In Part 1, Clemencia Deleon began to tell about her wrong way adoption, a kinship placement that was supposed to be open. Despite expectations and agreements, it remained unknown to her son that the woman he lived with but didn’t call “mom” was, in fact, his biological mom.
That was an untenable situation. One way or another, a living lie will resolve — with intention or without it. And there will be fallout.
Here’s how things unfolded for Clemencia, her son Kobe, and his parents — her half-brother and his wife.
I have been working on a new project — a twice-monthly podcast dedicated to exploring the long view of adoption. While 2020 has been a remarkable one for everyone, it has also meant my first child graduating from high school. And my last child entering his senior year.
“Child” is no longer the right word to use for Tessa or Reed.
The graduation milestone got me thinking about parenting and all that I wish I’d known along the way. About what I consider to be the long view of adoptive parenting.
I am collaborating with the people at Adopting.com, who have been very supportive about a podcast oriented on the long view of adoption. My vision? To bring a variety of perspectives around topics I wish I’d known more about back in my pre-adoptive days and early-parenting years.
Clemencia Deleon reached out to me several months ago, grateful to have found place to talk about adoption that is neither all “rainbows & unicorns” nor “fire & brimstone.” I told her that in this space we allow for the complexity of living in adoption from all stations of the constellation, and I invited her to tell her story as a birth mother in a kinship adoption.
Kinship adoption is rather unexplored territory for me, so I was thrilled that Clemencia offered her thoughts about the kinship adoption of her son, Kobe, gone wrong. Her two-part tale of pitfalls and regret is instructive to us all.
