Our Best Interests: Adopted - Life Lessons from Childhood Trauma to Adulthood
By Michael Rocco - Author
#adoptee #adoption #adopteevoices #adopted #transracialadoptee #adopteestories #adoptees #adopteesspeak #childhoodtrauma
Our Best Interests: Adopted - Life Lessons from Childhood Trauma to AdulthoodAug 03, 2022
Pamela Karanova - Season 2, Episode 1.
Jack and I recorded this episode with adoptee activist Pamela Karanova back in early 2022. Pamela is a fearless and talented writer and Founder of both Adoptees Connect and Authenticity Over Alcohol. Since the time of our conversation, Pamela lost her birth father, so we added a brief condolence to the beginning of the recording. Stepping away from the Adage format of Season I, we discuss Pam's struggles with relinquishment and grief, inhabiting 'badness' and her never-ending quest to take control of her narrative and find authenticity in sobriety. I have great admiration for Pam and believe the adoptee community has benefited enormously from her bravery and leadership. Rock on with your bad self Pamela Karanova!
Please leave us a voicemail and let us know what you think about the episode!
-Michael Rocco 8.2.22
Reckoning with the Primal Wound: An Interview with Rebecca Autumn Sansom
Michael and Jack interview filmaker Rebecca Atumn Sansom about her documentary feature film Reckoning with the Primal Wound - December 23, 2021. Show notes forthcoming.
See the film's webpage: reckoningwiththeprimalwound.com
Leave a message for the show! https://anchor.fm/michael-rocco-author/message
#adoptee #adopted #adoption #ptsd #cptsd #childhoodtrauma #primalwound #reckoningwiththeprimalwound #tra #transracialadoptee
What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You - Michael Rocco - Part 2 of 3
OBI is back with the second installment of the three part episode focusing on Michael Rocco's story. The story is set withing the adage "What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You."
The Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree
This time Jack and I welcome Dr. E. Kay Trimberger, Professor Emerita of Women’s and Gender Studies at Sonoma State University and author of Creole Son: An Adoptive Mother Untangles Nature and Nurture, published by LSU Press 2020. The guiding adage for this episode is “The Apple Doesn’t fall far from the Tree.”
Kay’s memoir recounts transracial adoptive motherhood using insights gained through the field of behavioral genetics. Using this body of research, she revisits key inflection points in raising her biracial adoptive son - who was born to Creole and Cajun parents - as a single white professional woman raised in an upper-middle class family. The key challenge Kay seeks to better understand is the development and persistence of Marco’s addiction. What could she have done differently? What are the limitations of her influence as non-biological kin? In the case of her son Marco, “The Apple Doesn’t Fall far from the Tree” may be an apt adage but don’t be surprised to learn that the story isn’t quite that simple. Nature and nature are inseparably tangled in their combined influence on the relinquished child. Still, we negotiate the relative weight of each in our conversation with Kay, with some attention given to the contribution of the primal wound as an alternative explanation for outcomes such as addiction and mental illness. In in the end, we had a thoughtful and honest conversation - not with a fellow adoptee this time but rather – with a social scientist and dedicated adoptive mother hoping to share what she’s learned from a field of study whose roots were nearly antithetical to her sociological training.
Among its other contributions, the book is a call to integrate findings from behavioral genetics into adoption practice and scholarship. A key point is that adopted kids and families may benefit from re-imagining the post-adoption family as an integration of the two existing families in a way that is more integrative than is typically seen in even today’s open adoptions. Kay advocates for providing appropriate weight to those genetic influences that my predictably pose challenges and opportunities when raising an adopted child.
-Michael Rocco
Please help us to grow by subscribing, liking, and sharing the show!
Leave us a Voice Message! We might play your comment on a future episode. https://anchor.fm/michael-rocco-author/message
We hope you'll drop us a line and let us know how we're doing. If you have an adoptee story that you'd like to shed light on using an adage, please pitch your idea by email (michael.rocco.author@gmail.com) in a paragraph or two. We'll contact you within 1-2 weeks if your story is a good fit for the series. Contact Michael at Michael.Rocco.Author@gmail.com Michael on FB- https://www.facebook.com/Michael.Rocco.Author -contact Dr. Jack Rocco at JRocco34@aol.com; Instagram: #recycledchild: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackrocco/. Original song "Muse" composed and performed by David Russell (with Rob Ellenberg, collaborator and producer). Full album available at: https://open.spotify.com/album/6DejQjsIM0pQ7lMeH9EK57?si=6uaeCFy9R1eRGZeJMhCByw #adoptee #adoption #adopteevoices #adopted #transracialadoptee #adopteestories #adoptees #adopteesspeak #childhoodtrauma #cptsd #addiction #alcoholism #ptsd
New Eyes
This time, Jack and I are joined by Sergeant Brad Ewell, a Texas bomb squad law enforcement officer, late discovery adoptee, husband, and father of three. Brad situates his story within a quote by the French writer Marcel Proust, “The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” We unravel the relevance of Brad’s quote for adoption throughout our chat, but zero in during our discussion of the movies Truman Show and Sixth Sense. In the Truman Show, the creator/producer of the hyper-reality TV show says of Truman’s (the protagonist) lack of critical examination of his fabricated life “We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented.” Truman, and Brad too, discovered alternative realities in which deception no longer served as the foundation of an understanding of self. In the Sixth Sense, the main character, psychologist Malcolm Crowe, is unaware of his own death. In both movies, the familiar world is left unchanged subsequent to unearthing a fundamental truth about one’s context, but one’s ability to apprehend that world is drastically and forever transformed. -MR
Please help us to grow by subscribing, liking, and sharing the show!
Leave us a Message! https://anchor.fm/michael-rocco-author/message
We hope you'll drop us a line and let us know how we're doing. If you have an adoptee story that you'd like to shed light on using an adage, please pitch your idea by email (michael.rocco.author@gmail.com) in a paragraph or two. We'll contact you within 1-2 weeks if your story is a good fit for the series. Contact Michael at Michael.Rocco.Author@gmail.com Michael on FB- https://www.facebook.com/Michael.Rocco.Author -contact Dr. Jack Rocco at JRocco34@aol.com; Instagram: #recycledchild: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackrocco/. Original song "Muse" composed and performed by David Russell (with Rob Ellenberg, collaborator and producer). Full album available at: https://open.spotify.com/album/6DejQjsIM0pQ7lMeH9EK57?si=6uaeCFy9R1eRGZeJMhCByw #adoptee #adoption #adopteevoices #adopted #transracialadoptee #adopteestories #adoptees #adopteesspeak #childhoodtrauma #cptsd #addiction #alcoholism #ptsd
A House Divided Cannot Stand
Never Trouble Trouble
To leave a voice message for the show: https://anchor.fm/michael-rocco-author/message - Please like and subscribe!
Our guest is Barbara Sumner, filmmaker, journalist and author of the memoir Tree of Strangers (Massey University Press, 2020).
Barbara situates part of her adoption story within the adage “Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you, for you’ll only trouble trouble and trouble others too.” This was a common response to questions about adoption when she was young. The adage advises you hesitate or even refrain from those actions that are judged as risky. (But of course, the level and character of that risk varies across actors.) Importantly, the adage also raises the specters of guilt and shame for placing others in danger if the advice is not followed “...for you’ll only trouble trouble and trouble others too.” Applied to adoption, it often means ‘don’t ask questions about yourself that might lead others to confront their own inadequacies.’ -MR
Barbara at Auckland Writer’s Festival (Sat, 15 May 2021 @ 12:00PM): https://www.writersfestival.co.nz/programmes/event/speakers-corner-the-crime-of-adoption/1389775/
To buy Barbara’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Tree-Strangers-Barbara-Sumner/dp/0995135401/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1619644226&sr=8-1
To join Barbara’s mailing list: https://www.barbarasumner.nz/sign-up
Barbara on FB: https://www.facebook.com/barbarasumner.nz
***
Michael Rocco's Website: https://www.michael-rocco-author.com/
Email Michael: michael.rocco.author@gmail.com
Michael on FB: https://www.facebook.com/Michael.Rocco.Author
***
Email Jack: jrocco34@aol.com
Jack on Instagram: Jrock3234
*** %%%***
Why did the invisible man turn down the job offer? He couldn't see himself doing it.
***
#adoptee #adoption #adopteevoices #adopted #transracialadoptee #adopteestories #adoptees #adopteesspeak #childhoodtrauma #cptsd #addiction #alcoholism #ptsd
Our Best Interests: Life Lessons from Childhood Trauma to Adulthood
Original song "Muse" composed and performed by David Russell (with Rob Ellenberg, collaborator and producer). Full album available at: open.spotify.com/album/6DejQjsIM0pQ7lMeH9EK57?si=6uaeCFy9R1eRGZeJMhCByw
#adoptee #adoption #adopteevoices #adopted #transracialadoptee #adopteestories #adoptees #adopteesspeak #childhoodtrauma #cptsd #addiction #alcoholism #ptsd