[E236] When You're New to Walking Together as Adoptive/Foster Parents

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:04] Speaker B: To the Empowered to Connect podcast where we come together to discuss a healing centered approach to engagement and well being for ourselves, our families and our communities. Hey everyone, I'm back with Tana and Becca Today. I'm Jesse Farris and we are excited to kind of pull out another thread on when we're new to parenting through adoption and foster care, particularly when we're new to walking together with others through adoption and foster care. So, guys, we've kind of all been actually part of each other's community as we've been new to parenting. Except none of us were there for you, Tana. [00:00:48] Speaker A: So I'm really sorry out there by myself. Why don't we start to find y'? All? I'd be like, where are they? Where are they? [00:00:56] Speaker B: Why don't we start with you and what that experience was like and how, how to have a community, how to find a community to walk through parenting with. [00:01:09] Speaker A: I've shared this before on the podcast, if you've been longtime listeners. This was a difficult season for us. Early on, I think we, we came in, you know, our, our first parenting experience was through adoption and we had a small community. I mean, I, I, I' that we actually got to adoption because we had some friends, a couple of couple friends who had adopted. And so we got to see that in their family and reflected in their family. And we were inspired by that and we felt like, hey, that's something we would be interested in. So we started our parenting journey going straight for adoption before we even tried biologically building our family. So we were at adoption at the ready. Having some family that was sort of walking that road grew our family pretty quickly. Our first kiddo came home internationally and was 10 months old and then had a significant surgery about 4 months old. Later than that, we had an infant through adoption that joined our family. And then my support couple moved overseas. So she was a dear friend and they went on the mission field. And so then I was like, whoa, holla, everybody, now that I'm doing life with are all biological families. And it was in those young years, new, young, married, all getting pregnant, having our babies, reading the same books, going to the same Bible studies, circling up, throwing each other showers, doing our sip and seas, like very sort of southern parenting culture and community. And I started filtering out and sort of expecting my parenting journey and experience to mirror theirs. And I didn't have all the knowledge and information that we have now. I didn't have access. I mean, guys, I think that I don't even remember, like, what was Our maybe Mo had a pager at the time. Like we were not. There was no TikTok, there was no Facebook, there was no Instagram. I remember the first time I tried to like Google something in the middle of one of our kids adoptions. Like we were just community was the people that you saw, okay? It was not the people you could connect with unless you lived in proximity or made phone calls. Like that was my community. So think about the people that were around me were not starting their families in a way that we were. And they did not have kiddos with disabilities, which we didn't even completely know we did at the time. Like we just went in like, we just were in the best moods. Like, you know, we just, we were happy, we were doing life. We like ran this really fun, like funky college ministry cop shop. We had all these college students around us. We were going camping with our fun labs and living just this very like alive, full life with a bunch of beautiful people. And we had absolutely no idea what we were doing in parenting because it didn't take us long to realize that our kiddos needed something that we were ill equipped to do and to take care of and to provide for. And I did not have a BFF I could call nor did I have any kind of online community I could join. So it was a little bit, I kind of say, like we went in wide eyed and excited and reality started hitting home. And that was just a massive wake up call. That's how we started. [00:04:44] Speaker B: I've already shared over preparer over educator here on the front end. So I think as we were preparing to start our paperwork, we were reading a lot of books about transracial adoption and we were reading books about international adoption, we were reading books about parenting adopted children. [00:05:04] Speaker A: And [00:05:08] Speaker B: I identify with what you're saying, Tana, because I very much was in it with all, you know, we were like running with a young marrieds crowd, right? So and they were all getting pregnant and having babies. And I found myself, as I mentioned in our last episode, kind of comparing my experience to their experience and even wondering like, oh, I wonder, you know, if my child is alive right now, like and is someone else's child right now. And like holding the complexity quietly within myself of that of like when you are waiting as an adoptive parent, you're waiting for something terrible to happen to the person who will become part of your family. And that is not what my excited pregnant friends were experiencing. And so I remember even from the very beginning feeling a little isolated with that. Like those were Things I kept deep in my heart to myself and just struggled with privately, just the part that was hard about that. And, you know, outwardly being like, yeah, we're