Podcasts about on children

In this episode of the XS Noize Podcast, host Mark Millar is joined by British pop icon Chesney Hawkes. Best known for his timeless hit ‘The One and Only', Chesney talks about the momentum behind his new music — including the Radio 2 A-list success of ‘Get A Hold of Yourself'. He dives into his new album, Living Arrows, out now. It is a raw and heartfelt collection inspired by Kahlil Gibran's poem, ‘On Children'. Exploring themes of love, family, and growth, the album pairs candid songwriting with uplifting pop-rock. We dive deep into the stories behind the songs, as Chesney shares what it was like working with BRIT Award-winning producer Jake Gosling and welcomes contributions from Nik Kershaw and his brother Jodie Hawkes. Chesney also reflects on his recent appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, where he finished in fifth place and connected with a new generation of fans. Don't miss this inspiring and entertaining conversation — tune in now to hear the whole story behind ‘Living Arrows', Chesney's creative rebirth, and his time in the Big Brother house.   Or listen via YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS – Find The XS Noize Podcast's complete archive of episodes here. Previous XS Noize Podcast guests include legends and trailblazers such as John Lydon, Will Sergeant, Ocean Colour Scene, Gary Kemp, Doves, Gavin Friday, David Gray, Anton Newcombe, Peter Hook, The Twang, Sananda Maitreya, James, Crowded House, Elbow, Cast, Kula Shaker, Shed Seven, Future Islands, Peter Frampton, Bernard Butler, Steven Wilson, Travis, New Order, The Killers, Tito Jackson, Simple Minds, The Divine Comedy, Shaun Ryder, Gary Numan, Sleaford Mods, Michael Head — and many more.

Inspired by feminist anthem, Beacon Rising marches on Lisa Andretta loves singing in the car but never figured she could be a real vocalist. After joining the Beacon Rising Choir, she found her voice. "When I went to my first rehearsal, I instantly fell in love," she says. "I had no idea something like this existed." The chorus, which started in 2017 with 13 members, now has 70, says founder Gina Samardge. Its next concert is May 18 at Beacon High School. Beacon Rising is a "resistance choir," Samardge says, open to women and nonbinary singers. A feminist anthem from the 2017 women's march in Washington, D.C., "Quiet," by Milck, inspired the choir's formation. The song includes the lyric, "I can't keep quiet for anyone anymore. … Let it out now." Cellphone videos of flash mobs performing to the song went viral and Samardge responded. "I needed to sing it with other women," she says. Her activist roots are reflected in the choir's repertoire, with songs that preach love, acceptance and a fight-the-power attitude such as "The Hymn of Acxiom," by Vienna Teng; "Refugee," by Moira Smiley; "On Children," by Ysaye Barnwell (with lyrics by Khalil Gibran); and "People Have the Power," by Patti Smith. "The 2016 election spawned a lot of choirs," Samardge says. "Singers always tell me that this is a healing force in their lives." A trained music educator and curious musician who lights up when speaking about playing clawhammer banjo, Samardge conducts the choir and arranges some songs. She came to Beacon in 2010 after getting priced out of Brooklyn. "I grew up in a small town in Ohio [Marion] and there is such a stronger community feeling here," she says. Samardge and her husband, musician Andy Reinhardt, who assembles the band that accompanies the choir, are childless by choice. Yet she's touched the lives of many youngsters in Beacon and beyond through Compass Arts, a grassroots organization she founded that runs programs in the schools and from the First Presbyterian Church on Liberty Street. Compass Arts initially rented a 1,000-square-foot space at Beacon Music Factory, then expanded to the church's Fellowship Hall, which features a stage, kitchen and new flooring installed by the nonprofit. In 2023, when the Beacon City School District called with an arts emergency - the middle school drama club had no teacher - she arranged for three visiting artists to structure a 10-week afterschool program teaching dance and choreography, improv and theater games and a glee club-style singing and movement class. "I remember being 18 years old and saying to my mother, 'I only want grandchildren,' and she said, 'Well, that's not how it works,'" Samardge says. "But I was at an event and some teenagers waved to me, and it turned out that they had attended a bunch of [Compass Arts] programs. I realized that somehow, someway, I got my wish. These kids are my temporary grandchildren." Beacon High School is located at 101 Matteawan Road. Tickets to the May 18 concert start at $20 ($10 seniors, teens; $5 ages 6-12; free ages 5 and younger); see compassarts.org/beacon-rising. The doors open at 1 p.m. for a free event with community organizations, a raffle and bake sale, followed by the concert at 2 p.m.

On Children's Sunday, we will have a special intergenerational worship led by FCC's church school children and youth. Scripture reading: "Take a Hike," a skit based on Luke 24:13-35.

Dr. Christine White, Feature Friday Guest in Studio, On Children's Health Initiatives | 4-18-25 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There comes, in some two short weeks, the most important and critical elections which our beloved America has ever encountered. Elections 2024 will determine the future, the heart and soul of America for decades to come.You, American citizen and person of faith, will vote in this election, will you not? If you are Christian, and you wish to protect your faith, the freedom you have to enjoy and practice your religion, and the free speech guaranteed by the Constitution, you have no other choice:YOU MUST VOTE!You must.Troy A. Miller, President and CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) says unequivocally and emphatically:“CHRISTIANS HAVE A MORAL AND ETHICAL DUTY TO VOTE NOVEMBER 5!”Miller says that a Christian really has no choice but to vote. There is no option not to vote for there is a moral, Christian duty to vote. So, my fellow Americans, legal citizens, and Christians:YOU WILL VOTE NOVEMBER 5, WILL YOU NOT?Troy Miller goes on to state the following:“It's time to get millions of evangelical voters to the polls.”Is it ever.In this election, there are seven so-called swing states, the votes in which and the electoral college numbers, pundits say, will determine the election. Listen to this tragic statistic. It was estimated that in Elections 2020, an estimated 7 million evangelicals in those 7 swing states did not participate in the election:DID NOT VOTE!That is a shocking, frustrating, and tragic statistic and it is, says Miller, one inexcusable, unpatriotic, uncaring, abandonment of civic duty and concern and love for America, and of course the freedom of the Christian faith we hold so dear.Dr. James Dobson, he of Family Talk Fame, is greatly concerned for the future of America and the outcomes of Elections 2024. Dobson also agrees fully, as do his cohorts, Michelle Bachman and Gary Bauer, that America is on the path to destruction if evangelical Christians, real Christians, do not vote, and vote right and informed for the very best candidates. So, you will vote, will you not? YOU MUST VOTE!Hear the words of candidate for President, Donald Trump:“OUR ENEMIES ARE WAGING WAR ON FREEDOM AND FAITH, ONSCIENCE AND RELIGION, ON HISTORY AND TRADITION, ON LAW ANDDEMOCRACY, ON THE FAMILY, ON CHILDREN, ON AMERICA ITSELF.”It is simply tragic to learn how many real Christians, so-called evangelicals, bible-believing and Christian-faith-practicing Christians have not voted and who do not intend to vote 2024. That is absolutely tragic, almost sabotage to our great country and an utter and total disrespect for the freedoms, the lifestyle, and the American way we all enjoy and which so many take for granted. But progressive, liberal thought and activism have contaminated the mainstream of American life and culture, and in the words of Franklin Graham:“SO MUCH SO THAT ONCE UNTHINKABLE ABOMINATIONS SUCH ASSAME SEX MARRIAGE, ABORTION ON DEMAND, AND TRANSGENDERADVOCACY HAVE BECOME DOGMA IN ONE MAJOR PARTY'S PLATFORM.”That political party is of course not Republican. I wonder if you can guess which party that would be? Various and considerable strong biblical, God-fearing, evangelical leaders have said unequivocally, that a vote for Harris-Walz, or Democrat senators or congress persons, is indeed a vote for unlimited abortion, transgender advocacy, and the curtailing of freedom of speech and religion, and the growth and power of all governments, and the drift of America towards Socialism and even Marxism itself. More from Franklin Graham:“The Bible clearly teaches that governments are ordained by God to restrain evil and enable righteousness to flourish.”And then Franklin Graham states unequivocally:“That's why Christians should carefully pray and vote!”Like Troy Miller of NRB, and James Dobson, and so many other evangelical leaders, Graham really believes it is the moral duty of a Christian to vote, to protect America, and to elect the best possible candidates. So, my fellow Americans, legal citizens, you will vote will you not? YOU MUST VOTE! The senatorial voting and the gubernatorial decision making of Harris and Walz lead so many Christian leaders to state the following:“CAN ANY THINKING, WELL INFORMED CHRISTIAN VOTE FOR ANY DEMOCRAT?”Given what this party stands for, its platform, what Harris truly is and what she believes, and what she will inevitably do should she be elected President, will result in the most anti-Christian, religious persons of faith political administration in the history of our country. Christians have a duty to do everything humanly possible to prevent that from happening.Vote 2024, Christian, VOTE! Protect your constitutional freedoms. Stand up for what is morally right, traditionally American, and biblical truth. STAND UP! YOU and so many other, literally millions, of bible-believing, real Christians can in fact determine the outcome, up and down the ballots, of Elections 2024. YOU CAN DO THAT! So, never forget the admonitions of Troy Miller, Franklin Graham, and James Dobson:YOU MUST VOTE 2024!YOU MUST.

How do we know if we're doing the right thing for potentially the wrong reasons? This week, Joey and Jess talk about The Anxious Generation, social media, polio, experimentation, modes, rodents, and sesame paste. They don't talk about Yusei Kikuchi. references The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt Hank Green on X How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics by Eugenia Cheng The Ezra Klein Show podcast: On Children, Meaning, Media and Psychedelics The New Yorker How CoComelon Captures Our Children's Attention Corrections Department: Colloid 

In the spirit of trying to channel his obsession with the US election in a (somewhat) productive way, Darren welcomes back Andrew Phillips from the University of Queensland to talk through the extent to which Trump is a ‘normal' political candidate versus an existential threat to US democracy. Along the way, Darren cannot resist the temptation to introduce Francis Fukuyama's “last man” model of political resistance, often overlooked when his “End of History” thesis is discussed. Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing this episode by Walter Colnaghi and theme music composed by Rory Stenning. Relevant links Sohrab Ahmari, “There is an intellectual sickness on the American right”, The New Statesman, 11 September 2024: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/us/2024/09/there-is-an-intellectual-sickness-on-the-american-right Andrew Dougall, Mediatizing the Nation, Ordering the World, Oxford University Press, 2024: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/mediatizing-the-nation-ordering-the-world-9780198882114?lang=en&cc=ru Zhang, F.J. “Political endorsement by Nature and trust in scientific expertise during COVID-19”, Nat Hum Behav 7, 696–706 (2023): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01537-5 Tyler Cowen, “How public intellectuals can extend their shelf lives”, Marginal Revolution, 6 February 2020: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/02/how-public-intellectuals-can-extend-their-shelf-lives.html Miss Americana (documentary): https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81028336 The Ezra Klein Show, “On Children, Meaning, Media and Psychedelics”, 3 September 2024: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jia-tolentino.html The Ezra Klein Show, “Zadie Smith on Populists, Frauds and Flip Phones”, 17 September 2024: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-zadie-smith.html Linkin Park, “The Emptiness Machine” (Official Music Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRXH9AbT280 The Deep Life by Cal Newport (podcast): https://www.thedeeplife.com/listen/

SBS Sinhala radio focused on the American-Lebonan poet and author Khalil Jibran's world-famous poem, "On Children" in this month's World Literary discussion. A Diploma holder for World Literature at the University of Warwick, England, Dilini Eriyawala joined the SBS Sinhala Radio world Literary discussion. Also. Sudhara De Silva from Melbourne presented the "On Children" poem in the program - SBS සිංහල සේවය ගෙන එන ලෝක සාහිත්‍ය පිලිබඳ රසවින්දනාත්මක විශේෂාංගය - "විශ්ව සාහිත්‍යයේ රස මංපෙත් " වැඩසටහනින් මෙවර අවධානය යොමුවුනේ ඛලීල් ජිබ්රාන් විසින් රචිත On Children නම් වන කාව්‍යය පිළිබඳවයි. SBS සිංහල සේවය සමඟ මෙම සාහිත්‍ය පිළිසඳරට සම්බන්ද වූයේ, එංගලන්තයේ වොරික් විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයේ විශ්ව සාහිත්‍ය පිලිබඳ ඩිප්ලෝමාධාරිනියක් වන මෙල්බන් නුවර දිලිනි ඊරියවල. ඛලීල් ජිබ්රාන් ගේ මෙම On Children කාව්‍ය ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට අප සමඟ සම්බන්ද වූයේ මෙල්බර්න් හි සුධාර ද සිල්වා.

