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Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast
Keeping it 101 is the podcast that helps our nerdy listeners make sense of religion. Why religion? Well, if you read the news, have a body, exist in public, or think about race, gender, class, ability, or sexuality, you likely also think about religion — even if you don’t know it yet. Let us show you why religion is both a lot more important and a little easier to understand than you might think. Put us in your earholes and let us show you why religion isn’t done with you — even if you’re done with religion.
Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast
RELIGION & ADOPTION: Overview & Primary Sources
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Welcome to the first of our four episode miniseries on religion and adoption, which actually turned out to have five episodes because, well, there were just too many horrors to be neatly contained in an outline. We're starting off with some basics on adoption, including how different religious traditions do (or do not) engage in the practice. Plus a very special, very dark return of Primary Sources!
As always, be sure to visit keepingit101.com for full show notes, homework, transcripts, & more.
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Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion is proud to be part of the Amplify Podcast Network.
This is keeping it 101, a killjoy's Introduction to religion podcast, which is part of the amplify Podcast Network. We're grateful to live, teach and record on the current ancestral and unceded lands of the Abenaki and Wabanaki peoples, as well as the lands of one federally recognized native nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and seven North Carolina state recognized tribal entities. Increasingly, though, native folks are pushing us to forego land acknowledgements altogether and focus on action items. Let's start with land back. And as always, you can find material ways to support indigenous communities on our website.
Megan Goodwin:What's up? Nerds? Hi, hello. I'm Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American religions, race, gender and politics.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Hi, hello. I'm Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, an historian of religion, Islam, race and racialization and South Asia. Goodwin. I know I'm supposed to banter with you at the top, but I have a feeling, like an inkling, that this episode is going to be one of those moments where I think I'm straight hilarious, but some of our listeners clue into the fact that I am deeply dark hearted.
Megan Goodwin:I mean, you are sad, or I'm sorry, you are hilarious. Wow.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Wow. That was a Freudian slip of Freudian slips. this is my best friend,
Megan Goodwin:I was going to say, you are you know what it was, I was gonna say, you are straight. Which my brain made sad. That's what happened. So sorry. Good news, it turns out the episode's gonna start -- Good news, the episode starts with some banter. Anyway, what I was going to say was that you are straight and you are hilarious, but also you fucking dark. So let's, let's, let's go. I have, I have been around you when you casually say shit like, yeah, adoption is trafficking. And watch your friends faces just like, melt. Just simply melt because, um, spoilers. This is a first of four episodes on religion and adoption.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, that it is, and don't get me wrong, nerds, uh, I'm so glad you asked about religion and adoption. It is one of the major questions that I personally get, like, constantly, all like, all the time, and that's wonderful. But it also means that as you ask about it, you tell me all the ways that adoption affects your daily life or doesn't. But as an adoptee myself, I have thought about this professionally and personally, and being a killjoy means, you know, I make, I make jokes about the horror of it all
Megan Goodwin:and and they're funny to a very specific sort of audience. So.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:yeah, child trafficking jokes tend to be hit or miss.
Megan Goodwin:They're a niche comedy genre.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:That's fair and I appreciate that some of my audience, like you know you and Kevin, Foody, really appreciate these jokes. But I'll be honest, I don't really think about audience that much because you're going to find out more below listeners, but it's going to be a lot of that. It's going to be a lot of the grim, the gruesome, the gargantuan shithole that is adoption. And the thing is, is I'm not wrong, so we're going to talk about your feelings in just a second. But there is no way to frame a conversation about adoption that does not assume violence, because it is a violence, and we consistently frame it as not only necessary but noble.
Megan Goodwin:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're, I mean, you're not wrong. You're not You're just also very swiftly, like sticking a sewing needle in the ear of people's sense of the world, and then like casually trotting off to get more salt and vinegar chips while they're just in a corner weeping. I don't--It's fine. This is fine. So maybe this special series of episodes is a lot for some of our listeners who are adoptees or or who are adoptive parents or who are struggling with infertility.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:and we're going to get to all of those categories in good time, not necessarily all today, but certainly over these four episodes. But yes, if you are someone for whom all of this might be hard, maybe these four, because there's four of them--episodes aren't for you. And just so we're clear this, if you're not cool with this,"this" is the topics of adoption, broadly, and religious freedom as it relates to adoption, adoption and reproductive justice, but also adoption and like the stealing of native children--
Megan Goodwin:straight up, child theft. Yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:we're gonna talk about all of those things, but we're also going to not shy away from talking about how adoption means talking about human trafficking and also, and this is where people come for me, and to which I say, bring it darlings, but adoption is not actually a solution for infertility. I'm fact driven about these issues with with a lot of gallows humor, because the ramifications of having been adopted are and will always be my entire life. Those are my ramifications to hold and live with, and they are manifold, but I say that knowing that these are not easy subjects. So if this isn't for you, if this feels like it might be dangerous, skip us. Skip these episodes. We will not love you any less. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. But only you know your limits, your dear listener, and this is supposed to be a fun way to talk about really grim historical cases and an ongoing, kind of bleak situation.
Megan Goodwin:yeah. And if, if you are not in a space to sit with that bleak but important information right now, no harm, no foul. We have some lovely episodes about writing a book together. And we did a book club. We got an episode coming up where we watch monkey man, listen to those. We had a tattoo episode coming--like, there's lots of fun stuff that you can consume and participate in keeping it 101 land without having to engage all of this very heavy material. That said: Love a boundary. Love a trigger warning. Love you saying what needs to be said, while giving our listeners time to tap out. Obviously, this is a you led miniseries. So how about you tell us what we're getting up to besides, I assume having known you for more than 17 years, way too many Paddingtons Bear or Victorian chimney sweeps, or like early 20th century Newsies in New York, or like I was bought on clearance jokes, which I hate, as you know, because you're clearly the Birkin bag of adoptees. She is expensive, y'all!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:for an alleged Birkin bag, I sure do have a lot of defects. And don't forget, I'd be of all the things that piss people off. Don't forget my penchant for trolling famous nuns who cared for orphans, but only under the guise of conversion, Mother Teresa. And in case you were worried, I couldn't dunk on literally Mother Teresa, this should be a reminder to you to never forget how insufferable I am and how little we're letting folks get away with shit in these episodes.