so excited. [00:06:21] Speaker C: We're the same. [00:06:22] Speaker B: You're gonna have a child at the end of this. And we will too. [00:06:25] Speaker A: You know, it's normal in community to try to find sameness. Like, that's what bonds us together. We're looking for sameness in community. Yeah. [00:06:33] Speaker B: And I know even. Even after our oldest child was placed with us, she came home and we got back to Memphis, she was hitting about 18 months old. And my friends that had been waiting for their first child through pregnancy while waiting for my first child were having their babies and we all wanted to keep hanging out together. And we would meet at the zoo and they would push around their newborn infants who weren't doing anything except for sleeping and pooping and eating. And my kid was zoom off, like, running away and like, wanting to play on the playground and like it. I. That took me by surprise that my community couldn't keep up with me and my kid because the things that they wanted to do and experience together, like, my kid needed something different. And so I found myself ill equipped in my community support of like, oh, I love these friends dearly. We are experiencing something totally different right now. And I'm not even getting into the differences in the way we needed to parent. Perhaps it was really even just the life experiences we were experiencing in the very beginning that started kind of maybe being a wedge in the way that I felt like I could truly have people to connect with and share these experiences with, if that makes sense. How do you want to connect with that, Becca? [00:08:06] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. My brain is going like eight different places, you guys. So it will surprise neither of you that for most of my life, my friends have been like five to seven years older than me. So from when I was in soul, you're just from when I was in like, yeah, old soul, we can call it that. Nerd is another word for it. [00:08:25] Speaker A: But no, it is old soul. It's old soul. We're claiming old soul. [00:08:29] Speaker C: We'll go with it. But so from like middle school onwards, I have had the experience of my closest friends being like two steps ahead of me in life stage. Then I married someone who's a couple years younger than me. Um, and so community, really. And then we got married during COVID when everything was shut down. And so community has just changed a lot over the years and it's ebbed and flowed and I think I've learned to be less angsty about it. Like, I love investing in the people that are in my circle. And I don't feel any, like, angst if that changes. Like, I feel better now than I used to in my 20s. But community, when it comes to, like, becoming parents was really, really complicated because for years I had been in a professional role of giving advice to adoptive and foster parents, but I had not been a parent yet. But a lot of my friends have adopted or been foster parents, and most of my friends had been parents in some way or another period. So I didn't have a whole lot of friends who were not parents yet. And then I married Rico, and Rico is black. And it is less common for black families in America to adopt. So even the moments of, like telling my family that we were going to adopt was very different from the moments of telling his family. Not in a bad way. It's just there's context. My. I have a nephew who's adopted and so there's. My family has context and a framework and they understand some of the basics without us explaining it versus his family was like, what does that mean? Like, what do you mean you're gonna adopt? Like, what we don't know. And so it was like talking through, like, what is a home study? What is. What do you mean a social worker is coming and looking at your bank statements? Like, so from the beginning, it was kind of navigating this cross cultural. And then there was the added. So I felt a lot of pressure and insecurity all at the same time because I felt like I was supposed to know everything about it. But my work had actually only been with post placement families, so I knew nothing about this part of the process. But even our professional team, because of the work that I do, thought that I knew more than I did. So it was this really weird time of trying to educate my in laws in positive ways. They were really wonderful and beautiful and I love them so deeply. And it was my family asking questions that I felt like I should have known the answer to. And then me asking the professional and kind of feeling like they thought that I would already. So I'm So the experience of finding people and I think once we became parents, so that was all kind of the before. Once we became parents, I think, Jesse, you gave me some of the most practical advice. I asked you a question early on and you were like, you need to ask so. And so because she has a kid who's the same age as your kid and. And you really encouraged me. You're Like, I mean, I think you said something like, I'm happy to talk to you about it, but you really need to call so and so. And I called so and so, our mutual friend. And it was like, oh yeah, like in this moment, friends that are in a similar season, whether we're the same age or not, if we're in the same season, we're able to relate in a different way. And you were still a really, really good friend to me. And I have already shared on the podcast, like, when we very first became parents, the only reason we ate the first week is because Jesse instacarted groceries to our doorstep, literally. So