Angela Tucker is a Black woman who was adopted by white parents as a very young child. Angela says transracial adoptees like her grow up wrestling with complicated feelings of gratitude and love, but also rejection, loss, and confusion about their heritage.  Angela Tucker is author of “You Should Be Grateful:" Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. Her family story was featured in the documentary Closure. She has over 15 years of experience working within adoption and foster care agencies, mentoring over 200 adoptees as founder of the Adoptee Mentoring Society. In addition to producing the podcast The Adoptee Next Door, she consulted with NBC's This Is Us.   Transcript ANGELA TUCKER: As a kid, as a teenager, I only made sense in the city of Bellingham, Washington, if my parents were right nearby. If I'm walking around holding hands with my mom, people would go up to her and say, "Wow, what a great thing you've done." They recognize she has adopted me—"Oh, okay. You're a safe Black person because you're with this woman who did this great thing." But when I wasn't with my parents, and I'm just a Black girl out in the city, there is confusion, like, "How did you get here? Why are you here? Who are you?" BLAIR HODGES: Angela Tucker is a Black woman who was adopted by white parents as a very young child. This is called “transracial adoption,” and Angela says adoptees like her grow up wrestling with complicated feelings of gratitude and love, but also rejection, loss, and confusion. In her new book, Angela invites us to take the perspective of the adopted child and to imagine what it would be like to wonder where you came from, to experience racial confusion, to long for lost connections. She founded the Adoptee Mentoring Society to work with other adoptees and to foster more honest conversations about adoption. She joins us in this episode to talk about her new book: “You Should Be Grateful:" Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. There's no one right way to be a family and every kind of family has something we can learn from. I'm Blair Hodges, and this is Family Proclamations. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ADOPTION TODAY (2:03) BLAIR HODGES: Angela Tucker joins us. She's author of "You Should Be Grateful": Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. Angela, welcome to Family Proclamations. ANGELA TUCKER: Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here. BLAIR HODGES: Let's start with introductions. I borrowed this first question from your book where you describe mentoring transracial adoptees: Please share your name, your gender pronouns, and how you feel about adoption today. ANGELA TUCKER: My name is Angela Tucker. I go by she/her pronouns. How I feel about adoption today is a huge question. BLAIR HODGES: Well, I got it from you. [laughter] ANGELA TUCKER: Wow. Adoption is so complicated. I think in general, society thinks of adoption as really a beautiful thing. That typically comes from the perspective of adoptive parents. My whole work is trying to center the adoptees' perspective on adoption, which isn't necessarily the complete opposite, but it's just a little bit more nuanced than just a fairy-tale-Annie-type story. BLAIR HODGES: This is a question I see you've asked a lot of your counseling groups. You lead sessions with people who are adopted, and you open with this to signal that their feelings might change over time. I think sometimes people get a story about their life and they're just prepared to share that story. When you're sitting down with kids and asking them this question, "How do you feel about it today," their answers may vary. So as a person who has been adopted, where are you at with it today coming into this interview? ANGELA TUCKER: The question—[laughs] I have never had it turned around on me. But yes, I do ask it of all the people that I mentor, and the reason is just because it's so common that folks put their thoughts about our adoption on us. So I am attempting to give my mentees, whether they're young tweens or teens, or even adults, the freedom to understand it can change from day to day. For me, I do a lot of consulting with prospective adopters. And it's frustrating, I would say—this is current, as of yesterday's work—just frustrating to work with folks who really, really want a baby, they want a child, they want to become a parent, and they've found adoption as the way to do that. It's frustrating because that's not what adoption is for. This equation—which, I can understand how it seems like it would make sense—makes things tricky because it makes it hard for the prospective adopters to really have a great understanding about keeping the biological family in your life. Because what they really want is their own child to mold and grow as if it's their own child. That's just not what adoption is. So that's the irksome conundrum I find myself in while I'm doing consulting with families. BLAIR HODGES: Let's talk a little bit about your background. You're a Black person who was adopted by white parents. You talk about them as being progressive and Earth-conscious and attuned to social justice issues. It was interesting to learn about their background and then how that affected you as a person who was adopted into a white family in a very white context. ANGELA TUCKER: Yes. My parents were certifiable hippies of the 70s. [laughter] They adopted seven of us, all from foster care. Their view really was more of the “zero-population growth” group I talk about, how they bought into that idea that we didn't need to be procreating at the rate we were and so they wanted to adopt. I didn't have those ownership-like feelings I notice with a lot of my clients. They were really wishing all of us could have relationships with our birth parents, but we couldn't for one reason or another.   AN ADOPTEE MANIFESTO (5:58)   BLAIR HODGES: We'll talk about that. That makes a big difference, what an adoptee's relationship is with their birth parents, whether there can even be one or not. Your intro to the book begins with something you wrote. It's called An Adoptee Manifesto. I wondered if you could read that for us here. ANGELA TUCKER: Sure, yes. BLAIR HODGES: This kind of gives us a sense of where you're coming from and what you're fighting for. ANGELA TUCKER: "An Adoptee Manifesto. We can love more than one set of parents. Relationships with our birth parents, foster parents, and our adoptive parents are not mutually exclusive. We have the right to own our original birth certificate. Curiosity about our roots is innate. We need access to our family medical history. The pre-verbal memories we have with our first family are real. Post-natal culture shock exists. It's okay to feel a mixture of gratitude and loss. We are not alone. We have each other." BLAIR HODGES: It's a beautiful manifesto. We'll touch on points of it as we go. I wondered when this originated. When did you write the actual manifesto? Was it part of the book or something you'd done beforehand? ANGELA TUCKER: I wrote just a series of statements—it was always on an airplane coming back from doing a keynote speech somewhere. Each of these lines were things I had to find myself telling myself on the airplane. I would go give a keynote speech and I might be barraged with audience members who would ask questions like, "Well, why do you really need to know your medical history? You've got great parents, and they took such great care of you, and they took you to doctors and stuff." At that particular speech, I would be defending why I needed to know my medical history. Every single statement was me on an airplane, ruminating over that one thing, like, well, why do I need to know that? Is it my right? Over time I collated all of those together and at a certain point wrote them all down in one document, and instead of being the flight home from a speech, the flight to a speech, I read all of them in one fell swoop and found a sense of power. Then I started sharing it with other adoptees I mentor, and they were like, "Wow. It's so simple!” Things like, "we can love all of our parents," but to say it out loud, and to say it's not mutually exclusive feels really empowering. After I had collated all these together and started sharing them with others, I just thought, why don't I create it into a beautiful manifesto? I had someone design it, the lettering, the font, and put it up on my wall. Then I started using it as a tool with other adoptive parents who were a little skeptical to say, "What would happen if you put this on your wall for your adopted child to see?" That started creating sense of empowerment for the kids, and so that was really the iteration of how it came to be.   A TRICKY MINEFIELD – 9:19   BLAIR HODGES: We'll hit on some pieces of the manifesto throughout our discussion, but let's also talk about how tricky the discussion itself can be. In your introduction you write that “being honest about adoption is a tricky minefield to navigate, because regardless of your own stance, somebody inevitably seems to get hurt.” What kind of mines are you trying to avoid in the minefield? ANGELA TUCKER: It's so many people's emotions. So many people's good intentions. So many assumptions that this is the best thing for us. I feel like there's the minefield of the prospective adopters, who maybe just want to help, or they'll say that. For me, I'm trying to articulate how, specifically for white parents who say, "We will adopt a child of any color," I want to speak in a kind way, but to show them perhaps that isn't the most responsible thing to do, given their place, or given people's desires for Black and Brown families to start adopting at the same rate as white, entitled middle-class families seem to do. Then I'm also working around, like in my story, my birth mother's deep feelings of shame she has around the time that she placed me for adoption. She doesn't really remember very much about that time. For me to even bring it up—and working on this book was part of that—inevitably triggers her into a space that's really dark and sad. But when I'm talking with her about it, I am sometimes trying to advocate for her, to say, "You really should have had more support." But in even saying that, it reminds her of what she didn't have, and what she couldn't do, which was keep me. For social workers I also feel like it's a minefield because many of them are just doing the best they can with what they have and the knowledge they know. But obviously, it's not good enough if we have one in four adoptees who are in therapy seeking suicide. Something isn't right there either. I think the minefield, if I could sum it up, is that people's good intentions are all over adoptions. It's rare that I meet folks who really want to harm people. Like that's not people's goal. To be critical of it is definitely weighing everyone's perspective all at the same time, it feels like.   “YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL” (11:57)   BLAIR HODGES: Right, and I think the title itself speaks to that—the idea that you should be grateful, a statement that adoptees often hear and, as you point out in the book, some adoptees kind of tell themselves even when they don't really feel it. ANGELA TUCKER: It's gaslighting and it's not gaslighting at the same time. People would say this to me all the time, but they didn't even know my birth parents. I didn't know my birth parents. I didn't know anything about what my life would have been like. But there's that assumption that I got a better life. Certainly, I got a different life. I have really great parents and grew up in a city that, even though it was predominantly white, was a pretty great place to grow up in the Pacific Northwest. But the “should” part—In the book I write the word "should," to me, feels like a combination of judgment and failure at the same time before I've even done anything, and that is irksome, and I also understand where it's coming from. BLAIR HODGES: Is that because you can feel some gratitude? You clearly care for your adoptive parents so much, just like so many kids can be grateful for their parents, and so the phrase is complicated. I think part of the problem is, it seems to really hem everything in. It's very limiting. Instead of saying, "What are you grateful for?" Or "What is there to be grateful for?" It's, "Well, you should be grateful. Here is the story. This is all you should really focus on." It's not curious at all. ANGELA TUCKER: Right. I talk in the book a lot about the things I'm really grateful for, which this idea that I am grateful for the family I have, yet I am not grateful to have to have been adopted. It's an ever so slight difference, but it makes all the difference to me. I don't think any of us wish to be adopted, nor do birth parents want to be birth parents that— So much else happens, and yes, we can still have gratitude for the family we find ourselves within.   ADOPTEE CENTRISM (14:07)   BLAIR HODGES: I haven't had any close friends who were adoptees. I don't have any direct relatives that are adoptees. I think grappling with it came through popular culture and media, and most recently through NBC's This is Us, which follows the story of adoptees, one of whom is a transracial adoptee. That character has become, in my life, an important role model of fatherhood, and to see the story play out of the complications of adoption. For people who haven't seen the series, it's a couple who have two kids and adopt Randall, their third child, and Randall is Black. Especially toward the end of the series you get to see more of the of the racial dynamics play out. I think you consulted on the show, right? ANGELA TUCKER: I consulted on the last season, so season five for Randall's character. BLAIR HODGES: There was so much there and there was so much in that show and in your book that really put my eyes on what the adoptees themselves thought. That's really important. You call it “adoptee centrism.” As you said, a lot of the stories take the perspective of parents and a whole family, like parents wanted a child, they either couldn't have one or for other reasons adopted—that's the story, rather than what's happening to the person being adopted. Talk a little bit more about Adoptee Centrism. ANGELA TUCKER: It's funny how when I talk about adoption, and when I was consulting with the writers of This is Us for Randall, there is this idea of like, "Wow, I've never thought of it that way.” And then, "Oh, how obvious that is” at the same time! In adoption, I often talk about how we are wedged between someone's great joy, which is the adoptive parents often, and someone's extreme pain, which is the birth parents oftentimes. The fact that media hasn't spent much time on our perspective of what that feels like to be in between both, that we often hear about—probably the most critique from media is this "savior attitude" that adoptive parents might have, you hear about "White Saviorism," but the space of wishing we could be with our birth family, perhaps understanding why we can't—that's the story I'm trying to tell and promote. Adoptee centrism hasn't been mainstreamed because there seems to be a big threat, especially to adoptive parents, when adoptees speak out. I am grateful my parents don't seem to have that. They're very open to my viewpoint on all of this. One thing I talk about in my book is how many adult adoptees say, "I want to find my birth parents, but I'm going to wait until my adoptive parents die before I start." That's because they're trying to show love for their adoptive parents, and they don't want them to feel put off or like they're not thankful for all they did. So many stories I know, right when their adoptive parents pass away, these adoptees go try to search, and those are really sad stories often because birth parents sometimes have passed away too by that point.   HISTORY OF TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION IN THE US (17:39)   BLAIR HODGES: I think taking the perspective of adoptees is really helpful and your book has a lot of voices in there, a lot of different people you talked to, to help give people a sense of adoptees' perspectives. You also give a history of transracial adoption in particular. There's a startling moment in your first chapter I wanted to bring up here. You describe a meet-and-greet that happened after your documentary Closure was screened. This is a documentary about your experience. A Black woman approached you and told you that you were her worst fears realized and said you're not a true Black person. This chapter puts her comment into historical context about what she could have meant by that. Why would someone say something like that, that you're her worst fears realized and there's something questionable about your Blackness? ANGELA TUCKER: That was a really hard moment, but the woman who told me this was a member of the National Association of Black Social Workers. In 1972, that group called transracial adoption "cultural genocide," because they felt like white people weren't going to adequately imbue the skills we need to traverse America and its racism. The group wasn't saying white parents couldn't parent us, but that we would have to do a lot of code switching and essentially become way familiar with whiteness, perhaps at a really terrible cost. In my speech I was essentially saying that in a positive way. I was talking about how comfortable I felt in both white and Black spaces as a result of growing up transracially adopted, even though I did talk about finding my Blackness and being really proud of who I was, didn't come until I was in my college years and got away from that predominantly white city. But that was exactly what this woman wanted to work against. She in her career was trying to avoid adoptees having to feel that split, and so with my speech I basically confirmed it's still happening. I didn't know all of that when she told me I was her worst fear realized and so I was really shocked—more than shocked I mean, to have a Black woman say that to me was really tough. But as I reflected on it against that backdrop, I had an understanding. It's similar to how hard I'm working to ensure adoptees are no longer in closed adoptions. And if I went to a speech in twenty years, and someone came through a closed adoption, I don't know that I would go right up to them and say that, but I would be frustrated about my life's work. BLAIR HODGES: Right. “Closed adoption” meaning there's no connection between adoptees and their birth parents and there's really no way to find them. You're basically not allowed to, whether the records are hidden, or whatever. That's closed adoption. I want to talk a little bit more about the history. The first recorded transracial adoption in the United States that we know of you say happened in 1948. That's not all that long ago. Then in the 1950s there's a rise of a paternalistic kind of racism. White people were saying, "Oh, we need to uplift Black people. We can do this through adoption." Or, "Black people are less fit as parents and so we should bring Black children into white families," and so on. That's the context the National Association of Black Social Workers was protesting against and saying there's racial genocide in the 70s, which to me made total sense historically, to see why they would have those problems. But then in the 1980s, which is around the time you were adopted, there was the rise of a colorblind, feel-good, post-racial kind of vibe. It's sort of like, "We don't care what color they are; we'll welcome any child into our family!" Which on the surface seems great, right? It seems not racist, but in ignoring the experience of race in America, it ends up overlooking really important aspects of what it means to be Black and what it means to be white. You say a colorblind, feel-good adoption is actually kind of problematic. ANGELA TUCKER: Yes. So problematic. I remember actually wearing a t-shirt that says, "Love sees no color." I think that was a common adage back in the early nineties maybe.   COLOR EVASION (22:26)   BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, that was my youth. "I don't see color" was the thing. ANGELA TUCKER: I like the upgraded term for colorblindness, which is “color evasiveness,” because it doesn't let white people off the hook to say like, "I just don't see it." Because actually, you do, and you're choosing not to see a certain color, certain races. But in doing that we're only upholding whiteness as the status quo. To say, "I love you no matter what. You're beautiful no matter what, but we're going to put you in this predominantly white space," means we really want you to assimilate to be just like them and we're not going to celebrate any aspect of what makes you who you are. That idea is really covert. It comes across when people like myself wanted to have hair that flowed in the wind like my mom's. I didn't want to have my afro. That could be interpreted as just individuation, just trying new things and hairstyles, or we could see it through the race of colorblindness. Of course I want to fit in with the culture around me. I know so many families who would just choose to see it as the former, as just self-exploration, and put us in an all-Black place. We likely wouldn't be so keen to have our hair look like Eurocentric flow in the wind. We still have it a little bit because that's what is in popular culture. You just have to work really hard to embrace and to see race. We really want parents to see our color because once they do there's so much historically and in our culture we can seriously celebrate. But also, there's that piece of, if you want to avoid talking about race, then it must mean you don't love my birth family, is how it feels way deep down. BLAIR HODGES: Right. You also talked about how growing up in a white household, it might be like the way you talk, the way you dress, the kind of things you enjoy. If you're more surrounded by white folks and not as invested in Black culture, that can be reflected in how you talk and how you act—I don't remember if the book uses the word “Oreo” or not, but it's this kind of derogatory way of saying “Black on the outside, white on the inside.” ANGELA TUCKER: I do talk about “Oreo,” when I'm working with a group of transracial adoptees at a transracial adoption camp, that this group of boys talk about this word "Oreo" and how they are called that, and what that means to them. In the book, you can see their struggle with accepting that reality and believing it, and then also wanting to push back against it, because they understand there are aspects of themselves that don't fit with the societal view of Blackness. I try to teach that Blackness is not a monolith, but that's something I didn't learn until later on. I didn't really, truly believe there could be Black nerds—Black folks like me who love to read. I really did buy into the narrative that Black folks are only athletes. It was just so narrow. But how do you know if you aren't immersed in the culture? So it still is a prevalent term. I like to point people to Susan Harris O'Connor's research where she talks about the five different identities of transracial adoptees and how tricky they are. That our genetic identity might not match up with our feeling identity. Like I know I'm a Black woman, but I may I have a feeling I really can identify with whiteness. Of course I can, if that's all I was raised in. That has changed in my adulthood, thankfully, but it would make sense. I try to give transracial adoptees a little more latitude and some language around the expansiveness of our identities. It's nice, because I think it's not just limited to transracial adoption anymore, that there are so many different groups of people grappling with what it means to belong. That's really a surprise I've found with my book coming out, how many people aren't related to transracial adoption but are like, "I feel myself in your book." BLAIR HODGES: Because they sense that identity tension, the kind of different tensions a lot of different people feel. Your book explores how that plays out in the context of adoption, but I do think there's connection there for anyone who's tried to find a place, or tried to fit in, or had questions about their identity. I think LGBTQ issues fit in here, especially for folks who are trans who are dealing with gender expectations as they grow up. There's a lot of different touchstones here for a lot of readers. ANGELA TUCKER: Yeah, just pushing back against the status quo and our world is expanding on so many binaries we've had. I think that is exactly the transracial adoptee experience.   PROXIMAL PRIVILEGE (27:56)   BLAIR HODGES: Right. Your chapter, "White Privilege by Osmosis," talks about these exact issues, about not being seen as Black enough to some people, being seen as too Black for others. But also—this was interesting to me—the “proximal privilege,” I think is the words you use. The kind of privilege you could receive by being in a white family. ANGELA TUCKER: Yes. As a kid, as a teenager, I only made sense in the city of Bellingham, Washington, if my parents were right nearby. So if I'm walking around holding hands with my mom at a mall, people automatically would go up to her and say, "Wow, what a great thing you've done!" They recognize she has adopted me, and then I, therefore, am given this privilege of being in this space without having to explain myself very much. Just like "Oh, okay, you're a safe Black person, because you're with this woman who did this great thing." But when I wasn't with my parents and I'm just a Black girl out in the city, there is caution and curiosity, and kind of confusion, people are like, "How did you get here? Why are you here? Who are you" kind of thing. BLAIR HODGES: They don't just think it, either! I was shocked at how common commentary could come at you, like commentary at the store, or commentary at a playground, and how often families deal with these unsolicited comments that maybe seem well-intentioned, but I think they're really born of a sort of discomfort. People feel uncomfortable and they just need to say something. ANGELA TUCKER: Yes. So often just out on the playground, like, "Where did you get them? How much did they cost? Where did they come from?" BLAIR HODGES: Or overpraising, like over-attention, right? Like, "So beautiful, look at you." You're like, "I'm a kid. I'm here with my mom…" ANGELA TUCKER: Just the stunning-ness that a Black child could be well-behaved, or kind, or having fun on the playground, or any of that is like, "Oh my goodness." BLAIR HODGES: "She's so well spoken." What does that mean?! ANGELA TUCKER: "Very articulate." I'm always "very articulate." [laughter] That gets back to the adoptee centrism, because yes, a lot of these points just seem like people can't even stop themselves but to gush in those ways, which are racist, but well-intentioned. To be in the middle of that as a kid, it makes you wonder, "Is there something weird about me that only a special person could have adopted me? Or is there something strange that I can speak? Am I speaking wrong? What makes me so absolutely articulate that it's just mind boggling?" Where are we supposed to go with those questions without appearing like we're not grateful for what we've been given? That's a lot of my work and mentorship, is giving space for exploring the comments people make that really do make us question our place. BLAIR HODGES: Your book is helpful with this. I encourage people to read it to see some of the comments they themselves may have made, because we just need to become more familiar. I think a lot of times it is coming from a place of ignorance rather than maliciousness, but we've got to learn in order to not do it. ANGELA TUCKER: Absolutely. I mean, the title, "You Should Be Grateful"—it's funny how often people have come up to me and been like, "Oh my gosh, I hear that all the time! It's the worst." But nobody is willing to say, "Oh, my word, I've said that all the time!" Both have to be true. I think about myself and times in my head where I've had that thought too, and within my context, if you boil it down even more, it's about poverty, and how we view—like, my birth mother couldn't have possibly loved me or been a good parent since she was poor. Let's get a little bit deeper into that, is what I'm trying to also ask for, because it's really harmful for adoptees to grow up thinking—whatever the case may be, but for me grow up thinking—because my birth mother is poor she didn't love me. That's the message you get unless you really face it and name it. And that is not true!   SYSTEMIC ISSUES (32:27)   BLAIR HODGES: Well, and another one is, “She was poor because she has some sort of fundamental character flaws.” It doesn't look at systemic injustices. It doesn't look at how generational wealth has been denied to so many Black folks in the United States, it doesn't look to systemic issues. I think there's also a risk that Black transracial adoptive kids might accept some of the stereotypes about Black communities, of being like, "Oh, maybe I should be grateful,” because of stereotypes about Black people being lazy, or Black fathers being absent, these sort of things that we know are problematic, but they can be internalized by some of these adoptees. ANGELA TUCKER: If we think about why Black fathers are absent, let's get into the penal system and how many Black men are incarcerated, and how many of those men have children, and how many of those men have children they would have loved to have parented if not being imprisoned for a marijuana possession or something that isn't even illegal now. BLAIR HODGES: All while their communities are over-policed compared to white communities. There was more policing there, there are more arrests. Criminality itself isn't inherent to race, but the way we build policing means there are inequities in how people are imprisoned or prosecuted or sentenced. Again, systemic stuff. ANGELA TUCKER: Right. This is something so many people who are at that point of saying, "I want to adopt a child. I want a baby really badly," have a really hard time thinking about. The systemic issues. If I say to someone who is in that place—and perhaps they've been struggling with getting pregnant for years and this is just all they want—if I were to say, “Why do you think a Black or Brown family wouldn't be able to adopt this child instead of you?” That would be so hurtful to them because they're like, "What are you saying? I'm going to give this kid the best life possible." What I'm trying to get to is systemic issues. To say, "What makes it such that you are able to adopt this child and a Black and Brown family isn't?" It's a hard conversation to have at that time given the emotionality of it all. That's a trend I've seen, and it's really hard to talk about at that moment, but for instance if they adopt a Black boy, when he turns five or six and he's experiencing racism on the playground or even from the school faculty, then those same parents come to me and are like, "Oh my goodness, this is terrible. This isn't fair." They can't see it until, in my view, they get what they want, which is the child. And then once the legals are all completed, then there's this valve that opens in their brain, allowing for the possibility to talk about the systemic issues.   PROFESSIONAL WORK WITH THE ADOPTION SYSTEM (35:24)   BLAIR HODGES: You've had a front row seat to this, not just as an adoptee, but also through your professional work. You began professionally working with adoptive agencies, helping to facilitate adoptions, including transracial adoptions. But that didn't seem to last very long for you. ANGELA TUCKER: [laughter] I mean, I was twenty-one years old, fresh out of undergrad, when I began placing children and doing transracial adoptions. It was a great learning experience for me. One of the things I was curious about was how the “home study” process works. Home study can be like a six-month process that if you want to adopt you have to go through all these interviews and background checks. And I wanted to know what that was like. So I started conducting those and writing these big reports for families, and that was very enlightening, learning also about the money. It was perplexing to me how I would be making $32,000 a year in this role, and individual families would be paying $39,000 for an adoption to wait on a list. And I had like fifty families. So I knew there was a lot of money coming in, and where's it all going? Then I would be working with my colleagues who were supporting women who are pregnant. And for some reason, we couldn't spend very much money to support their needs. So yeah, that was really a tricky space to be in as an adoptee, but it taught me a lot. BLAIR HODGES: You seem pretty pragmatic in your approach because you recognize issues with the adoption system and systemic issues with regard to race in the United States. But you've also targeted your focus to work directly with adoptees themselves. You've started The Adoptee Lounge, for example, which is a group you run to help discuss with transracial adoptees what their experiences are like, to help young people process this together. You've landed in a place where you've been a professional in the adoption world. Then you've become more of an activist. You've also become a counselor. Do you feel at home more in that role? How did you land where you are now with this advocacy, writing books, and mentoring individual people? Does it ever feel a little futile because the bigger system continues to plod on? ANGELA TUCKER: Totally. All those things. I certainly could not see myself working to continue helping people adopt children. I knew I couldn't do that. I shifted to working in post-adoption services, which is so necessary but feels frustrating because I'm no longer working at the source, although I do make attempts. It's pretty hard to push back at every step within the child welfare industry. The adoption industry more so than foster care. I think there's a need within foster care. It's more sometimes the newborn/infant adoption space, but I do some work in foster care and that feels much more aligned with my wellbeing, when we have clarity that a child really cannot be with their biological family. There's been abuse or harm, and so advocating for individuals to step up to support them feels better because it's less about ownership and more about stewardship and the support of a child. But landing in the adoptee space does feel a bit futile because I don't want the system to keep on churning out more adoptees. And at the same time, I don't see it stopping anytime soon and I do think when I'm working with adoptees who are in their seventies and eighties and they are grappling with these same things, I think, "All right, there is so much healing we can do in helping adoptees understand all aspects of themselves." It feels very grounding for me. It feels less adversarial. But I also am keeping my foot in that activism space. I think about the Indian Child Welfare Act, which is in front of the Supreme Court right now. There are so many parallels to it and the National Association of Black Social Workers and their statement. That's a really scary law that could get reversed. So I do spend some time in those spaces, as well as educating adoption agencies. But working with adoptees is a beautiful space for me to be in, and for sustainability long term, it's important.   THE GHOST KINGDOM (40:15)   BLAIR HODGES: That's Angela Tucker. We're talking about the book “You Should Be Grateful:” Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. You can also check out her story in a documentary called Closure I mentioned earlier. She also has a podcast, The Adoptee Next Door. She also consulted with NBC's This Is Us and has over fifteen years of experience working within adoption and foster care agencies and has mentored over two hundred adoptees. Angela, there's this idea you bring up in the book, the "Ghost Kingdom," and this is something you got from a psychologist who coined this term. This is the imaginary worlds adoptees construct as they're trying to make sense of a past they don't have very many solid memories of—this Ghost Kingdom, this world an adoptee can build. Give us a sense of what that is. ANGELA TUCKER: The Ghost Kingdom is an imaginary, fantastical realm where, for me, I decided my birth dad was Magic Johnson when I was young, because he's a basketball player, I'm a basketball player. He has a humongous smile, I have this big smile. In the absence of knowing any facts about who my birth dad is, then it must be him. My birth mom was Halle Berry because she's stunningly beautiful. I don't think I could just say that about myself. But who wouldn't want to be Halle Berry? She has a similar skin tone to me. It's just a little goofy, but it's also helpful in trying to fill in the blanks. I think it's not too different than non-adopted people who might have chosen to go to one college instead of another and they think about what life would have been like if they chose to go to that college instead, like, "Where would I be today? What would I have studied? Where would I live?" That's the kind of place where there's nothing wrong with it. I do hope adoptees don't have to spend much time in their Ghost Kingdom because we can replace it with the truth. For me, once I found my birth parents, they are so much better than Magic Johnson and Halle Berry, like they are my blood and it was, oh, unbelievable to know them. That's kind of what the Ghost Kingdom is. It's not just adoptees. Birth parents have a Ghost Kingdom, especially if they don't know where their child went, and that's thinking about who their children became and where they are living and what they are doing. BLAIR HODGES: You talk about the grief of ambiguous loss. There's a Welsh word—I don't know how to pronounce it. Hiraeth. Do you know how to pronounce it? ANGELA TUCKER: I learned how to pronounce it when I was doing the audiobook recording. I'm still not very good at it. But it's “here-ayeth." BLAIR HODGES: Okay, yeah. It's this sense of homesick, nostalgia, and longing for something that is irretrievably lost, something that can't come back, something that's just gone, and maybe was never fully solid. It's this sort of ambiguous nostalgia. And as you mentioned, you hope the Ghost Kingdoms don't need to be built as much because you're advocating for more open adoption versus closed adoption, meaning kids can learn more about their birth parents earlier, they can know more. There could possibly be contact. Because when there's not any of that, all kids have is their imagination, and their imagination can take them anywhere really. In good ways and bad ways. ANGELA TUCKER: Yes, and I think some adoptive parents may not recognize the hole that's filling, if a child is having a huge imagination and is wanting to watch Annie over and over and over and over again. The reason is we're essentially searching for ourselves, and so let's just make it possible. I advocate that we can always have open adoptions for every single adoption, even those where a birth parent is deceased, those where a birth parent is truly unsafe, or they're in jail. That every single adoption can be open because it has more to do with what the adoptive parents have within their control, which is, if you know your child, you can say, like, "Gosh, I wonder where your traits come from. Your birth parents must be lovers of art, or great singers." You know? You can really take what you see in the child and expound upon it in relation to birth family, even if you don't know them. That is what creates a really wonderful space for adoptees to feel free to explore and not gaslit and not like they have to have a sheer loyalty to the adoptive parents. So that is what I advocate when physical contact can't be had. BLAIR HODGES: This was where This Is Us was so powerful was seeing Rebecca's [the mother's] fear that Randall's [the adopted son's] parents would replace her at some point, this fear he would connect with them and lose her, or a kind of possible jealousy, or he could reconnect and maybe be hurt by a birth parent. There are so many feelings for the parent going through this. You're really asking parents to make room for these other families and these other connections, which can be scary for everybody involved. But I feel you make a powerful case, that all things being equal, it's a better approach because people, by and large, are going to have that longing regardless of what you do, ANGELA TUCKER: They're going to figure out how to get it some way, even if it's like as I shared earlier, the fifty-year-old who's going to wait until their adoptive parents die till they're going to find their birth parents. Finding our roots, like I wrote in the manifesto, is innate. I think it's scary only because we don't have a lot of examples of it. Perhaps it was scary at some point for a parent to think they could love four children equally if they had four kids. Maybe people at some point were like, "Wow, can that really be done?" Now it's not scary. You're going to have another kid? Great, people say. How come we can't understand that for adoptees, we can love all these parents we have. We're not going to feel confused about who's who or who might not be safe, or how to put boundaries in our lives to keep that safety. No, actually, if you as our adoptive parents have taught us about boundaries, just in general, then allow us to use that here too.   FINDING ANGELA'S BIRTH PARENTS (46:46)   BLAIR HODGES: There's something in the book you bring up. The “Birth Study.” This is a document you held to almost as scripture, this sort of story of your origins. This is a study done by social workers during the process of your adoption that talked about your birth parents. It gave clues about who they were. It wasn't until later when your boyfriend, now your partner, pointed out your possible biological father's name was included here and this is what helped open the gate to you reconnecting. ANGELA TUCKER: This study is a three-page document. I house it in a box in my house with things like my passport, my marriage license, it's that important to me. It is filled with redactions. I didn't notice because in the era of closed adoptions, we can't know our birth parent's last name, for example, or I couldn't know her address. It would share my birth mother's height and weight and skin complexion, but nothing identifying. It wasn't until my husband, boyfriend at the time, saw this name I had overlooked. It was an uncommon name. “Oterious” is my birth father's name. That allowed us to then Google and search and find this man who didn't know he had a daughter. BLAIR HODGES: I hope people take the time to see in the documentary, or read the book, to see this story. You had dreamed so long about meeting your mom that it was sort of like, "Oh yeah, there's a dad too! Okay, I'll check that out." [laughter] But you still had that drive for your mom, and as you describe in the book, it was devastating in some ways, actually. I think it's easy to romanticize and figure like, "Oh, this is going to be some grand reunion." But you describe the first time you met her in person again, she basically denied it like, "Oh no. No relation here. Goodbye." ANGELA TUCKER: Painful. Another reason why it's so important that we bring in systemic issues when teaching about adoption, because the thing that got me through that year where she denied me, "I don't know who you are, please leave," we were in Tennessee to find her. Then we flew back to Washington state where we live. But what got me through that year was understanding how deep shame must be for someone who was not given any support to think about what happened to her daughter, and to then think about why wasn't she given support, and to start understanding issues around poverty and how the adoption industry treats that, versus how it treats adoptive parents who have resources and means. I think it's partly a coping mechanism to kind of intellectualize. BLAIR HODGES: Yes, you say that in the book. It was so interesting to see you psychoanalyze yourself a little bit and say after your mom devastated you, you went through this investigation into the background, thinking about the systemic issues and ways you were processing grief intellectually. ANGELA TUCKER: Exactly. I had to be mad at something, and I could not fathom being mad at my birth mother for this unexpected visitor twenty-six years later after giving birth at a time that must have been— I was like, yeah, that is shocking. I can't be mad, but I am mad. Who am I mad at? I turned to the system and all the people that failed her, but then I didn't just think about her, and I'm thinking about the bigger system and all the people who are in leadership positions and what is happening with every single adoption. I was able to channel that grief intellectually and move on. But my gracious, when she called back a year later, that was indescribable! She called back and said, "Yes, I am your birth mother. Come back and let's meet."   WISHING FOR BETTER – (50:56)   BLAIR HODGES: It is such a beautiful story. Not all stories get to have this kind of outcome, especially in the time of closed adoptions, how many people never even had this opportunity. It's beautiful to see. You also talk a little bit about survivor's guilt, because you met some siblings you had. Some siblings you'd never known and you were kind of comparing your life to theirs. You brought a sister out to visit you in Washington, and you would go out to Tennessee, and your survivor's guilt hung around for you, seeing the different lives you might have had. ANGELA TUCKER: It's hard to see that many of my birth siblings weren't raised by my birth mother either, but they weren't adopted. There's one sibling who was adopted who we are still looking for and can't find her. But the others, their lives are so much different than mine. If I could rewrite the book, I might not use that word "guilt," because I think guilt assumes a crime. You're guilty of doing something wrong. In this case, I did not do anything wrong, nor did my birth siblings. I would probably work a little harder to find the right language to describe this phenomenon. BLAIR HODGES: Maybe it's just wishing better for them too? You're seeing some of the privileges you got, because of where you were raised, and who raised you, comparatively. I like that, though, eliminating the word guilt because there's not culpability. But there is still an unsettled feeling and sort of a—you wish better for them. ANGELA TUCKER: And I wish better for myself. Although they weren't raised by my birth mother, they knew her. BLAIR HODGES: Yes, and you're connecting with your siblings now, forging new relationships. I can only imagine how complicated that could feel. ANGELA TUCKER: I think in my birth siblings' perspective, there was a sense of wishing they had some of what I have when they came to my hometown and saw some of the places where I grew up and met some of my friends and teachers and coaches and stuff. At the same time, there was a wishing on my end for what they had. Even though my birth mother didn't raise them, they were raised by my birth grandmother and got to see my birth mom on occasion and knew her name and knew the story. For me, there was a longing for that, that they knew their roots and I didn't. BLAIR HODGES: It's so tempting to weigh that against each other. What's ultimately preferable? ANGELA TUCKER: I think that's what is done in adoption. We do weigh that, and what wins is me getting three meals a day and access to all the extracurricular activities and great medical care. What loses is what my birth siblings had, which was a little more instability. But to me, knowing what it's like growing up without roots, without knowing where you came from, or who gave birth to you, that, to me, means as much. As well as the racial element. They grew up with people who looked like them. I didn't get to see anyone who looked like me for years. So far what has won out is what the adoptive parents are able to give and I'm trying to press back against that a little. BLAIR HODGES: I also appreciated how you talked about your birth mother, how she might have been feeling. You spent more time, it seems, after you met her thinking about reasons why she might not have wanted to reconnect—or maybe just had conflicted feelings about it, maybe I should say—and empathizing more now that you've met her and have come to know her more as a person, that story could fill in more for you about what she might have been up to and why. ANGELA TUCKER: A bit. It's very hard for her to articulate all of this, especially with me having white parents. When I asked her how many positive relationships she'd had with white people growing up, she's like, "I could count it on one hand." For me to think like, "Okay, and here come my parents who want to show her love, but clearly she has to be projecting upon them what she has experienced from so many the other white people in the Deep South." It's really cool now to see their relationship. My parents went on a road trip to the South and sent me pictures of hanging out with my birth mom in Biloxi, Mississippi, and taking her out to eat, and they just had fun. I love that. It's taken a decade, but my birth mother really trusts them now. That relationship is so healing for me to see. BLAIR HODGES: I was really moved by something you said about your mom. She didn't express to you her reservations about you meeting your birth mom. She just showed support for you, and was there for you, although she did have worries. You suggest maybe if she did share with you, it might have dissuaded you from pursuing things. It might have prevented you from having this amazing reconnection, and to swallow her own vulnerability—or not swallow, but keep it inside, so you could have more freedom to pursue what you needed. That's pretty amazing. ANGELA TUCKER: It's beautiful. I wish I could just categorize it as parenting. I would like for it to be in that same category of how parents sacrifice for their kids in many ways and all these times. But I think this one does feel a little more unique. I don't think my mom just swallowed her, what she—I now know—articulates at the time as a fear of being replaced. She had a little fear. She didn't tell me. I don't think she just swallowed it. I think she just talked to other people about it but didn't talk to me about it because she knew I wouldn't want to hurt her. I wouldn't want to put her in that place. It's incredible that she gave me the freedom to not have that burden and move forward. She worked through that fear on her own and I'm so grateful for it. I absolutely believe that's the reason I have this relationship now.   THE SONDERSPHERE (57:26)   BLAIR HODGES: Let's talk about the Sondersphere. This is an interesting term you bring up in the book. Because you're an advocate for more open adoptions, even though adoptive parents might fear competition or whatever, you suggest the ways we imagine our connections to each other can help quiet our fears like that, and offer a more stable experience for adoptees. I'll invite you to read a section from the book here on page 166. This is a section that talks about this Sondersphere, if you would. I'd appreciate that. ANGELA TUCKER: "I call it the Sondersphere, a word I made up based on a term coined by John Koenig in his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. He defines the word 'sonder' as the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own, populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries, and inherited craziness, an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill, sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed. The Sondersphere is around where every person in an adoptees' life has a place. Where birth parents and adoptive parents and biological aunties and foster parents and adoptive cousins all exist together. They don't necessarily share a home, like some awkward reality TV show, but instead share an orbit around the adoptee. The Sondersphere is a real-life antidote to the adoptees' Ghost Kingdom, a place where their questions can be answered in real time, where their identity can bounce around and try things on for size, where they always belong, because all the parts of their story are visible and accessible to them." BLAIR HODGES: The Sondersphere. This is a wonderful way to conceive of it. I want to hear more from you about what this idea has done for you in your own pursuit as you've reconnected with your family members, and as you work with transracial adoptees in your professional life. ANGELA TUCKER: Currently, openness is the preferred terminology and method, but when you're working in an adoption agency, what openness looks like is giving the adoptive parents a document they fill out that says "We will contact birth parents four times a year." Or, "We'll send a letter with some photos to the adoption agency quarterly and then the agency can pass it along." That constitutes openness. Sometimes those contracts are written for the next eighteen years of a kid's life. I am suggesting that is unreasonable for anyone to make relationship decisions for the next eighteen years. Instead, this Sondersphere accounts for the ebbs and flows that are natural in a relationship. Currently if an adoptive family has this openness contract, sometimes they'll call me up and say, "The birth mom disappeared for eight months. We have not heard a thing from her. Everything's off. What are we supposed to do?" In the Sondersphere I'm trying to reframe that to say, all of us go through times where we might need a little break, or we might go off the grid for one reason or another. BLAIR HODGES: It could even be health issues or something. Who knows? ANGELA TUCKER: Who knows what it is? But what I do know is it's human. Can we allow for just the humanity? Especially in an extremely emotional and vulnerable relationship like this one. But the humanity is not just accepted; we embrace it just like we would with any uncle we have who goes in and out of our lives. My hope is it can just give a more human portrayal of everyone involved, and that is only going to be helpful for all of humanity if we can finally see all of ourselves as not one-dimensional. I think this is for birth parents, too. I hear birth parents, when they are talking about openness, they'll say things like, "My kid's adoptive parents are perfect. They have this white picket fence, they have a grand piano, they have two Labrador Retrievers, and life is perfect." For them, too, I'm like, "No, no. The adoptive parents have quarrels, they struggle, they have fights, they love your kid, but no, everything is not perfect.” That's currently the system we've designed.   LEGAL ISSUES (1:02:13)   BLAIR HODGES: I really appreciate the attention you give to being more supportive of birth moms in general, that the amount of resources we put into foster and adoption, there might be a reckoning we could do to see if there are more social supports we could give to mothers and to fathers or to couples or single individuals who are having children, to support them in having children and keeping them and raising them if possible. The kind of systemic interventions that could help, instead of so many resources going on the other side of things in adoption and fostering. ANGELA TUCKER: It's pretty wild. People sometimes ask, "How did your birth dad not know about you?" They were like, "I can understand how your birth mom might have hid the pregnancy and stuff, but how did his rights get legally terminated?" I share how that process works, which is, for my birth father and many men, an attorney will put an ad in a paper, and that ad needs to run for a couple months. This varies by county, but an ad might say like, "Did you know So-and-So? Were you at this place on this date? If so, call us." My birth dad never picked up the paper, much less the classified section where the font is size eight, and nobody reads that. Once that ad runs, that's essentially giving them an opportunity to step forward even though they may never see it, and then John Doe's rights are terminated. They terminate every single man in America's rights to parent me. BLAIR HODGES: What's your wish list for legal issues? If there's one or two big things you would change legally, what would those be, for the system itself? ANGELA TUCKER: One of them is the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act, which is really troublesome. It basically says that any adoption agency that receives federal money cannot mandate that prospective adopters take courses around cultural competency, that it can only be an extra—like, if you want to learn about this stuff then great, but you don't have to. That has got to change because I do feel like cultural competency is as important as feeding a child. That would be great to start. The other part of the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act requires agencies to work harder to recruit Black and Brown families to become adoptive parents. It's not a measurable part of the law, and so even the agencies who know about this law will just say, "How are we supposed to do that? We tried." I'd love to see some measurable items added to that to show how agencies can change things to start attracting more Black and Brown parents. BLAIR HODGES: It sounds like we need some more creativity there. You're a transracial adoptee yourself, you love your parents, you have an amazing story. But you've also experienced turmoil and tension and cultural issues because of transracial adoption. Like we said at the beginning, it's a bit of a minefield in recognizing the strengths and gifts of parents who transracially adopt and the strengths and gifts of transracial adoptees themselves, but also some of the downsides. Cultural competency training would be a good start, but also, as you said, making adoption more equalized, and seeing a greater diversity of adoptive families seems like a pretty good place to start. ANGELA TUCKER: Yes.   REGRETS, CHALLENGES, & SURPRISES! (1:05:50)   BLAIR HODGES: That's Angela Tucker, author of “You Should Be Grateful:” Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. Alright, Angela, we always like to close Family Proclamations with a question about regrets, challenges, and surprises. You mentioned a regret a little bit earlier about not using the word "guilt," survivor's guilt, that's an interesting regret. If you have any other ones, you can bring them up now. Or if you can think of anything that challenged you in writing this book, any obstacles you faced, or anything that surprised you, some new discovery, or new way of seeing the issue. This is a “choose your own adventure,” you can speak to all three of those, or you can pick one of them. It's up to you. ANGELA TUCKER: Let me talk about a challenge. When I began writing the book, I was asking my birth mom questions about her time when she was pregnant when she kept it a secret. How did you keep it a secret? Did anybody know? When did you find out? How did you get to the hospital? Did somebody drive you there? Where did you go after you gave birth to me? Did you have a home? I was asking her all these questions. Her answer was basically like, I don't know. I don't remember. I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know. I was like, okay, I just need to work with that. It's twofold. It's one, emotional for me, but then two, to write this book, how do I do that? At some point I toyed with the idea of writing a fictionized version. I said to my birth mother, let's just say there's this character named Deborah, which is my birth mother's name, who finds herself pregnant and needs to get to the hospital, but nobody knows. How would she do that in this book? And she just started telling me stuff about herself. She still couldn't remember a lot, but when I fictionalized it, it was different. It wasn't just, "I can't even go there." That was profound. It was the separation Deborah needed to get a little closer. It made me sad because I thought, “Somebody give her a therapist.” If I could be her therapist right now, I think we could unlock so much of her trauma and shame. Anyways, it was a tactic I just threw out there. I'm grateful I didn't have to fictionalize, but I did learn a lot. I didn't put all that I learned from her in that moment in the book, just to keep her integrity, but that was a major surprise through the writing process. BLAIR HODGES: Overall did you find it hard to talk so personally? The book's really personal. It also has some great theory, it's got some great connections with other folks, but it's also personal. Was that challenging for you? It seems like you've been used to talking about your story. Maybe that comes along with being an adoptee, where people already feel like they should have access to your story. ANGELA TUCKER: There's that for sure. I enjoyed writing. I really loved that process. It was quiet and thoughtful and pensive. I didn't have the naysayers and things I do when I speak about my story online or in other formats where people can right away be like, "What are you talking about," and they come at me. I loved it. The part where I found myself feeling emotional was when I was reading the audiobook, surprisingly enough. I had moments where I was just like, what happened? I wrote these words, but I had to take some breaks. That was a surprise. BLAIR HODGES: I've just got one more for you, and this connects to perhaps another episode. You talk about how you and your partner chose not to parent, at least as of the time of writing of the book. And we'll have other episodes that talk about single adults and married folks who choose not to have kids. Do you think that's connected to your experience of adoption? Do you feel like that's related to a lot of different things? ANGELA TUCKER: I certainly think it's connected. Being child-free by choice is something I'm proud of. But I know so many often get questions: "Why would you do that? You and your husband have the resources and the love and all of these things." I love being an auntie to so many. I love being a mentor. I think my and Brian's, our kind of ethos has a lot to do with the poem I quoted at the beginning of the book by Khalil Gibran called On Children, where we don't believe parenting needs to look like ownership of a child, but we can be in people's lives in a way that helps them thrive. We do that. We have people who live in our home with us who we aren't related to, but we can support in certain ways, and they can view us using whatever term they want. That feels really in alignment with the past. We love doing that. BLAIR HODGES: That's cool. Well, as I said, people can check out other episodes that will talk about that angle. Angela, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about your book, “You Should Be Grateful.” It's a phenomenal book, a helpful and eye-opening book. ANGELA TUCKER: Thank you. BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening. There's much more to come on Family Proclamations. If you're enjoying the show, why not take a second to rate and review it? Go to Apple Podcasts and let me know your thoughts. And please take a second to recommend the show to a friend. The more the merrier. Thanks to Mates of State for providing our theme song. Family Proclamations is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I'm Blair Hodges, and I'll see you next time.   Note: Transcripts have been edited for readability.

