was my family. And so I thought that was a very fitting thing to share because it was very honest and sincere and how I feel about being adopted. That, you know, my family are the people that raised me. Ashley has also brought an artifact that represents her mom’s adoptive family. To Lisa’s surprise, Ashley shares a collection of family recipes—the ones Lisa grew up eating and then cooked for her own family. Ashley is acutely aware of how strongly her mom feels about embracing her adoptive family. She says, “her Italian family is her family and that’s that. And I think that she truly feels that way.” Ashley feels a bit differently herself. A gentle voice of curiosity emerges as Ashley expresses her interest in learning more about her biological heritage. It is not a loud voice, but feels like a heartfelt desire to connect with this part of her family’s adoption story. Ashley shares her wonderings with me: INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 79 I think the biggest thing was just kind of like wondering um, like different things like why I look a certain way, like why me and my brother are like so tall and my mom is like… 5 foot. Like she’s really, really small and my dad’s not tall and then on my dad’s side they’re not like really that tall so. And then I wonder other things like um, why is my hair a certain colour or just like curious about those things that like I’ll never really have the answer to. Um, yeah. And then also, even wondering kind of like um, uh like, just like my background on that side. You know, like what am I like Irish or like you know, little things like that… And me and my brother um kind of wonder like who like who our cousins are that we like don’t know. Although Ashley clearly speaks from a voice of curiosity, this does not resonate as a complete turn toward this part of her story. She tempers her curiosity by adding, “…as a kid it’s important um, now I don’t think it really has any effect on me um, yeah, and…as my mom said she’s never had the urge to like reach out.” Lisa holds fast to her claim that she has no desire to connect with her biological family, but does allow a very small voice of curiosity to come forth in regard to her medical history. She says: …as I get later in life I have some curiosity about my medical history…I would like to know more about my medical history for my children’s sake, because we do have some medical issues in our family. Nothing insurmountable, but you know, as, as you start to age, and you know, you have more health issues and um…and DNA is partially what defines you know, what kind of medical INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 80 conditions you’re going to have. So, I have curiosity about that. And um, you know a legitimate curiosity because there could be health implications. The voice of curiosity is where Lisa and Ashley truly disagree. In this disagreement, another voice arises. This is the voice of disconnect. The two women are each firm in their convictions around which parts of their family adoption story they are interested in. This sometimes makes it challenging for them to understand each other’s perspective. At one point in the interview, Lisa shares of how her sister was actually the biological niece of her adoptive mother. Ashley responds with, “Oh. So that’s, that’s something I didn’t know. Which would again, not be something, would be something she wouldn’t take the time to tell me about because that’s her sister. Whether it was her biological sister or not.” When considering that these details matter more to her than they seem to matter to her mom, Ashley adds, “I guess I…would have a different kind of perception of that, like I might think more about it than her.” Ashley’s level of interest in the stories and facts Lisa shares throughout the interview seems to perplex Lisa. She says, “I didn’t think she would even care about something like that.” By the end of our time together Lisa has gleaned some new insights: what I’ve learned from this uh experience is that my daughter actually has more interest in my biological relatives than I do. And, you know that’s important to me that she does so um, you know I would consider pursuing that on her behalf. Finding out who they are so she can get more information about who she is, biologically. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 81 She admits: I have um great love for my children and because they’ve asked me questions and they maybe want to know who their um biological cousins or aunts and uncles might be, you know, I have a little bit of guilt about not pursuing it for their sake, which I didn’t have before. Ashley seems unsure how to receive her mom’s offer to gather more information about their biological heritage. This appears to have taken her by surprise, and cannot fashion a response. I get the sense that while Ashley genuinely wants to learn more about her biological roots, she harbours no hard feelings toward her mom. The two of them agree on more than they disagree. One of the biggest lessons Lisa and Ashley have both learned from their family narrative of adoption is the notion that family does not necessarily need to be forged in blood. This is heard from both woman through the powerful voice of choice. This voice is both a turning-toward and a turning-away from adoption as a part of their story because, similar to the voice of selectivity, it speaks to an intentional decision about inclusion or exclusion. The voice of choice is about relationships and the notion that people can choose who they are in relationship with, and even who they consider to be family. Growing up, Lisa was told by her adoptive parents, “You were adopted…you’re really lucky because we chose you.” From a young age, Lisa was developing a core belief that “family are the people that you surround yourself with, the people that you love, and you may not be related to them.” Both Lisa and Ashley share about their pull toward welcoming people into their family. Ashley speaks of the importance of the friendships she has built over the years: INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 82 “I have like a, like a pretty um big but close like friend group and I like would do anything for them um, like I think of them as family…family doesn’t have to be blood.” Lisa has been known to welcome friends of her children into her home if ever they were in need. Or, as Ashley puts it, “she would take in strays.” Mother and daughter laugh at this idea, but ultimately agree on Lisa’s rationale: They were, they were children that needed a home and I had an opportunity to provide them one and I was very, very grateful to be able to do that so, pay it back I guess, yeah …Yeah. And I, I could appreciate how um, you know a child that needs a home um, doesn’t need to be judged or um, yeah doesn’t need to be judged. Lisa and Ashley tell a story of embracing their family narrative of adoption, despite having very different levels of interest in the biological line of their story. They share manu of the same voices, and also diverge at times. Below is an I-Poem I have composed from Lisa’s and Ashley’s own words. They speak for their selves, for each other, and for their collective self. Ashley’s voice appears first, in italicized text, followed by Lisa’s in regular type. she was like raised in that Italian um, kind of culture she would work like all day she’d still like always make us dinner we at least, we at least come together to like put food on our plates I didn’t give a second thought that they weren’t my family I was adopted You were adopted but you’re really lucky because we chose you I never felt like it was something that I should be ashamed of or should try to hide INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 83 I never really wanted to seek out my biological um parents I could have I had a very stable loving environment I had tons of Italian cousins and you know like a good family we don’t really talk about it that much because to me it’s not that big of a deal I never felt a need to go anywhere else to find my identity I wonder other things me and my brother um kind of wonder like who like who our cousins are she didn’t like share too much I think she’s just actually content I have memories of my biological father coming over to the house to visit me I had my own children I could understand that parent-child connection I truly believe that they gave me up for a better life. Um, and yeah so, I’m, I’m grateful for that I wondered what was different about my mom we didn’t talk a lot about it I think I just kind of knew I just wondered why she didn’t want to know who the biological people were I don’t think I asked too many questions she was like “This is my family and it doesn’t matter that I was adopted.” I just think it’s kind of a cool thing to remember I didn’t think she would even care about something like that INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 84 I don’t think family has to be blood she would take in strays my daughter actually has more interest in my biological relatives than I do I just wonder I kind of wish that I didn’t know I was adopted I don’t wish that anything were different um All 5 voices of Lisa and Ashley are supported by love and contentment. Their voices of selectivity, embrace, curiosity, disconnect, and choice all come from a place of love and acceptance. They may not always see things quite the same way, but it is apparent that they both deeply value family and are generally content with their narrative. From these two women we hear how the voices of adoption can differ through the generations, yet important beliefs around family not needing to be blood can carry forward from first- to second-generation adoptees. Mama Bear, Emily, and Hunter. Mama Bear, 56, initiated contact with me. She was a fitness professional and life coach. Her daughter Emily, 34, was a clinical oncology researcher. Her son Hunter, 28, worked as a creative and brand director. Mother and children were American, of European descent, and joined our interview via Zoom from 3 separate locations on the north-east coast USA. For her artifact, Mama Bear brought a photograph of herself and adoptive parents outside the adoption agency the year after they first brought her home. Emily’s artifact was an advent calendar that had been in her family for many years. Hunter brought 3 artifacts: his baby blanket, a perfume bottle from his mom, and a wrist watch from Mama Bear’s biological mom. The following is a summary of the story captured in our interview. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 85 Mother, daughter, and son join the video-call from 3 different locations on the north-east coast of the United States. They see each other’s faces and smile. Words fly out of them with fervor—they talk at each other and over each other, and seem to fullheartedly enjoy each other’s company. Their enthusiasm is infectious. They are a passionate family who treat each other with respect, and also know how to joke and tease. When I ask them for their preferred pseudonyms, the name Mama Bear is nonnegotiable. Things are off to a lively start. Mama Bear shares a rich story filled with gratitude and love. She was adopted as an infant and raised alongside her sister who was adopted from another family. Mama Bear adores her adoptive family. So much love and respect pour out of her as she talks about them, but she also holds space for everyone. As a young married woman about to start her own family, Mama Bear decided she wanted to find her birth family in order to fill in some gaps in her knowledge, especially for the sake of her children. She says: I had started because I got pregnant and I started looking because I said to my husband, I said, you know, I want to be able to pass down, I want to know what like, what I have you know, genetics. I wanted to know like what was, once I carried a child you know, and every time I go into the doctor’s I’d say I don’t know anything, I’m adopted. Within a few years, she and her biological mother had found each other. Despite the fact that their relationship turned out to be less ideal than Mama Bear had hoped for, they are still in touch to this day. Mama Bear fully embraces all aspects of her adoption narrative. “I truly believe in perception,” she says. She adds: INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 86 …it’s how you look at things and even to this day like, do I have a mother daughter relationship? No. But you know she’s some body that came into my life and I believe that I take that gift and I have a half-brother and I have a niece and nephew and, and more family! That’s it, it’s a good thing, can’t be bad. Emily and Hunter share this same warm voice of embrace as well. All three of them turn toward integrating adoption into their narratives by deeply valuing family and making space for everyone. This voice seems to come from three open and loving hearts. They are open to their own experiences, and to the adoptive experience in general. Hunter says: I don’t think that I’ve ever looked at anybody that’s been adopted um you know upon hearing that a friend has been adopted or is looking to adopt or anything like that and, and thought about that, thought about them in any way different and never looked at them as being disconnected from their parent in anyway. I always still looked at them as the child of the parent that I’ve met or produced them um…I just assume there’s nothing different about you because there’s really not. Emily adds: I think it just, further solidifies the idea that like blood doesn’t make a family and that you know being there for people and you know choosing to be close to people and being there for each other and just loving each other is what make a family. I think that like there’s just no other way, you know that we…I, I couldn’t even think of it in another way if I wanted to, like it was just, you know, so clear. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 87 In fact, Emily embraces adoption so much that she says: I am super open to adoption—I would absolutely adopt. I think for me I would see it as such a positive thing like not just in my immediate like nuclear family with my mom and brother but like you know with my aunts and uncles and cousins and stuff like to hear people talk about their just, you know, intense longing to be parents and not being able to do it and getting children like just adoption has just you know has always been and why wouldn’t it be just this wonderful and amazing gift that you know it just feels like it’s something that I could see myself doing. Although Hunter and Emily both embody the voice of embrace, they also speak from a gentle voice of distance at times. Having grown up with such a welcoming posture toward all familial connections—biological, adoptive, and otherwise—these two describe their family’s story of adoption as not being tremendously impactful. They both express that adoption is commonplace in their life, and perhaps is something they do not think about that often. Emily notes, “I have a lot of adopted people in my life like not even from my family, I have friends who are adopted like best friends who were adopted or married to someone who’s adopted.” She shrugs as though adoption is utterly ordinary. Hunter adds: I think that we’ve sort of always been raised to, to not judge anybody and just sort of be open to anything and everything you know. That’s just how my mother raised us down to you know, down to today I mean she told me today “be open,” you know and I just think that’s how we’ll always be. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 88 Emily agrees: It’s true, I mean there’s not you know we, we were raised in a very like you know very open and transparent way and not just you know like be nice to people that are different but so much so that I don’t really think there’s much in this world that I’m like—Oh this would be really impactful for my family. Like there’s not much I can come home with and be like—Hey! You know and they’d be like Oh my god! What are you talking about! Like I don’t think I can think of anything. The voice of distance is not a turning-away from adoption as a part of their family narrative, but a way of normalizing the experience as completely acceptable and not particularly distressing. There is only one time in which Emily turns away. This is in addressing the difference between the sort of relationship Mama Bear has with her biological mom, and the one she has herself with Mama Bear’s biological mom. Emily says: I think you and her have a relationship, I think you guys talk very often and I think that you have a relationship with her and that’s great. I think that she’s somebody that like, I have to remember to send a Christmas card to. Um and you know somebody that like I you know maybe ever hear from once or twice. There is a certain amount of disappointment and longing present as the three of them discuss Mama Bear’s biological mom. This is the voice of yearning. Mama Bear speaks with this voice when she shares about how much it meant to her to have her own biological children. She says, “I think that was a very big…it was the tie that I guess I was missing.” It was as though she never even realised she yearned for this until she had it. The voice of yearning comes through most notably, however, from Hunter and Mama INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 89 Bear as they turn toward this piece of their family story by accepting it, and still noticing something is missing. Mama Bear admits: I wanted the mother, I wanted her to be the mother right when she came in to my world I was like, oh my god…she’s going to give me a doll. And yet she was so, she’s very absent emotionally. Hunter also feels that sense of emotional disconnect. He says: …there have been instances of things said you know that sort of hinder, hinder my decision to attempt to build a closer relationship with that side, just in hearing my mom’s biological mother speak of you know her son’s children um where she refers to them much more specifically as her grandchildren you know and I think she does with us too because we are and she technically tries to use those terms and you know refer to us as her grandchildren and be proud of us in a way that a grandmother should be proud um, but I think that you know she’s, she’s made certain comments about her son’s children and they’re young, mind you, and you know obviously they’ve, she’s been with them the entire time, um but she also met us when we were young and even though she’s building a relationship with my mother, like I think at that point she sort of knew she was coming in and nothing was going to change like she wasn’t going to leave her life after that um, so, I always felt that we deserved that same courtesy and respect to really have a deeper connection with the grandmother who you know, obviously she lived across the country but I don’t think always made a full effort to you know to be a grandmother um, I think she did you know in the sense that she did all the things INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 90 that she’s supposed to do without looking bad but I don’t think she actually ever really made the effort. Mama Bear, Emily, and Hunter feel very differently about Mama Bear’s adoptive mom. When they speak of her, a heartfelt voice of admiration oozes out of them. With this voice they each turn toward adoption as a part of their narratives with love and respect for their adoptive mom (or grandma). It is clear that she holds a very special place in each of their hearts, and that she has played a big part in shaping them into the people they have become. Mama Bear tells a story of the first time her adoptive mother met her birth mother. On this day, her adoptive mom presented her biological mom with a photo album she had assembled over the years as Mama Bear was growing up. She had made it with Mama Bear’s birth mother in mind. Hunter captures the way they feel about this very special woman beautifully: I think looking back now um, one of the most important things that I think my mother has shared about her story is um is what my grandmother did with the album. I think that you know I have tremendous respect for my grandmother and I that think she’s always been like the kindest person, the most warm and welcoming person and like an inspiration of how humans should live and be to one another…and I think that you know my mother and my sister and I all try to be the best people we can be um at all times…I think if my mother had to [meet her child’s birth parent], would have done the same thing, I think my sister would have done the same thing and I think that I would do the same thing um, I think if we had to you know meet the biological parent of our child, like we would, we would create an album like that, all of us, and look to share those memories with INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 91 that person. So, I think it sort of speaks volumes…generationally because I think we’ve all sort of inherited you know that, that warmth. The love they all carry for Mama Bear’s adoptive mom is so strong and pure that Mama Bear is compelled to add: “That’s beautiful, I wish, I, I, I may want to keep this video. I think mom would love to see it. I think she would be balling just like me.” The voice of love is by far the loudest voice echoing through this family and down the generations. With this voice they all turn toward integrating adoption into their stories with acceptance and gratitude. They also turn toward each other—all members of their family, whether adoptive or biological. Mama Bear speaks to the love and gratitude she feels toward her birth mom, despite the limits of their relationship: I think, as an adoptee, like I honestly am so blessed…there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t really, really you know have so much gratitude that I was able to find out you know my roots and my past and you know because not knowing and, and I’m sure nobody, unless you’re adopted, understands this. It’s a very big disconnect…and I grew up in the best family environment, but there’s a very big um, missing piece to your heart, to your story to who you are, it is, it is a struggle like you know say for any adolescent, right, to find out who you are. But then being adopted and knowing, that’s another you know subject of it. So, I’m grateful. And then also the story behind it like I had a mother, a biological mother who wanted me. I know a lot of adoptees that didn’t have that great experience…as I say, I’m blessed. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 92 Of Mama Bear’s biological mom, Hunter says: I do consider her family, I don’t necessarily call her grandma all the time or anything like that and you know when I think about the family that I love and I cherish and you know I want to be with um, and you know that make me feel things and that show up for me that I would always show up for you know, this is it and my grandmother in Queens is it and you know what I mean? So those are the people who, who are constants in my life and you know who I hope to be a constant for in any time of need where they need me as well. Even reflecting on the experience of this interview, Mama Bear says: I think this conversation and this research that you’re doing and really I, it just struck me…now I think of like how it’s impacted me even to this day like I’m 56 years old and my children are, they know it’s important to me, they’re on this call with me like, I am so blessed you know so being adopted has only been good. Mama Bear, Emily, and Hunter construct a loving and passionate story of adoption. In our interview, they each brought artifacts that symbolized their shared history and love—photos and family heirlooms that represent both adoptive and biological lines of their adoption narrative. The three of them speak mostly from the same voices, and never from a voice they do not share with at least one other member. Below is an I-Poem I have composed from Mama Bear’s, Emily’s, and Hunter’s own words. They speak for their selves, for each other, for their mothers and grandmothers— both adoptive and biological, and for their collective self. Mama Bear’s voice appears first, then Emily’s in boldface, followed by Hunter’s in italicized text. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION I was adopted I don’t really know who I am I am so by myself I could have had a different life I’m so fortunate I can’t even believe I’m doing this. I, I feel, I feel blessed I had a really positive experience to be honest I wanted to know we did a little research and of course it was like dead end, dead end, dead end I did have a lot of anger afterwards for her she wanted to play mother I truly believe in perception I’m so grateful I’m super close with my grandmother we have a lot of people who are adopted in my family I have tremendous respect for my grandmother she’s always been like the kindest person I think we’ve all sort of inherited you know that warmth I think mom would love to see it, I think she would be balling just like me we saw our grandparents every single day she’s number one, she’s boss I am super open to adoption I would absolutely adopt I’m the same in that regard 93 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 94 I am so blessed I felt so connected to my children when I had them I think that was a very big…tie that I guess I was missing I don’t think she actually ever really made the effort I can completely understand your point of view I wanted her to be the mother she’s very absent emotionally I look at the gift in, in everything I think you’ve raised us to still know that family is family I think as an adoptee like I honestly am so blessed I grew up in the best family I’m grateful Underneath all 5 voices were consistent themes of family, love, and perception. Their voices of embrace, distance, yearning, admiration, and love come from a place of gratitude and appreciation for family. Mama Bear, Emily, and Hunter share a beautiful bond of love and support. They choose to see the positives in life, rather than focus on the negatives. This comes through powerfully in their appreciation for each other and their experiences as a family. At our follow-up, Mama Bear reflects on the experience and says, “Thank you for actually doing this study. It has been a privilege to be part of this study and such a gift for me to share this experience with my children too.” Mama Bear is equally excited to share the interview video with her adoptive mom to show her much love and respect they all have for her. I had been so moved by this request that I consulted with my research ethics board and created consent documents (see Appendices INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 95 L and M) for the release of a copy of the video into Mama Bear’s possession. From this family we hear how the voices of adoption can be passed down to second-generation adoptees who choose to receive the voices cherish them. Voices After becoming acquainted with the plot of the participants’ stories, and then listening for the voice of self, the third step of the listening guide method was to listen for contrapuntal voices. The research team analysed all interview transcripts according to the steps of the listening guide and identified a total of 11 overarching voices. These voices largely represented the participants’ stance toward emphasizing adoption as a prominent part of their individual personal story. Taken together, the 11 voices seemed to depict a spectrum of the participants’ orientations away from or toward adoption as a part of their narrative (see Figure 1). The voices that fall near the turning-away end of the spectrum are ones in which participants were heard to be cautious in how prominently they featured adoption as a part of their story. On the opposite end, voices of turning-toward were heard as participants claimed adoption as an integral part of their life story. In most families, participants embodied voices from both ends of this spectrum as they embraced some aspects of adoption and distanced their self from others. 96 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION Voices of Turning Away from Adoption as a Part of their Story  Restricted Curiosity  Selectivity Voices of Turning Toward Adoption as a Part of their Story  Distance  Disconnect  Yearning  Choice  Morality  Embrace  Conviction  Admiration  Love  Open Curiosity Figure 1. Spectrum of voices identified by the research team Through listening to the following 11 voices, we learned that there are varying degrees to which the participants chose to highlight adoption as a relevant and meaningful part of their own story. Many of the voices heard from first-generation adoptees were also heard from their children. Sometimes, however, second-generation adoptees had very different perspectives on how adoption has factored into their story. Voice of curiosity. Curiosity was present in every family interview to varying extents. The curiosity voice was each individual’s desire to learn more about their biological heritage, which included a number of topics from basic information related to medical records to actually cultivating and maintaining relationships with long lost family members. Yet, the voice of curiosity was different for each participant. In some instances, it was an expression of the individual turning away from adoption as a part of their story by restricting their interest. In other instance, it was an expression of turning toward adoption with varying degrees of wonder. Some participants merely hinted at a slight interest, while others shared of how they openly and passionately searched for their birth parents. As such, the voice of curiosity was heard on a spectrum across interviews. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 97 Voice of restricted curiosity. The voice of restricted curiosity was soft and tentative. Some participants—both first- and second-generation adoptees—noted they had no interest in their adoption story at all, while others expressed interest without a strong need to explore. Lisa, an adoptee herself, expressed that her adoption is of no meaningful consequence to her. “My daughter and my son know I was adopted,” she said, “although we don’t really talk about it that much because to me it’s not that big of a deal.” Her daughter Ashley, on the other hand, was very interested in learning more about the biological roots she shared with her mom. Her voice of curiosity fell much more to the open end of the curiosity spectrum as she shared about the questions she carries. She said: I think the biggest thing was just kind of like wondering um, like different things. Like why I look a certain way, like why me and my brother are like so tall and my mom is like…5 foot. Like she’s really, really small and my dad’s not tall. And then on my dad’s side they’re not like really that tall so. And then I wonder other things like um, why is my hair a certain colour, or just like curious about those things that like I’ll never really have the answer to. Um, yeah. And then also, even wondering kind of like um, uh like, just like my background on that side. You know, like what am I? Like Irish or like—you know, little things like that…And me and my brother um kind of wonder like who—like who our cousins are that we, like, don’t know. Although Ashley expressed a fair amount of curiosity, she also often tempered this voice by minimizing its impact on her. She reasoned that, “…as a kid it’s important INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 98 um, now I don’t think it really has any effect on me um, yeah, and…as my mom said she’s never had the urge to like reach out.” Lisa did not understand her daughter’s curiosity. The only piece of her biological history she had any interest in was her family’s medical records. She explained: …as I get later in life I have some curiosity about my medical history…I would like to know more about my medical history for my children’s sake, because we do have some medical issues in our family. Nothing insurmountable, but you know, as, as you start to age, and you know, you have more health issues and um…and DNA is partially what defines you know, what kind of medical conditions you’re going to have. So, I have curiosity about that. And um, you know a legitimate curiosity because there could be health implications. Debbie was another adoptee who expressed restricted interest in her biological heritage. For Debbie, the goal seemed to be about protecting and respecting the wishes of others, rather than defend against something. Her feelings of curiosity left her somewhat conflicted as she wrestled with whether or not she could make space for her questions. She said: I think it’s natural human nature to be curious and think oh, do I look like somebody else? You know…what is my heritage? You know, get to know the extended family… what has held me back is it could perhaps open a lot of wounds for people…on the other hand I think well maybe they’d be happy you know to reconnect, to know that I’ve had you know a very happy life and all of that, they might be relieved to hear all that and that the decision they made was INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 99 the right one…I would like to know what my um medical history is…So, is that a good enough reason to do it? I don’t know. So still kind of pondering that. Ruth and her two sons, Michael and James, also held their questions and curiosities with care. In this family, there seems to be a need to protect and move cautiously into knowing. For Ruth, this voice was soft and guarded. Throughout our interview, she spoke of a curiosity that seemed to develop slowly over the years. Initially she said of her adoption experience, “I was never really curious. I accepted it.” Later she added: I thought it would upset my mom and dad, my mom particular, if I were, you