we had community of people who loved on us and invested in us from all different seasons. But that's those early days I remember just kind of trying to figure out, what does it mean for my friends who are in a different season? What does it mean for us to be in community? What does it mean to me for me to be in community with my family members? What does it mean for me to really find those friends who can help me? So that was a word salad. But those are all the different things that were kind of coming up for me. [00:12:34] Speaker B: No, I appreciate all of those different experiences we've brought because I'm even, I'll throw a few more into the ring just of people we know and, and if I don't hit something, you can throw an extra one that you're thinking of in. But I'm thinking of friends who became parents, friends of mine who became parents around the same time period who adopted a sibling set of three who were all in elementary school aged. And so here we were, same age, same marriage, life stage, had been married around the same time. But then automatically our experiences catapulted us kind of away from each other because even though we were both adding to our families non biologically, we had that in common. What they were experiencing through the foster care system and with the sibling set of three was completely different than our 18 month old through international adoption. So I remember connecting with her and being like, oh man, what you're going through seems so hard. I wish I, you know, like could share those experiences to validate what you're experiencing. And she was saying the same thing back at me, like, what you're going through seems really hard. I didn't have to leave my home. You know, we were kind of validating that we didn't know about each other's experiences, so. Or I'm also thinking about people who have maybe parented biologically in biological children. For the, for the first set of children and then they've added later in their parenting journey through adoption. And so now they're like the 45 year old in the preschool parents crew. And it's, that's a different experience as well. You know, you're with all these like late 20, early 30 somethings. [00:14:19] Speaker A: And that can also be true if you have older adopted baby loves and then you Absolutely, yes, do that again. Like me and I'm like, I am absolutely almost always the oldest parent in any scenario I'm with, with my younger two. Like I was hanging out with some moms at a volleyball tournament and all they've got girls all doing volleyball with our youngest and they started saying how long they'd been married and how old they were and I was just like, well, so you know, and I aged myself right then. So the building of a family and finding community through different pathways is just so dynamic. [00:14:59] Speaker C: Yes. Can I name one more that we've all, we all know, dear single friends who have become parents either through adoption or foster care. And so just like that journey is different, what you need as a single parent in some ways is the same and in other ways is different than what you need if you're co parenting with someone else. And so I just think about those friends in my life who, whether they were doing foster care and so they needed kind of that ongoing community support of hey, I've got a new placement again and now a couple months later it's a different sibling set. Like that's one kind of need for community. And then I've also known friends who have just done an adoption and so then that's. Yeah, but, but they're single parenting and so they need different kinds of support. So I think that's another category. [00:15:49] Speaker A: One of my other dear friends, her older kiddos are about the same age and life stage as our older kids and they have been foster parents for a long, long time. And they took a respite and then they got back in it and they brought home a 16 year old and she's like, oh my gosh, I don't have any of my life stage friends, really don't have 16 year olds anymore. And I'm like needing to find sort of new teenage mom friends. And so it really is so dependent on the dynamic. What you've already done, what you haven't done yet. Who are the people around you? What is the agency stage of the kiddo that is joining your family? Like it is like, I think that's why I said dynamic because it even feels like it can ever change. [00:16:32] Speaker B: So what we're explicitly naming y' all is that when we're walking together with others through adoption and foster care, I think what's inevitable is that you're going to find that your community shrinks for lots of different reasons. In the beginning, you know, Tan is talking about having proactively been doing life with other adoptive and foster families, but then because of their life circumstances, they were kind of taken away from each other or you know, we've talked about the ages and stages making that different or even just like the, the parenting tools that we're needing, you know, maybe separates us and, and isolates us in a way. So let's talk about what we do. First of all, I think just naming and setting expectations that that may, you may find yourself, in fact, it's probable that you're going to find yourself as a new adoptive or foster parent, finding that community of your close heart friends, as Tana calls them, sometimes shrinking. And so what do we do as we're expecting that to happen? Maybe proactively and then even when we're in it, when we're experiencing that real time, [00:17:50] Speaker A: maybe don't