Want to be in our new book for adoptive parents?

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Thriving Adoptees Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Jude, Jude Hung. She's, she's back, she's back! You've listened, you've missed her, listeners. Um, and, uh, so Jude and I have done a lot of work together the last couple of years, and, uh, I thought she would be the perfect person to interview me about this book that we're doing. So listeners may or may have not heard about it, but all will, all will be revealed. I thought Jude would be a great person to interview me about the book. So go for it, Jude. It's all yours.

Awesome. Thank you, Simon. I am so honored to sit in the interviewer seat again with you. And I have my little list of questions.

Sure.

And first, I will— let's, let's clear this up right away, because when you say we, you and I have done a lot of things together. And when you say we, they're going to think it's you and me. But this is a bigger we, uh, working on this, this book. It's a collaboration. And Helen Keller has a quote that I'm going to quote, uh, alone we can do so little, Together we can do so much. Helen Keller.

Brilliant.

And I think, yeah, I think it's so true when I think of our community and all the stories and, and voices. Um, the, the— there's a lot of memoirs that have— that adoptees have written, and then there's a lot of memoirs that are still inside adoptees waiting to get out, or bits and pieces of story waiting to to get out. And that undertaking, as you and I both know, can be really overwhelming. And especially if the story is emotionally charged, you know, or trauma and, and things, it can be hard to actually get pen to paper and, and put it out. And so I feel like this opportunity, this collaboration with our community And, and the Constellation, uh, gives people potentially an opportunity to get their story or bits or pieces out that they're able to. You want to talk about that? Yeah, collaboration.

Yeah, sure. So yeah, a lot of people— so, so the idea, uh, that, ladies and gentlemen, uh, is that we, we're crowdsourcing idea crowdsourcing ideas for a, for a book. So we're working together with people across the adoption constellation into what the— what they want adoptive parents to know, right? So when we see the adoptees out there, they've got— they've clearly— they've got them— they've got their memoirs, they've got their advocacy, they've got their work that they want, they've got the messages that they want to get across, they want to share to help the, the next generation of adoptive parents maybe do things differently.

Right.

Um, so the— that, that's the idea. This is a melting pot of learnings, parts of people's stories, and the, the, the, the, the, the what, you know, what's the one thing that they as a member of the adoption constellation wants adoptive parents to know to help their kids thrive, right? So the podcast is all about what helps us thrive, and we do that in a long format interview like now. The book is all, all about what helps adoptees thrive, and specifically it's what you want adoptive parents to, to know, uh, and to do, or maybe to don't.

Right.

And so it's from across the adoption constellation, like the podcast guests are, but the audience that the book's for is for adoptive parents.

Yeah, I— when you first floated the idea to me, I felt like it was really powerful. And you'll likely remember I told you that I know that had my parents known more about what was going on inside of me as an adoptee, that they would have done things differently. And so I think, you know, collectively the constellation has an opportunity here to create something that could be potentially powerful and potent in creating change, a place for us all to bring our voices together. I think sometimes we, we want to advocate for change and we don't know how. And I think that getting our voices together with this intention can ripple out and create some change for the next generation of adoptees.

Yeah, and you know, like, it's the— when my parents adopted me in 1967, there was no training. Clearly there is a lot of training. There is a lot of training now, and yet it doesn't always go to plan, right? What did we say on that one of those webinars that we did? You know, in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice.

Mm-hmm.

And in reality, there's a heap of difference between training and practice. So that, that's where we want to capture the— not only the adoptee's knowledge, advice, and suggestion, we want to capture, and we are capturing, adoptive parents, the stuff that they wish they'd learned earlier.

Before.

Yeah, yeah, their hard-earned, their hard-won wisdom, right? So, so that we're hopefully, we're, we're filling in some of the, some of the gaps that, yeah, that, um, training, clearly all well-intentioned, is leaving behind.

Right. And you and I have done some of that, and you definitely have done more working behind the scenes with agencies and stuff. And was some of that work the inspiration behind this? Because we saw that even though there is training, it is often not from an adoptee perspective. It's, it was kind of lacking our voices and our insights. our community— when I'm saying our, I don't mean you and I, but our community's voices and insights that we can bring to the table for adoptive parents to help them.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, the, the whole post-adoption, the post-adoption sector is the Cinderella of adoption, right? Nobody, very little people, very few people are active in that space. Very few organizations. There's obviously, there's CASE on the East Coast who pretty much, that's what they do. But post-adoption is small, fragmented, not very, not full of resources. You know, there are some support groups, Some agencies do bits and pieces in there, but there's a howling great gap there. And that's kind of one area that we want to look at filling, really.

