Public Radio Roundtable: The Adoptee Experience

Here's a multiple choice question for you:

Last week, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) did a show about international adoption, and guess who wasn't invited to the table?

a.  Moose, because they have terrible table manners.

b.  Daniel Tosh, because who wants to have dinner with someone who thinks rape is funny.

c.  Ralph Lauren, because he's dressing our Olympic athletes in berets, like French cheese eating surrender monkeys.

d.  Adoptees, because . . . well, because we never invite them, why would we?!  It's not like they know anything about adoption. . . .

Yep, the answer is D.  Luckily, Minnesota is the Land of a Gazillion Adoptees, one of whom (Kevin Ost-Vollmers of LGA!) called in to ask why there were no adoptees on the panel.  At which point MPR put up a blog post kind of apologizing (while still not seeming to get why adoptees might have belonged on the panel, other than to satisfy the curiosity of listeners about what it's like to be adopted and not to share the rather enormous expertise they bring to broader issues about adoption), and asking adoptees to post comments to the blog post sharing their experiences.  Adoptees did, but also commented to say that allowing comments on a blog post was not really adequate, and why doesn't MPR do a NEW show with a NEW panel?!  LGA even suggested some excellent local adoptee experts who could serve on a new panel. And it seems MPR decided that was an excellent idea:

This week on the Friday [7/13 9:06 a.m.] Roundtable, we've invited panelists to continue our conversation about adoption that we started on Monday.

During Monday's show, we discussed the drop in international adoptions in Minnesota amid tighter regulations. St. Paul-based Children's Home Society and Family Services hasn't been bringing in enough money to sustain adoption services with the declining numbers, so it is merging the adoption program with Lutheran Social Service.
Adult adoptees have been at the forefront of advocacy for changes that put a child's interest first. We'll discuss how these changes may be contributing to a decline in adoptions.

It should be an absolutely fascinating and informative hour of radio tomorrow, with the following panelists:

Kim Park Nelson: Associate professor of American multicutlural studies at Minnesota State University at Moorhead
JaeRan Kim: Disability, permanency and adoption coordinator at the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota [and of Harlow's Monkey fame]
Kelly Fern: Author of 'Songs of My Families'

Even if you're not in Minnesota,  you can still listen live over the internet.  And you can listen to recorded audio later if you can't listen live.

P.S. I've now embedded the audio.  Enjoy!