take it super personal. Maybe go ahead and just be aware that people are still doing the best they can. I also think that we all wish we were parenting as a village. Like, I just think there's this ideology that it would be amazing to have a village. I'm still, you know, like thinking through like, what would it look like for me to build a bigger village right now? And I've been parenting for 25 years because I need a different village now than I did 25 years ago. But to, to have a village, you have to be a village. So maybe if you haven't started your family through adoption, foster care yet, and you've got a little bit of time and margin, this is maybe kind of hard advice, but like make sure you're being a village to others so that when you need them, they're going to show back up for you. And I don't mean that as maybe bad as that sounds. Scratch their back, so they scratch yours. But I've just seen so many parents just be heartbroken and devastated and feeling isolated and alone because nobody's showing up for them. But the fact of the matter is maybe they weren't showing up for anybody else either. So, you know, I know when you're in the throes of the hardest seasons of life and you are literally hanging on by a thread, it really hard to show up for others. So when that is not the season you're in, make sure you're living life in community and showing up and being a village for somebody else that needs it. And then be vulnerable and tell people if you need help. Don't expect people to read your mind. You know, we are not mind readers. So be honest about what you need. Be transparent and vulnerable. Tell people you aren't doing so well. If you aren't doing well, it's okay. [00:19:41] Speaker C: I think. I mean, to oversimplify it, like, communicate. So I've been part of the same little community group through my church. I'll say off and on, because there's been a couple seasons where we couldn't come for different. Like, where we lived in the city was too far for a while. And then. Anyway, off and on. I've been part of the same community group for about 13 years and. And recently, like this school semester, the last three to four months, our baby's bedtime is a right smack in the middle of the time. And so it's just not possible right now for us to be in that literal physical meeting space. And so I think, you know, we. We missed a few and blah, blah, blah. And then we just reached out to our friends and we said, hey, guys, this is what's going on. We love y'. All. And they still send us prayer requests. And they still. Some of those people are still the people that showed up whenever it was time to finalize our adoption recently. And so we're still showing up for each other, but in a very different way, not week by week by week. And so I hope, if you're listening to this, you can have some friendships that have that kind of maturity where you can go with the ebb and flow and not be super upset about it. When we want to have dinner with friends, we have to plan, like, two months in advance. Hey, are you free on this day? Because that's how our schedules. And they've got older kids that are doing cross country and track and all these different. And so I think one, those long friendships can look different, but it's okay to still invest in them. Like, I have a dear friend who is a school social worker, and we have a lot in common. And it's like we used to do breakfast, I don't know, maybe once a month. And I think we've done it twice this year, but we've done it twice. And those two times are really beautiful. And that's what worked for us. So if you can have that experience and Then I really do encourage you to, if you're entering adoption and foster care, to try to find other adoptive and foster parents. And the beauty of online is that that's not always. It doesn't always have to be people in your physical space because I do think it's helpful to have friends who get it and friends who you can ask, hey, is this what you experienced too? Like, you kind of want that check in space to be like, I'm not alone, am I? And so I think sometimes that's really helpful. I love what you said, Tana, about if you need friends, you have to say that you've got to find people. One of the most helpful things that I did when we heard about our baby girl was join an online micro pre nicu support group. And I don't say a lot in there, but it has validated even this week. My husband and I were talking about a post that we saw in the micro preemie group about a kid who's about the same age as our kid. And it made us feel seen and okay and, oh, this is. This is okay. Like, this is part of it. And we wouldn't have known that because we don't personally know anyone in our real world who has a baby that was born at the same gestational age. So I think it's that both end, like, hold on to your heart friends in, in ways that work and then find new friends for where you are now, which again, back to your encouragement, Jesse, that friend that you encouraged me to reach out to. We don't have time because we both have littles. We don't have time to see each other physically. So we use an app called Marco Polo and it's like video messages back and forth. And we might go through a week where we're Marco Poloing like four times and then it might be a month and we don't say anything because we're both busy. And then we jump on and it's, hey, she just took her first steps. Can you tell me about, like, what's, like, what's going on with your baby? And so it's those, like, it's the both and it's using technology, it's using your real