Yeah. So that's one of the things that inspired you. And what are you hoping, like, what is your hope with this collaboration?

That we have more adoptive families thrive. This is, uh, this is wisdom sharing, this is insight sharing. And not, not everybody can, uh, you know, I, I can't get everybody on the show for an hour. Like, so it was like, well, how can we make this far more bite-sized?

Yeah.

Um, and far more accessible? And how, how can we capture the nuggets? It was all about the nuggets.

The nuggets. Yeah.

The nuggets of wisdom. And then how do we, and then what, but it was like, it's a, it's a strange day. I, I was walking the, I was walking the dogs and I thought, well, the, 'cause these, the responses to this has been great, right? So we're at a, I dunno, 130, 140 people from the Constellation. That's amazing. Have already contributed towards this, and that's as of you know we're recording this video on the ninth of July. I'd originally I've extended the deadline right so that people can contribute right up until the to the thirty thirtieth thirty first of of of August the end of August. And I was walking dogs. I thought well how these these results are starting to ping in. You know like I look at the spreadsheet and it's. Ka-ching, ka-ching, it's coming in. And I'm thinking, what structure am I gonna put? How am I gonna structure all this content? Because you've got some mixtures of stories, you've got mixtures. And I thought, well, why don't I just put it in this Thrive Framework that we've got?

Nice.

So that, you know, so that was the idea there. And actually, I was stuck I thought I'll put the— I had the question on my mind. I thought I'll put it on the back burner. So I put it on my back burner and like 90 seconds later it came through. So that's, that's gonna be the structure.

I like that. And do you find that your history with like publishing editing is coming into play and And helping you to, to gather all of this together.

It, it may do. I hope so. I, I, I, I hope so. I'm totally focused on getting the number of contributions up at the moment.

Okay.

That's my focus.

Okay, people, do you hear that?

Yeah.

Right? People were inviting you into this opportunity to write and contribute with this collaborative work of wisdom for adoptive parents, and anybody in the constellation is welcome to submit their writing. We'll tell you more about that at the end. Um, have there been any surprises or aha moments as you're gathering these stories and, and reading through people's submissions?

Uh, yeah, so people are putting a lot of story in. I'm ask— I'm asking for insights And I should have, I should have, I just, there's one question and I should split it down into 2 questions. I should have had asked a context question, a story question, and a learning question. But anyway, the structure is as it is. And, you know, some bits, some bits are really tiny and some people have put huge amounts in. So it's gonna be very Interesting getting to the bottom of it.

Yeah. Have you had any aha moments? Like, right, because as adoptees we hear a lot of stories, especially you. You're, you're interviewing all the time and you're hearing story, uh, and, and even if our stories differ, there's kind of that thin line of similar experiences, you know. Have you had any insights or Or like, you know, especially maybe from the birth mothers or parents or the adoptive parents that were like, oh, you know, just a different perspective?

Just the variety.

Okay.

Just the variety. Yeah, I've not— I'm totally focused on increasing the number of contributions, so I haven't spent a lot of— so I spend my time thinking, okay, well, how How can I get more contributions, right? So I was talking to somebody from, um, somebody from Adoption UK. So it's largely adoptive parent group here in the UK, obviously, as the name suggests. And she said, well, why don't we do a podcast about it? And, and then rather than just sharing the link, and I thought it was a great idea. And then so then off Off the back of that, I thought, okay, so what other podcasts can we do? Why don't I do one of my own episodes on it? How are we gonna do that? Well, we'll do it as an interview. Who's gonna be interviewing me? Jude. So there you are. Like, so it, that's the way the creative, the creative things go.

Right. So right now you're focused on just getting more submissions.

More, more partners.

And then you're gonna go through the material more.

More, more partners, more, more partners sharing their stories, their wisdom, their nuggets. Yeah, yeah, more partners sharing the concept with more of their network. So, right, there's, there's a, uh, there's a— you remember Live Aid and Bob Geldof and Stuff like that. So there's there's a series just come on the BBC, and and it it's in it's a documentary, and it and it sets out the three it's three episodes. So the first episode is about Band-Aid, which is the song. The second and We Are the World, We Are the Future, the American version, and and then the second. The second episode was about Band-Aid. No, was it Live Aid, Band-Aid? When they did the dual cast. So they were—

Yeah.

There was a concert in Philadelphia, in JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. This is 1985. And there's a concert in Wembley Stadium. And there's—

Yeah.

And yeah, Phil Collins did gigs on both, right? And then there's Live Aid, right? But this is how it's— it— the documentary shows how it started. So Bob Geldof was watching the news about and saw this horrible story about the famine in Ethiopia, and he thought, I've got to do something about this. And next day he was, he was walking down the street and he bumped into He bumped into Sting, right? As you do.

As you do.

As you do. Uh, and he said, I'm thinking of doing this, are you in, right? I'm thinking of doing a song about this, we've got to do something about this. Like, we're musicians, we do a song, shall we? Right. And, and he went, and he went, yeah, I'm in. And, and then he bumped into Midjourney, the guy out of Ultravox. And he said the same thing to him. He said, I'm in. And then the whole thing started organically from that. Like, so what ended up as a huge deal started with Bob having an idea and sharing it with 2 people he happened to live with— not sure, live near in London.

Yeah.

So that's the power of a snowball and momentum, right?

So yeah, I kind of do, right? Most definitely. And I do think that often what I hear in our community is like, we are wanting to create change and yet it, you know, we're not cohesive. We have, we don't have a cohesive project like this. So I think this is a wonderful opportunity for us, um, you know, to—

Rather than just say adoption is trauma, right? Recognize our trauma.

Stop it. Yeah.

Yeah, whatever, you know. Um, why don't we give the nuggets of information? Why don't we share the nuggets of information with the adoptive parents? and, and help people on their thriving journey. You know, I say it a lot, right?

Exactly.

Become— yeah, pendulums swing too far. We've, we started off with, uh, what do they call it, the rainbows and unicorns version of adoption.

Yeah.

Until, until Nancy Varian, The Primal Wound. And then we had all these other trauma books, and, and now we've become trauma obsessed. Let's be trauma-informed and thriving obsessed, right? Trauma-informed, thriving obsessed. Let's focus on thriving.

Exactly. I love that. And, um, so one of the things that I really like about this collaboration, I had somebody ask me like, oh, well, you know, who gets the recognition? So for that person, here's a quote for you from Harry Truman. It's amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets credit. So how about we talk about your— because I've seen it, you know, how you are honoring each of the people that are contributing in this collaboration and where are the proceeds going?

Okay, so everyone that participates will be credited. And I don't know how much or how little of each person's submission I'm gonna— that I'm gonna use. Who knows? But everybody that collaborates is gonna be listed in the back of the— in the back of the book. And, and to a lot of the people that, you know, have been on the show, have written memoirs or have written— yeah, have written memoirs. they've written other kids' books for adopted kids, you know. So what I thought is, well, give them— they wrote their books to make a change. And what's, you know, the hardest thing about writing a book is writing the book. And then after you've written the book, the hardest thing is getting the word out, right? So Everybody's gonna be credited at the back of the book and we're gonna link to everybody's Amazon page and Facebook page or website page, whatever they've got, right? So that they, that, that they're not only are they credited for their contribution, but they get their word out there about their, their other materials and their services and their books, whoever they're for. So that's one answer. And where are the proceeds going? Well, the ebook's gonna be free, so there will be no proceeds from the ebook, right? But you can't give away books. So we've got to print it, right? We've got to recoup some of the costs. We're going to recoup all the costs, right? If there's any surplus, then that's going to— and we hope, I hope there will be— then that will go to a post-adoption charity. And everybody that contributes gets to nominate the charity that they feel should get the money. So we will see what happens from that, but that, that's going to be the determining factor. So I'm not making any money off this. Any surplus over the print and distribution costs will go to the Post-Adduction Charity, and it'll be the one or ones. We'll decide, you know, what it looks like when we tot up and look at the end results from them.

Yes, so If somebody out there listening wants to contribute, you'll receive— you'll be able to get a form, uh, like an e-form, and you fill out some questions. You also give your— because I've done this, I know— like your, your links, like Simon said, to your books or your website, and you vote for Which, like, I voted— I'll just— like, I did Saving Our Sisters, right? That was who I voted for. So you vote for the adoption charity of your choice, and that if there are any proceeds, it will go to them. Yeah. So, which is a beautiful thing.

So in the show notes to this podcast is a link. That's the link that you go for You fill in your email address, you fill in your name. If you want to be anonymous, right, you can just say anonymous, um, and then you tick a box to say, or more than one box to say, what part of the Adoption Constellation you're in. Um, so some people might be adoptees and adoptive parents, so they would tick 2 boxes.

Great.

And you, um, answer a simple question and you add the links in. Obviously, if people are anonymous, they won't want links, will they?

So, right.

Yeah, it's designed to be ultra simple to do it.

It, it was very easy to, to fill out and submit. I really like— like, this is not my area of expertise, but I really like that it is the full constellation, that we're including, uh, the birth mothers. I, you know, I don't know.

Birth dads?

Yeah. Birth parents. Sorry, birth parents. I don't know. I said moms just because I'm a mom, but I don't know that experience. And yet I can imagine that there's a lot of wisdom even from their experience because so many things can happen throughout the life of the child and, you know, reunions and just different things. And some adoptions are more open than others. And so I'm— I really appreciate that you kept— that it's open, that it's inclusive of all of the members of the constellation, because all of these connections and relationships impact the adoptee.

Sure. And you know, the, the podcast, we interview all the constellation.

Yeah.

So it had to be all the constellation in terms of the book too. We've got to be consistent.

True. But I think that for the adoptee, right, if we're really wanting them to thrive, I think we have to acknowledge all of these connections and relationships that are in their life. Yes. No matter how little or how much they're in their life, they are. I mean, growing up, I thought about my mom quite a bit. You know, wondered who my parents were. So even if I wasn't speaking about it, it was important to me. It would've been nice to be able to speak about it. So I'll just put that out there. But right, like, so I think it, this is—

And there's even less, you know, like adoptees, uh, often talk about not having, you know, a voice at the, a voice at the table or a place at the table to share their voices. Arguably birth parents and especially birth dads are even you know, behind, behind in terms of their advocacy. I mean, how many birth dads have I interviewed on the podcast? 2, I think. How many birth mums? I don't know, 8, 10 maybe, you know. So it's trying to give everybody, uh, trying to give everybody a voice because everybody counts, right?

It's, it's important, especially if we want to change how things are done. Um, those, like, how we all relate to each other within this constellation is important. Uh, listening to each other, right? Coming, allowing each other to have a voice and a story, even if it doesn't align with our story or our experience. It's important.

Or our—

And helpful and healing.

Yeah.

Yeah. If we want to move toward wholeness and We need to listen to everybody's voice. Yeah, I think the dads, you're right, like as far as being at the table, they're pretty much silent. I think they were kept out of a lot of choice-making and some don't even know, like my dad doesn't know, right? So yeah. Yeah.

So we're trying to fill—

Have any fathers submitted? Have you gotten any?

Great question. Don't know. I should, shouldn't I? I'm— there's, as I say, I'm pouring all my energy into the, into the getting the contributions. I have looked at this less than I perhaps should have done, but it's just my focus right now.

As I'm, as I'm listening to this, what's interesting in my life, I've had a lot of adoptee friends. As I'm listening to this, I'm going, you know what, I have some adoptee friends who are not in the adoptee community whatsoever, like, but they, they may be some great people for me to say, hey, here's a link if you want to contribute, contribute if you don't, you know, no pressure. But maybe we encourage people that are listening That if they also have adoptee friends or adoptive parent friends, right, like that they know might want to submit, submit anonymously, to share the link so that you can get more voices. Yeah, um, would be wonderful.

There will be a— there'll be an email going out. There'll be an email going out. Okay, everybody following this? Yeah, to share that. Well, not following this, but, uh, there'll be an email going out to ask everybody that's already contributed to put, put, uh, put it out there if they feel like doing that.

I have like 5— I'm not like serious— I have like 5 adoptive friends that are not in community. One is also an adoptive parent, so yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the idea is the bigger, the bigger the network, the, the larger the audience that we'll reach.

Yeah. Yeah.

It isn't gonna be Bob Geldof though. It ain't gonna be Live Aid.

It may be.

But it's tight.

We never know.

We never know.