know, searching, that I think it would feel, she would have been hurt by that, which is partly why I, I never, I never searched early on. Ruth vacillated throughout the interview as to how curious she truly was about her biological history. As the interview progressed, her voice of curiosity strengthened and she shared about how she ended up searching for her birth family later in life. She said, “eventually, over the years you know…my curiosity got going.” Ruth’s sons both expressed a small amount of curiosity in their biological heritage. James recalled a time in which he had been travelling in England, visiting relatives: I had kind of a realization that, oh, well these aren’t actually blood relatives. Our relatives aren’t actually here, really, biologically I guess. But yeah, I mean it wasn’t like a jarring realization, really, it was more like oh, that’s kind of interesting, I wonder if there’s other areas of the world [laughs] with other INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 100 roots…it’s not like those roots I knew about they’re not relevant anymore, it’s more of a combination of everything. Ruth’s other son Michael, could also only recall one moment in which he had given his maternal biological heritage much consideration: I once remember coming out visit grandma and grandpa. We were at the airport…and I guess maybe we were talking about it not long before… sort of, oh Grandpa and Grandma aren’t mom’s biological parents. And then that was that was like, okay. Voice of open curiosity. Toward the other end of the spectrum, the voice of open curiosity was present in participants who spoke enthusiastically about everything they wished to know in regard to their biological heritage. Once again, even at this end of the spectrum, there was variation in how this voice was heard from each participant. Susan and Jackie spoke easily about their family adoption narratives. Neither expressed interest in contacting their biological family, or searching for more information than they already had, but both were moved by what they knew of their story and the meaningful ways they shared it within their mother-daughter relationship. Ruth smiled as she talked about how special it was to receive information from the adoption registry about the process of her adoption: I guess with the adoption…my life started at 4 months. That’s, the memories and the pictures and the baby photos and all the stories all started at 4 months. And all the sudden with this, when this arrived, it got to start from the beginning. Jackie looks over at her mom’s package of information with wondering eyes and says, “it is fascinating to be able to uh, to look into my mom’s beginnings.” INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 101 Olivia, a second-generation adoptee, was committed to exploring and understanding the ways in which her family adoption narrative has impacted her mom, and aunts and uncles, as they grew up together with adoptive parents. Her curiosity was motivated by improving the present, believing the past to be contributing to current struggles. The voice of curiosity was strong as she expressed how important it was to her to learn more about how adoption has played a part in shaping her family: I can see how it’s affected certain family members. And as I’ve you know, picked up on certain information that’s been told to me I hate that there’s this unspoken…I think it would be nice if it was just put out there and people got help. Another adoptee, who affectionately refers to herself as Mama Bear, started searching for her birth family in her early adulthood. She said: I got pregnant and I started looking because I said to my husband, I said, you know, I want to be able to pass down, I want to know what like, what I have you know—genetics. I wanted to know like what was, once I carried a child you know…every time I go into the doctor’s I’d say I don’t know anything, I’m adopted. For Mama Bear, it was important to her to be able to pass on as much information to her children as she could. Her daughter Emily was interested in her family’s adoption narrative, but particularly from the perspective of her adoptive grandma. She recalls intimate conversations between the two of them. She shared one instance in particular: INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 102 I remember being on vacation with my grandmother and we like just started talking about her side of like the struggle she went through, was trying to get pregnant and not working, and like a whole other perspective on like what led up to their adoption like you know and hearing like what was it like you know um, you know finding out that you were getting a baby and then what happened next and just having that sort of perspective you know maybe thinking of it a different way, this isn’t something that just happened to like my mom, it happened to them too in a different way and just you know hearing the whole story. Voice of selectivity. The voice of selectivity was heard more frequently amongst those participants who seemed to be more cautious about their curiosities. The research team heard this as the individual narrowing in on elements of their narrative they deemed most important. With this voice, participants seemed to turn away from some aspects of their adoption story. It was used by several of the adoptee participants, but was seldom heard from second-generation participants. Jackie and Susan spoke with very similar voices of selectivity. They were inclined to speak of that for which they were grateful, and devote less time and attention to the more difficult elements their stories. Susan’s voice of selectivity was often heard in expressions such as “another small side note”, which seemed designed to help her move on more quickly from stories she did not wish to expand on. As Ruth shared her own adoption story, she hesitated around some points of her story—unsure of their relevance. She frequently used phrases such as “But that’s not exactly related to this,” or “[there is] an ending to the story which is not related to this.” Ruth’s voice of selectivity was heard primarily in relation to parts of her story that INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 103 included the half-sister she has found in more recent years. Her two sons also spoke from a voice of selectivity in which they mostly turned away from the biological threads of their family adoption story, and turn instead toward their adoptive family. For Lisa, the voice of selectivity was used to emphasize her stance that her adoptive family and their heritage was paramount to her individual personal story. The artifact that Lisa shared during our interview was a recipe book she had purchased at Ellis Island when she travelled there to learn about her adoptive family’s arrival in North America. As she reflected on her visit to the immigration museum she said: Those were my roots. You know, that’s where my Dad came from, that’s where my—you know—uncles and grandma came from. And it didn’t occur to me that I was adopted, that you know, that was my family. And so I thought that was a very fitting thing to share because it was very honest and sincere and how I feel about being adopted. That, you know, my family are the people that raised me. Lisa finds it challenging to grasp other adult adoptees who are less content in their adoptive families. She said: I see so many instances of people that don’t feel fulfilled until they find their biological family. And, in particular, in the media and even with some of the um people that I know—friends and acquaintances that have been adopted—that, you know, are just tortured trying to find their biological parents or trying to find their biological siblings. And I don’t, I don’t get it. Lisa feels such a sense of belonging in her adoptive family that she does not like to focus on her adoption at all. She said, “it’s not something I talk about unless I’m asked about because in my opinion it’s really irrelevant.” Even at our follow-up interview, it was INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 104 important to Lisa that she had the opportunity to emphasize that her adoption does not matter to her. Lisa chooses to focus in on her adoptive family as central to her own narrative. Voice of distance. The voice of distance was heard when participants spoke of their family adoption narrative in a more objective manner. This voice was used in different ways for each participant who embodied it, but was heard as a turning away from emphasizing the impact of adoption on their story. This was sometimes heard as a superficial connection or even a detachment from at least certain aspects of adoption. For other participants, the voice of distance could be heard as normalizing the concept of adoption. All participants were well accustomed to the idea of adoption. The firstgeneration adoptees each had 1 or more siblings who were also adopted, as well as members of their extended families and social circles. The second-generation adoptees were also familiar with adoptees other than their parents—be it members of their extended family or their own friends. In this regard, the voice of distance sounded like “so what?” to the concept of adoption. A number of participants used this very phrasing to signify that adoption was commonplace in their lives. Ruth and her two sons, Michael and James, did not discuss adoption much as a family. Ruth recalled that while she was growing up there were many adoptees in her familial and community circles. She recounted one instance in which, in a room full of teenagers, “my sister was the only one who was not adopted.” Adoption was very commonplace in her world. For her sons, the voice of distance sounded more like feeling removed from the story. James said, “I didn’t really think about it that much, um, but INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 105 just sort of a fact of our family. Um, it doesn’t really come up that much.” His brother agreed saying, “it is what it is right?’ Second-generation adoptees Emily and Hunter grew up in a family that embraced both adoptive and biological family members. For them, holding a welcoming posture toward all familial connections was the norm. Adoption has always been a common part of their story. As Emily put it, “I have a lot of adopted people in my life like not even from my family, I have friends who are adopted like best friends who were adopted, or married to someone who’s adopted.” She added: …we were raised in a very like you know very open and transparent way and not just you know like be nice to people that are different but so much so that I don’t really think there’s much in this world that I’m like—Oh this would be really impactful for my family. Like there’s not much I can come home with and be like—Hey! You know and they’d be like Oh my god! What are you talking about! Like I don’t think I can think of anything. Hunter agreed, “we’ve sort of always been raised to, to not judge anybody and just sort of be open to anything and everything, you know.” In addition to the voice of distance being used to normalize adoption, Emily also used it in the same way as Michael and James did to signify being somewhat removed from the story. Emily compared her mom’s relationship with her biological mom to her own relationship with her maternal biological grandmother: I think you and her have a relationship, I think you guys talk very often and I think that you have a relationship with her and that’s great. I think that she’s somebody that like, I have to remember to send a Christmas card to. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 106 Lisa’s voice of distance was so strong as she talked about having been adopted that she bemoaned the idea that anyone should be interested in her adoption at all: People are curious and keep asking and I’m like “why is it important to you? It’s not important to me?”…you know, just sort of the day to day stuff and the reaction that people have is usually like “Wow I didn’t know you were adopted!”…Like okay, it’s not a wow moment [laughing]. She went so far as to say: I kind of wish that I didn’t know I was adopted…Yeah. I, I kind of wish that my parents had kept that from me so that it wouldn’t even be something you know we’d even have to like discuss or answer, would just be um, a complication, a little twist in my life that would go away. Because it truly is irrelevant to me, but it seems to be relevant to everybody else. Debbie used the voice of distance to distinguish her adoptive experience from those of her adoptive siblings. In this way, Debbie distanced herself from the broader family narrative of adoption shared by her and her three adopted siblings. She held that the family story did not apply to her directly. She talked about how she had a very different sort of relationship with her parents than did her brothers and sister, “I was easily um, willing to accept their parental guidance and do what I was told, and kind of um follow the, kind of the straight path, let’s put it that way.” She said the other three struggled a lot more, but holds that her personal adoptive experience was positive. Voice of disconnect. The voice of disconnect concerns the relationship between first- and second-generation adoptees. In the majority of this study’s participant families, parent and child held the same or similar understanding of their family adoption narrative. They were largely in agreement on how adoption had impacted their family. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 107 In two instances, however, there was discord. Not only did these first- and secondgeneration adoptees feel differently about their family narrative, but they also struggled to understand each other’s perspective. As such, a voice of disconnect between parent and child was heard. In both of these families, the adoptee participant had notably less interest in certain aspects of their adoption story than did their child. The voice of disconnect was neither a turning away nor a turning toward in and of itself; rather it was a voice of tension as to whether their family ought to turn toward or away from particular parts of adoption as a part of their narrative. Debbie and Olivia were two such participants. Olivia, the second-generation adoptee, was adamant that she saw negative impacts of adoption within their family that Debbie would not acknowledge. Debbie responded, “when I hear you say that, that um, I don’t necessarily agree with that.” There was tension in the room when the two would disagree. Debbie felt very warmly toward her adoptive family, and wished to pass down her embrace of this family to her daughter. She spoke of the traditional pierogi recipe passed down through the generations, and lamented the fact that she would not be able to pass it on to her daughter due to her vegan diet. Debbie said, “So, well with Olivia, she she won’t uh be carrying the torch I guess which is, you know, sad for me but I understand at the same time.” Olivia replied with, “I mean, I think it could be very easily tweaked but they’re very attached to this recipe.” Mother and daughter kept missing each other as they tried to connect. For Lisa and Ashley, there was no overt tension when the voices of disconnection emerged, and yet the voice was loud. Ashley expressed interest in learning more about her mom’s birth family, and Lisa was vehemently uninterested. There were several INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 108 instances throughout the interview in which Lisa shared stories that Ashley had not heard before, but found compelling. This seemed to surprise Lisa, “I didn’t think she would even care about something like that.” Ashley responded with phrases such as, “I guess I…would have a different kind of perception of that, like I might think more about it than her.” Ashley continued to express curiosity about her and her mom’s biological heritage. By the end of the interview Lisa said: What I’ve learned from this uh experience [the interview] is that my daughter actually has more interest in my biological relatives than I do. And, you know that’s important to me that she does. So, um, you know I would consider pursuing that on her behalf. Finding out who they are so she can get more information about who she is, biologically. At this point, Lisa’s and Ashley’s voices of disconnect seemed a fair bit quieter. Voice of choice. Choice was a voice that seemed to emerge in the middle of the spectrum between turning toward and turning away from adoption as an impactful part of their story. This voice was similar to the voice of selectivity in that it spoke to an intentional decision about inclusion or exclusion of aspects within their story. Whereas the voice of selectivity was about restricting elements of the story itself, the voice of choice was certain with an empowered sense of deciding specifically on relationships. This voice was featured prominently in one family narrative. For Lisa and Ashley, their