321 David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/321
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today's guest is Dr. David McCarty-Caplan., a researcher, consultant, and a Colombian born adoptee. After becoming a father himself, David began searching for his biological family, leading to a reunion with his mother and siblings in Colombia, an experience that deepened both his personal journey and his professional research.
We talk about his scholarship. Including how families and communities can better support adoptees in developing a stronger sense of belonging. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to sign up for my podcast [00:01:00] newsletter, which you can find at adoptees on.com/newsletter. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased. To welcome to Adoptees On Dr. David McCarty-Caplan.. Welcome David.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Hi. I am so excited and honored to be a part of this. Thank you so much, Haley.
Haley Radke: I've spent the last week or so listening to interviews you've done and reading your research, and I'm so honored to get to speak to you. I'm very excited too.
So feelings mutual and I would love it if you would start off by sharing a bit of your story with us please.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: I was born in Bogota Colombia, 1981, and I was adopted at three weeks old by a American white Jewish family that at the time was [00:02:00] living in Michigan. I was taken from FANA, which was the orphanage I came from that I know a lot of your guests have actually come from as well.
But yeah, taken from FANA raised in Michigan for a period of time in Ann Arbor and then in Maryland, outside of DC for my young teen years. And yeah, life has been wild with regard to adoption. It's been such an amazing process to figure out how all of this fits in to the stories of our lives. I knew from the moment I was adopted that I was adopted.
It was never a question. I'm like five foot, five and brownish, and my dad is six two and white. So it was visibly very present. But also they shared it with me from a very young age that I was adopted. And that was a big part of my upbringing because when I grew up, there were actually about five or six other families in Ann Arbor that all adopted kids within a few years from my same [00:03:00] orphanage.
And so I had this kind of unique childhood of being raised in a community with a lot of white adoptive families, with Colombian adopted people. And so my early holidays were often spent with these families, and my earliest friends were from this group. And that was a huge thing for me to see other Colombian adoptees.
But oddly looking back on it now as a grownup, we never talked about adoption. It was just the silent elephant in the room always. And that's something I think about a lot. So I had adoptee community, but never really spoke about it. And I think that was a big part of my childhood, getting this reflection from people around me that adoption is something that needs to be kept quiet in some way, and that kind of followed me through my early years, especially in Jewish community, being raised in that community and feeling at times like I wasn't welcomed or I didn't fully belong, even though I really wanted to be part of that [00:04:00] community. And then I was raised up in that space and really fell in love with aspects of Jewish community and culture with regard to social justice and community support and the traditions and histories of it.
And that all informed kind of me getting into work related to social issues. I was a social worker at the beginning of my career in clinical practice working with emotionally disturbed youth and incarcerated populations. And I think that connects to adoption too, because I know so many of us get into helping professions, which is something I get so excited to talk about.
But yeah, I was just super fascinated by culture, identity development, and how systems do or do not support people as they're facing the challenges of very complex human lives. And after that, I ended up going to pursue my master's degree in social work and then went on to the PhD and started doing research.
And all [00:05:00] along the way, I was working in extremely challenging social context, but never adoption specifically up until about five years ago. I have two wonderful kids, Milo and Max, and when they were born, Milo is 12 now. When they were born, that's when I think things for me drastically shifted. Like my whole life turned upside down the moment I held my first child 'cause it was that moment, you have that. I had never had a biological relative and here I was holding my child and it's like a switch went off in my head about what that felt like. And it awoke in me a deep longing and curiosity that I've been, it's like the thread I've been pulling on ever since.
So I, I really feel like my adoption stuff has been coming out these past 12 years 'cause before that, I just told everyone I was fine. I told everyone I didn't need to know where my family was or who they were. [00:06:00] And the more I think about it now I just feel deeply that for me personally, that was a defense mechanism.
I was trying to protect myself against the grief. Now I know that for me personally. Processing that grief is actually my path to healing, and it's actually what's good for me and for my family and my children, for my next generation, for my bio family that I met a few years ago. So now I'm just trying to put all my effort into aligning these things where I came from, the work I do, trying to analyze systems and institutions that should be supportive of adoptive people of color more generally, and where they're needing to kick their game up.
And in so doing, hopefully building communities that really feel like they can be their full, complex, authentic selves without rejection.
Haley Radke: Can I ask you about this idea that you didn't really wanna search, you [00:07:00] didn't really wanna know, and you called it a defense mechanism?
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Did you ever have like thoughts come to the surface during those years about search or wondering?