world. Give yourself and your people a lot of grace. I think that I like what you said, Tana, about we all want to parent in a village. I think we have in our heads how we want people to show up for us, but I don't think we talk about that very much at all. So I don't think that's really. There's a lot of pressure that we put on other people to show up exactly how we wish they would. But there's not always a lot of communication or like this is what I need. [00:23:58] Speaker A: And I think we sometimes think other people have it and I don't. And that just usually isn't the case either. So like, just like don't fill in the empty space with all these assumptions. Like just try not to do that because it's probably not going so well for them either. So if you can just be a little vulnerable. Becca, you said something about like finding online support and if I can hit rewind and talk about those. That time when I was like, holy smokes, I don't have what I need and I don't have what I need in proxy proximity to me. Then you know what we did? We went out and found what we needed someplace else. And that was in a different state with different information, with research, with people. And I started throwing myself into those relationships and connections and received whatever they had time and energy to give to me. And then I just started trying to give it to the people around me. And I found some of my most impactful foster and adoptive support at a retreat. There used to be a mom's retreat that I would go to and it got big and it happened several times a year. But some of the most impactful relationships that helped shape my perspective, my thoughts, my openness, it really impact and changed me was because I got out of my own town and went to a completely different place in space and went to an adoptive moms in foster moms retreat. And I did that year over year over year and it became a rhythm and routine for me. And that was community. I didn't get to see them all the time, but it filled me up to sometimes sort of come back to my real life. So that's the open handedness of it. Don't have a stagnant fixed mindset about the way it should be. Have an open flexible growth mindset about what it could be and then maybe take some risks and try to build it. Maybe you're longing for something and if you do it, other people will join you because maybe they need it too. So if you feel isolated and alone, you are not the only one. You might have that little bit of initiative, a little bit of heart, a little bit of vision to create the same space that can be the welcoming space for other families that need the same thing. [00:26:26] Speaker B: I'll say I'm an enneagram too, which I've I feel like maybe I find a way to weave into every single podcast episode. So I'm sorry, guys, but here's the point where I'm going to say that here. And I think I'm often like, oh, but why, Tana? Why do I have to be the connector? And it's like everyone's just looking for a connector, right? So be the person. Just be the person. Create the thing you need. Right. I want to say, I'm thinking. I was thinking about how Becca was using the term heart friends, relating to kind of the. Those original sets of friends that she connected deeply with, maybe even before parenthood, and how in my mind, the heart friends that, in my mind, the heart friends are the friends that are, like, sharing your parenting values and your deepest, like, you know, your connected parenting methods. Like, they really get you. They really get, you know, so it was really interesting to think about. My brain's just been, you know, working since you've said that. And what it sparked in me was this idea of. And towards the end of our cultivate connection, a course. Ding, ding, ding. Y' all should find this course. And I'll, I'll talk about why in a second. But we talk about, in one of the final modules about finding your team, and that's an acronym. But often something that we're sharing when we talk about finding your team is that, for example, if. If you've got a pediatrician or a surgeon, take the surgeon. We use this example a lot. I didn't need a trauma informed surgeon to do my child's liver transplant. Like, I just needed a really good liver transplant surgeon. Right. And so I think a lot of times we're filtering out community and friends because, oh, they don't understand what I need people to understand and. Or they don't, you know, parent in with the same parenting methods and strategies that I do, or they don't understand what I'm walking through, that's fine. There are different kinds of friendships. And so whether you want to look at those silver and gold friends, you know, if you. Whether you want to think about your heart friends being those old friendships that you're still going to hold on to, or as the new ones that you're seeking out and maybe even leaving your hometown to find Tatana's point, there, there's grace that we can give in. Those in that community I'm thinking about especially. It was resonating with me, Tana, when you said it's a common experience to feel disappointed that people aren't showing up for Us, you know, and especially if we've seen that happen for someone else. You know, if we've seen somebody get six weeks of meals, and then it's like, no one offered meals for me, or I'm. I'm getting new foster care placements, you know, every X years or weeks, and. And nobody's offered support that way. I really valued that. You said tell people you need help as an enneagram, too. I often resent that I have to tell people I need something because