Wellness + Wisdom | Episode 573 Do you know how to let go of your ego as a parent? Dr. Shefali Tsabary, world-renowned clinical psychologist, joins Josh Trent on the Wellness + Wisdom podcast, episode 573, to share how parents can transition from parenting driven by conditioned patterns to conscious parenting, why parents have the need to control their children, and how the five masks of the ego serve as a survival mechanism. Live Life Well from Sunrise to Sunset Save 20% with code "WELLNESSFORCE" on everyone's favorite Superfoods brand, ORGANIFI, including their Sunrise to Sunset Bundle and their Women's Power Stack that includes HARMONY + GLOW for true hormonal balance and great health radiating through your beautiful skin. Click HERE to order your Organifi today. Are You Stressed Out Lately? Take a deep breath with the M21™ wellness guide: a simple yet powerful 21 minute morning system that melts stress and gives you more energy through 6 science-backed practices and breathwork. Click HERE to download for free. Biohack Your Mind & Body with Plunge Ice Baths!Save $150 on your PLUNGE order with code "WELLNESSFORCE" As seen on Shark Tank, Plunge's revolutionary Cold Plunge uses powerful cooling, filtration, and sanitation to give you cold, clean water whenever you want it, making it far superior to an ice bath or chest freezer. *Review The Wellness + Wisdom Podcast & WIN $150 in wellness prizes! *Join The Facebook Group "Parenting today is under a deep crisis because we've been doing it the way we were told to do it. Parents are unable to individuate and break free themselves because they're so enmeshed with the parental indoctrination from their childhood that they need to present as perfect or happy or cheerful. That's why they can't allow their children to be autonomous individuated separate human beings and control their children." - Dr. Shefali Tsabary In This Episode, Dr. Shefali Tsabary Uncovers: [01:30] What Is Conscious Parenting? Dr. Shefali Tsabary The Parenting Map by Dr. Shefali The spiritual essence of Dr. Shefali's parenting advice. On Children by Kahlil Gibran Why her teachings are rooted in a meditation practice. Our ego is our ignorance. Why parents are the most essential part of children's lives. [06:25] Getting Caught Up in The Matrix Gabor Maté Why we have delusional ideas of who we are. What makes us chase things that won't ever make us satisfied. Why the things we chase are not designed to bring us inner joy. What creates our unhappiness. [09:40] The Ego-Driven Parenting Why growing up in India was a blessing for Dr. Shefali. Her journey to Vipassana meditation and learning detachment. Why parenting is often ego-driven. The conditioning we have around parenting. What made her realize the standard parenting model didn't work for her. How parents are being reinforced to use the ego with their children. [13:50] Traditions + Conditioned Patterns Josh's experience with Vipassana. The difference between blindly following traditions and consciously choosing traditions. Why anything that is not questioned can become dangerous. Why Dr. Shefali's mission is to break people from their conditioned patterns. How coming back home to yourself makes you more connected and compassionate. [15:55] Why Do Parents Control Their Children? Releasing the unproductive patterns. Why "good vibes only" is spiritual bypassing. How parents are unable to individuate and break free from their own conditioning. Why we control our children and see them as a part of us. Parenting is our ego on steroids. [20:50] The 5 Masks of Our Ego The sleep deprivation struggle as a parent. Why we put on masks as a survival mechanism. The five masks of our ego: fighter, fixer, feigner, freezer, flea. How to break free of our egoic patterns. [23:30] The Origin of Toxic Men What fascinates Dr. Shefali about the ego. How she lovingly blasts the ego in herself and the people around her. How to heal as a man who was taught to disconnect from his emotions. A Radical Awakening: Turn Pain into Power, Embrace Your Truth, Live Free by Dr. Shefali Why men need to be reminded of their humanity. How men have been conditioned to be toxic. [28:00] Why Some Women Hate All Men 543 Kelly Brogan MD | How to Love ALL Your Parts + Be Self-Sovereign What creates hate in women towards men. How wounded feminism obstructs true feminism. Why we all need to accept that all of us are wounded. [31:10] Dr. Shefali on Gender Dysphoria 503 Paul Levy | Wetiko: Break Free From Collective Mass Psychosis The two types of people that struggle with gender dysphoria. Why people get confused about their gender. The reason why children aren't capable of making decisions about their bodies yet. The problem with bodily trends. [36:55] The Human Path Away from Nature to Technology How AI and social media make us want to have everything fast. Why we need to help our children with the anguish around their pain. How we've gone too far from the element of nature. Why it's crucial for parents to realize that they're not raising their own "mini-me." How Dr. Shefali realized she was trying to raise her child as her mini-me. [42:45] Learn to Stay True to Yourself Why we need to embody wisdom to have wellness. Unpacking why we should stay aligned with our true selves. Why the seductions of culture are only important to our ego but don't truly make a difference. How Dr. Shefali tames her ego. Evolve 2023 with Dr. Shefali [spacer height="30px"] Leave Wellness + Wisdom a Review on Apple Podcasts Power Quotes From The Show Who We Believe We Are "We believe that who we are is based on other people's opinion of us, our image in the world, our bank account, our looks, what we posses... This is the prevalent idea of how we should define ourselves. It's delusional because these things will never reach an endpoint of satiety or fruition." - Dr. Shefali Tsabary Are You Raising a Mini-Me? "When you're a parent, it's crucial you realize you aren't raising a mini-me but a spirit throbbing with its own signature. For this reason it's important to separate who you are from who each of your children is." - Dr. Shefali Tsabary Men's Conditioning "Men as a whole need to be reminded of their humanity. Men are not evil and women did not raise toxic men. Men have been conditioned to become toxic because of the prevelant cultural narrative. We need understand how men have been twisted and suffocated by this cultural paradigm as well as understand ourselves as women. But it's in understanding both that we will awaken and be emboldened to the highest empowerment." - Dr. Shefali Tsabary Links From Today's Show  Dr. Shefali Tsabary The Parenting Map by Dr. Shefali On Children by Kahlil Gibran Gabor Maté A Radical Awakening: Turn Pain into Power, Embrace Your Truth, Live Free by Dr. Shefali 543 Kelly Brogan MD | How to Love ALL Your Parts + Be Self-Sovereign 503 Paul Levy | Wetiko: Break Free From Collective Mass Psychosis Evolve 2023 with Dr. Shefali Josh's Trusted Products | Up To 40% Off Shop All Products BREATHE - 20% off with the code “PODCAST20” Organifi –20% off with the code ‘WELLNESSFORCE' QI-Shield EMF Device- 20% off with the code "JOSH" SEED Synbiotic - 30% off with the code "JOSHTRENT" BON CHARGE - 15% off with the code "JOSH15" MANNA Vitality - 20% off with the code "JOSH20" Mendi.io - 20% off with the code "JOSH20" SpectraSculpt - 15% off with the code "JOSH15" SaunaSpace - 10% off with the code "JOSH10" Cured Nutrition CBD - 20% off with the code "WELLNESS FORCE" PLUNGE - $150 off with the code “WELLNESSFORCE" LiftMode - 10% off with the code "JOSH10" HVMN Ketone-IQ - 20% off with the code "JOSH" MitoZen – 10% off with the code “WELLNESSFORCE” Paleovalley – 15% off with the link only NOOTOPIA - 10% off with the code "JOSH10" Activation Products - 20% off with the code “WELLNESSFORCE” SENSATE - $25 off with the code "JOSH25" BiOptimizers - 10% off with the code "JOSH10" ION - 15% off with the code ‘JOSH1KS' Feel Free from Botanic Tonics - $40 off with the code "WELLNESS40" Essential Oil Wizardry - 10% off with the code "WELLNESSFORCE" ALIVE WATERS - 33% off your first order with the code "JOSH33" DRY FARM WINES - Get an extra bottle of Pure Natural Wine with your order for just 1¢ Drink LMNT – Zero Sugar Hydration: Get your free LMNT Sample Pack, with any purchase Free Resources M21 Wellness Guide - Free 3-Week Breathwork Program with Josh Trent Join Wellness + Wisdom Community About Dr. Shefali Tsabary Dr. Shefali Tsabary is a world-renowned clinical psychologist specializing in integrating Eastern philosophy and Western psychology, making her an expert in her field. She has written multiple New York Times, best sellers, and is the author of three incredible books: The Conscious Parent, The Awakened Family, and a Radical Awakening, and now her brand new book The Parenting Map. She is also an acclaimed author and keynote speaker who has presented at venues such as TEDx, Kellogg Business School, The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education, and many more. Her online classes and workshops cover a wide range of topics such as anxiety, anger, purpose, meaning, and conscious health. Oprah endorsed her first book — The Conscious Parent, as one of the most profound books on parenting she has ever read. Website Instagram Facebook YouTube Listen To The Latest Episodes... Don't Miss New Episodes: Follow Wellness + Wisdom on Spotify    