Megan Goodwin:I would never forget that I would not want to. I will have you know, actually, that on a recent controls, someone said something about Mother Teresa, and I made a face, and he was like, what I'm like, I don't know if you want to know, but you did that. So hey, thanks.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:My favorite part about you learning about South Asia from me is it's just like an undoing of all these really famous people, like all four of the ones that Americans know. And I'm like, this is terrible, that one beats his wife,
Megan Goodwin:kids anyway, Teresa,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:in all seriousness, let's, let's lay out how these episodes are gonna go, even if this first one, dear nerds, is heavy on the primary sources.
Megan Goodwin:Primary sources.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I that that was a premature evocation.
Megan Goodwin:says you, I think it was right on time. We had such a long hiatus, and you've dropped so many breadcrumbs about adoption throughout our four--four years of this podcast that Hansel and Gretel have been saved 10 times over. Get to it already!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:fine. All right, okay, I will absolutely share bits of my own thinking and story that makes sense to share. But here's the thing, we've been asked about adoption so often that not only I assume because our listeners are, like, low key into me
Megan Goodwin:obviously obsessed
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:but because religion, religious organizations and like shocking no one imperialism, especially that of the Christian variety, have so so much to do with how we even think about adoption. So that's actually what I propose we do.
Megan Goodwin:All right, I ratify your proposal. We have four episodes on adoption planned. This one's going to have some facts. So we're all on the same page, as well as a lot of us setting up how adoption like shows up in our lives, because just like any hiding in plain sight set of social issues, we can guarantee your life has adoptees and adoption in it. Adoption is not done with you or something that's that's this episode. Then we got an episode about adoption and religious freedom, especially in what's now the United States, but not exclusively. You'll remember nerds that while religious freedom is a concept globally applied in ways that we'll definitely get to adoption, is also a specific legal construct in the US.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah! And Dr Courtney Lewis, who is the Crandall family Associate Professor of cultural anthropology and the director of the Native American Studies Initiative at Duke will be joining us on the third of these episodes, sharing the story of how her father, Dr Ronald Lewis, helped author the ICWA. Wado, Dr Lewis. And then finally, our fourth episode talks about how adoption fits into reproductive justice. Spoilers, you will not like me after this one.
Megan Goodwin:I mean, I will, but
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:that was like the collective audience you. I hope you'll like me after this one. This is a rant you've heard from me many a time after several beers and or pre rolls, like, let's be real. But we're talking about reproductive justice, which a lot of folks think is separate from adoption, but they're wrong, because adoption is not a solution to the non problem of abortion, but also adoption is not a solution for infertility, and yet, Boy howdy, does religion show up in adoption conversations, specifically as it intersects with abortion, birth control, pregnancy and other medical things related to childbearing.
Megan Goodwin:Choo choo get on that orphan train all aboard. It's terrible. Can I ask a question before we get into all of that?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Sure
Megan Goodwin:okay, because we haven't really defined adoption and like maybe our nerds don't know what we mean by that word when we say that word,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:fine. Go ahead, since I'll be the problem across these episodes, how about you name it. What? What do we mean when we say adoption?
Megan Goodwin:Ilyse. The name of the problem is, Ilyse. No,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I'm trying to clandestinely SIP beer, and you're constantly making me giggle every time, every time!
Megan Goodwin:I'm really proud of myself. I just like to keep it fresh. So, all right, all right, all right. So when we talk about adoption, we are talking about the biggest, broadest system where vulnerable children without guardians are placed in the permanent legal care of adults who can be guardians. That maybe sounds like we're hedging or maybe being neutral, and maybe you hear guardians as parents, but we're trying to be broad on purpose, adoption can take a whole range of forms, and we're going to include systems of temporary care, like the foster care system, within our big umbrella. Since this is a system, all its parts contribute. All parts show up across cultures and communities and nations. But ultimately, when we're talking adoption, we are talking about the process through which child who is found to have no capable parents is essentially reassigned to other supposedly capable adults, either to be their parent or their guardian. You'd think caring for your community's most vulnerable members--children without parents-- would be any community's priority. But like all things, it's it's more complicated than that.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Of course it is, because usually, unless a child's parents have both died, and we're thinking about nuclear families here, because that's how the laws are written. Okay? So I know families come in all shapes and
sizes. Again, adopterino:I know. But usually, unless a child's parents have both died tragically at the exact same time, and there are zero other family to take them in, legally, permanently or even temporarily--even establishing how we know a child is parent or guardianless is fraught as fuck and Goodwin. Can you smell that? Okay?
Megan Goodwin:Like first of all, please never ask me that question in your home, because I have spent time with your children and they are gassy, but also we are on screens hundreds of miles apart, so I do not actually smell what the rock is cooking, no.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Well, the nose knows and imperialism? She ripe. We're not going to be able to talk about adoption without imperialism, and specifically white Christian imperialism. So however I want to make that joke? Is good.
Megan Goodwin:The joke is good, and it's about imperialism, because I said so. I don't know how we got there, but I don't know why I'm surprised. I'm not actually surprised. I knew this is where we were going, but let's pretend I'm surprised imperialism. I'm shocked, shocked to hear that there's. Imperialism going on in this establishment.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I know you're so surprised. Well, guess what, Megan, what we have to talk about imperialism because modern adoption, contemporary adoption, and more accurately put, if we're going to be really specific here, the removal of children and their subsequent placement into Christian orphanages, Christian residential schools or homes, and usually white Christian families, was and still is an explicit, not implicit, explicit, stated tool of empire and statecraft. Which is not even scratching the surface of the legions of children absorbed like absorbed by the Catholic Church, Catholic Charities and Catholic adoption agencies in particular, and this was specifically the the future of children who had the misfortune of being born you know, bastards to unmarried sluts. I mean fallen women. I mean women in trouble. I mean loose girls. I mean,
Megan Goodwin:excuse me, that is your not your mother. It's mine. It's my mother, not my mother, not your mother. I guess it is I'm an adopterino, right. Excuse you. That is my mother. You are talking about, continue
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:shit. I did it again. I repeated the cultural and official church line without questioning how adoption, racialized qualms about parentage, and misogyny were connected. Anyway, we're gonna get to that next episode and a little bit later, this one, these Connect. These issues are not as easily separable as we've made them seem in our outlines, but we're going to take things, you know, one bite at a time. In any event, y'all better believe that the way adoption is framed as saving a child from unfit parents and circumstances is both a result of and an informant to imperialist adoption practices, like I said before, when we get to reproductive health care and how it is a problematic and inappropriate part of the adoption conversation, some of y'all really will hate me, because I'm going to be asking you to check those narratives for imperialism, and it will fail the litmus test each and every time. You probably will be surprised, not you Megan, but our listeners. And I'm gonna stay livid about it in my soul's deepest recesses, really, until I'm dead, because people like me, we're commodities, not people--narratively, anyway, and and legally.