I'm wanting people to intuitively know what I need because I'm often thinking about other people and making assumptions about what they need, whether it's correct or incorrect. Learning how to tell people I needed help or what I needed from them has been life changing for me. And I remember sitting down with a particular friend during a particular season and having an uncomfortable conversation of, like, I feel like you're missing me because I need this right now and I need you to see it. And in that conversation, that friend met me where she could meet me. She met me where she could meet me. But y', all, to be honest, it wasn't 100% of what I needed in that season. That friend just kind of missed me. Like, the place where I was was not where that friend was equipped to meet me. Yeah, I bring that up to say, like, I'm. That is still a dear friend of mine. And I think that, to your point, Becca, like, we can give each other grace or. Or what our friends can offer us and what they can't. Right. And. And I think maybe what we might be calling out here is the ability to have the awareness of that. To have the awareness and then to be able to give the grace and to be able again to advocate for ourselves and go out and find what we need or create what we need. [00:31:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:15] Speaker B: So I'm thinking of, you know, especially when my kids were in their younger years, finding other parent friends who had similar kids and kids in similar ages and stages. That was really valuable to me. I needed to be able to hang out with other adults at the playground. Like, I needed that kind of tangible, like, let's meet up for a play date. But even as I'm saying that, I'm saying it as someone who was working as a homemaker, and I had friends who were working in paid jobs at the time away from their homes, and they needed something different. They couldn't meet up with me at the playground. They couldn't meet up with me at the zoo because they were spending those daytime hours in different ways and what they needed for community looked different. So advocating for what we need, finding people in places where you know that that works out, that's important. And I think that there is a space. Well, what were you going to say, [00:32:14] Speaker A: Tana, you know, when you were talking about the friend? I just want to zip back to that because I want to put a fine point on what happened in that interaction with your friend. There's so much right there, Jesse. You know, there is awareness that you were sort of missing somebody that was part of maybe your longtime friendship. And you took a moment and you assessed what you needed and then you practiced vulnerability and you took a risk. I just don't think very many of us are brave enough to do that. To go to a friend and say, hey, something is not clicking here for me and I care about you and us enough to sort of name that out loud. And I care enough for, like, I don't want to lose what we have because I'm having these things going on inside of me internally anyway. Brave. And then when you said that she didn't have in that moment what you needed, that was like. When we first started talking about this, my first phrase was just don't take it personally. And I think that is the essence of that ability right there. To be able to step outside of yourself and say, I believe this person loves me as much as they can and they are giving me all that they can. And if they had more to give, if they had access or had different experiences or had parented similarly, I mean, we could fill that in with any number of things. Maybe they would be responding to me differently. But that isn't reality. That doesn't mean we can't circle back up later. That doesn't mean life experience won't realign us. So there is just so much awareness and grace and understanding and insight and believing the best of the other person. And my guess is y' all are still probably friends, maybe. Yeah. Like you sustained that friendship because you were willing to sort of advocate for it, in essence. And so when we have, and you will have very unique parenting experiences and adoption and foster care, you are going to walk a road that biological families do not walk from a pragmatic, just systems, people, checkups, follow ups, processes, home studies, family placement, extended family, biological family. You're going to have fears and concerns and insecurities and worries that are unique to the adoption and foster care journey. And those are even different. So it is okay to have those needs, but you may have to get them met in other people. But that doesn't mean you can't hold tight to your people that are doing their best and showing up with what they've got to offer. Like one of my dearest longtime friends. We've been friends since before Mo and I got married, never got married. We sustained our close friendship as a single person and a married person. She stuck with me as I grew my family and she had no parenting experience, but she knew me, so she could even help me see outside of myself and helped me to some extent, kept me grounded so I didn't get lost in myself in marriage, didn't get lost in myself in parenting. And then she became a single mom and now her kiddo is a little bit younger than Finn and May, and we have a new way to connect. But it would have been the biggest loss for me if I had sort of written her off and let her slip away because we weren't parenting the same way at the same time. So I think we have dynamic, complex relational needs. And I think if