Dr. Kristen Kirkland
speaker
373 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 5 Aug
Dr. Kristen Kirkland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And we miss the intersectionality of what has led to the ways that we see adoption or the ways that works to the point where I think a lot of adoptive parents seem surprised to learn that adoptees actually have a second birth certificate that falsifies a lot of our identity and the way we come into the world.
Like, there's just a lot of, I don't think it's willful, but just ignorance about what adoption is and how it works.
So to bring those two together is a really big ask, I think, on a psychological level.
And so
When you say we got to walk people there, I think you're exactly right.
But I get a lot of pushback of how dare you is often said to me, suggests that trafficking and adoption have things in common.
But from what I'm seeing on the academic level and the legal definitions, there's definitely similarities.
So I try to ask people to hang with me.
You know, I try to do things in series.
I'm going to explain more, you know, but the ability to have enough empathy to sit with something and push past that defensiveness, like you were saying earlier, is a skill that I don't
think everyone has and i think it would be great if everyone did because we could have some really cool discussions if we shared that like understanding
Yes, absolutely.
One of the biggest challenges
griefs I deal with one of the biggest sources of grief for me is the fact that my perception of my mom will always be through everyone else's eyes the things I know about her come from everyone else I have never gotten to have that one-on-one direct from the source conversation or observation opportunity which was something that was a huge gift I did I did reunite with my dad a few years back and getting to hear him in his own words getting to see him for who he is as a
living being in the room with me like has been such a gift so it almost threw a little more grief on not getting to have that chance with my mom so absolutely it's one of those you know lifelong things that i'm gonna have to keep coming back to and reckoning with and i go through bits like fits and starts where i really need to know more about her so i'll i'll try my best to request information but of course legally i'm severed from her so that's that's a big task to prove
next of kin or prove that I have the right to that information, because in the eyes of the laws, I don't.
So I wish the burden of proof was on the adoptive parents when it comes to open adoption to prove whether or not it's safe to be in relationship with an adoptee's first family, because I think so often adoptive parents tend to, again, I think unintentionally, feel like it's unsafe for the child to be in reunion or contact when really it's a psychological feeling of
discomfort that feels unsafe on the part of the parent.
Um, because so many adoptees in the fog, um, who come into my comments seem to think that it would have been unsafe for them to know their families.
And I thought the same thing, but as it turned out, she would have been a safe person.
Showing 141–160 of 373 · page 8 of 19
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