Megan Goodwin:woof. I mean, stay mad. You should be you should be mad about that, Birkin, right? So we're gonna primary source this ish, and then we're gonna do a shock and awe about how religions manage orphans within their practices, manage orphans within their own practices. And then over the next three episodes, we're going to explore how Christian empires used adoption and child removal to further the goals of white Christian supremacy and domination by looking at religious freedom and reproductive justice. Y'know: typically uplifting, super lighthearted stuff, like we do.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I mean, in fairness, if our listeners are still expecting uplifting all these years later, let alone on the topic of adoption. That's fair. That's really, I have terrible news
Megan Goodwin:all aboard the Orphan Train and All right, great, let's, let's talk about your terrible news, because the narrative around orphans to adopt you is really is one of being saved, like finding a family being chosen sometimes, like in those films where kids line up in an orphanage trying to look their cutest to get picked, but it's always like, look at how Wonderful these parents are taking in a kid that wasn't theirs and that they didn't have to treat so well, but they decided to anyway,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:yeah, out of the goodness of their heart, shouldn't I be so grateful for their so magnanimous and godly behavior, the gratefulest
Megan Goodwin:bear that ever lived. So yeah, as you point out to me and anyone who will listen, all of the time, conservatively, 1,000,000,000% of stories, myths, legends, epic sci fi, whatever features some parentless kid who relies on superpowers to find their way in the world. This is the only time where you and I converge on Star Wars because fuck a midichlorian or needs the kindness of others to survive, or experiences the deepest cruelties of the world, because, as the narrative structure tells us, they don't have a biological family, the most important thing to have, apparently. Or, on the flip, the biological betrays the awesome of the child. What up Vader? So an adoptive parent swoops in and saves the child from the misery of their unfortunate lineage. Or, the biological cannot be avoided. It is always there, lurking like a big bad demon, like in Star Wars, fucking JJ Abrams bullshit, or Harry Potter fucking turf face, also bullshit. Whew, which is weird, right? Because I've read enough British literature to know that kids are beat ruthlessly and senselessly, as we just discussed on our Jane Steele episode, but somehow orphans are worse off for not having a family, even if it is abusive.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah. I mean, like I said in the last episode, we can't really unpack British obsession with orphans, including, I would argue, the obsession with shipping your kids off to boarding schools and treating them like orphans even if they're not. But you're not wrong. Narratively, socially, orphans are meant to be grateful regardless of what happens to them if they're not left for dead? Bonus, be grateful. At best, you're someone else's obligation and responsibility, but at worse, you're refuse. No one really want sloppy seconds, Megan, they just settle for them. No one really wants this. Adoption is a backup plan, the last option, and we should recognize how amazing those people are taking in the trash like that, how heroic, how selfless, how godly adoptive parents or foster parents or that kindly aunt who takes in the kids. Those are the heroes, which usually marks orphans the villain, or at the very least the narrative device that demonstrates the well heroism of the heroes
Megan Goodwin:love to be a plot point. Ow. Okay. On that note, let's note. Let's, let's, I deep breath. Let's get to the big stuff. I sang the song. I sang the song like, 400 years ago, and you're out here on main and depressing everyone again,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:yeah. But like, Okay, one, one last word before we get to, like, the song's promise, the primary source of song promise. Since I really do catch a lot of flack for this, like, I get a lot of hate from Hindutva trolls and Zionist trolls, but the other thing I get the most hate for on the internet is my take on adoption. And so I want to be
really clear:I get a lot of hate for this, because, frankly, white women in particular, are told that they are only good white women if they have their own biological babies, and frankly, a lot of them, oh, and the other segment of people who get mad at me are gay men who want to adopt and hear my critique of a system as either being anti family, anti people with infertility or homophobia. So let me be clear from the jump, I assure you my rage at adoptive systems can live side by side with my bone deep personal knowledge that adoption is not necessarily some inherent evil. I am not anti adoption in the same way that I'm not anti white or anti men or anti moms or anti child. But I am dear nerds, someone who has done the homework and the research, especially those that are adoptee-forward research organizations or research papers, all data, qualitative and quantitative, demonstrates that adoptees are always missing in the conversation about adoption. Adoptees are Make no mistake about it, legally allowed to be treated like property, or at best, permanently rendered children under the law. As you may have guessed, I do not like the idea that people are property or that I am a 41 year old minor,
Megan Goodwin:even if you are dressed like one.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I am dressed a little bit like a minor, but that's
Megan Goodwin:that's your business, your personal, private business,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:or that my life and my choices are legally limited because of the way two people fucked in college. But the absolute worst part of this narrative where saviors and orphans and religion and freedom and reproduction is that a big part of how we frame adoption is because folks feel entitled to families where family only means a nuclear one, where there's children. And to be clear, these are not theoretical philosophical debates. This isn't like, what do you think a family is sweetheart on like a Friday night with friends? This is literally my entire existence. This is my whole reality. I have a wacky birth certificate. I have no medical history. These are pragmatic things that influence my ability to act and be in the world. And when we drop adoptees out of the conversation, what happens is, is that my entire existence as the product of this system, and frankly, the goal of this system is that my existence is erased because of power. And, you guessed it, nerds, religion.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah, ouch.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Goodwin, do you want to sing the song again? Would that make you happy? You know it would please go primary sources. All right. Goodwin, I know I'm kind of our star today, but do you have anything to say first, if we're doing primary sources, as
Megan Goodwin:it happens, and as you damn well know, I surely do, because truly, what Catholic kid doesn't have adoption escandalo skeletons in the family closet. So I, I have no, like literally none, in my in my experience, but you tell yours. So I have, I have two vignettes that I would like to share today. Let's just start with the lighter one, which is still really fucking dark. So for those of you who were not graced asterisk with Catholic parents, you might not know that until about like 50 years ago, the Catholic Church and the Catholic parochial school system specifically, was actively involved in attempting to convert this is a direct quote pagan babies. And the pagan babies were from friases like South America and Africa, famously not white and heavily colonized. So A, of all that happened. B, of all they would ask parochial school children for donations to save. And that was the narrative. You brought in a nickel, I think, or a dime. It might have been as much as a dime, which is not nothing in the 1950s and 60s. And for that dime
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:You could get a whole CRacker Jack box, Megan, and your baby is the prize!