we put all of our eggs in one person's basket, it will never go well. I don't want that pressure on me to be the best person, the only friend somebody needs to meet all of their needs. I will always fail and I should not expect a other single human friend person to be able to intuit and meet all of my needs. So I just don't want to miss like you just sort of shared it as part of your story. But I think it really throws something into high relief that as we're seeking community, what we are seeking is relationships. We're seeking trusted friendships and relationships we can count on. And if we can have an open mindset about that and let different people meet different parts of our dynamic whole self needs, then we're probably going to be a little freer in that. And maybe people won't disappoint us as much because we're going to have a bigger, broader understanding. [00:36:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:53] Speaker B: For some we're going to lower the bar to belonging. Right? [00:36:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:58] Speaker B: And then we're gonna go find the space where we feel we truly belong. And I'll say, I'm not advocating everybody go out and try and have these brave conversations and confront every single friend they have. Like I think. [00:37:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:13] Speaker B: I think that was part of a learning experience for me. There have been other friendships where that conversation didn't even have to take place. We just switched into a different gear or an understand. You know, it's like sometimes you need to talk about it and sometimes you don't. But I appreciate that you, that you slowed us down down there. And I also want to say, if you're, you know, Tana mentioned actively looking for places and spaces where people are walking a similar road as you and Becca did too, finding that online, I'll just say, I think. Circling back to Cultivate Connection, we recently released a Cultivate Connection on Demand course and we're really excited about it. It's a great way to get little the content of our, of our parenting course and to be able to follow along individually or, you know, in your household with your parenting partner at your own pace and on your own time, which can be really valuable. Right? Like, we need that. But also we still have local live cultivate connection classes and that's not ever going to go away. I'm going to just boldly say, because people need community. Like that's, that's where people go often in their communities to try and find a group of adoptive and foster parents or a group of parents that are wanting to parent in this similar method, the similar way, with similar values. Values, no matter how different they are. Right. There's no, there's no, we're looking for sameness in what we care about. Right. So that, that's another thing that I would just encourage you, like, go to our website, look up, find a facilitator near you. If there's not one, then we have a facilitator training. So what if you're the person? Again, back to Tana's point, like, be the person. Right. But just a little shout out to that course of like, I think it is such a great community maker and community finder. And that is so needed. All right, before we close this out, I do want to kind of hone down into the closest relationships, the closest community of people that we are walking with through this journey of adoptive and, and parenthood, which would be parenting partners and single parents. I'm not leaving you behind here. We'll talk about it as we're talking about parenting partners, but I just want to set us up for this conversation or this point of. There's a lot of stress that gets put on your relationship when you become parents, period. Then when you're going through the stress of adoption, foster care, kinship care, that's going to add another layer of stress. And so let's talk about how we can walk through relationships that are very closest in our parenting partners. Partners when we're, when we're walking that journey. [00:40:22] Speaker C: I think I've shared this on the podcast before, but I'm somebody who processes everything in advance, and my husband is someone who processes things as they come. And so I had already processed a lot of what I thought it would feel like, what I thought it would be like. I had kind of mentally prepared myself for not going to be sleeping with a newborn and those types of things. And my husband very much processes things in the moment. So I think the first. I think that the first thing I would say here is it's not just one conversation. It's just opening the door for communication kind of before, during, and after so that you can walk through those stresses and pressures. You may not be able to anticipate all the stresses. You may not be able to anticipate all the pressures. So just if you're pre parenting or if you're parenting older kids, focus, I would say, on how can we communicate in healthy ways and then lean on those, like, patterns during the stressful times. Is that. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of what I. That's what jumps to my brain. Jesse, when you're asking that is like, yeah, you can't. You can know that it's going to be stressful, but you can't know how are you going to respond to that kind of stress. Like, I have been in very stressful jobs for a very long time. I react completely differently to lack of sleep than I do to stress at work. And so we didn't have, like, a bucket for it. It was like, whoa, where did that come from? