You tell a small lie or you keep the truth out of something, and your intention is to go back and tell the truth. But then you forget, or you get comfortable in that missing truth part, and it just gets bigger and grows.
And so it was this energy that was accumulating. Nobody was saying anything about until I was like,
“I can’t do this anymore. I have to tell him.”
— Clemencia Deleon, birth mom in a kinship adoption —
Imagine you are 18 years old and parenting a 4 month old boy, a path you don’t feel prepared for or supported in at all. You have an older half-brother; he and his wife have been struggling to conceive. You end up placing your baby with them in what is agreed to be an open adoption.
But in practice, it’s not open. Sure you have contact at family get-togethers. You get to see him. But years later, his parents have declined to tell him that he was adopted and that you are his birth mom. As he grows older, you are pressed to either stay complicit with this lie of omission, or spill the beans without their permission.
In this new podcast episode of Adoption: The Long View, Clemencia Deleon tells her story of a kinship adoption gone wrong, her quest for emotional intelligence over the years, her moment of truth in finding her voice, and lessons learned to share with you.
Episode 107: Clemencia Deleon on Emotional Intelligence in Adoption
You may remember Clemencia from her two guest posts, All the Feels and the Back Story and the Breaking Point.
Clemencia has also become an integral person in producing my podcast, as she has added the transcript feature to each episode and she creates the shareable microcontent memes you see here. If you don’t already follow Clemencia on her social media channels, listed in the Show Notes below, make sure you do.
In this episode, Clemencia reveals:
- How to end up in a closed kinship adoption despite your best intentions.
- The connection between mother and baby and what can happen when it is wished away.
- How easy it is for a birth mom to lose her voice in an adoption, and the ramifications to the child and others when that occurs.
- What happened in her intense Moment of Truth, when Clemencia could no longer perpetuate the 10-year lie of omission.
- What might have prevented the situation in the first place.
- Her best piece of advice (asked of all guests).
Prefer to read? Here’s a transcript, thanks to Clemencia!
Show Notes from Clemencia Deleon’s Episode on Emotional Intelligence
- Instagram: @EQClem
- LinkedIn: Clemencia Deleon
- Wrong Way Adoption Part 1: Kinship Adoption Gone Wrong
- Wrong Way Adoption Part 2: Kinship Adoption Back Story
- On topic: It’s 2020. Why Do We Still Suck at Adoption Telling?
- Books mentioned: The Primal Wound and The Girls Who Went Away
- Article mentioned: Don’t Split the Baby
How to Tune In Regularly
You can find us on Adopting.com, and on these and other platforms.
- Spotify
- Apple Podcasts
- Amazon Podcasts
- Castbox
- Search for “Adoption Long View” on your preferred podcast platform.
A new episode comes out the first Friday of the month. Thank you for sharing, subscribing, and rating this episode!