family story of adoption had showed them how strong a family could be, even without the bond of a biological connection. Mother and daughter saw family as a choice. Ashley spoke of one biological aunt of hers that she believed “she really probably doesn’t care about me at all.” She said, “the aunt that I like INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 109 the most is just like my mom’s best friend.” Ashley firmly asserted, “I don’t think family has to be blood.” She has even assembled her own family as an adult, through this very act of choice. She said, “I have like a, like a pretty um big but close like friend group and I like would do anything for them um, like I think of them as family.” Lisa grew up full-heartedly believing that, “my family are the people that raised me.” Her adoptive parents told her as a young child that she was special because they had chosen her to be a part of their family. Lisa internalized this as she moved forward through life, “to me family are the people that you surround yourself with, the people that you love, and you may not be related to them.” She has always been very hospitable and has even welcomed friends of her children to live with them when they were in need. Lisa’s rationale was: They were, they were children that needed a home and I had an opportunity to provide them one and I was very, very grateful to be able to do that so, pay it back I guess, yeah …Yeah. And I, I could appreciate how um, you know a child that needs a home um, doesn’t need to be judged or um, yeah doesn’t need to be judged. Voice of yearning. The voice of yearning was heard as some participants turned toward their family adoption story—accepting what is, while still longing for something different. Many of the adoptee participants shared that having a biological connection with their children seemed to fill in a piece they may not have even realized was missing beforehand. They all expressed that the lack of biological connection with their adoptive families was of no consequence to them. For the most part, participants believed that shared history is what mattered most in a family. When it came to their own children, INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 110 however, there seemed to be something very meaningful in having a biological connection with their own children. Mama Bear said that she felt such a strong connection to her children when they were born. She said, “I think that was a very big…it was the tie that I guess I was missing.” Ruth felt similarly about her own two sons: I’m…glad that I have children, then at least you two are you know, related to me. Because at that time I never ever thought that I’d ever search or find or… Which is why I was really glad to have at least one and then thank goodness two people on earth that were related to me by blood. I guess that was important to me. The voice of yearning came through from Mama Bear and Hunter when they spoke of their limited relationships with Mama Bear’s biological mother. There was a sense of disappointment as they accepted her for who she was, but also longed for more. Mama Bear said: I wanted the mother, I wanted her to be the mother right when she came in to my world I was like, oh my god…she’s going to give me a doll. And yet she was so—she’s very absent emotionally. Hunter also expressed a similar sense of emotional absence from her. He said: …there have been instances of things said you know that sort of hinder, hinder my decision to attempt to build a closer relationship with that side. Just in hearing my mom’s biological mother speak of, you know, her son’s children um—where she refers to them much more specifically as her grandchildren, you know. And I think she does with us too, because we are, and she technically tries to use those terms and, you know, refer to us as her grandchildren and be proud INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 111 of us in a way that a grandmother should be proud. Um, but I think that, you know she’s, she’s made certain comments about her son’s children—and they’re young, mind you, and you know obviously they’ve, she’s been with them the entire time, um but she also met us when we were young. And even though she’s building a relationship with my mother, like I think at that point she sort of knew she was coming in and nothing was going to change like she wasn’t going to leave her life after that. Um, so, I always felt that we deserved that same courtesy and respect to really have a deeper connection with the grandmother who, you know—obviously she lived across the country, but I don’t think always made a full effort to, you know, to be a grandmother. Um, I think she did, you know, in the sense that she did all the things that she’s supposed to do without looking bad, but I don’t think she actually ever really made the effort. Voice of morality. The voice of morality was one of turning toward the adoption as an important part of their family narrative. In doing so, the individuals found that they learned an important lesson from their story, and they then internalized this lesson as a moral value. This voice was concerned with ideas of right and wrong decisions and actions in relation to adoption. Morality came across very strongly from one motherdaughter dyad in particular: Susan and Jackie. Susan and Jackie, who are first- and second-generation adoptees respectively, both used this voice consistently throughout our interview. Susan interspersed her adoption narrative with her values around making honourable decisions, and her beliefs about the sanctity of life. She spoke of what a good woman her biological mom was for the decisions she made in regard to her pregnancy. She said, “my…father does not know INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 112 that I was conceived. He was married and she didn’t want to hurt his family…she did not want to break up a family because of [the pregnancy].” In regard to the adoption itself, Susan said: I’m very…very impressed, very respectful, um a little bit in awe because having two girls of my own, carrying a child to term and then saying I cannot properly raise this child, I’m going to put this child in to the adoption system…I don’t know how you do that. I don’t know what kind of strength it would take to do that. That’s rather remarkable. She thought of abortion as the alternative and marvelled, “if it had been as prevalent back in ‘56 as it is now, there’s a very strong possibility that I would not have been here.” Susan did not like this possibility. Jackie reflected back these same values in her own understanding of their family adoption narrative: Really respect[s] the fact that [Susan’s] birth mom was able to go through bringing a baby to term and still, you know, giving it to a good home. And recognizing that she wasn’t able to um, she wasn’t able to do it herself but still wanted my mom to have life obviously. At our follow-up interview, Ruth, an adoptee herself, noted that the voice of morality resonated with her as well: Morality does resonate with me. People of my generation and earlier are aware of the shame of being an unwed mother and that, for the sake of the child, it was far better to relinquish, even though very difficult. Attitudes have changed over time. There is some financial support from the government now, the stigma is INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 113 not what it once was but I, personally, do still feel that adoption is by far the best option for a child to be raised in a stable home. Voice of embrace. This voice was one of fully turning toward adoption as a part of their family story. The participants who spoke with a voice of embrace claimed their family adoption story as an important part of their own life narrative. With this voice, these participants also asserted that their adoptive family was their true family. Sometimes, this was heard as a turning-away from their biological roots in favour of their adoptive heritage, and in other instances there was room for both lineages. In all occurrences of the voice of embrace, participants regarded the concept of adoption as positive. Several even acknowledged that they would consider adopting children themselves. Susan, a first-generation adoptee, expressed feeling very grateful for her adoptive experience: I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve always been wanted. Um, my mother wanted me enough and brought me to term knowing she couldn’t raise me, she put me into the adoption system. My adoptive mom and dad wanted me and brought me and joined me into their family…And then they passed when I was 12. And when I was 13 another family brought me in…I’ve never known anything but welcoming families. Debbie, another first-generation adoptee, spoke fondly of her adoptive family, “I feel just so privileged to have grown up in the family that I have, and I think it’s amazing of my parents to have adopted 4 children.” She shared a family recipe that has been passed down through the generations that she feels honoured to be a part of. She said, INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 114 “they’re one of our family’s favourite foods to eat and we do them as a family… three generations of people involved.” By the size of her smile and warm tone of her voice, it was clear this tradition meant a lot to her. First-generation adoptee, Ruth, had done a search for her birth family in more recent years. Through the process she found a half-sister and has stayed in contact with her. As grateful as Ruth was for this new connection, she maintained that “family is the family you were raised with.” Her son Michael agrees that family is made through shared history. Ruth went on to explain just how content she was growing up in her adoptive family: I was included with the others. And the funny thing is, I almost feel of like three granddaughters…I almost feel as if I was the favoured granddaughter, just because I think I clicked with grandma so much. I didn’t live in the same town, so she didn’t see me as much [laughs]. But, no it’s funny how I felt with her. Totally, totally accepted…And the whole family just treated me like all the others. I was just one of the family. Lisa was another first-generation adoptee who believed “my family are the people that raised me.” Her voice of embrace was so strong that she visited the immigration museum on Ellis Island in New York City to see where her family first arrived in North America without a second thought to the idea that this was not her biological heritage. To her, that made no difference at all. She said: Those were my roots. You know, that’s where my Dad came from, that’s where my—you know—uncles and grandma came from. And it didn’t occur to me that INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 115 I was adopted, that you know, that was my family…it was very honest and sincere and how I feel about being adopted. First-generation adoptee Mama Bear has had a relationship with her biological mother for most of her adult life. Through the voice of embrace, she expressed how she is grateful for all aspects of her adoption story, including how it continues to unfold in present day with her children. She said: I think this conversation and this research…was really interesting. I said you know the attention is always on the adoptee but what about the children, grown children and knowing you know and my story is great and the story in our family is great but…now I think of like how it’s impacted me even to this day like I’m 56 years old and my children are, they know it’s important to me, they’re on this call with me like, I am so blessed you know so being adopted has only been good. Her children talked about how the have received this voice of embrace. Emily said: …blood doesn’t make a family…being there for people and you know choosing to be close to people and being there for each other and just loving each other is what makes a family. I think that like there’s just no other way, you know that we… I, I couldn’t even think of it in another way if I wanted to, like it was just, you know, so clear. Hunter added: I don’t think that I’ve ever looked at anybody that’s been adopted…and thought about that, thought about them in any way different and never looked at them as being disconnected from their parent in anyway. I always still looked at them as INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 116 the child of the parent that I’ve met…I just assume there’s nothing different about you because there’s really not. Emily took this voice of embrace one step further: I am super open to adoption—I would absolutely adopt. I think for me I would see it as such a positive thing like not just in my immediate like nuclear family with my mom and brother but like you know with my aunts and uncles and cousins and stuff like to hear people talk about their just, you know, intense longing to be parents and not being able to do it and getting children like just adoption has just you know has always been and why wouldn’t it be just this wonderful and amazing gift. Voice of conviction. The voice of conviction came through very strongly for one participant in particular. It was a voice that passionately turned toward adoption as an impactful component of their family narrative. This voice belonged to Olivia. As a second-generation adoptee, she believed she could see her mother’s adoption story from a different perspective. She believed she saw impacts of adoption on her family that her mom—the adoptee—did not acknowledging herself. From her unique vantage point, Olivia observed her mom and her mom’s adopted siblings with a critical eye: I’m starting to put things more together in my family and my mom’s side of the family and seeing that there’s been a lot of like pain there and I know she describes it as being really nice and she’s grateful for the opportunities, which I think you were given a lot of amazing opportunities in the family that you were adopted into, I don’t deny that, but I think there’s also been a lot of pain on that INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 117 side that family as well, which doesn’t go acknowledged very often and that bothers me Olivia felt she needed to speak to this. She said, “I think maybe [my mom] also went through some hard times and doesn’t acknowledge that and pushes that part down.” For Olivia, this was typical. She said, “that’s kind of the culture of our family, to not talk about things really openly because we don’t want to cause people to be upset.” As a consequence of this family culture, Olivia felt that important conversations they could have been having as a family were instead “constantly brushed under the rug.” Olivia kept coming back to these same points throughout the interview. It was important to her to have Debbie understand her perspective. She said it was something that she felt very strong about. Voice of admiration. The voice of admiration was heard when participants expressed profound appreciation for the decisions that their adoptive and biological parents (or grandparents) made in order to give them the life for which they are so grateful. With this voice, the participants turned fully toward adoption as a meaningful part of their story. Through their great admiration, the participants were honoured to carry with them their family story of adoption. Susan expressed complete wonder over how her biological mother could have gone through all she did to give Susan the life she has. She said: I’m very…very impressed, very respectful, um a little bit in awe because having two girls of my own, carrying a child to term and then saying—I cannot properly raise this child, I’m going to put this child into the adoption system—I don’t INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 118 know how you do that. I I don’t know what kind of strength it would take to do that. That’s rather remarkable. Her daughter Jackie has received this voice of admiration and continues to carry it forward. She said: I’m very much of the opinion that all life is cherished and essential so I really really respect the fact that [my mom’s] birth mom was able to go through bringing a baby to term and still, you know, giving it to a good home. And recognizing that she wasn’t able to um, she wasn’t able to do it herself but still wanted my mom to have life obviously. Another first-generation adoptee, Debbie, expressed similar sentiments about her own birth mother: a woman who’s decided to put up her baby for adoption, go through her whole term of pregnancy, I think that is an amazing thing, right. That especially in this day and age that someone, having the option to get an abortion so easily, has chosen to do that, just says a tremendous amount about that person as a human being, right. Debbie’s voice of admiration also extended to her adoptive parents as she said, “I think it’s amazing of my parents to have adopted 4 children, right. Like I just think—wow, who does that, right?” Mama