You never know. You know, because I think because of it being so many different voices, That, that is going to, like, get people's curiosity, like, oh, what are the— you know, this isn't just one person's perspective. This is many different voices. And I— from adopted parents, birth parents, and adoptees. So I think that that may actually— you know, make people curious, like, okay, well, what is this wisdom?

It's, it's really— and wisdom sounds like, you know, who, who wants to admit to being wise? But we've all learned stuff. We've all, we've all learned stuff. We've all got stuff to share. And I, I'm, I'm thinking about How does a 10-year-old adoptee, right, know what's going on? How can they put words to that? So, you know, how can an adoptive mum or adoptive dad talking to a 10-year-old adopted son—

Yeah.

Get to— like, it's a— it can be tricky, right?

So—

Yeah, it can be. The idea is, well, the 42-year-old adoptee who has reflected on their experience can give some— share some insight that's going to be useful, can put stuff into words that maybe that 42-year-old, when they were 10, they couldn't put it into words. But now they can.

And so, exactly.

And, and that's the, the insight, the, the wisdom of the older person being shared with.

Yes, this is coming out of lived experience, right? Like, of your lived experience.

Yeah.

Of the adoptive parents who have already raised their kids to some degree, right? Like, Of the adoptee, like we may not be wise in other areas, but in this, this is our lived experience, and I think that is our wisdom.

We know our right.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think it's gonna be beautiful. I'm really excited.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, so, and I was gonna also ask you if what was the most moving story, but you haven't been reading.

I haven't studied them in depth enough to do this.

Yeah, I, I do. I'm gonna go back to your history real quick and, you know, we can, uh, close, but I, um, I just, I, I love it when there's a connection through the lived experience that prepares someone for their purpose. And, you know, the fact that you grew up like around publishing, and I'm like, well, of course. You were prepared for such a moment as this because adoptees are, for lack of a better word, waking up to understanding the traumas that are inherent in being relinquished, right? And the— and wanting to create change. I think in many ways, like what we're doing here through this book, giving wisdom for the next generation and, and hoping to help the next generation of families thrive, uh, in, in creating advocacy for change in the, the industry, right? Like, there, there's a lot that we're— we would like to do. And so, but this is your arena, is, is writing this book. like gathering all these voices and writing this book. I actually really believe that it's going to be powerful, and I hope that it gets in a lot of hands. I love that you're making it a free ebook. I mean, that's your heart and passion, and, and the fact that you were adopted by this family prepared you for this purpose.

Yeah.

And I just, you know, I just have to bring that to, you know, maybe that's part of your finding home. And, um, yeah, maybe so.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Anyway, so anything that you would like to say at the end here? An invitation?

No, check out the, the, the link, listeners. Check out the link in the show notes. And if you haven't already contributed, then Contribute and share it.

Yeah, that little— they can't see it, but the little Zoom thumb went up on you saying that, and neither one of us has our thumbs up. I'm like, that's the universe saying we're— you're gonna get more submissions. We're in. We're in. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Simon. Honestly, I'm, I'm really excited. I hope people are listening and Like, if you feel a little prompt, like, I can't write a whole book, but I can write a nugget of wisdom.

Well, oh yeah, it's— I should have said that, right? It's 50 to 250 words, right? That's the suggestion. And if you can't get it down to that, you just write, send what you want, and we will be picking We'll be picking the the gems and putting them into the structure. So yeah, should have said that. Yeah, fifty and the deadline.

And the deadline is August thirty thirty first. Are there thirty thirty first?

There's thirty one days in August. Yeah, yeah.

I think so.

Yeah. Deadline's thirty first of August.

So yeah, August thirty first, and the link is going to be in the podcast. In the show. So please. In the show notes. Yeah, in the podcast show notes. And so please, if you have a little inkling, if you're like, well, I don't have a lot to share, but I do have this one bit of wisdom, please share it. Yeah, and tell your friends.

There are some prompts on there, right? There's some prompts.

Yes.

So you're not starting, uh, starting from a completely blank page. I have added, I, I, you know, as, as times have gone on, I've added prompts to try and make it clearer, to give people more suggestion space. Yeah.

Yes. So please join us in this collaborative work to help adoptees thrive and their families.

Yeah. Thanks, Jude. And thank you, listeners. A little bit different.

Thank you, guys. Yeah.

Speak to you soon. Take care. Bye-bye.