Megan Goodwin:So the prize was, you got to adopt, quote, unquote, and also name a pagan baby.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Wow
Megan Goodwin:like a Cabbage Patch Kid, but, but human, um, so my dad, who I loved very much, and also was an asshole, adopted a pagan baby, which is in the context of his own personal history, neither here or there, but because you got to name the pagan baby, and you got a certificate. By the way, I have a picture. We will we will put it on the website. He named his pagan baby the one that he bought with his dime, Lisa, which is the name of his youngest sister, and he brought that certificate home to his family as evidence that my aunt Lisa had been adopted. And she said, I have not been adopted. I have red hair. And my dad said, Why do you think we picked you?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Love that story so much. I also, dear nerds, you have to know that this document was on display at Bob Goodwin, the late Bob Goodwin's funeral, and I got to see it in person, and I did not have on my funeral bingo card, adoption trauma, and then, and then, and then it was and it was fascinating, because this story has so many layers, because it's not just Like the church is out on main and being like, "babies for sale. 10 cents a head"
Megan Goodwin:boy, boy for sale. no, no,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:but like they're out on the street like a freaking circus Barker being like, we got pagan babies. We got brown, black pagan babies. We got deepest, darkest Australia, 10 cents a head! But then you've got your dad doing that classic thing, right? We're accusing ganging up on a sibling to be like you're not from here, you are adopted, is like the biggest diss, right? And I think in the same way not to cut off your primary sources, but like in the same way that we know misogyny exists because we tell little boys that the worst thing you can call them is a girl, right? We know that adoption sucks, because the worst thing kids can do to make fun of their siblings is be like, you're not from here. You are not of us. You are one of them,
Megan Goodwin:followed slightly by my sister telling my brother that he was a mistake, which is really funny, because she was actually a mistake, like she was a whoopsie baby. Anyhoodle, speaking of my siblings and also my dead dad and adoption, seamless transition, thank you guys. We
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:are professional podcasters. You
Megan Goodwin:are welcome. So speaking of my siblings and my dead dad. And also adoption, this certificate wherein my dad documented the supposed adoption of my aunt Lisa, that was also the room in which the only sibling who spoke to me was my secret brother, whomst I did not learn about until, like 15 years ago, almost 20 now, I guess. So my mother, who was raised by the Catholics, got knocked up by a Protestant, which--
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:that is a war, in fact,
Megan Goodwin:escanadalo
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:That's like a BBC Ireland miniseries.
Megan Goodwin:So mom got knocked up by a Protestant, unwed, and the family lore goes that he was supposed to marry her, and then, like, ran off instead he R U N, N of t, and so she, I hesitate to use the word gave, but Catholic Social Services acquired--
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:yes
Megan Goodwin:my biological brother, and I did not know that he existed until I was well into my 20s. And also my mom is bipolar and sometimes remembers things that didn't happen. So I didn't say anything to anybody else I was related to, in classic Irish fashion, because I truly was, like, not sure if this child that she remembered having actually existed, but I have met him, and it turns out that he does.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So I met him also, it was an adoperino convention, and also a funeral.
Megan Goodwin:and in many ways, a war, but like, truly, my brain did a thing where, like, he came in and said hi, and I was like, Oh, you have to meet my friend, Ilyse.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:And that was exactly what happened, listeners, that's exactly what happened. And I said, I got you, you know, and you were my best quality sister.
Megan Goodwin:You are best quality sister. And it truly is a testament to all the therapy that I have been doing for a long time now that I did not inadvertently blurt, this is Ilyse, She's adopted to but that was definitely my brain did just
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:You did stage whisper, "Elise. I didn't say this exact sentence," like two seconds later. But
Megan Goodwin:you know what that was? All I had progress. Thank you. Like my dad died.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So your dad died we were literally at his funeral. That was amazing progress. That's a lot of Catholic adoption in your primary sources.
Megan Goodwin:It sure was. It was also a moment where my brain just autistically sorted things into categories and like, adopterinos go in this corner.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:That's a sash I put on myself. That's great. So
Megan Goodwin:yeah, a lot, a lot of adoption in my Catholic childhood and adulthood narratives, because Catholicism is never, ever, ever
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:done with me. It's really not. It's so not. We're gonna get to some of the pieces of that story that fit into both realism of it all and the baby scoop of it all.
Megan Goodwin:not the baby scoop.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:And if that's not a phrase you know, dear listeners, hold on to your butts, because you're gonna
Megan Goodwin:Hey, Ilyse, do you have anything to say personally about adoption? Has that affected your life?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:It doesn't affect me at all.
Megan Goodwin:Oh, good. End of podcast. Thanks for listening.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:All right. All right, here we go. I was adopted at birth through a private adoption in the early 1980s in New York City. Until January 15, 2020, that meant I could not access any paperwork about my own life, so the birth certificate I use, my official birth certificate, is this weird Frankenstein document that actually has, like, literally, it has two dates on it. So I will not post my birth certificate, so I'm not a dumbass, but I will describe it for you, and that is to say it looks like a birth certificate. In the state of New York birth certificates are legal sized paper. Mine has an eight and a half by 11 inset that looks like a photocopy, because it is, that lists all of my adoptive family information, including my my name and their names. On the legal size paper, it says separate dates about when I was officially that person, because before those dates, I could have been someone else. And so this weird document that I have is actually this phenomenal example of how the original birth certificate, the information that you all take for granted, is not my property. It is held by New York State. And now, after January 15, 2020, I can ask permission to look at it, but my active birth certificate, like the one I have to use to get official documents, the one I need for my passport, the one that I've taken to the DMV, will always be this very weird testament that I could have been, might have been, was supposed to be, was slated to be, literally someone else entirely.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah, and I'm sure that has not caused any sort of drama whatsoever in trying to get, I don't know, passport renewals or visas, or any sort of interaction with the state where your standard scare quotes document doesn't look like everybody else's standard document. So yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I had a hard time getting my driver's license when I was 17 in New Jersey, and because it looks like a fake, it looks like a photocopy of a real document. And like any look you've been to the DMV, these are, these are not, um, these are not our best and brightest. Okay, they're busy, they're harried. They're getting yelled at
Megan Goodwin:they're doing their best. They're doing their but yell at them all day.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:But they are also meant to be a line of defense against false identification. Yeah. And so looking at a document that is actually two documents, why does a document have two birthdays? What person has two birthdays that does not make no sense? Is a sentence that someone in New Jersey said to me when I tried to get my driver's license. And when I tried to get a driver's license in North Carolina, I was actually sent out. I did not get my driver's license on the first go in North Carolina. I had to come back with a notarized piece of paper from a lawyer that was like, this is actually a real birth certificate. You have to grant her it. And that makes sense, right? Like a Republican state at the time that it was, is really and, like, fixated on illegal immigrants, which, like, lord knows is not real. People are not illegal. But this birth certificate was setting off all of those "You don't look right. This don't look right. You don't look right." So all of which this points to right. This isn't just a story about my birth certificate. What this points to is that I could have been several different people. I could have been a different religion, I could have had a different name, I could have been a different race, even, because that's how whiteness works. What seems kind of swarthy or ambiguous might have become just white passing in another universe, and that is a big conversation in light skinned or white passing transracial adoptee communities, this proximity to whiteness stuff, what is your real identity? And that's a different conversation, but a related conversation to the conversations that Asian in specific and Black adoptees placed in white families are having that refuse those families that refuse to acknowledge racial, linguistic or ethnic differences, that old colorblind thing, which we'll get to when we get to reproductive justice. Anyway, that's a crap take. When you've adopted a child of another ethnic or racial background. You shouldn't try to just white 'em up, anyway, all of this points to the malleability and loss of identity inherent in all adoptions. But I kind of digress.
Megan Goodwin:I mean, yes and also no, like, I'm not gonna lie, the the time where you as as is your want casually mentioned that, like, maybe your parents weren't white, who can say truly, both broke my brain and I think was the first time I really understanded race as socially constructed, like it is a thing that I have talked about. I had talked about and taught about four years, and then I was like, but this is my bestie. How can, how can she not know who she is, where she's from, and the state of New York was like, You are not entitled to that information, you perpetual infant, and that broke, broke my brain.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:And also, that information is not on a birth certificate, yeah. And so like, the information I have is not clear, yeah, the information that lawyers gave me and my parents has some, like, racially coded phrases,
Megan Goodwin:but who can say?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:And the bio last name, if you like Google, where it's from, has, like, loads of South and Central American places on it
Megan Goodwin:Sure, right.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So, like that, who are you? Where are you from? Man, that shits--that shit is sketch,
Megan Goodwin:yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, so, like definitely sketch broke my brain a little bit. But why is, why is your identity relevant to like everyone, adopterino
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:so I teach my own birth certificate in classes on race. And I do that because I like pointing out that the squishiness of identity is really evident in adoption. It's a visceral teaching tool. So I was born in 1982. In 1984 which is the second date listed on my birth certificate, the state decided that my parents permanently passed the tents--the test, rather I was a Morgenstein, per the state and records. Now my parents will tell this story really differently, right? My parents will say you were ours from the minute we held you. That's great. It's not legal, legally true. And I love that. That's the story they. Hell, I think that's an important and powerful story, and I think that was deeply important to me as a child, but like as an adult, I know the difference between a story and a fact. If the state had decided differently, boom. New dates, new names, new background, new religion, probably new ethnicity, possibly maybe new a new new racialization, probably not because of the prioritization of white parents in a system that privileges whiteness. But you never know. I think about this all the time, in part because of my own religion. Jewishness is bone deep to me, except, of course, it might not have been, and there are very conservative Jews, including the entire state of Israel, that would say, I'm not properly Jewish. Judaism is both a racialized and an ethno religion, like loads of Jews believe you aren't a quote real Jew if you aren't one matrilineally, so being adopted is historically fraught in my own tradition. We're gonna get to that in a second. I've said before on the podcast, this is the least problematic thing that the American Israeli Jewish connection is doing currently, you know, like besides supporting a fucking genocide, but the Israel visiting program of birthright, which suggests that all Jewish people have a birthright to the modern nation state of Israel, which is younger than my dad. Anyway, this propaganda organization suggests that the most important thing is, if you are born Jewish, it's in the literal title and like Goodwin, this is a real question. Was I?
Megan Goodwin:right?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, is being able to prove it to a community the value it? And yes, it was, and it still is. Lots of Jewish adoptive parents opt to get their kids mikvehs, which is essentially like a bath, to make them converted properly into Judaism. So if adoption assumes the removal or a mitigation of one's original identity, what does that mean with respect to religion? Now I'm asking a lot of questions. I'm oversharing on purpose, and like nerds, please know this is a curated overshare like this is on purpose, but my primary sources, too long, didn't listen. Is two points, really, one Darling children of bio parents, you literally cannot fathom how much of a mind fuck being adopted is at every level. Where are you from? Is always a loaded question for anyone in the United States, but for me, it is literally unanswerable. I don't have a fucking clue because the government decided I don't have a right to know, not didn't I don't have a right to know. I'm not allowed to ask. Still. When I summoned my OG papers after we worked for years to lobby New York state to provide adoptees that asked with quote, non identifying medical paperwork, the paperwork is, meh, yeah, it's a birth certificate. Megan has seen my original birth certificate. The only detail, details I'd like to share is that there's no father listed. It's literally a blank my bio Mom's maiden name is there, but that's it. I have no name. I'm assigned no name. There's no information on this. Besides that you were assigned blank at birth, I was assigned blank at birth. Yeah, a b, a b, that's me. That's the next tattoo. ABAB. There is no information, though, on this piece of paper, you saw it, there's nothing there. So when someone asks an adopted kid, where are you really from? Girl, I don't know. I can guess, because I'm like dope at research, but I'm not allowed to know. Compounding that lack of data is that society says my adoptive family is my only family. So, like, literally, until 2020 I wasn't even allowed, per state law, to ask my bio mom's name. My birth certificate lies. It lists my adoptive parents as my parents from birth, even as the same document is required to say that it is reissued, which legally says this was not always true. So when someone asks, Where are you from, as an adoptee, socialized to know that hedging is unacceptable, you learn to answer accordingly, even if the follow up question to that is okay, well, my family's Ashkenazi, and so they're from these places. They're from Russia and Poland and Austria, and then the next question is always, huh, you don't look like that! Dear nerds clock how I'm framing this entire topic, just to see how bone deep this shit is when I say I was adopted, I am not the actor; that is a passive voice sentence. Loads of younger adoptees are way better at saying adoptee, and there's a noticeable generational shift, and frankly, I'm going to give
credit where it's due:It has been led. That shift has been led by bi by BIPOC adoptees and even more specifically, international transracial adoptees of East Asian descent. But my default as a kid born in the 80s, was I was adopted, which is to say I'm not the actor in my own origin story. That is a mindfuck, and also tells us about our collective values. That child is a commodity, a non agent. The actors in that sentence are more important than the acted upon. The second thing that I care about about this story, or why my story matters here is that religion is always in the adoption room, historically, as we're going to see soon, theologically, as we're going to get to in a second. But also in terms of how we collectively think about heritage, tradition, practice, I'd add identity there too. Is a child removed from their family of birth, entitled to a heritage, and if so, whose is it? How do communities navigate that question? Is it left up to individual parents? What are the stakes? We're going to get there too. Since all of those things actually tell us a lot about religious freedom or the lack thereof.
Megan Goodwin:I am supposed to respond, because it says respond on the script, but like, I don't even have any words. They're just kind of grunt moans. It's just like [moaning noises]. and again, if that is how I feel, already knowing your story, but just having heard all of that out loud, yeah, I think I just want to underline and like highlight an exclamation point, mind fuck. And then we go to the next section. Yeah, come on, ride the train.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I love that we're making so many orphan trade jokes like it, It like makes me feel good in a really fucked up way. I imagine this is how like Tim Burton feels when he's like, this snake really speaks to me. It's cute. And you're like, it's gonna scare an entire generation of children.
Megan Goodwin:You're gonna scar everybody. Let's go
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Goodwin before we move on all the way. Can we? Let's talk about how religions see adoptions, because, like, missing, dead, shitty or abusive families are not new, and most cultures and communities have ways of managing Guardian less children. plus, as I like to point out when I talk about adoption in my classes, Moses was adopted. Mohammed was an orphan, and Mary raised Jesus without his baby daddy, but with Joe, who may or may not have formally adopted Jesus, I don't know their
Megan Goodwin:life. Okay? He's the dad who stepped up. Okay.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Insert Maury polvich, he's
Megan Goodwin:not the father.
Maury:You are not the father.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:All right, to get through how religions are thinking about these things, can I propose an old fashioned shock and awe?
Megan Goodwin:Indeed you can Elise and indeed you have so. Indeed we shall. Let's, uh, let's start with Judaism, because I feel like that's maybe pertinent to your interests. This is a special treat. You can have a little of Judaism and adoption as a treat. In Judaism, adoption and orphans have a tricky role. And Jewish law is so wondrously complicated that, as the jokes about it say, you can find any opinion you need, and then three dissenting ones you don't for any position. But textually, taking care of orphans is a mitzvah, a good deed, and procreating is mandatory so there's a weight there, but many rabbinical texts hold that adopting is equivalent to birthing children. So there's also Torah stories about adoption. Maybe most famously, in your favorite Jewish stories are about, IRMF, they're being taken in by Mordecai, her older cousin, before she kicks all the ass in Purim stories. I remember the first time we did Purim together, where you were, you did a flawless flo impersonation, and you were like, at least you're gonna like this part, because it's about adoption, all right. And I know there's Talmud that says something like, whoever raises the child is their parent, which has been a space of opening for Jews who need parents, but also in queer Jewish communities and ideas about chosen family. But also Judaism is really, really invested in bloodlines. Like textually, there's all those begets and begottings. And while different Jewish communities have taken this more or less seriously in different times and places, Jewish law makes no bones about how Jews are created through birth, and especially through having a Jewish mother, there's an emphasis on not separating the child from their biological family. So closed adoptions have historically been totally not kosher, even though, in most Western nations, closed adoptions have been the primary form of legal adoptions.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:And obviously religion is what people do, and lots of Jews adopt. This is old data, so I want to start with the old data, and then I'll move to the new data, but around the turn of the century, and by which I mean 2000 not 1900 to those of us who span the millennium, something like 5% of all Jewish American households in the year 2000 had adopted at least one child, which at that time, compared to Christian American households, was about double. So Jews had been adopting, that number has shifted. So now is about 5% of Christian households. And obviously, 5% of Christian households is significantly more babies than 5% of Jewish households, just based on demography. So yeah, I want to be clear that saying that 5% of Jewish households is more than Christians had been adopting at the turn of the century does not mean that Jews adopted more children than Christians. Just per capita, Jews were adopting more frequently than Christians. So that has changed. We're gonna get into why in the next episode. But Jews are adopting for loads of reason. Ergo, adoption has been made Jewish, even if US legal practices of closed adoption is definitely at odds with most Jewish law on the And I'll add, because I can, if you want to think about Jewish issue. law and state law, Israel's obviously the place to do it. And again, neither of us are keen on talking about that state right now for anything except its to date, relentless genocidal attacks on Palestinians. But we're going to stay on topic. In Israel, adoption laws are, like most nations, kind of odd. They're not special there. For a while, Israel did not allow inter religious or inter ethnic adoption because ethno state and Jewish nationalism. In the 1990s it signed on to the Hague adoption Convention, which addressed international adoption, which was on the rise in the 90s, driven by American interest in international babies. Um the Hague adoption convention was aiming to shore up some of the truly horrific practices in this arena that led to child trafficking, including enslavement and sex trafficking, but the Hague adoption convention gets at changing the adopted child's religion by allowing Convention states to restrict adoption to same religion adoptions based on the child's religion. So what that looks like is, in Israel, Jewish citizens can adopt Jewish babies, and if a Christian child can be proven to have been Christian, then a Christian child, then a Christian family, rather, may adopt them. In theory, this works to protect the child from having their identity altered. But we can talk about more what this work does at some other time, because I think it does lots of weird -- How do you prove a child is Christian? Is really complicated, because, like lots of Christians believe it's like they have to choose baptism. So is a child born Christian in the same way that a child is born Muslim or Jewish?
Megan Goodwin:Let's be honest. That's some Protestant nonsense. Catholics don't bother asking their kids. Asking their kids. They just don't.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:But the Protestants are the thing in that region of the world, right? So, like, it's complicated, and I want to be clear, this is not just Israel, right? So Indonesia, for example, does this as well, with no interreligious or inter ethnic adoption. But it does. I want us nerds to show our listeners that the only Jewish state in the world has reinterpreted Jewish law so that adoptions can actually happen.
Megan Goodwin:It almost sounds like the and I'm going to put this in quote here, right to adopt is directly involved in statecraft and nation making, huh?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, that's funny, isn't it?
Megan Goodwin:That's interesting. Checks out. Okay, so Judaism complex relationship with adoption religiously. But if religion is what people do and people adopt, then Jews have figured out ways, both within nation states like the US, UK and Israel, and within religious communities to adopt and keep it kosher.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, that checks out. Should we talk about Islam?
Megan Goodwin:Why not?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:How about I take this one?
Megan Goodwin:Yes, please.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Adoption in Islam is actually pretty complicated. Legally, like Judaism, Islam has a tradition of interpretation and jurisprudence, and for all Muslims that exist in the world, a myriad ways of thinking about that thick or Jewish jurisprudence. Here are the highlights, though, Islam has some prominent orphans, like Muhammad. He's arguably the most important one.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah, I've heard of him. He's, I feel like he's kind of a big deal.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, Islamic adoption, textually, looks similar to Jewish adoption, where there's a sense that one cannot and should not try to sever the ties of the child from their biological family. So no closed adoption, a reticence to changing the names either first or last for adoptees, that sort of thing. However, Islam is explicit that caring for foundlings is mandatory period the end mandatory. This is there's no bones about it. The legal schools are not in they're in agreement. There's no argument. But supporting us foundlings and adoption are actually quite
different:orphans are different than adoption. And in Muslim history and communities, there's a disconnect between how we Westerners talk about adoption and what is considered legally ideal in some big picture ways. And I want to be clear, because I know that our nerds are folding their laundry while they listen to us, and they're also googling. They're like, huh, I never thought about Islam and adoption, and they're like, pulling it up right now. And before you say, Oh, actually, Ilyse, on the on the internet, I read this really crazy stuff,
here's the clap back:yes. On the Googles, you will find some very conservative internet shaykh types saying that adoption is not permissible, but what the fiqh says is more like, you cannot strip the child of their family of origin period. You cannot change their name. You cannot erase biology for reasons of marriage, which no lie, was actually my deepest fear as a teen slash tween, when I just wanted to make out with someone, I was, like, deeply concerned that I would accidentally make out with someone, and they would secretly have been my sibling. Because when you don't know who your family is, you don't know who your family is. But a lot of the spirit of fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence is that the mandating, the mandate is the care for orphans, but it's not this adoption where you literally are transferred from one family to another--which is to say that like you can have the care of orphans without the dissolution of a biological lineage. But keep in mind, nerds, religion is what people do. I know loads of Muslims in the US and the UK who have adopted children. I will admit that adoption is less common in Muslim majority and conservative nations broadly. But again, that seems to be actually about how the West imagines adoptions and what we count, which is one of the reasons that Americans actually go shopping for babies--when Americans go shopping for babies internationally, they are usually not able to do so in Muslim majority nations. The State Department literally says on its website that the way we do immigration papers here, where a child's last name reflects that of their parents probably won't work because many Muslim majority nations allow for something closer to what we would call guardianship, fostering or permanent guardianship, rather than adoption. And Megan?
Megan Goodwin:yes, IRMF?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:want to be really clear that even though a lot of Americans see this in Islam and say, Oh, they say, No adoptions, but you can foster permanently, Ooh, that sounds really barbaric and backward. That is actually the model that most adoptees in the US and UK argue for. Most adoptees in the US and the UK are actually angling, lobbying actively for systems of permanent guardianship. That model pairs better with open adoption than closed adoption. The idea that all people involved in creating or caring for this child know each other, interact, and that folks can set how they do those interactions with various levels of involvement. In a permanent guardianship model, things like names would not change. Ethnicities, religions and cultures are not secret or hidden, and the adoptive parents are not legally displacing bio parents. So in this model, my birth certificate would never have needed to been reissued, even if my mom and dad remained my mom and dad in literally every other way. I want to be clear that I have mixed feelings about permanent guardianship versus adoption, but since a lot of white and Christian and American and British folks listen to us, and whenever I end up talking about Islamic law's general approach to adoption, I get folks itchy, in a very Neo imperialist and frankly racist way, questioning how kind or open or accepting a religion could be if adoption in the way our nations see it, is not allowed. So I just need to say that a lot of adoptees actually prefer this model where you keep the name your bio parents gave you, you keep your history. It's Google able, you
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. I think so. This is new to me, but Okay, so know what's what, and you still get these other people who are willing to care for you. So even if how Muslims do adoption in real life looks like the nation state laws of the country they live in, Islamic law looks a lot similar, more close to this permanent guardianship models that adoptees are advocating for. Does that I assume also that this understanding of adoption is like guardianship or caretaking has something to do with like inheritance and lineage laws, but also emphases within Islam, like theologically, right?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:totally. And that's obviously a whole other episode, but yeah, Muslims be adopting, not at the rate of Jews statistically or Christians, but not at a rate of zero either. There are specifically Muslim adoption networks and agencies in the US and the UK who cater to the needs of observant Muslims and who strive to set up Halal adoptions within the structures of American or English or broadly British law.
Megan Goodwin:Okay, okay, I feel like we've got a lot to say about Christianity, so maybe say that one for the end. What about Hindus or Buddhists? What other religions Could we talk about? Like, quickly?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:let's do Hinduism. So India, famously, the world's largest Hindu majority, has as nation has one of the lowest adoption rates. And adoption in Hindu traditions is actually pretty tricky. Globally, we see a near universal stigma about adoptions for reasons that make sense, right? So, like, adoption is mentally and emotionally traumatic, and other things are just misogyny, eugenics, and other forms of bias, as in, like bastard children must inherently be damaged goods, or even sometimes an unlucky child--one whose parents drop dead, for example--will bring that bad luck with them to other families. So like, think about all the horror films you love, like the Omen, which is famously about a killer orphan, right?
Megan Goodwin:Yep, yep.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:And I want you to hear how eugenics tinged that is. When you don't know someone's biology, you don't know who they are, really, it's fucked. But in India, the caste system and its many, many rules add to this pretty universal stigma, as well as its like local flavor. So for example, in the Yājñavalkya Smṛti, which is an ancient legal text. We have a lot of clear depictions of adoption that say the adopted child must be of the same caste as the father or head like as as the head of the household. This text and other texts also specify that sons are to be prioritized, even listed as the only children available to adopt. So gender is big here, and while I don't want to spend too much time on this, part of the logic is deeply religious. It's not just misogyny. It's actually religious. Sons in Hinduism have a very particular role around caretaking, and especially in the final stages of life. So a childless couple in need of a son is actually part of the religious math of adoption logic in Hindu traditions. Now, the nation state of India overhauled its laws in its early days, including, importantly, the Hindu adoption act of 1955 which tried to update everything, streamline the process and outline who and what constitutes a legal adoption within India's extant notion of a personal law, which is too much to unpack here, but it basically says that, like, yes, children from orphanages can be adopted, and caste should not be part of that decision, nor should gender, because we are a secular state, and while we are using Hindu principles, we are not mandating Hindu Ideas,
Megan Goodwin:huh? Okay, all right. So if I've got this right, Hindu traditions have a fraught relationship with adoption, and while caring for children is, of course, vital, a lot of the textual sources prioritize adoptive parents and other social systems like caste, but modern India's laws negate all of that, even if social customs still prioritizes male children and stigma around adoption is still high,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:completely.
Megan Goodwin:Okay, all right, so in the interest of time, let us move on to Christian attitudes about adoption. I assume this will be also our segue into some dark teasers for next time
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:you bet.
Megan Goodwin:Neat, right? So Christianity, as we have discussed already and will continue to discuss for quite some time is, to say the very least, down with adoption, even if, culturally, orphans still inhabit a space that is betwixt and between, and listen listeners, we will get to the formal child stealing that literally begins America's adoption processes. Just, just wait for it. We're going to talk a lot about that, actually, but for right now, I am told that we are focusing on how Christians view adoption, not how Christian imperialism used race, uses race, science and civilization to strip untold millions of children from their families, cultures and communities worldwide.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:And they still do that's not historic, that's like, ongoing.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah, they absolutely still fucking do. But to be consistent today is, how are Christians imagining adoption within Christianity? And there's a lot of information about this, because Christians have the most adoption interpretations available, not just through theological texts, but also agencies and organizations, individual churches and denominations that publish all matter of tracts, pamphlets, websites, etc. A lot of orgs cite Jesus's birth as evidence that the Christian God assumes adoption. A number of theological tracts cite the New Testament verses where God adopts believers as God's own, but it is assumed to be relational. The Christian must be Christian to be adopted into the family. Conversion or a creedal devotion is mandatory.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:yeah. Similar to Judaism and Islam, there's a lot of explicit language in Christian texts, especially in the New Testament that regards caring for orphans and widows. These are often paired in Christianity as important, and obviously builds on similar language that's in the Hebrew Bible.
Megan Goodwin:But a lot of language in the modern period of Christian writing about adoption follows not the caring of children, but the obligations of a cis het marriage. Can't have a baby? Get one. Look at the capitalism and errand in the system. That helps you fulfill your duties. Since reproduction is a goal of Christian marriage--we know it isn't we're summarizing the things we've read--Christian God says, If you can't make your own kid, store bought us fine.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, it's the Sandra D model of fucking baby making. So the salvation of the child, bringing a Christian into a Christian home and raising them to be godly Christians, and the fulfillment of the obligations of marriage--which is to say fucking for pregnancies--alongside the ideas of conversion and salvation... this is a heady cocktail where Christians view adoption very favorably, but for reasons that to this adoptee, are never about the kid, they're always about the people doing the adoption. And it feels narcissistic, quite frankly.
Megan Goodwin:next time we're gonna keep breaking you so sorry. No, it's not sorry, not this is important, but it needs to happen. It just hurts my entire soul, all right. But next time, we're gonna do a whole lot on religious freedom, more lack thereof, which is where we'll absolutely unpack the horrific legacies of white Christian imperialism and adoption. That is, that's just facts, and facts are facts. America, till then, we got some reading. What would you like to assign for homework?
Simpsons:Homework? What homework
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:gang? I'm gonna put a ton of resources on the website. I've got too many to just list out. And frankly, it's boring, and this ran long, so I'm gonna keep it short. I think of the of the many, many that I have listed here, there's a really great book by Angela Tucker called You should be grateful stories of race, identity and transracial adoption, that was just out this spring with Beacon Press. There's also them. We do know them, that we really do know them. There's a bunch of really publicly accessible pieces I specifically really like what we get wrong about adoption by Gretchen Sisson and Jessica Harrison, which came out with the nation a couple years ago. Joel Kim booster, one of my favorite comedians and fellow adopter, Reno, has a great piece about his own identity that's called no fats, no fems, no Asians, adventures and identity, but the erstwhile toast, it is an oldie, but Goody, it's a decade old, but it talks a lot about this problematic identity relationship for transracial adoptees, specifically those taken from Korea in The late 80s, early 90s. And then lastly, I will cite kit Myers' piece, also a bit old at this point, but still great, called real families, the violence of love and new media adoption, discourse. It's an article, but I think it's, it's, it is public access, so I'll stop there, but I have probably triple that for the show notes. Can confirm
Megan Goodwin:I'm looking at them. Yeah, I have also really appreciated Dr Lisa Monroe's voice on this. She is a historian of Latin America. She's got a great open access and really excessively written article on nursing Clio called Buried Secrets, living children, secrecy, shame and sealed adoption records. So we'll point you toward that as well. Today, I learned, by the way, the phrase baby scoop, era B, S, E, which is from 1945 to 1973 in what's now the US. I hate everything, every single thing I learn about this makes me more nauseated and angrier, and I guess at least we're on brand. So anyway, I appreciate that
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:you are someone who deals with religious abuse, racism, misogyny and like, queer phobias, and you can still be horrified by this. I actually think the like, the affective response that both of us has is important for our teaching here. This is scary stuff,
Megan Goodwin:so scary and again, so unaddressed. So I am really glad that we are doing this series, even though, and I'm just going to admit this on on the pod. I started this conversation by explaining to my dearest friend that mentally, I have already packed the bong for the evening because, like, I'm gonna need a break. My brain needs some medicine. Who?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah? I yeah, I drank a tall boy while we recorded I know,
Megan Goodwin:and I'm proud of you be real, like both personally and just esthetically, because the tall boy really brought the whole outfit together. Because this is an audio medium. You are all not in the position to see that Elise is definitely dressed like a 1990 4b boy. And it's the best, it's the best, it's
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:my. True Self by true self, I love that. I
Megan Goodwin:love that you have ascended anyway. You can find us on across social media. We're still on Twitter for the moment, reluctantly, we're on Insta, we're on Tiktok, we're on Facebook, and if none of that scoops your baby, you're welcome. We have newsletter you can join via our website, which is keeping it one on one.com, drop us a rating or review in your podcatcher of choice. If
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:you want to invite us to your campus or local books, I'm sorry you got me a baby. Thank you.
Megan Goodwin:Thank you guys. Really proud of that.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:If you want to invite us to your camper, I'm still stuck on scoop your baby. Scoop some right up gang. If you want us to come chat with you in person, reach out to us, or Caitlin Meyer, who's our incredible marketing of implicitly Maven over at Beacon, all of that data is on the website, and we'd like to see you. So yeah, tell us to come on out with that. Peace out. Nerds,
Megan Goodwin:do your homework. It's on the syllabus. You he has to keep for 1000 pennies. You can work it out.