And just outwardly, you said to people, no, I'm not interested. Or were you just genuinely you thought I'm not interested. You never really had surface things and now looking back you're like, oh, maybe I did have something bubbling under.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh, it was definitely both. It depended on the point in life that I was at. The first thing that popped to mind when you mentioned that is a couple years ago, I was looking through some old papers that my, my adoptive mom had for me from like my childhood. And one of the things I found was this like old notebook of things that I wrote when I was in second grade. You know those like big lined papers where you like, we're learning how to write words out and there's like a blank space.
You can feel it, it's
Haley Radke: wait, can I tell you I have a notebook like this? Where a teacher noted, like Haley doesn't leave [00:08:00] enough space between words, and they, the tip is like to put a finger space in between and literally put your finger in between writing. And so then from that point on, I have these giant gaping spaces in my said, I can picture exactly what you're talking about.
I love that.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. So I can feel it and smell it, but I found this paper and it blew my mind 'cause I was probably seven or eight at the time. And it's, it's just a few lines and at the top of the lines there's a blank space where I was supposed to draw what I was writing about.
And in the drawing you can see. Some grownup figure, putting a crying baby either into or out of a bassinet and another group of grownups crying, right? That's the drawing. I'm not a hundred percent sure who the people are, but then in the lines it says, I was adopted from Colombia. I do not know who my mother is. I don't know if she's alive anymore. And that makes me cry just thinking about it [00:09:00] now. I was eight and that was what I was writing about. And the thing that trips me out the most about it was at the bottom of the page, there's a happy face sticker and a pen written line from my teacher, very well intentioned teacher who I still love to this day.
And what she wrote was, aren't you so lucky for having the family you have now? Like that's the message I got. I have evidence of it, which really is a lot to process. So yes, I think I was consciously trying to figure it out and was acting in ways to please others around me or to present in a way where I didn't have to feel like my sadness or grief was too much.
And then I think it just got to be part of me through so many years that then it became subconscious and I just thought I was fine. But there are telltale signs. Like even before I wanted to find my family, [00:10:00] when I would talk about adoption, I would weep. It would just come outta me and it's, I feel like that's my body telling me to go there. It's unprocessed love, unprocessed grief, and so I've really been trying to embrace the tears too, because I feel like I wasn't listening to them all the time.
Haley Radke: Thank you for sharing that. And I wanted to ask you about this 'cause I've heard you talk around this idea on a couple of other podcasts.
And I think I'm one of those people who absolutely have stigmatized adoptees for saying they're in the fog or they're not outta the fog yet, or, that language. And now we have the new adoptee consciousness model language we can use as well. But I don't know, like I, I don't know. I'd love for to hear your thoughts on that language.
Like we don't wanna be prescriptive over anyone's story or process. [00:11:00] And I also see yeah, a lot of people don't wanna think about it for a long time, and hopefully they die happy. Lucky you.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Boy, wouldn't that be great?
Haley Radke: So I'd love to hear your thoughts around that.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh man. I just remember being earlier in my path and receiving what felt like judgment from another adoptee that I was really trying to open up to, and it hurt.
To be told essentially that I wasn't far enough along yet, and I've said this before, I don't think that person was wrong, cause clearly I'm much farther now than I was before, but it was something about the tone or the language that really stung because I was all nerves out sharing what I was thinking.
So for me, now, I have that experience in my mind all the time when I talk about adoption because I just think it's so important. [00:12:00] We as adoptees that are speaking about adoption, welcome anyone in who's coming from an adoptee experience with a true honoring of where they are in the moment. That could be somewhere totally different than we are.
And what I would rather do is focus on owning my experience and my story as my individual experience and state as clearly as possible. I hope my story or our conversation or my experience, I hope it gets you thinking. I hope it invites you to have conversation with me about where you're coming from. I hope in the vulnerable way, I hope to present myself that it encourages you also to feel safe to share wherever you're at.
And if you don't want to talk but you wanna listen, that's cool. If you want to tell me everything about your life, that's cool. If you want to find your family [00:13:00] someday, let's go there. If you feel like that's not something you need at all. Cool. I just want you to feel like adoptees have your back.
Haley Radke: Yeah. It's a, it's lonely enough. It's lonely enough being adopted, that to pile on. And I totally admit. I've certainly used language like that in the past, and I try to be more open and aware of that damage that does now.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: And I think also the language, that's a key thing too though, to acknowledge when you make a mistake or when the language is limited.
Because so much of the language in this world and other worlds I've worked in is fraught with terms that are inadequate or things that change over time. So again, I think it's okay to use the language we have. And if it's received in a way that is a hurt or an ouch situation, like that's where I hope we have the grace to process with like kindness, that restorative justice piece is something I really am excited about in [00:14:00] building adoptee spaces is like how do we deal with the things that we do that might harm one another or hurt one another? 'cause we really are trying to support and build our community.
Right?
Haley Radke: Oh, definitely. Definitely. And as someone who's doing it publicly from a mic, and I'm not necessarily interacting one-on-one with all the folks that hear me say those things, you wanna hear the evolution of Haley can start at episode one.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Episode one, yeah. You're in that rough place. It's really hard to have have people observe you as you go through this process, as an adoptee. I was thinking about that today. Just how many eyes and ears have been listening to how you have processed things over years. And I just, I don't know. It's just a lot to have on your shoulders and I imagine that there are moments where you wanna take something back or change the way was something was said, but I don't know. I just am. I'm very impressed by [00:15:00] the way you hold space for people.
Haley Radke: Thank you. You know what I think about, I'm glad people can see my evolution over the years, and I remember I had a guest on pretty early on who was a blogger and she talked about how when she first started blogging, she was that like stereotypical happy adoption story stuff on her blog. And that's kinda what she put out in the world. And she said, she was like, I never wanna take that down so people can see the evolution and I've appreciated that. And anyway,
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh my gosh. Yeah. That, that's so valuable. I actually did, my first podcast was with an organization I work with and I love called Jewtina and it was a couple years before I decided to look for my family. I was deep in adoption processing in my mind, but I hadn't gotten to the bio family stuff. And that entire podcast is heartfelt and true.
And [00:16:00] also I talk about not wanting to find my family and how that doesn't matter to me. And I look back on it now and I'm like, I'm so glad that exists. I want that to be out there because human development, human change is important to note, especially for communities that have a history of having their stories be so uncomplex. Like we don't get enough depth to our stories, and so it's good to have these touch points over time.
Haley Radke: So can we go to that? You have your first child and something opens up in you, and when did you become aware that you actually wanted to find family? If you could. If it was possible.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: I think it was maybe the third minute that my child was born.
Haley Radke: Really?
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: At least the first thoughts of it. That's when it came to my mind. And then I was scared. I was like essentially scared for the next eight years to actually do the thing, but it was really, it was holding Milo. It was holding my [00:17:00] child and the first thought was, oh my God, I'm a dad.
Oh God, I'm in so much trouble. This is such a big thing. And then it was like this feeling of deep love and I'm like, wow, this is what this feels like. And I'd been thinking, I knew what love felt like, but I didn't until that for me.
Haley Radke: Yeah.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: And then the next thought was, something must have been really wrong for my mom to give me up.
Right.
Haley Radke: Yeah.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: That was the second thought. And the third thought was not mad at her. And then it was like this, the follow up was like. I wish I could ask her. I wish I could ask her what that was like.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Are you able to articulate, I'm sorry I'm poking at painful things here. You just tell me if you're ready to move on. I'm sorry.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh, I'm good.
Haley Radke: Okay. Are you able to [00:18:00] articulate. What the fear was in searching, like what does it mean if you're gonna be open to searching?
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah, I know the answer to that because many years later, after my first child was born, I'm in Colombia, I decided to go there. It was my second time there, and on this trip I was deciding to bring my kids to connect to my homeland and to have another touchpoint for myself and my wife. To be there when somewhat unexpectedly. We ended up finding my family, which is bananas.
Haley Radke: That,
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: and so it was, I had no preparation.
Haley Radke: Okay. That's a real skipping over like unexpected.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. Oh,
Haley Radke: There's much, how did you unexpectedly find your family?
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Okay, so the short version is. I was planning to go to Colombia with my family. I was thinking [00:19:00] maybe I will look for my bio family. And then I got scared and I decided, nope, nevermind. I'm just gonna have it be a family trip for us to connect to the country. And then two weeks before we went, a dear friend of mine at Adoption Mosaic put me in touch with a searcher, an investigator Elena from Healing Puentes who is also connected to Adoption Mosaic and she basically put the word out there into the internet inter sphere to she had some information from me and basically the week before I went to Colombia, she found somebody that may have been a relation to me. I thought it was a cousin. It turns out it was one of my sisters and the day I was flying to Colombia, like I was in the airport getting on the plane to go to Colombia at 1:00 AM from LAX with my family.
And I'm walking onto the plane and I get an email from another one of my sisters saying, who are you? What [00:20:00] is going on? I heard you're looking for us. What's the deal? And so I wrote a quick email back, sent some pictures of the family, just I don't know if you're the person I'm looking for. I think we may be related.
I didn't say I'm coming to Colombia right now 'cause I didn't wanna freak her out. But I sent the email and I'm like hoping. I get off the plane six hours, seven hours, whatever it is, later, and there's four or five emails from my sister saying with like pictures of the family, like I found out I had five siblings the minute I landed in Colombia.
I found out what my mom looked like with pictures when I landed in the country and then the next week of being in Colombia, which was supposed to be just like vacation, turned into me hearing my mother's voice for the first time on a WhatsApp message and doing a DNA test and sending people to do a DNA test for her, and then waiting to see if it's really her, and then getting the confirmation that it was her, and then the next day I saw her [00:21:00] in person.
Like it was so bananas, the emotional upheaval of these days. And to answer your initial question, the night before I was gonna meet my mother, I was terrified. Like I'd just gotten the paperwork that it was her. And I remember saying to my wife the fear is, what if she doesn't want me? What if she doesn't want to talk to me?
What if she didn't want me in the first place? What if she's upset that I'm here? What if I cause her more problems? What if it goes poorly? What if? What if it's scary for me? I was just scared that she wouldn't want the connection that I was hoping to find, and it was almost too much, but I did it and I was wrong. And it was wonderful and heartbreaking. [00:22:00] I'm really proud I did it.
Haley Radke: Thank you for naming those things. And I think of your responsibilities like you're on a family vacation and your kids are there, and you're still having to do real life while your world is shaking, and that's really difficult.
It's that reminder that search, reunion processing, adoption, failing. That all happens while real life is still going. Real life's still going. The people sitting behind you on the plane don't realize. You're like, oh my God, if you can email me back for six hours, like no one else knows. You're going through that. It's heavy.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah, that reunion trip was so much to process and there's an added angle which like most people don't know, which is at the end of the week of being there with my family, I was then on a week long trip with the organization I mentioned that I work with called Jewtina, [00:23:00] which is all about the intersections of Latin and Jewish community and culture.
And part of the crazy part of my story is. I got called up by my dear friend who runs that organization and she was like, hey, we're thinking of doing these international trips and the first place we might wanna go to is Colombia. Are you interested? And I was like, I was literally just thinking about going with my family.
So that sealed the deal that I was gonna go was this additional professional experience. So I'm there with the day I met my mother was actually the day after my family flew home and I joined this group of international Jewish Latinos traveling to Colombia, and that's like real life. I was there. I was actually, I'd led a three hour session on adoption in Colombia with the group.
The day I found out my mom was my mom. I'm sitting on a bus going through Bogota with these 12 [00:24:00] new friends when I like get the text message with the fact that my mom is my mom, like the DNA test. And then I had to teach this class for three hours, just weeping. And everyone there is wait, you're telling me this happened like now?
Like right now? And I'm like. Yeah. Yeah. This happened. This is happening as I am teaching, as yeah. Life. But I had just had my family there, my kids, my, wife were holding me down. The people I was with on this trip were so warm and so loving, and so supportive. They celebrated me.
When I got home from meeting my mom that night, they were literally cheering for me. And it just helps so much when you know you're in the right community spaces to be going through hard stuff.
Haley Radke: Wow. Thank you for including us in the Inner circle to talk about that. Like I am, feel [00:25:00] honored. I also, it made me like excited for you to be the person doing research on adoptees. And I was like, okay. He knows the right questions to ask adoptees. And you wrote this whole white paper, we'll link to it. We'll talk about and recommended resources a little more. About Jewish adoptees who are adoptees of color and their experiences.
And as I was going through it, something I noted that I was like, oh, this is really interesting. I wanna hear you talk more about this 'cause I think this is really critical information, especially for adoptive parents of children of color adoptees who had opportunities to connect to their race or culture, had a higher sense of belonging. Can you talk about that, David?
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. Yeah. That was one of many, I think, super valuable findings of the study. There [00:26:00] was another piece that also connected with that, which I think is super valuable, which is that also Jewish adoptees of color that know other adoptees of color have a greater sense of belonging.
Haley Radke: Oh, good.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: And so there's this beautiful piece about that. There's something really special. Let me back up and start from like the negative, like the really, the, like the real bad part about my study is I found that 75% of Jewish adoptees have no strong sense of belonging in their Jewish community, even though the Jewish community to a disproportionate degree adopts kids into their community, particularly kids of color. 75% of us don't feel a sense of belonging in those communal spaces, which is just heartbreaking. And that resonates. That's, that was my experience. I felt at times welcomed, but generally just a great sense of unease in the community as an adopted person of color.
But the beautiful piece is then statistically. Being able to [00:27:00] show that the things that change, that likelihood of belonging, increasing belonging, or decreasing belonging. There's some really beautiful things in there. Number one is knowing other adoptees. If you knew more adoptees, particularly adoptees of color, your sense of belonging grows in those spaces.
And then the second piece is, do you have touch points for your cultural heritage? Is the communal space you're in acknowledging your cultural identity? Is it giving you a space to see yourself in those arenas? And that also increases the sense of belonging. And I just love those findings because they just tell me that we a need each other.
We need to see each other. We need to be in communication with each other. And we need to be building things with each other. And also we need to have communities that value where we came from and the things that we lost, the grief that we've had to absorb. And if there's [00:28:00] an acknowledgement of who we are and where we come from, inevitably in my mind, that's like our grief is being seen, our identities are being seen.
We don't have to hide it and pretend that we're fine. Pretend that. I don't miss my homeland, that I ache when I can't connect to Latinos in the way I want to. If there's some piece that's allowing me to reconnect and pull back those lines of lineage that you've talked about in the past it's so beautiful.
And these are structural things that, not just Jewish communities, all communal spaces, Christian, Jewish, whatever schools organizations, institutions. Like if you can be celebrated and seen in your authentic wholeness. Then you'll feel welcomed and belonging in that space. At least you'll be more likely to.
Haley Radke: Do you think of like little David knowing all these other adoptees from your same orphanage? And like you guys didn't talk about it. Do you think I [00:29:00] get it, do my kids enjoy when I make them watch something and say, tell me what you thought about this adoption theme in it 'cause I'm recording about it for a podcast.
They, no, they don't enjoy that. We have kids around the same age. Oh, there's no, they're not that excited. But so looking back now as a parent, are there things you think that could have been helped, like to facilitate those conversations and friendship where it's just oh man, we just weren't that interested. I dunno.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: I think it's a mixture like kids, I've got kids now and I know there are times when I want to dig in on big questions and they're like meh. Like they're like just not feeling it for whatever reason, and that's okay. I don't think it should be pressured. I think the challenge that I see though, which was my own experience, was when I asked my parents about this many years later, like both with that community that I was raised in for a short period of time, and also the fact that we traveled to many Latin American countries but [00:30:00] never went to Colombia.
It feels weird to me that they made those choices of just, it's like we were close, we were proximal, but not actually in the thing that I needed to address. And with no judgment of my parents 'cause they were doing the best they could. They say that they were waiting for me to tell them that I wanted to dig in on these things.
And that is, I think, a very common experience for a lot of adoptees, particularly my generation. Your generation. And I also think that it's a fundamental disservice to the adoptees to expect the weight of that proactive approach to addressing adoption challenges should come from the child because there's this tension between relationships and authentic expression, and I think a lot of adoptees, myself included, all of the fear I had of talking about adoption and the grief [00:31:00] that I was experiencing, the way the society around me talked about adoption was like, oh, aren't you so grateful? Aren't you so lucky to have been adopted? My parents thought I was a happy go-lucky kid, and in many ways I was, because I think I was afraid to talk about the depth of my experience for fear that it might put into jeopardy my relationship with my parents or anyone else I loved.
And so if you're waiting for a kid to tell you they need to go do these things, but for the child to talk about these things in their mind might mean a risk or loss of the people that they're most terrified of losing. Now that they've already lost a family, they're not gonna tell you all the time that they want to go do these things.
And if they do. Good on those kids. Those are some brave ass kids, right? But it just, I don't think it should be expected to have the weight of that be the child's responsibility. I think the parents should [00:32:00] have touchpoints regularly where they bring it up and they say, take it or leave it. This is what's on my mind.
This is important to me because I care for and love you unconditionally. I wanna make sure you know that I am okay talking about this thing. And if a kid picks it up, great. And if they don't, also great. It's the parents' work to stay in that lane. You know what I mean?
Haley Radke: Oh yeah. And I totally agree, and I think it's one of those things where we get this messaging from our teachers. Good job. Aren't you so lucky in writing on your little assignment. And we get this messaging from our TV movies, and we get it from our parents, our adoptive parents, who by not talking about it. We can get the sense of it's not safe to talk about this.
They don't wanna talk about it. And kids are very perceptive. They're very perceptive. [00:33:00] And that's, those are the messages I got. Yeah.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. And I think it's even more complex when you add in interracial issues in adoptive families 'cause. There's just added layers to being a person with darker skin tone, and it's harder, the darker your skin is to find places and spaces that are gonna be willing to talk to you about what it's like to be in a society that doesn't acknowledge the hardships that come with racial identity.
And then to, in your own family, have no mirroring no, no models of what that experience looks like, but to know it. To know it your whole life, that there's some something there that is different that is deserving of attention because it's hitting your heart like you can feel it. And I think a lot of white adoptive parents really struggle talking about race and identity in ways that can hold space for the [00:34:00] death of grief and identity challenges that adoptees experience. But I know they can do it 'cause I work with them on it. Like they can do it. They just have to be bold enough to sit in the discomfort of it for a while.
Haley Radke: Can you tell me after all your many in-depth interviews with fellow adoptees who had maybe a similar experience to what you did? How did that change you?
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: It just got me so excited. It's just, I was just so excited. I was looking for these people my whole life. Like my particular study was on Jewish adoptees because that's where I come from. But I just see it as like a big picture thing. I think a lot of adoptee communities are also overlapping with religious communities. And but for me, it was like I used to introduce myself in Jewish spaces as the only Colombian adoptee, Colombian adopted Jew you will ever meet. I used to say that as like a joke when I introduced myself, but I [00:35:00] was scared that it was true. And then I do this study and I found I had over a hundred people participate in this study and I interviewed over 30 of them, and it just felt like each interview I did was like finding, just like finding family. It felt like I've found people who I've been looking for, who may have been looking for me, every one of my interviews said that they'd never been asked about what it's like to be adopted and Jewish. Every single one. And I show up and I get to ask these questions like, what an honor to be able to find these people. Let them know they're not the only one to ask them what it's like. And so for me it just, it's fuel. It just made me wanna do more. So I'm very excited about next steps and building and [00:36:00] reconnecting, and hopefully creating futures for adoptees so that they don't have to feel like they're the only ones ever again.
Haley Radke: I relate to that so much so much. I remember my first interviews where folks had never shared their story before and it was like, oh my God, I feel like I'm like treading on holy ground here. And that feeling of I'm not alone. Like it's such a relief because you just I spent so much of my life feeling crazy. And I don't mean that in an ableist way. Like I genuinely thought there was something wrong with me. Like totally could not connect. And I'll tell you, meeting other adoptees like changed my life. Truly. Yeah,
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. And now I have these connections and others like just finding adoptee spaces has been everything for me in the past five or so years.
Just having people you can call on your birthday when your birthday [00:37:00] feels, like when you just don't know why you're feeling funky on this day or that day. And like I've got people, I've got people with me that I can reach out to where I don't have to explain myself. And I hope that they can reach out to me and feel like they don't have to explain themselves and we can just vibe and yeah just be in space, in peaceful space with one another. 'Cause I'm gonna need it the rest of my life, so I gotta keep working on building this. Like we, you also are building this and it's just amazing to see what exists now in comparison to when I was a child. And it's just exciting to see where we're going.
Haley Radke: Before we do recommended resources, I have a couple last questions for you. One of which is, did you say that you are working with adoptive parents and how do you do that? I cannot. I can't. Is there hope there if i'm tired. I'm so tired. [00:38:00]
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yeah. Let me ask a clarifying question. Do you mean like it's too hard to work with the adoptive parents 'cause they don't get it sometimes? Is that kind of the vibe?
Haley Radke: I get a lot of email. I get a lot of dms even though my inbox is closed. Somehow they just keep coming in and it's the majority is like adoptive parents trying to ask for free labor from me to answer their questions, and I'm like, oh yeah, you know what? I have 320 plus episodes you can listen to. Yeah. Do the
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: work.
Haley Radke: I have pointed you to hundreds of books and documentaries and other. Why are you still asking me these questions? So anyway, thank you for doing that, David. Thank you for answering our questions. And is there any hope there? Because not the one's emailing me.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Okay. So there's hope and then there's definitely [00:39:00] places where I'm like, I don't have the energy, nor do I want to be in this conversation. So it's it's honestly, it's finding people that are really willing to dig into the self exploration that is needed. To support their adopted children.
And that's not everyone. It also as like a consultant in these spaces. Yeah, this is labor. So you should pay me for this, and that's important because it honors my time and my expertise, and it shows that you're not expecting things like that, that, that taking aspect of what adoptive parents often can look like or present as is frustrating. So there for me, it's yes, I know stuff about this. I really do believe in your ability to support your kids better. Let's dig in. But often the first place to dig in is actually inward. And [00:40:00] if they're not, honestly, I work in a lot of like anti-racist, like racial equity spaces.
A lot of it is deconstructing white supremacist culture, examining racial biases, examining the like tropes or narratives that they had around adoption before they got into this. And that tells you real quick who's ready to ride with you and who's not really ready. And so there's some testing that goes on in the early conversations to get a sense of is this a place where I'm actually willing to put my time and energy and do they hear me?
And sometimes I get really excited when the answer to that question is yes, because I know my parents have come a long way and they're trying their best and they're working real hard and they make mistakes, but they keep showing up. They keep trying and it's something I love so much about them, and that's what I hope other families will have as well.
That sense that you're gonna mess up. But it's about showing up [00:41:00] again and trying again without ego, without with humility. But it's real hard. It's a lot easier to counsel and support adoptees. That's all beautiful.
Haley Radke: Bless you for doing that hard work on behalf of those of us. Who choose not to.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Hey. And that's understandable. You do. You Haley.
Haley Radke: I am, I am. Okay. Last question. I love this idea that you were talking about and you have expertise in this, like seeing the systems and just the structural part of how systems support currently the structure of adoption. And when you think about that, this is a really big question.
I know we don't have that much time. When you think about that, what are the things that you see upstream that really need to change in order to support family preservation, adoptee rights, whatever you wanna talk about, just in terms of [00:42:00] systems, just give us a broad. High level.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Okay. That's a huge question. It's also like one of my favorite things to talk about, like I come from social work, so it's all about like person and environment systems analysis, like deconstructing systems of oppression. So this is always on my mind, right? The thing that I am working on most these days is looking at existing systems for people that have already been adopted.
And whether or not those systems are creating spaces that allow them to feel fully seen, heard, and valued. So I'm talking about schools, I'm talking about workplaces. I'm talking about community organizations and religious spaces, religious institutions or communities. And so for me, in those places, there are really important conversations that need to be had about policy like what are the rules that govern these spaces, and do they allow people to be their full, [00:43:00] authentic selves? I think it's really important to understand the narratives that influence these spaces, like the kind of unwritten social policies, like the things around aren't you so lucky? Aren't you so grateful?
Like hearing that all the time in school was really weird for me. And in Jewish spaces, like the idea that adoption is a mitzvah or a good deed, or in Christian spaces, that it's a benevolent act like you're doing God's will. Or in other religious spaces where the idea might be like, oh, you were chosen.
You were chosen by God to be taken into this new family. And these are systems of oppression in my mind for an adoptive person because all of those expectations, all the policies that don't allow us to dig in on identity or race, all the narratives that structure adoption, understanding around benevolence or gratitude or god's will silence us from being able to [00:44:00] express the hurt and the grief and the questions that we have being disconnected from our lands of origin, our ancestors, our racial community, our cultural community. So for me, it's like I love analyzing institutions and systems on policy levels, on education levels, on cultural levels, so that we can pull apart all these threads.
So that adoptee voices can feel like they can be safe enough to be shared. And then hopefully that's the first step, as we said, feeling like you can connect to your community, finding other people feeling like you're heard. That leads to greater sense of belonging.
Haley Radke: I love that. Good answer. I am assuming that folks who've heard our discussion do want to hear more of your research because you're just a really fascinating person and I can tell you're just so thoughtful.
And you have access to, people have [00:45:00] open source access to Shades of Belonging, which is your research. And I also watched you give a presentation on it along with a couple of subjects.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh, you did oh, that's so great.
Haley Radke: I did.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: That's so great. Thank you.
Haley Radke: We'll, yeah, we'll link to that in the show notes as well for folks because you know there's something through having the researcher walk you through their results and hear from some of the participants. I thought that was really special. So we'll make sure that's available for people. But thank you so much for doing that work. Like good for you. I'm just cheering you on.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Thank you. I think it's super, like that's something I also focus on a lot is I come from academia, but I don't want any research that I do to be disconnected from community or applied practical value.
So I don't want to, I do publish peer reviewed studies of course, yet that's, of course, that's what we're supposed to do. But like more than anything, the thing I loved about that video is it's [00:46:00] conversation about the findings and two of the people that participated in the study were part of the presentation. It's so accessible. It's so real and that's how I hope my research is in the future. I want it to be accessible. I want it to have practical value, and I don't want it to be overly complex or ivory towery, you know?
Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. I think you hit the mark. So I hope we see more from you. David, what do you wanna recommend to us?
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: There's so many things. There's so much good stuff happening. Okay. So I am a huge fan of Gabor Mate. I am actually just now rereading his book, The Myth of Normal, which I think is just an outstanding piece of work for a variety of reasons, and I look at that work through the lens of adoption and it's amazing.
It talks so much about relationship versus authenticity. It talks a lot about the connections between childhood trauma and [00:47:00] mental health challenges and physical ailments for those that have struggled with big T or little T. Trauma over time. Talks a lot about parenting and parenthood. I just love that book because I feel like it's deeply felt and helps me so much understand where I come from in a way. So I love that piece. Other resources, your podcast is like, as I said, it changed my life. I think often about episodes that really mean something to me, and I often recommend that there's two episodes that I got a double shout out.
I hope it's not like overdoing it 'cause I'm on the podcast, but like the one about the seven attachment challenges that adoptees face. That was a life changer for me.
Haley Radke: Pam Cordano.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Honestly. Yes. And I'm a just a, I'm a huge fan of Pam Cordano. And then the other one, which I heard more recently was the one about The Nothing Place also with Pam Cordano. And the whole thing about how attachment theory is a theory that does not account for adoptee experience blew my mind. And that's a systems [00:48:00] level issue. If we have therapy that we're all supposed to go to, but the tools that therapy is using to address our needs is actually miscalibrated.
Then we're working with a systems deficit. So yes, those are two huge things. Adoption Mosaic. Another organization I work with is a huge resource. I absolutely adore that organization. I consult for them and I've been like a community member with them for a long time. Astrid Castro is also brilliant. And another adoptee from Colombia. Yeah, there's just a lot of good stuff out there.
Haley Radke: Totally. Thanks for shouting those out. I'm gonna name one more before you tell people where they can find you. You were on an episode of a podcast that I don't know if I've talked about very recently called Labor of Love.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Yes. Oh my gosh. I can't believe I forgot that one. Yes. I love them.
Haley Radke: So their tagline is A podcast for Bipoc adoptees navigating parenthood, and you're, we'll link to your interview with them in the show [00:49:00] notes for folks. It's just, it made me fall in love with David. You just,
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: that's so sweet.
Haley Radke: Your kids are. Lucky to have you. Lucky. They should be grateful.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: They should be. No I mess up far more than the podcast would suggest.
Haley Radke: Oh same here. But we, I'm, I know that listeners will go have, check that out. It's a great podcast. Lots of good resources there. Okay. Where can we connect with you online and follow your work?
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Oh yeah. Okay. I would love if people wanted to visit shadesofbelonging.com. That's an emerging place where I will be putting out future research where my existing research already exists around Jewish adoption. But honestly, I feel like that's expanding.
It's expanding beyond just Jewish community, so just really anyone that's interested in exploring community and adoption, particularly transracial adoption. That's where you can find me shadesofbelonging.com. On Instagram, it's @shadesof belonging and yeah, also I work with Jewtina y Co.. I'm their [00:50:00] Director of Research and Evaluation, so people can find me there.
And I just am really excited to connect with anyone because I believe that our healing must be collective and must come through community. And so I think it's everything that you're doing as far as like how do we connect to each other is such valuable work. So if anyone who's listening to this wants to figure out ways to get involved or participate or just connect to other people thinking about these things, yeah, find me. 'Cause I would be excited to talk to you.
Haley Radke: Amazing. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing with us today.
David McCarty-Caplan, Ph.D.: Thank you so much, Haley. This really oof. What a day. I'm just buzzing. Thank you.
Haley Radke: If you're listening, when this episode just released, July, 2026 is going to be my 10th anniversary of the show, and I keep reflecting, it's just like one of those years where you're like, think back and all of [00:51:00] the memorable people I've had on the show and just the honor of having these deep conversations and sharing them with y'all.
It's just. It's just been just the honor of my life, truly, and this conversation is going to just be up there with my, some of my favorites. I loved this conversation. I hope you did too. And folks that love adoptees like I do and really want to do research and serve and, get to the bottom of how we can fix things and help our peers and help younger adoptees like. Those are my people. So I feel grateful that I could share this conversation with David and with you, and I'm just feeling especially thankful for all the [00:52:00] guests who've been brave enough to share their stories with us here on Adoptees On.
Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again soon.