Bear, Emily, and Hunter spoke with a powerful and heartfelt voice of admiration when they shared their feelings about Mama Bear’s adoptive mom. She means a lot to all three of them. When she finally met Mama Bear’s birth mom, once Mama Bear was an adult, she presented her with a photo album she had made for her of INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 119 Mama Bear growing up. Mama Bear was visibly moved as she shared this story and said, “I don’t know how people are that courageous.” Hunter did a beautiful job describing the way he and his sister have received this voice of admiration in regard to their grandma: I think looking back now um, one of the most important things that I think my mother has shared about her story is um is what my grandmother did with the album. I think that you know I have tremendous respect for my grandmother and I that think she’s always been like the kindest person, the most warm and welcoming person and like an inspiration of how humans should live and be to one another…and I think that you know my mother and my sister and I all try to be the best people we can be um at all times…I think if my mother had to [meet her child’s birth parent], would have done the same thing, I think my sister would have done the same thing and I think that I would do the same thing um, I think if we had to you know meet the biological parent of our child, like we would, we would create an album like that, all of us, and look to share those memories with that person. So, I think it sort of speaks volumes…generationally because I think we’ve all sort of inherited you know that, that warmth. Voice of love. The voice of love was the ultimate expression of turning toward adoption as an integral part of their family narrative. This was more than merely embracing their story. The voice of love spoke to how the participants cherished their familial relationships and all they shared in embracing their adoption narrative together. There were two families in which the voice of love permeated their entire story. This INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 120 voice sparkled above all the others that comprised their shared family narrative of adoption. Susan and Jackie radiated love. As a first-generation adoptee, Susan was honoured to embrace, carry, and pass down her adoption narrative. She said: I never felt anything but proud that my birth mother took me to term, [my parents] adopted me and you know, twice it happened, another family brought me in…so you know…what’s not to be encouraged, what’s not to feel you know, heartened by? The love she expressed for her two daughters was even stronger. She spoke of the special bond they shared since they were her “true and first and absolute blood relatives.” Susan said, “they’re my girls so it’s hard to be much more special than that but given my past they are my only true and known blood relatives.” Jackie became very emotional at this sentiment, and added that “Being someone’s only living blood relative is pretty important.” Susan explained that the two of them are learning alongside each other as they move through life. “We journey together,” Susan says. Mama Bear, Emily, and Hunter regarded each other and their family adoption narrative with incredible amounts of love. Hunter shared of the profound love they all have for Mama Bear’s adoptive mom: I think that you know I have tremendous respect for my grandmother and I that think she’s always been like the kindest person, the most warm and welcoming person and like an inspiration of how humans should live and be to one another. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 121 He added that he believed the three of them had all received and embodied this spirit of love. He said, “I think it sort of speaks volumes generally, generationally because I think we’ve all sort of inherited you know that, that warmth.” Not only did Mama Bear share about her deep love for her adoptive mom, but she also spoke of the love and appreciation she has for her birth mother, despite the lack of intimacy in their relationship: I think, as an adoptee, like I honestly am so blessed…there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t really, really you know have so much gratitude that I was able to find out you know my roots and my past and you know because not knowing and, and I’m sure nobody, unless you’re adopted, understands this. It’s a very big disconnect…and I grew up in the best family environment, but there’s a very big um, missing piece to your heart, to your story to who you are, it is, it is a struggle like you know say for any adolescent, right, to find out who you are. But then being adopted and knowing, that’s another you know subject of it. So, I’m grateful. And then also the story behind it like I had a mother, a biological mother who wanted me. I know a lot of adoptees that didn’t have that great experience…as I say, I’m blessed. Mama Bear was grateful that she had the opportunity to develop a robust understanding of her adoption narrative. She felt just as much love for her children and her whole adoptive experience as well: INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 122 …now I think of like how it’s impacted me even to this day like I’m 56 years old and my children are, they know it’s important to me, they’re on this call with me like, I am so blessed you know so being adopted has only been good. Hunter captured the spirit of the love this family shares: when I think about the family that I love and I cherish and you know I want to be with um, and you know that make me feel things and that show up for me that I would always show up for you know, this is it and my grandmother in Queens is it and you know what I mean? So those are the people who, who are constants in my life and you know who I hope to be a constant for in any time of need where they need me as well. Summary of Stories and Voices Through the 11 voices identified in this study, we were able to reflect on the initial research questions. The questions guiding this project were as follows: what are the intergenerational voices of adoption? What voices are heard in the passing down of an adoption story? What voices are heard in the adoptees? What voices are heard in the adult children encountering their parents’ narratives? In each of the participant family stories we learned that the degree to which an individual embraces adoption as a part of their story existed on a spectrum. Adoption—as an integral piece of their family story— was never accepted or rejected as a whole, rather family members seemed to turn toward some aspects and away from others. The members of a family did not always agree, either. For the most part, second-generation adoptees chose to receive the voices they inherited from their first-generation adoptee parent. In some families, however, the second-generation adoptees developed their own understanding of their family adoption INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 123 story, and thus spoke from some of their own voices not shared with their parent. The differences between generations of each family are highlighted in Table 2. 124 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION Table 2 Comparisons of First- and Second-Generation Voices Voice Family 1 Family 2 Family 3 Family 4 Curiosity Both First Both Both Selectivity Both Both First Distance First Disconnect Both Both Second Both Choice Both Yearning Morality Family 5 First Both First Embrace First Conviction First Admiration Both Love Both First, Second* First Both First Both Both Both Note. Both = First and Second generation shared this voice. First = First Generation only. Second = Second Generation only. Family 1= Susan and Jackie, Family 2 = Debbie and Olivia, Family 3 = Ruth, Michael and James, Family 4 = Lisa and Ashley, Family 5 = Mama Bear, Emily and Hunter. *Only 1 of the Second generation shared this voice with the First generation. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 125 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION We are fundamentally homo narrans—humans as storytellers—and a well-told story brings with it a sense of fulfillment and of completion (Goodall, 2005, p. 497) Overview of this Study The purpose of this study was to listen for the largely unheard voices of adult adoptees and their children, as the respective tellers and recipients of adoption narratives. The projected was guided by the following research questions: what are the intergenerational voices of adoption? What voices are heard in the passing down of an adoption story? What voices are heard in the adoptees? What voices are heard in the adult children encountering their parents’ narratives? Current literature on the adoptive experience suggests that adoptees often face complications related to matters of security, belonging, and identity (Colaner et al., 2014; Grotevant et al., 2017; Kalus, 2016; Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011; Von Korff et al., 2006), and it is reasonable to expect that some of these struggles may sometimes persist into adulthood (Penny et al., 2007). Yet there remains little exploration into the experiences of adult adoptees. This omission in the literature is of interest to the field of counselling psychology because there are many adult adoptees who may still be trying to make sense of their adoption narrative and find ways to heal or grow from their experiences. Research on narrative inheritance demonstrates that family stories passed down through the generations can help people begin to understand their own life and identity through the context of the people who came before them (Goodall, 2005) because everything that happened before has an impact on what is to follow (Ballard & Ballard, 2011). Many things can be passed down through the generations of a family—from INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 126 family values to family legacy and identity. Often these are passed down by way of storytelling (Pratt et al., 2008; Thompson et al., 2009). It could be argued, based on the findings of this study, that adoption stories are a form of narrative inheritance that adoptees pass on to their children, and this exchange may play a part in shaping both generations. In this study we heard from 5 families. Each family consisted of 1 female adoptee and 1 or 2 of her biological children. It is important to note that all of the adoptees reported that they had had favourable adoptive experiences. This fits with the current literature on protective factors for adoptees. Research shows that open communication styles within the adoptee’s adoptive family, as well as the adoptee having access to information about their birth family, can help to mitigate some of the adoptee’s struggles related to their adoption experience (Brodzinsky, 2006; Horstman et al., 2016; Von Korff et al., 2006; Wrobel et al., 1996). All 5 adoptees in this study described growing up with a good deal of openness around their adoption story. This is a posture they have all carried forward with their own children as well. In this regard, the second-generation adoptees were also of interest to this study. They are important because, through narrative inheritance, they simultaneously serve a role being a recipient of their parent’s adoption story while also constructing their own story; sometimes the stories converged and echoed their parents’, sometimes the stories, and the voices heard in the stories, were discordant. For this reason, this project also served a starting point for understanding what needs to be asked about second-generation adoptees in future research. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 127 This study embraced a feminist relational orientation situated within a moderate constructivist paradigm because of the inherent relational nature of story co-construction and sharing. The listening guide method was used because it allows for an in-depth exploration of voices and relationship (Gilligan et al., 2003). Adoptees and their families had not been politically oppressed, but their stories tend to lie more to the periphery in society. As such, this study was primarily positioned within a constructivist framework, but retained a feminist perspective for use during data analysis. My original expectation that themes of exclusion or stigmatization might come up in some of the stories about adoption did arise, but in an unexpected way. The participants did not speak of adoption as a marginalizing experience itself, but asserted that inaccurate assumptions were typically made about the perceived pains and detriments associated with adoption. All of the participants—particularly the first-generation adoptees—referred to their family adoption story as being favourable, and that this was counter to our society’s stereotype of adoptive experiences. Thus, they often felt misunderstood. These participants wanted it known that adoption does not always lead to hardship and heartache, but often is a wonderfully positive experience for the whole family. The hope for this study was to be able to provide valuable insights into the voices of adult adoptees and their children, so that clinicians and lay people alike may begin to develop an understanding of the intergenerational voices of adoption and the potential of storytelling to foster growth and healing. By listening for intergenerational voices of adoption, we began to develop an understanding of the opportunity that storytelling offered these adult female adoptees for developing new understandings and relational connections through sharing with their INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 128 children. From these 5 families, we noticed that there were common threads in the firstand second-generation adoptee narratives from each family. In the spirit of narrative inheritance (Ballard & Ballard, 2011; Goodall, 2005; McNay, 2009), parents passed their adoption stories down to their own children so that they could understand this piece of their family narrative. In most of the participant families, this act did not seem to be an intentional decision to share a particular story, but more of a family fact that was simply known by everyone. The second-generation adoptees had knowledge of their family adoption narratives for as long as they could remember. The first- and second-generation adoptees of each family shared many of the same voices, but there were some distinctions between generations. The mother-child bonds featured prominently in all of the families as this was the context in which the stories were shared. All the families appeared to have open communication around their adoption narrative, and both generations consider their family narrative of adoption to have value There were also some common themes across family interviews. All 5 of the adoptees had at least one adopted sibling and came from an extended family, or larger community, in which adoption was quite commonplace. Almost all families made mention of adoption being a much-preferred alternative to abortion—often marvelling at how easily they (or their adoptee parent) may never have been born if the biological mother had chosen abortion over adoption. They all spoke with gratitude and respect for the decision the birth mother made in carrying the baby to term and putting her up for adoption. Most of the adoptees expressed that they had considered adopting their own kids, or would have if they had been unable to have biological children, yet the genetic bond they shared with their children seemed to be very meaningful to the adoptees. In INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 129 telling their family adoption stories, the adoptive parents and grandparents played a prominent role and were spoken of with love and respect by all participant members of the family. The most significant thing we learned from these 5 families is that the adoptees continued to be influenced by their adoptive experience throughout their adulthood. As their journey continued, so did the development of their family’s adoption story. Their children—the second-generation adoptees—entered into the process by acting as recipients of the narrative and sometimes expanding on it with their own unique interpretations. In regard to the experience of the research interview itself, all participants reported it as being positive. In each interview at least 1 participant noted at least 1 instance in which they were learning something from one of their family members that they had never heard before. Participants often laughed with delight, or appeared deeply moved by these new learnings. One participant was so touched by the experience that she requested a copy of the interview recording. She explained that the conversation she had had with her children had been so meaningful to her that she wanted to be able to share it with her (adoptive) mother whom she knew would also be moved. This seemed to be striking testimony to the power of storytelling and narrative inheritance. Strengths and Limitations This study was exploratory by nature. The aim was to gain initial insight into a topic that has receive little attention thus far. It must be recognized that, due to the nature of the methodological design, there was a total of 5 families included in this study. Their contributions were integral to the initial understandings we gleaned, and not a limitation in itself, but more research is needed to expand on what was learned in this INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 130 study. The adoptee participants were all women who felt they had had favourable adoptive experience. There were a few instances in which a second-generation potential participant had come forward, only to retract their request to participate once their parent had informed them their adoption story was too upsetting for them to discuss. This means that we did not learn anything about what it is like for an adoptee to pass down a narrative they believed to be less favourable. It would have been valuable to begin to develop an impression about voices of narrative inheritance in family adoption stories that contain more adverse elements than did the stories we heard in this study. The fact that all adoptee participants were female means we also did not discover anything about what it is like for male adoptees to pass down their story of adoption. This may have offered helpful information about any potential sex differences, or differences in the mother and father roles of adoptees. The lack of attention that intergenerational voices of adoption currently receive may have acted as a limitation in and of itself. Several of the second-generation adoptees in this study expressed that they had not spent much time reflecting on their family adoption narrative. As such, not all of the second-generation adoptees had developed a very rich understanding of their own about their family narrative. It would be interesting to know what makes the difference between a second-generation adoptee who is more invested in their family narrative than others, or what may prompt them to reflect on their family adoption story in the first place. It is possible that there may have been people who fit the demographics, but did not feel inclined to participate in the research because they had never considered the topic in much depth before, thus did not draw their attention now. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 131 One notable strength of this study was the multi-participant interviews. Each interview was comprised of an adult adoptee, in her 50s or 60s, and 1 or 2 of her adult children, in their 20s or 30s. These dyads and triads allowed for the observation of the relational dynamics between the two generations. Not only did we hear from both firstand second-generation adoptees, but we also heard them speaking directly to each other. Through witnessing this interaction, we had the opportunity to hear them respond to each other’s interpretations of their family story of adoption. There were many times in which the interview turned into a dialogue between participants in which the agreed and disagreed on aspects of their family story—from minor details to significant perspective discrepancies—bringing the process of narrative inheritance to life. According to Ballard and Ballard (2011), composing family narratives is a collaborative process, and it is through this collaboration that meaning in relationships is established and a collective identity is formed. These dialogues offered a glimpse into the relational dynamics involved in the narrative inheritances of these particular families as each member engaged with, contributed to, and interpreted their family story. The use of artifacts in opening the interviews seemed to thoroughly engage the participants. All but 1 individual brought at least 1 artifact with them, and appeared to be happy for the opportunity to share their item and its personal significance. These items all provided an impetus for sharing of stories that were central to the participants’ understanding of their broader family adoption narrative. Sometimes the stories shared were surprising to the other participants present, or opened the possibility for discussions they may otherwise never have had with each other. Sharing artifacts representative of INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 132 their family adoption narrative allowed for richness of storytelling and unexpected entry points into their family story. Implications My hope for this study was for it to be valuable to clinicians working with adult adoptees or their families in that it may provide helpful information in beginning to develop an understanding of intergenerational voices of adoption and the potential growth and healing nature of storytelling. The following are the clinical and theoretical implication gleaned from the results of this study. Theoretical. The support that this study has provided on the persistent impacts of adoption throughout the adoptee’s adulthood is a valuable contribution to the knowledge base of the adoptive experience as a whole. Current literature demonstrates that adoptees face complexities, during their childhood and adolescence, including struggling with feelings related to security, belonging, and identity (Colaner et al., 2014; Grotevant et al., 2017; Kalus, 2016; Kranstuber & Kellas, 2011; Von Korff et al., 2006). It is reasonable to expect that some of these challenges might sometimes linger into adulthood (Penny et al., 2007), yet there is little existing research into the experiences of adult adoptees. This study has begun to lay initial foundations for further explorations in this area. It is my hope that these beginning insights will foster further investigation into the experiences of adult adoptees. The adult adoptees in this study continued to investigate their biological roots and make meaning out of their adoption story throughout their adulthood. As the adoptees moved through different stages of their lives, the impacts of their adoptive experience would arise again in new ways. In some instances, the ebbs and flows of the adoptee’s curiosity about the impacts of their INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 133 adoptive experience was more a matter of personal interest, but most often, it was in direct relation to their biological children—they strongly desired to pass down stories and information to their beloved children. Sometimes this moved them to research their biological family and medical history, other times it meant being sure they were making their feelings about being an adoptee known to their children. No matter the motivation, their children were always a part of the adoption legacy. Adoptee parent passed down their adoption narrative to their biological children in one way or another. This study provided support for the concept of narrative inheritance as well. The idea that family stories are inherited and then help to shape the individuals who receive them (Goodall, 2005) was observed in the second-generation adoptee participants in this study. All second-generation adoptees expressed having been impacted by their family story of adoption. Even the participants who claimed they had not spent any significant amount of time reflecting on the story, still acknowledged the story and the ways it has influenced them. Some such second-generation participants noted at the outset of our interview that they did not believe they had anything to say. Yet, throughout the interview they described impacts of their parent’s adoptive experience from appreciating the tradition of adoption; to being interested in adopting themselves; to believing in the moral virtue of adoption over abortion; to the conviction that blood relation is not all that makes a family. What was gleaned from the second-generation participants in this study was that they did all carry their parent’s adoption story with them—in small or big ways. The relational nature of co-constructing family adoption stories was illuminated well in the group design of the listening guide interviews. All 5 families took time to discuss memories and thoughts with each other, rather than merely answer the interview INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 134 questions. Their narratives were alive in the interview room. The family members helped each other recall facts and debate details. Sometimes they even shared stories or feelings that other family members were hearing for the first time in that moment. At least one member of each participant family expressed how powerful it was to share in this exchange with their loved ones. Above all, there was a care and respect for each other’s perspective on the family narrative. Parent and child genuinely engaged in dialogue—wanting to understand each other and come together in a shared interpretation. This suggests support for the continued use of listening guide interviews with groups, as many of the voices in this study were born out of the dialogue between participants during the interview. In this study, we also saw that artifacts can be meaningful carriers of stories. Artifacts have been commonly used in anthropological research as a means of communication. The use of aesthetic representations of this nature are still in their infancy in the field of counselling psychology, however (Riessman, 2008). In this study, artifacts were used to open each interview by way of providing an access point to their family story. The artifacts themselves were not directly analyzed. The participants all seemed to connect with their chosen artifact. Each item shared evoked emotion in their self, and often in the other participants present. There was only 1 participant who did not bring an artifact because she claimed the nature of the relationship she shared with her mom could not be captured in this way. All other participants brought 1 or more item and shared happily. Sometimes their family members were surprised by the new stories they were hearing, and other times the artifacts were met with smiles of recognition. Often, the stories and conversations sparked by the artifacts continued on for quite some INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 135 time—leading to insights and discussions that otherwise may not have been shared by the participants. The positive and meaningful engagement the participants had with the artifacts suggests support for further use of this modality in counselling psychology research. Clinical. This study was not clinical in nature, but there are some things we have gleaned from the participants that could be relevant to clinicians who work with adult adoptees or their families. As described previously in the literature review, there is little existing research on adult adoptees, despite the fact that there is good reason to believe the impacts of adoption would abide throughout the adoptee’s lifetime (Horstman et al., 2016; Penny et al., 2007; Pérez et al., 2016). One of the most striking things learned from the participants in this study was that the adult adoptees have indeed continued to be impacted by their adoptive experience throughout their adulthood. As previously described under theoretical implications, their sense of curiosity and desire to make meaning out of their story has persisted. The adoptees who actively searched for their birth families, or requested information around their adoption, did not even begin to do so until they were adults—many not until they were in their 50s. The adoptees in this study described these experiences in their adulthood as being meaningful. All the adoptees expressed the importance of at least learning about their medical history. This seemed to become even more crucial to them as they began to have their own children because they wanted to have an accurate picture of what health concerns may or may not lie ahead for their children. This seemed more a matter of care and protection as a mother, than an issue of curiosity for their own sake. In 2 families, first-generation adoptees who were not personally interested in their biological heritage did admit to INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 136 considering investigating because it was of interest to their child. These findings could be of interest to clinicians working with adult adoptees who are also seeking more information around their personal adoption story. Nearly all adoptee participants noted how special it was for them to share a biological connection with their own children, despite the fact that every one of the adoptees asserted that blood did not matter when it came to the bond they shared with their adoptive family. For the adoptees, these 2 things were different. No, blood was not needed to make a family, but they still instinctively desired to be biologically linked to someone in their life. It seemed as though this was a piece that adoptees did not even realize was missing until they became adults and began to start families of their own. A couple of the adoptee participants also sought this connection by searching for members of their birth family. In the instances in which the adoptees found biological relatives, they were grateful for the connection and the gaps in their story that were filled in the process, but this bond was not nearly as meaningful to the adoptees as their relationship with their biological children. This information may be useful to clinicians working with adult adoptees as it can help them to understand some of the struggles adoptees may continue to face. The extant literature suggests that open communication can act as a protective factor for adoptees as they are growing up (Brodzinsky, 2006; Horstman et al., 2016; Wrobel et al., 1996). According to Brodzinsky (2006), child adoptees reported higher levels of self-esteem when their family was open in discussing their adoption story. Wrobel et al. (1996) also found that openness about adoption information increased the adoptee’s understanding of their own adoption story. In this current study, we learned INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 137 that sharing open communication around their adoption narrative—specifically with their own children—continued to be meaningful for adult adoptees. The family interviews conducted in this study provided a unique opportunity to observe the interactions of parent and adult children as they discuss their family adoption stories. Several adoptees even commented on how powerful the interview experience was in and of itself by noting things they had learned from their children through the process. A couple of the secondgeneration adoptees expressed more curiosity in their mom’s biological lineage than the adoptee did herself. In these instances, the adoptee was struck by this and actually considered exploring their history further as a result. Another adoptee was so moved by the interview experience and sharing in these stories with her children that she requested a copy of the interview video recording. These findings might be of interest to clinicians interested in pursuing family therapy around the experiences of adoption. In this regard, there is also evidence to support the use of narrative inheritance as a clinical tool. Narrative inheritance is a theoretical concept borrowed from the field of communication, which posits that family stories passed down through the generations help people begin to understand their own identity through the framework of the people who came before them (Goodall, 2005). Since the participants in this study found it meaningful to engage with their family narrative, there may be room to utilize this concept as a therapeutic tool for helping individuals better understand some of their experiences in the context of a larger inherited family story. The second-generation adoptees in this research project were seen to have been impacted by their family adoption narrative to a lesser, but still notable extent, than their mothers. This is an important learning because it was the first time that the voices of INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 138 second-generation adoptees have been heard. Although this population was only a secondary and exploratory concern of this study, we did find evidence of the impact of adoption on the adult children of adoptees. All second-generation adoptees in this project claimed to have been influenced in some way by their family adoption narrative. Some adoptees longed for more information about the biological heritage they share with their mom; others felt compelled to consider adoption their selves; and another developed a strong moral commitment against abortion after realizing how easily that may had been her mother’s fate. In addition to being impacted by their narrative inheritance, some second-generation adoptees even formed their own interpretations. One secondgeneration adoptee in particular carried with