In a push led by Indiana's AG Todd Rokita, 7 different Attorney Generals, Sign Letter Blasting Target For Pushing ‘Pride Campaign' On Children.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Susan Cain, author of the world-renowned bestsellers "Bittersweet" and "Quiet," joins Dr. Solomon for a conversation about how to honor the poignancy found in the transitional periods of our lives, whether we're launching our kids off into the world, grieving the end of a relationship, or growing old. They also discuss the ways in which the bittersweet impacts and enhances our intimate relationships.Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain:https://bookshop.org/p/books/bittersweet-how-sorrow-and-longing-make-us-whole-susan-cain/17375002?ean=9780451499783Take the "Bittersweet" Quiz:https://susancain.net/susans-bittersweet-quiz/Sign up for Susan Cain's "Kindred Letters" newsletter:susancain.net/newsletter"On Children" by Kahlil Gibran (poem)https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/09/09/on-children-kahlil-gibran/Get the brand new REIMAGINING LOVE WORKBOOK:https://courses.dralexandrasolomon.com/reimagining-love-workbook-0c34cba5-a457-4253-b7d7-9ca051dc0326Subscribe to Dr. Solomon's Newsletter:https://dralexandrasolomon.com/subscribe/Submit a Listener Question:https://form.jotform.com/212295995939274Take Dr. Solomon's "Relationship Superpower" Quiz:https://dralexandrasolomon.com/rsa-quiz/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging.  For this week's episode we partner with April Doner and the Abundant Community to speak with Quanita Roberson and Amy Howton about their book, The Inner Ground Railroad. The recited poems were On Children by Kahlil Gibran and Still I Rise by Maya Angelou.Abundant Community is a place to visit. To read and hear stories of action. More valuable than your daily newspaper. A way to learn about citizen-led action that illuminates a new direction, away from the dominant consumerist and dependency-producing habits that we thought we had to purchase. Communities forever have known how to produce family and neighborhood functions such as raising children, building healthy local economies and caring for people on the margin. This website invites you into this possibility.This episode was hosted and produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change - Eliminating Personal Economic Isolation. 

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.” - On Children by Kahlil Gibran This TOTM Face to Face conversation is between Wenceslao and Mr. John Jimenez. Wenceslao is the Ever Forward Club's Youth Host. You can get to know more about him in episode 123. John is one of Wenceslao's teachers at City Arts and Leadership Academy. As they share their masks, play our Adventure Card Game, and discuss parenting, poetry, skateboarding, rebelliousness, and living in an immigrant household, it's inspiring to see a teacher-student relationship take on a new dynamic… (0:20) During Ashanti's introduction, we celebrate Mohandas's high school graduation. (2:10) John introduces himself. (2:50) John and Wenceslao make their masks together. (3:15) John shares the front of his mask - funny, loud, outgoing, proud father. And he shares the back of his mask - anxiety, stressed. (4:45) Wenceslao shares the front of his mask - learner, calm/quiet, fun, creative. Then he shares the back of his mask - shy, insecure, stressed. (7:55) Wenceslao and John play the card game Everforward Club: The Adventure. Question 1: Name a relationship that needs to end. (9:55) Question 2: How are you different when you are alone or with others? (12:30) Question 3: Tell us about a time when you felt like you were good at something. (14:40) Question 4: What is a hidden talent that you want to work on more? (18:00) Question 5: Are you more afraid of success or failure? (19:35) Question 6: What can you start in your life right now to become a better person? (22:40) Wenceslao asks John some questions in order to gain some more perspective on social-emotional learning in the classroom. He also shares some poems with John. And, as a new parent, John shares some thoughts on parenting. (45:35) John reflects on his immigrant upbringing and how he'll apply the experience to raising his son. Then, he and Wenceslao discuss the relationship between passion and freedom. (57:45) John and Wenceslao share some closing thoughts and reflections about the podcast. --- Create your own mask anonymously at millionmask.org Email us questions and comments at totmpod100@gmail.com  --- Connect with Ashanti Branch: Instagram: instagram.com/branchspeaks Facebook: facebook.com/BranchSpeaks Twitter: twitter.com/BranchSpeaks LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ashantibranch Website: branchspeaks.com --- Support the podcast and the work of the Ever Forward Club: anchor.fm/branch-speaks/support  --- Connect with Ever Forward Club: Instagram: instagram.com/everforward Facebook: facebook.com/everforwardclub Twitter: twitter.com/everforwardclub LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-ever-forward-club --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/branch-speaks/support

This sermon is a wondering, a story, a reflection, and - at the last - a blessing. A wondering about the treasures stored in Mary's heart. A story about an aunt and her nephew ice skating. A reflection about Jesus at 12-years-old, about ALL 12-year-olds, and about belonging. A blessing for each beloved one… those on the way to, presently at, or well on the other side of age 12.Sermon begins at minute marker 6:05Scripture: Psalm 36:5-10  & Luke 2:41-51ResourcesA Woman's Lectionary for the Whole Church (Year W): A Multi-Gospel Single-Year Lectionary, Wilda C. Gafney, Church Publishing Incorporated, 2021.Sarah Bessey, “A Blessings for your Faults,” https://sarahbessey.substack.com/p/blessing-faults (2021).Image: Photo by Emmanuel Olguín on Unsplash"On Children" by Sweet Honey in the Rock, text from Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet" - https://youtu.be/ti0rzHq_0xU"We Are" by Sweet Honey in the Rock - https://youtu.be/hWaw-tQ4W7wVoices Together 423, God the Sculptor of the Mountains, Music - Henry Purcell, Words - © John Thornburg, 1993 Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Patron, Ukraine's hero dog, has helped find over 300 explosive objects by sniffing and alerting his team. On Children's day last year, Patron became the first dog in history to receive the title of Goodwill Dog from UNICEF. The ‘Learning Together' campaign released an augmented reality (AR) development – an Instagram mask with Patron. Patron was awarded the “Four-legged Defender” award by the Ukrainian Association of Dog Breeders of Ukraine. On 27 May 2022, Patron was awarded the Palm Dog award for “DogManitarian Work” at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. A Ukrainian hero, Patron dog's role in raising awareness about the landmines not only keeps children safe, but also helps to build a safer future for the community. His social media channels help raise funds for charity work like supporting hospital in Kyiv. See also: How dogs are leading the war against terror

Destination crimes are the purpose for which individuals are trafficking.These include prostitution, slavery, servitude, bonded labor, indentured labor, organized beggary, human organ harvesting and trading, mail brides, sex tourism, adoption/baby-selling rackets, illegal commercial surrogacy, etc On this episode, co-founder of Prerana, Dr. Pravin Patkar explains  What are destination crimes?  Is sex trafficking the same as prostitution? What is sex tourism? What is the Indian law on surrogacy?  For more information go to https://fighttrafficking.org/faqs/    Disclaimer : The stories presented here are based on true events. Names have been changed to protect the individuals' identities. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is incidental and not intentional.   Credits : Producer: PRERANA C/O Exe Secretary-Priti Patkar Conceptualised by Dr Pravin Patkar & Kashina Kareem Host & Exe Producer– Kashina Kareem Content & Expertise – Dr. Pravin Patkar Creative Director: Mae Mariyam Thomas Senior Producer: Divita Oberoi Junior Producer: Nikkethana Kamal Sound Design & Mix: Kartik Kulkarni Sound Editor: Yash Hirave Graphic Designer: Alika Gupta Additional Voices : Kartik Kulkarni , Divita Oberoi, Varun Parikh and Aashna Goradia   News clip sources: World Day Against Child Labour: Kailash Satyarthi On The Impact Of COVID-19 On Children by NDTV (June 12th 2021) Child Labour in India by WorldVisionStir (February 16th 2009) Human rights organisations warn of rising child labour in India amid COVID-19 pandemic by CNA (October 27th 2020) India's shameful child labour mining for beauty industry sparkle by ITV News (February 23rd 2017)

"Your children are not your children They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself They come through you but not from you And though they are with you yet they belong not to you..." -- from "On Children" by Khalil Gibran   In today's episode, we explore the mother wound in its tender, painful, personal, and collective layers. Sheryl shares her gentle approach to exploring this wound, which includes compassion for the generations of mothers wounded by the patriarchy and embrace of "good enough" mothering. She offers a definition and some signs and symptoms of the mother wound, as well as poetry that speaks to her own mother-longings. Victoria and Sheryl reflect on lessons learned from the book Wise Child, by Monica Furlong, and its beautiful depictions of Great Mother love that can help us reclaim our power and free ourselves and each other. 

Life in the late 1800's was frequently just inexplicably tragic, as Edward Augustus Boardman and Catherine Fitzsimmons discovered in their lives together. Though they had financial success, attempting to raise children was nearly the end of them emotionally. The plans we have aren't always what God has in mind for us. As hard as we try, sometimes we are just called to go through things. Such was the life of the Boardman family from Golden, Colorado. (

Pau and Mika, joined for this episode by The Weekly Stan Up top fan and their friend Jerick, react to the 2018 Taiwanese Netflix series On Children, especially the heartbreaking yet profound third episode "The Last Day of Molly" and also talk about the themes of parenthood, family, self-expression, and more surrounding the show. This episode touches on suicide given the plot of the show discussed. National Mental Health Crisis Hotline available 24/7: 1553 (Luzon-wide, landline toll-free), 0917 899 8727 / 0966 351 4518 (Globe), 0908 639 2672 (Smart / Sun / TNT) Music The Weekly Stan Up New Intro by Mika 聽媽媽的話 by Jay Chou

Rather than building an organization around an individual leader or one generation of leaders, the goal should be to build a sustainable organization, which requires developing multiple generations of leaders who share the vision of building the organization to last. Join Russ as he talks to Jim and Rick McCartney about the importance of leaders who raise up other leaders.References:Built to Last by Jim CollinsMichigan Football Jim HarbaughThe Get Back - Beatles DocumentaryThe Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck"On Children" by Kahlil GibraniRewardHealthViluaVisit LeadDiff.com - for more podcasts, articles and leadership resourcesGuests:Jim McCartneyObtained his BA in English from Duke University. He then went on to get his MBA in Finance from Boston University. Jim is a seasoned financial executive and leader, with expertise in investment finance, consulting, operational management, and leadership development. He has worked in for-profit and non-profit finance investments, and most recently been the Managing Director at Net Lease Capital Advisors for over 18 years. Rick McCartneyReceived his BA in Health and Counseling Psychology from Emmanuel College (in Boston), then attended Boston College for a Master of Science in Nursing. After working as a nurse practitioner for a time, Rick became CEO of iRewardHealth then Vilua, where he is using data technology to improve the health of people's lives.

There was a time when "Nehru Ki Galti" was very much in fashion (these days it's more about India's Independence being given as dole by the British)... On Children's Day remembering the mistakes or galti of Nehru and whose legacy will be destroyed next.

Guest: Celia Haig-Brown reads “On Children” from July in Measure of the Year Celia Haig-Brown, the youngest of the four children of Roderick and Ann Haig-Brown, joins host Dan MacLennan reflect on growing up at Above Tide, their family home in Campbell River - and reveals she didn't actually read Measure of the Year until well into adulthood - and was captivated!  You can link to the Haig-Brown House website here https://www.haig-brown.bc.ca. There, you'll find all kinds of goodies including historical photographs and information about how to experience the house and all it offers in person or virtually. Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Podcasts.

Jeremy remixes Rasa. Rasa shares a vexing question about speaking. In between, they discuss "On Children" by Kahlil Gibran. Join us on Patreon at http://patreon.com/youmustknoweverything

My mothering motto is inspired by the poem "On Children" by Kahlil Gibran. It basically sums up why we, as parents, shouldn't live our dreams through our children. Our dreams can become prisons for our children. Instead, we need to focus on helping them be the best version of themselves that they can be, whatever path they might choose.

At some point we launch our children into their future and their life is no longer in our hands. The poet-philosopher Kahlil Gibran speaks for all parents in "On Children" (commonly known by the first line, Your Children Are not Your Children). I encourage you to find it online and read along with me. I was introduced to this poem at a difficult time in our family's life, and it spoke deeply and profoundly to me. Stay with me as I share its meaning to me. Foundations: Relationship Building, Self-Care --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fern-weis/message

In this bonus episode I analyze a poem from my first reading, The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. I discuss the literary elements used in the poem titled On Children. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carolina-reads/support

Andrew Marshall served a mission in Portugal as well as a welfare service mission in Salt Lake City with his wife, Ariel. He is the Director of Leadership Development at the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that strives for a more effective government for the American people. Andrew is also currently serving in the stake presidency of the Washington, D.C. stake. Highlights 10:20 Effective leaders make a difference wherever they are 15:15 You have to get close to an organization to really understand what it is doing on the individual level: bureaucracies are filled with individuals doing remarkable things 20:15 Zooming out and remembering the principle of stewardship when working inside a bureaucracy 22:50 Liz Wiseman's concept of Multipliers and Jim Collins' research into level five leaders: people working tirelessly but it's not about them; empowering others and getting out of their way 24:40 Lao Tsu: When all is said and done, the people look around and think they did it all themselves; how much of your service is about you? 26:20 Experience with the leadership transition after the sudden passing of a stake president 28:20 Ward and branch councils need to see themselves as enterprise leaders across the system, working collectively; much of this comes from the facilitation habits of the leaders 29:15 Becoming a facilitator: Ask questions instead of giving directions, listen instead of talking, think about the talents of the people in the room and how you can allow them to use them 31:40 How much are you thinking about yourself or getting credit? You are the Lord's steward and the credit comes in that relationship 34:10 Ego leads to a failure to listen; happiness is the extension of self, joy is the merger of self; holiness of heart protects from the ego 37:30 If we serve as President Nelson has asked us to, there would be joy in every congregation 39:30 Thinking about the why, the motivations of the individual members 44:35 Stewardship is taking care of the things with which we are blessed from God 45:40 "The passing through" 47:50 The key characteristics of steward leaders include deep humility and fierce will: study the Savior's leadership 49:50 Spend some time studying the handbook section on leadership (4.2) 52:40 Getting out of the programs and activities to create generational impact 54:10 Key behaviors of leaders who practice good stewardship: watch President Nelson's leadership practices; "the cause" as a constant north star Links The Partnership for Public Service Public service leadership model Liz Wiseman podcasts at Leading Saints Kahlil Gibran poem: On Children

Kelli Davis inspires others to believe in miracles. She has lived with anxiety, depression, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), addiction, and low self-esteem. In search of healing, she sought self-love, happiness, peace and joy, immersed herself in books, seminars, therapy, energy work, coaching, addiction treatment and other holistic modalities which gave her tools to embrace her pain and live life with gratitude. She worked in the NFL for the Denver Broncos after being rejected twice for an internship. Seven months into her job, she received a job offer at Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, a nonprofit organization that raises funds and awareness for 170 children's hospitals across North America and treats 10 million kids annually. After 23 years there she continues to see miracles. On Children's Miracle Network Hospitals “Untold Miracles” podcast, Kelli interviews miracle kids and celebrities every week about their trials and triumphs and their own personal miracles.  Listen to these episodes and others at www.untoldmiracles.org.  Kelli said, "Anything is possible when you believe in Miracles!" Some of the people we talk about are Josh Sundquist (Google his Halloween costumes! You won't regret it!); Isaiah Acosta, a mute rap star (Look up Oxygen to Fly!); Davide DiGiorgio (UNmuted, UNapologetic and UNcomparable in addition to so much more!); Chris Pratt, Chris Pine, Oprah, Little Boo, Maverick, David Ortiz, Big Poppy and a lot more in just half an hour! bookkellidavis.com Learn more!        

In this episode, your host begins with reading a piece by Kahlil Gibran, "On Children" and shares the evolution parents go through in allowing our children to be.  Issues including balancing feminine and masculine energies as a single parent is discussed.  Omega Fruits shares her personal experiences and ways she has learned to be available to her children and how she is constantly growing as a woman, a wife and mother. This episode was created using anchor.fm . Support this podcast here: https://anchor.fm/fruitsoflife/support --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fruitsoflife/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/fruitsoflife/support

Nina Paley started out as a comic strip artist, including for Fluff and The Hots, as the weekly Nina's Adventures and then shifted to make independent animated films, including the controversial yet popular environmental short, The Stork. In 2002, Nina followed her then-husband to Trivandrum, India, where she read her first Ramayana. This inspired her first feature film, Sita Sings the Blues, which she animated and produced single-handedly over the course of 5 years on a home computer, featuring the lost music of jazz vocal legend Annette Hanshaw. More recently, Nina worked on the segment On Children, a segment in Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, and the short This Land Is Mine depicting the Middle East conflicts over history.  Her latest acclaimed feature film, Seder-Masochism, is an animated musical comedy-drama reinterpreting events from the Book of Exodus, especially stories associated with the Passover Seder.

Babak Hedayati is the Co-Founder and CEO of Tapclicks.During this interview, Mr. Hedayati goes in depth on how poetry influenced his leadership and parenting style. He specifically recites "On Children" a poem from Kahlil Gibran and compares it to his own life and children. Mr. Hedayati acknowledges the success he has endured but, explains how he wants his children to be even better. He is the CEO of one of the fastest growing marketing companies in the world but is also just a regular father who wants the best for his children. He has over 20 years high-tech experience in semiconductor, internet, media platforms, video solutions, social networking and software. Before TapClicks, he served as the CEO of DemosOnDemand. Prior to that he was SVP of worldwide marketing, applications and business development at Cypress Semiconductor, was an executive at Xilinx and served in various business and technical positions at Altera, 3DO, Zycad, and National.Babak has helped grow businesses from $200M to more than $2B.He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, and holds a BSEE from San Jose State University.Check out what Babak is up to at: https://www.tapclicks.com/ Check out the Kahlil Gibran Poem "On Children" at: http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html

What’s your heart guiding you to do? The desires of the heart are “life’s longing for itself.” The topic of this episode reminded us of the poem “On Children” by Kahlil Gibran, from which that quote is taken. In this episode, we encourage you to really honor your heart’s desire. Listen to your heart. It can require some real intention and practice to discern what your true heart is actually saying, because society pours billions of dollars into trying to get us to ’desire’ certain products, services, status symbols, etc. P.S. the ending music only seems to be missing; keep listening for the real ending ;) Show notes: https://sienaandtoast.com/podcast/51-heartsdesire Join the Email List: https://sienaandtoast.com/emailsignup

What's your heart guiding you to do? The desires of the heart are “life's longing for itself.” The topic of this episode reminded us of the poem “On Children” by Kahlil Gibran, from which that quote is taken. In this episode, we encourage you to really honor your heart's desire. Listen to your heart. It can require some real intention and practice to discern what your true heart is actually saying, because society pours billions of dollars into trying to get us to 'desire' certain products, services, status symbols, etc. P.S. the ending music only seems to be missing; keep listening for the real ending ;) Show notes: https://sienaandtoast.com/podcast/51-heartsdesire Join the Email List: https://sienaandtoast.com/emailsignup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the signpost up ahead, enter the mind of Taiwanese director, producer and screenwriter, Weiling Chen, the woman behind Netflix's dystopian hit series "On Children." (Translated by Emily Chang)

At the signpost up ahead, enter the mind of Taiwanese director, producer and screenwriter, Weiling Chen, the woman behind Netflix's dystopian hit series "On Children." (Translated by Emily Chang)

Sheila and Maria invite you to explore the purpose and challenges of setting and living with boundaries as well as what we teach our young children when we establish boundaries for them and how they learn from those boundaries as they grow.   "To be in your children's memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today." - Barbara Johnson   In this life, there are many forms of boundaries, both physical and social, and it's important as parents that we introduce our young children to the idea of boundaries so that they can learn to understand them and when and how to appropriately challenge them.  These decisions are complex and our goal is to help you make conscious decisions when navigating this difficult topic.  In this episode, we share with you from our decades of experience as children, parents, and teachers the various parenting styles and approaches to boundaries we've seen and the results we have observed throughout the years.  We welcome you to participate with us in this conversation and to share with us from your own life experiences, successes, and challenges as well.   Resources From This Episode: Non-Violent Communication: https://www.cnvc.org/ Attachment Parenting: http://www.attachmentparenting.org/ Positive Discipline: https://www.positivediscipline.com/ Kahlil Gibran, On Children: https://www.themomsiknow.com/kahlil-gibran

Nina Paley started out as a comic strip artist, including for Fluff and The Hots, as the weekly Nina's Adventures and then shifted to make independent animated films, including the controversial yet popular environmental short, The Stork. In 2002, Nina followed her then-husband to Trivandrum, India, where she read her first Ramayana. This inspired her first feature film, Sita Sings the Blues, which she animated and produced single-handedly over the course of 5 years on a home computer, featuring the lost music of jazz vocal legend Annette Hanshaw. More recently, Nina worked on the segment On Children, a segment in Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, and the short This Land Is Mine depicting the Middle East conflicts over history.  Her latest feature film, Seder-Masochism, is an animated musical comedy-drama reinterpreting events from the Book of Exodus, especially stories associated with the Passover Seder.

                  This week and next week Christ Heuertz, Enneagram expert and author of "The Sacred Enneagram" joins us! We have the opportunity to talk about what the Enneagram is, and how it can play a part in our lives as creatives, and as humans.   Chris Heuertz Interview: Thoughts, References, Links, & Takeaways Brandi & Michelle's Enneagram Types: Brandi = 3w4 Michelle = 9w1 LINKS: Sleeping at Last Podcast The Enneagram Institute Hornevian Groups People: Claudio Naranjo - grandfather of the Enneagram of Personality, Neo-Freudian Karen Horney - innovator, three ways we deal with our neurosis Richard Rohr - founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation Michael Goldberg - identifies that the Enneagram maybe shows up in "The Odyssey" Books: The Intelligent Enneagram In Search of Being: The Fourth Way to Consciousness The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective Travels with Odysseus: Uncommon Wisdom from Homer's Odyssey To Find Your Enneagram: RHETI Test   The Enneagram Is a dynamic teaching Shows us our defense strategies "Essence" is our true identity, our soul Shows us the contours of the nine masks we can use to hide our true "essence" The nine masks are labeled as "types" or numbers IF YOU'RE SKEPTICAL You have to be ready and open to it "Most of us don't know that we don't know who we [really] are, and we like that; we like staying asleep. We would rather leave things on autopilot than doing the hard work of telling the truth." "Not only does [the Enneagram] show you where you might get stuck or spin your wheels, but it shows you what's beautiful and fabulous and remarkable about each of us." The Enneagram is a compassionate sketch of possibilities that says if you say yes to doing your own inner work, it says, 'look at who you can become!' Who you are is who you have always been, we've just fallen asleep to that. ON CHILDREN, AND BEING BORN WITH YOUR TYPE Children go through phases of cycling through the types They need to experience all of them before they can be "typed" Bringing your type forward is something you do on your own Putting a type on your children can be devastating if it isn't who they are The best way to "gift" the Enneagram to your children is using it to work on yourself. If you become the best version of yourself, you're giving your children permission to become the best version of themselves, whoever they are, and whoever they end up presenting as. We possess the energies of all nice types but it's a lifelong journey to find your primary type. HOW DOES THE ENNEAGRAM FACTOR INTO A CAREER PATH? The nine types are actually nine different ways of looking at problems to be solved or [which] opportunities to chase down. Fours want to be seen and practice seeing everything outside of themselves as a projection of that. They become highly attuned to finding beauty and significance even in the mundane as a way of "suffering" what's beautiful about me, especially when I don't feel seen. Are constantly projecting externally what we don't think we can do internally. At work, in relationships, etc. Not all creatives fall into the category of a Four just because they're "artistic" Threes bring value while Fours bring significance Threes know how to enhance value. They think they will be loved through affirmation, which isn't true. HOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF KNOWING OTHER PEOPLE'S "TYPES" Three ways we deal with our Neurosis Moving Toward: 1's,2's,6's - Dutiful or "Compliant" Social Styles Compliant to the inner critic, to the "oughts and shoulds" Moving Against: 7's 8's, 3's - Aggressive or Assertive Social Styles Demand what they want, in different ways. Moving Away From: 4's, 5's, 9's - Detached, or Withdrawn Social Styles

Your Dear Queers are back! We literally come out in this second episode, at least Bertus is! You’ve got to hear his great coming-out story! We also introduce you to the brave coming out stories of two Asian members of the LGTBI community that despite the strong ties they have to their Chinese traditional backgrounds decided to be true to their families and themselves: MengWen Cao (NY, photographer), Keay Nigel (Singapore, Journalist); and Tom Payne, the creator of Proud Crowd, a YouTube Channel dedicated to moving coming out stories in video. Also in this show, discover where Taiwan ranks in the Gay Travel Index of German publisher Spartacus, and the Netflix show that is shaking up all tiger mammas out there: “On Children”.

Two new hosts took over the microphone this week and Dan and Dougie both did a fantastic job! On Children in Need day we were all in the studio in our pyjamas to raise money for this wonderful cause and everyone presented another outstanding show, packed with great features and quality broadcasting. With top music, this was a fluid and more natural show with lovely banter and huge fun.