Narrator/Host:
Thanks for watching! Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Birth Mother Matters in Adoption podcast with Kelly Rourke, where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad.
Narrator:
Kelly is the Executive Director, President, and Co-founder of Building Arizona Families Adoption Agency in Phoenix, Arizona, the Donna K. Evans Foundation, and the You Before Me campaign. She has a bachelor’s degree in family studies and human development and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in school counseling.
Narrator:
She was adopted when she was three days old. She was born to a teen birth mother, raised in a closed adoption, and reunited with her birth mother in 2007.
Narrator:
Our goal with the Birth Mother Matters in Adoption podcast is to spread awareness and education about the beautiful choice that is adoption.
Kelly Rourke:
Today we’re going to talk about how adoption is all around us. We’re seeing adoption as a theme and as a topic, a subject matter in movies, books. We see it on social media. We see it in songs. We see it on the Internet. And I think today it’s important that we talk about…
Kelly Rourke How much adoption influences society and how much society can influence adoption, too. It’s kind of a reciprocal relationship, I guess, if you will. And so I thought it would be fun today to talk about some of the areas or places that we see adoption that is so intermixed, maybe within a storyline that we don’t even realize, “Oh, there is adoption in this movie.”
Speaker 2:
I mean, there are the obvious ones, you know, like Superman. Sure. You know, we’ve talked about that or Instant Family or Juno. But there are some other ones, too, that we may not even realize, like Stuart Little, Tarzan, Encanto, Despicable Me, Star Wars.
Kelly Rourke
I like that a lot of these are children’s movies and TV shows and stuff because it is bringing up a generation of kids to have a better grasp of, “Oh, this is adoption. This is, you know, this is representative of me if I’m adopted,” or things like that.
Narrator:
Yeah, I mean, you know, when I was going through the list and doing some research for this podcast today, and I came across like Stuart Little and Harry Potter, as you pointed out. Elf. Elf was a great one. That’s probably one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies. When you watch it, I don’t know that people are thinking, “Oh, this is an adoption movie” or “This is a movie about adoption.” But it really is so encompassing.
Kelly Rourke:
And I love that it’s not talked about as a quote-unquote “adoption movie.” Whereas Instant Family really is, and Juno is. Blindside is really about adoption, but it’s also more so about football. And depending on, you know, what angle you look at—watch the movie.
Narrator:
But yeah, I mean, if you look at Spider-Man, Superman, I mean, those are huge long-term cultural… they’ve been around forever.
Kelly Rourke:
Yeah, right.
Narrator:
Yeah, they predate me, I believe.
Kelly Rourke:
Oh yeah, absolutely. Even you and myself.
Narrator:
Absolutely. So they do. And I think that that’s really interesting. You know, I think it’s always kind of fun when you realize, you know, a popular movie—one that’s been—or a theme has been around for so long. And then you realize, “Wait, there is adoption there.”
Kelly Rourke:
That speaks to the movie makers and the people who created the stories in the first place in that you’re not looking at that type of movie. You just see it as a movie. And then later, maybe When you actually reflect on it, you go, you know, that really is about adoption. It’s less heavy-handed than going to a movie that’s like, OK, here’s the adoption movie of the year. And all it’s going to be just about is adoption, adoption, adoption — which, that’s fine, but I like something a little more subtle and artistic to where you go, “Hey, you know what? That just hit me.” I love that kind of thing.
Narrator:
I agree with you. So, you know, if we switch from movies and we go to like books, you came up with a really good one before the podcast when you talked about Anne of Green Gables.
Kelly Rourke:
Yeah — The Little Prince, The Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, Heidi, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist — also a movie. I’m going to mispronounce this, so I’m asking for help… Les Miserables?
Narrator:
Les Miserables. Yeah. Or Les Miserables.
Kelly Rourke:
All right. So the other thing that I found interesting when I was looking at — you know, we’re talking about movies and books and what’s out in the public eye in terms of like social media and, you know, entertainment…
Narrator:
Sure.
Kelly Rourke:
There are a lot more individuals who are part of the adoption triad than I really realized, celebrity-wise. So what I found interesting was there was actually — Bette Midler wrote a song called Lullaby in Blue about the daughter she placed for adoption when she was 17.
Narrator:
I didn’t know that she was a birth mom.
Kelly Rourke:
Joni Mitchell was also a birth mother. Mercedes Ruehl was a birth mother. Patti Smith was a birth mother. Roseanne Barr was a birth mother. Birth fathers were David Crosby, Clark Gable, Rod Stewart. There are a lot of people that I didn’t know growing up were a member of the adoption triad.
Narrator:
Part of this community, sure. It’s amazing.
Kelly Rourke:
For those adoptees — Melissa Gilbert, Michael Oher, Nicole Richie, Simone Biles, Steve Jobs, Faith Hill, Nelson Mandela, Babe Ruth. Sarah McLachlan and Dave Thomas are amongst those that are adoptees.
Narrator:
Okay.
Kelly Rourke:
And then when I looked at some adoptive parents — so we’ve moved on to the last angle of the triad — Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan, Hugh.Jackman, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Viola Davis, Madonna, Sandra Bullock, Sheryl Crow, Sharon Stone, Jamie Foxx, Katherine Heigl, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise. I think, you know, in doing some of the preparation for today’s podcast, it was really neat to see how immersed adoption really is in our culture and how vested we as a society really are in adoption. Like, it is interwoven—it’s in the fabric of our lives. And because it’s not always pointed out like, “Oh, I’m an adoptive mother,” or “Oh, I’m an adoptee,” we have to actually go looking to see who really is part of the smaller adoption community. It’s really fascinating to see that it really is interwoven like a tapestry.
Ron Rains:
You know what’s funny is I think of the time from when I was a child to now and the differences. You’re still going to have a few, like when you’re talking about the movies and books—a few of those books have been around a long time. You know, Superman and Les Miserables. And several of these have been around for decades. And even Superman’s probably about 100 years old. Something like that. I believe it was in the 30s. So we’re coming up on 100 for Superman.
And then now when you look at the list of people—celebrities or whatever—who have been adopted or who have adopted themselves or who have placed, I think that list has gotten so huge. I don’t think you would have known maybe five names of people who were adopted when we were kids. And I just think that’s awesome.
Again, I think it’s showing how, like you say, it’s becoming so immersed in our society now that it’s become normal—which it should be.
Kelly Rourke:
Absolutely. Time goes by, and as adoption awareness grows and expands and explodes, maybe, I think it’s going to become even more so. And I think that if we have this conversation 10 years from now, what will we have to say?
Ron Rains:
I can’t wait. I can’t wait to find out, to be honest, because I think it’s just going to be so huge. And I think that people who grow up in it, who are younger than us, will look at us like, “Why are you so amazed? This is how it’s always been.”
Because for them, it has always been. And that’s great. That’s a great thing.
Kelly Rourke:
And that’s how it should be.
Ron Rains:
Yes, I agree. That’s how it should be.
Kelly Rourke:
Okay, let’s see what happens.
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Ron Rains:
Join us next time on Birth, Mother Matters and Adoption. For Kelly Rourke, I’m Ron Rains, and we’ll see you then.
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