her a very different perspective on her family’s experience with adoption than her mom did. This perspective caused her some emotional distress and she found herself driven to explore her family adoption story more deeply. For clinicians, it could be useful to know that there may be some secondgeneration adoptees wanting to make sense of their family story in order to find peace or grow their selves. The idea of narrative inheritance being used as a strengths-based practice could also be beneficial in helping young adult second-generation adoptees. Community. This research supported the importance of listening to diverse family stories, beyond traditional “scripts” of the nuclear family. And allowing for spaces within the community—such as schools or places of worship—for unique family identities to be expressed. Clinicians are not the only people who encounter adoptees and their families. Adoptees are not always an immediately visible population in our society, but they remain ever-present. They are our neighbours, our classmates, our colleagues, our friends, and our own family members. What this study offered was a INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 139 chance to bear witness to 5 of their stories and hear what it means to adoptees and their children to carry their family adoption narrative. We saw that these stories had great power. The current literature on narrative inheritance holds that family stories carry important messages around values and identity, and are entrusted to the next generation as precious mementos. Goodall (2005) argues that family stories help people to better understand their own identity through the context of coming to understand the people who came before them. He says of these narratives: It helps us see our life grammar and working logic as an extension of, or a rebellion against, the way we story how they lived and thought about things, and it allows us to explain to others where we come from and how we were raised in the continuing context of what it all means…But we don’t always inherit that sense of completion. We too often inherit a family’s unfinished business, and when we do, those incomplete narratives are given to us to fulfill. (p. 497) My hope is that this study might exemplify how valuable it is for family adoption stories to be heard. In our own families we can begin to emphasize our stories of adoption and make space for co-constructing these narratives with our family members. In our communities, we can offer platforms for these stories to be heard beyond the family context. As powerful as storytelling is, it is not an act that can happen in isolation. Speakers fundamentally require listeners for their voices to be heard. Adoptees and their families have rich narratives to share not only with each other, but with the world. As a community, we can play a part an important part in this—we can listen. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 140 Recommendations for Future Research This study provided enough support for the continued impacts of adoption to warrant further exploration of the adoptive experience throughout adulthood. Continued inquiry into the experiences of adult adoptees in general is merited, and also more specific explorations of the gaps in this current research project. For instance, all 5 of the adoptee participants in this study were women who had self-described favourable adoptive experiences. Neither gender nor perceived quality of adoptive experience were a part of the inclusion or exclusion criteria for this project. It is difficult to ascertain why exactly only women with favourable adoption stories came forward. I might speculate that the relational nature of this research may have been more appealing to women, or to mothers. Perhaps women are more inclined to engage in open family discussions, or maybe there is something in the mother-child bond that spoke more directly to this research. In order to get a better sense of these suppositions, future research in this area may want to focus on how to better appeal to male adoptee participants during recruitment. Hearing the voices of male adoptees and their children could add a valuable component to this area of exploration. As for different kinds of adoptive experiences, I did hear from several interested families who later withdrew because the first-generation adoptee felt their adoption story would be too painful for them to talk about. Future research may want to explore ways of recruiting adoptees who had less favourable adoptive experiences, who may be comfortable sharing their stories. Research that includes a variety of types of adoption narratives may illuminate a richer portrayal of the narrative inheritance of family adoption stories. It would be interesting to know if passing down, and receiving, less INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 141 positive stories is different in any way from what we learned about what it was like for the participants in this study to share in their positive narratives. The secondary and merely exploratory focus of this research was on the biological children of the adoptees, or second-generation adoptees. There is no existing literature on second-generation adoptees. The results of this study, however, suggest merit for further exploration of this population. The second-generation adoptee participants in this study all reported being impacted in one way or another by their family adoption narrative. Both Olivia and Ashley expressed being impacted by their respective family adoption stories. These women had a number of unanswered questions that they were committed to exploring. Even the participants who claimed that they did not think about their mom’s adoption story very often, still claimed to have been impacted by it in meaningful ways. For instance, Jackie credits her family adoption narrative as being a significant influencer on her own moral code of favouring adoption over abortion. Brothers Michael and James both described their mother’s adoption as little more than an interesting fact, yet both agreed that it has affected their decision to potentially consider adoption their selves. Emily could also see herself adopting children after witnessing what a positive experience her mom’s adoption had been for their family. Future research into second-generation adoptees may want to focus on (1) how they integrate their parent’s adoption story into their own narrative; (2) why they do or do not feel compelled to do so; (3) how, if at all, their family adoption narrative has played a part in shaping their own identity; (4) and what it is like to have a different or similar understanding of the narrative compared to their parent. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 142 Conclusions This researched described North American female adoptees, their adult children, and the family stories of adoption shared between mother and child. We, the receptive body of listeners to this research, heard intergenerational voices of adoption and learned that what is passed down is not always the same as what is received. All of the firstgeneration adoptees reported having favourable adoptive experiences, and the secondgeneration adoptees sometimes agreed and sometimes had different interpretations of their family story. We learned from these participants that the adoptees continued to be impacted by their adoptive experience into and throughout their adulthood. Their continued journey further shaped the family’s narrative of adoption. We also observed that the degree to which family narratives of adoption are co-constructed between first- and secondgeneration varied, as some second-generation adoptees held a more distanced position toward the story and others disagreed with their mother’s interpretation of the story in fundamental ways. Despite disagreements, we witnessed how sharing with each other can create shifts. Two first-generation adoptee participants expressed their desire to explore their adoption story in more detail as a result of learning of their child’s curiosity. Curiosity about their biological family varied greatly across participant families. Some were not interested at all, and some found and maintained contact and relationships with their biological relatives over the years. Some families even disagreed amongst themselves. Sometimes the adoptee was not interested in their biological roots, but their children were highly interested. No matter how they felt about their biological family, all of the first-generation adoptees expressed gratitude for their adoption and considered INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 143 their adoptive family to be their “true” family. Nearly all adoptees expressed how meaningful it was to share a biological connection with their own children. As a second-generation adoptee myself, I arrived at this research through a personal curiosity and investment in my own family adoption narrative. Growing up, I was always interested in my unknown maternal biological lineage. My mom knew very little of her own adoption story, and longed for answers herself. When I set out to do this research, it brought me closer to my own family story of adoption. My mom and I continue to dialogue about our story, and the more we talk the more sense it makes. We both still have many questions, but my mom agrees that sharing in this story helps. I saw this in the participant families of this study as well. Even when mother and child disagreed, it was still an opportunity to encounter the narrative even more deeply, and develop a richer understanding of it all. This is what we are compelled to do. Goodall (2005) says, “We are fundamentally homo narrans—humans as storytellers—and a well-told story brings with it a sense of fulfillment and of completion” (p. 497). When it comes to our family narratives of adoption, it is possible that we might never have all the answers we had hoped for, but we can still find fulfillment in carrying rich—if incomplete—narratives. Sharing and co-constructing these stories with their children can help adoptees make meaning of their adoptive experiences. 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Using Internet video calls in qualitative (longitudinal) interviews: Some implications for rapport. International Journal of Social Research Methodology: Theory & Practice, 20(6), 613–625. https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca:2420/10.1080/13645579.2016.1269505 Wrobel, G. M., Ayers-Lopez, S., Grotevant, H. D., McRoy, R. G., & Friedrick, M. (1996). Openness in adoption and the level of child participation. Child Development, 67(5), 2358-2374. doi:10.2307/1131628 Zoom Video Communications [Computer software]. (2019). Retrieved from http://www.zoom.com 151 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 152 APPENDIX A INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR FIRST- AND SECOND-GENERATION ADOPTEE JOINT INTERVIEWS Section 1: Artifacts  What comes up for you when you look at this (referring to artifacts they each have brought)?  What does this (referring to artifacts they each have brought) mean to you? Section 2: Sense of self in connection to adoption stories  FOR PARENT: Tell me your story of growing up as an adoptee. o Query: What stories were told in your family about adoption (and how you entered into the family)? o Query: What was it important for you to tell your own children about (your) adoption?  FOR CHILD: Tell me your story of growing up with a parent who is an adoptee. o Query: What has your parent told you about you their adoption story, or adoption in general?  FOR PARENT: Tell me about when you first learned about your adoption. o Query: Invite participant to reflect on earliest experiences of consciousness about adoption—earliest moments when it became meaningful to them.  FOR CHILD: Tell me about when you first learned about your parent’s adoption. o Query: Invite participant to reflect on earliest experiences of consciousness about adoption—earliest moments when it became meaningful to them.  FOR PARENT: How has your adoption impacted you over time? o Query: What have been the past, present, and anticipated future impacts? o Query: What impacts have been positive, negative, mixed, expected, unexpected?  FOR CHILD: How has your parent’s adoption impacted you over time (directly or indirectly)? o Query: What have been the past, present, and anticipated future impacts? o Query: What impacts have been positive, negative, mixed, expected, unexpected?  FOR PARENT: How has your family’s story of adoption shaped you? o Query: How has it shaped your concept of family? o Query: How is your family’s story similar and different compared to societal stereotypes and assumptions adoption and adoptive families? INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION  153 o Query: How is your own story of adoption similar and different to your family’s story of your adoption? FOR CHILD: How has your family’s story of adoption shaped you? o Query: How has it shaped your concept of family? o Query: How is your family’s story similar and different compared to societal stereotypes and assumptions adoption and adoptive families? o Query: How is your own story of adoption similar and different to your family’s story of your adoption? INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 154 APPENDIX B SCREENING INTERVIEW Introduction:  Introduce myself. Masters student studying the intergenerational stories of adoption; say a bit about my personal story and connection to this topic.  Participation in this study will involve a 1-hour (approximately) joint interview in which I will ask you and your (parent or child) some questions, and invite you to share your story about growing up with a mom or dad who was an adoptee (or about your own adoption story).  Your participation is completely voluntary—you do not have to answer any questions that you do not want to, and you are free to ask me any questions you may have at any point along the way. Screening Questions: I have a few questions I’d like to ask you to see if you and this study are a good fit. I will also need to speak with your parent or child before confirming that the two of you are a good fit for the study as a pair. For First-Generation Adoption Participants:  Were you adopted as a baby and raised in an adoptive family (not by either biological parent)?  Do you have a biological child, 19 years of age or older, willing to participate in this study?  Are you willing and able to commit 1 hour for a joint interview that will be audio and video recorded, and a follow-up interview once the initial interview has been analyzed? For Second-Generation Adoption Participants:  Are you the biological child of an adoptee?  Is your parent (the adoptee) also willing to participate in this study?  Are you 19 years of age or older?  Were you aware, during your childhood, that your parent was an adoptee?  Are you willing and able to commit 1 hour for a joint interview that will be audio and video recorded, and a follow-up interview once the initial interview has been analyzed? Could you briefly (in a few sentences) share a bit about the nature of your story (e. g., positive, negative, contact with biological family, etc.)? A) Does not meet criteria: Unfortunately, it looks like this study is not going to be quite right for you at this time. If you are interested in participating in research, there are often new opportunities that come up. Would you be interested in being contacted in the future for other studies? Thank you for talking with me today. If the say they are struggling with their adoption story, offer counselling and adoption resources (see Appendix E). B) Does meet criteria: Looks like you’re a fit for the study! Are you still interested in participating? Artifacts: I would like to invite each of my participants to bring a memento that can act as an example of their connection to their family and their family’s story of adoption. This can be anything from jewelry, to a recipe, to a childhood toy, and so on. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION Thank you so much for your time and interest. Do you have any questions for me at this point? I will contact you in the near future to set up a time for your interview. If you have any questions or concerns that come up in the meantime, please feel free to e-mail me at Vanessa.Bork@mytwu.ca or phone me at 604-999-7560 155 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION APPENDIX C ONLINE RECRUITMENT ADVERTISEMENT 156 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 157 APPENDIX D DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AND PARTICIPATION Upon hearing from an interested individual, I will invite the person who contacts me to pass on the study information and my contact information to their family members so they can contact me if they want to be involved in the study. I will send each family member this email with detailed information about the study. I will send this email to each member of the dyad separately, and await confirmation to me independently of the other that they wish to participate. If they wish to participate, we will move on to screening interviews (see Appendix B). Dear [Participant’s Name], Thank you for your interest in this study. Allow me to tell you a bit more about this research project before you confirm that you are interested in participating. The purpose of this study is to understand family stories of adoption as they are passed from one generation to the next. This study was designed to inform the academic community, counsellors, and most importantly families impacted by adoption, with the purpose of giving adult adoptees a platform to highlight the stories that help them understand their adoptive experience, and what they choose to pass on to their children. To be able to participate in the interview portion of this study, you must be either an adoptee or a biological child of an adoptee who grew up with the awareness of their parent as an adoptee. Each participant will partake in a joint interview with their (parent or child) for this study. The researcher will invite you to share about your family’s stories related to adoption, such as how these stories have played a part in shaping who you are. This interview will last 60-90 minutes and will be audio and video recorded for transcription at a later time. Each participant will be invited to bring with them to the interview an object or memento that can act as an example of their connection to their family and their family’s story of adoption. This can be anything from jewelry, to a recipe, to a childhood toy, and so on. We will begin the interview by talking a bit about this memento. My research team and I will read through the transcript of your interview and listen for the different voices of each family member and what themes may be present in your stories. In the spring of 2019 I will contact you to set up a time to meet and later that spring or summer. In our meeting, I will share with you what my team and I came to understand about your story and you will have the opportunity to reflect on our findings and express your thoughts and feelings. I will add your reflections to the final study. Any information collected during the research process that might identify you will be kept strictly confidential. Although your identity will be concealed to the best of our ability, information within the stories you share may make it possible for some INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 158 people to identify you. You will also be asked to provide a preferred pseudonym or will be assigned one by the researcher to protect your identity Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. You may refuse to participate or withdraw from the study at any time (in person, via email, or by telephone). Data gathered from participants who withdraw will be destroyed by the researcher. If you are still interested in participating in this study, please let me know and we can set up a brief interview to ensure that you and this study are a good fit. Thank you again for your interest. Sincerely, Vanessa Bork INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 159 APPENDIX E COUNSELLING AND ADOPTION RESOURCES Should you notice that you are experiencing any unpleasant reactions to the interviews you have participated in, I am offering you this list of local low-cost counselling services that you can access if you are interested. Fraser River Counselling 7600 Glover Rd, Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1 www.fraserrivercounselling.ca/ (604) 513-2113 info@fraserrivercounselling.ca Brookswood Counselling #107- 20103 40 Ave Langley, BC V3A 2W3 http://www.brookswoodcounselling.com (778) 278-3411 info@brookswoodcounselling.com CARES Counselling and Restoration Services: Unit #3 2630 Bourquin Crescent (West) Abbotsford, BC, V2S 5N7 www.cares.ca (604) 853-8916 cares.info@gmail.com Adoptive Families Association of BC Dedicated to providing support and education to the entire adoption community. https://www.bcadoption.com INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION HREB Approval Date: September 14, 2018 160 Page 1 of 3 APPENDIX F INFORMED CONSENT FORM INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION Principal Investigator: Vanessa Bork, M.A. Student in Counselling Psychology, Trinity Western University. Contact number 604-999-7560. Contact email address: Vanessa.Bork@mytwu.ca Supervisor: Dr. Janelle Kwee, Program Director and Associate Professor Counselling Psychology Department, Trinity Western University. Contact number: 604-513-2034 ext.3870. Contact email address: Janelle.Kwee@twu.ca Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand the intergenerational voices of adoption. Researchers will aim to construct thoughtful descriptions and interpretations of what voices can be heard in family stories of adoption as they are passed from one generation to the next. This study was designed to inform the academic community, clinicians, and most importantly families impacted by adoption, with the purpose of helping individuals better understand what stories and voices are passed through the generations in regards to adoption. Procedures: The method chosen to conduct this research places an emphasis on the unique stories of each adoptee and child of an adoptee. To be able to participate in the interview portion of this study, you must be either an adoptee or a biological child of an adoptee who grew up with the awareness of their parent as an adoptee. Each participant will partake in a joint interview with their (parent/child) for this study. This will be a semi-structured interview where the researcher will ask you questions about your family’s stories related to adoption, with a particular focus on understanding the ways in which these stories play a part in shaping who you are. This interview will last approximately 1 hour and will be audio and video recorded for transcription at a later time. During transcription, details that could identify you will be removed. Follow-up interviews of approximately 1 hour will be scheduled to discuss findings. Once the study is complete, the results will be made available to you should you be interested. Potential Risks & Discomforts: You may experience some emotional discomfort while sharing about your life, particularly if your family’s story of adoption has been difficult. All interviews are conducted by a researcher who has training in counselling psychology. The researcher will not provide you with counselling services herself, but she will be able to create a safe place for you to share your experience. The researcher will also provide you with a referral to counselling should any emotional distress arise. INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION HREB Approval Date: September 14, 2018 161 Page 2 of 3 Potential Benefits to Participants: Participating in this study will help the researchers to better understand the intergenerational impacts of adoption. This will help to better inform other clinicians and researchers about the ways in which sharing family stories of adoption can be beneficial for adoptees and their families. This is also an opportunity for you to share your stories of adoption in your family and to discuss how you’ve made meaning of these stories and how they’ve shaped you. Hopefully this interview will be a valuable way for you to reflect on these experiences. Confidentiality: Any information collected during the research process that can be identified with you will be kept confidential. Although your identity will be concealed to the best of our ability, information within the stories you share may make it possible for some people to identify you. The information you provide will only be disclosed with your permission. For example, audio and video recordings and transcripts will be kept on an external hard drive locked in the researcher’s home. Any paper copies of transcripts will be kept in a locked cabinet, located inside the researcher’s locked office. In accordance with the university’s policy, audio and video recordings and transcripts will be kept for five years after the study is complete. After completion, all data will be deleted from the computer, or will be shredded, by the researcher. Consent: Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. You may refuse to participate or withdraw from the study at any time (in person, via email, or by telephone). You will also be asked to provide a preferred pseudonym or will be assigned one by the researcher to protect your identity. Data gathered from participants who withdraw will be destroyed by the researcher. Contact for information about the study: If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, you may contact Vanessa Bork, Vanessa.Bork@mytwu.ca or her research supervisor, Janelle Kwee, Janelle.Kwee@twu.ca Contact for concerns about the rights of research participants: If you have any concerns about your treatment or rights as a research participant, you may contact Elizabeth Kreiter in the Office of Research, Trinity Western University at 604-513-2167 or researchethicsboard@twu.ca. Signatures Your signature below indicates that you have had your questions about the study answered to your satisfaction and have received a copy of this consent form for your own records. Your signature indicates that you consent to participate in this study and that your responses may be put in anonymous form and kept for further use after the completion of this study. 162 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION HREB Approval Date: September 14, 2018 Page 3 of 3 Research Participant’s name (printed): _______________________________ Research Participant’s signature: Date: ________________________________ _________________________________ INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION APPENDIX G DEMOGRAPHICS SHEET Name: ______________________________________________ Gender: _________________________ Age: ________________ Ethnicity: [ ] European/European-Canadian [ ] French-Canadian [ ] Aboriginal [ ] Metis [ ] African/African-Canadian [ ] Asian/Asian-Canadian [ ] South Asian/South Asian-Canadian [ ] Caribbean/Caribbean-Canadian [ ] Middle Eastern/Middle Eastern-Canadian [ ] Latin American/Latin American-Canadian [ ] Other: _________________________________________________ Highest level of education completed [ ] Some High School [ ] Completed High School [ ] Some University or Post-Secondary [ ] Completed Diploma or Trade Certificate [ ] Completed Bachelors Degree [ ] Some Graduate School [ ] Completed Graduate Degree [ ] Other: _________________________________________________ Occupation_________________________________________________ 163 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 164 APPENDIX H DEBRIEFING SCRIPT Thank you very much for your participation in this study! What was this experience like for you? Was there a part of the study that was difficult? Were there any parts that were surprising to you? Are there any questions I did not ask you that you feel I should ask future participants? Do you have any questions or comments about what it was like participating in the study? Is there anything else you feel you would like to add at this point? Just a reminder, if you would like me send you the results of this study, I can send you the completed project. Please feel free to contact me at Vanessa.Bork@mytwu.ca Thank you again for your participation in this study. I am very grateful for you time and contribution to this research! INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 165 APPENDIX I THANK YOU MESSAGE TO PARTICIPANTS Dear [Participant’s Name], Thank you for taking the time to share your stories with me. I deeply appreciate your willingness to participate in this study, and I hope it has been a meaningful experience for you as well! It has helped me a great deal in my understanding of family stories of adoption. If you have any questions or concerns about your participation in this study, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, Vanessa Bork INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 166 APPENDIX J CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT FOR TRANSCRIPTIONIST I, ________________________, transcriptionist, agree to uphold full confidentiality in regard to any and all of the data for the project Intergenerational Voices of Adoption. I agree:      To keep confidential the identity of any individual who may be inadvertently revealed to me through the data; To not make any copies of any paper or computerized data, unless I am specifically requested to do so by Vanessa Bork; To not provide the research data to any third parties; To store all research materials and data in a safe and secure location while they are in my possession; To delete all electronic files containing research data and other related material from my computer hard drive and any back up devices. I am aware that I can be held legally responsible for any breach of this contract, and for any harm caused to others if I disclose identifiable information found within the data to which I will have access. I have read the above Confidentiality Agreement and I agree to be bound by its terms both during and after my work on this project. Transcriptionist’s name (printed): _______________________________ Transcriptionist’s signature: ________________________________ Date: _________________________________ INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 167 APPENDIX K CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT FOR RESEARCH ASSISTANTS I, ________________________, research assistant, agree to uphold full confidentiality in regard to any and all of the data for the project Intergenerational Voices of Adoption. I agree:      To keep confidential the identity of any individual who may be inadvertently revealed to me through the data; To not make any copies of any paper or computerized data, unless I am specifically requested to do so by Vanessa Bork; To not provide the research data to any third parties; To store all research materials and data in a safe and secure location while they are in my possession; To delete all electronic files containing research data and other related material from my computer hard drive and any back up devices. I am aware that I can be held legally responsible for any breach of this contract, and for any harm caused to others if I disclose identifiable information found within the data to which I will have access. I have read the above Confidentiality Agreement and I agree to be bound by its terms both during and after my work on this project. Research Assistant’s name (printed): _______________________________ Research Assistant’s signature: Date: ________________________________ _________________________________ 168 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION APPENDIX L INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION CONSENT TO THE RELEASE OF RESEARCH DATA TO OTHER PARTICIPANTS I, __________________________________________, authorise Trinity Western (Name of participant) University and ________Vanessa Bork__________, to release my raw data for the (Name of Principal Investigator) project Intergenerational Voices of Adoption to ________________________________. (Name of fellow participant) I specifically consent only to the release of: __________a copy of the video recording of our interview in this project_____________ I understand that I may revoke this consent to release information at any time through written notification to Vanessa Bork, c/o Graduate Counselling Psychology, Trinity Western University, 7600 Glover Rd., Langley, BC, V2Y 1Y1. Unless I revoke this authorisation prior to such time, this authorisation to release information shall expire when: ___________________________NONE__________________________________ (State date, event, or condition of expiration) Participant’s name (printed): _______________________________ Participant’s signature: Date: ________________________________ _________________________________ Page 1 of 1 INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION 169 APPENDIX M INTERGENERATIONAL VOICES OF ADOPTION AGREEMENT FOR USE OF DATA I, ________________________________________, research participant, agree to use the research data, a copy of the video recording of our interview in the project Intergenerational Voices of Adoption, for private purposes only. I agree:    To refrain from sharing this data publicly, including not posting it online; To not provide the research data to any third parties; To store the data in a safe and secure location I have read the above Agreement and I agree to be bound by its terms both during and after my participation in this project. Participant’s name (printed): _______________________________ Participant’s signature: Date: ________________________________ _________________________________ Page 1 of 1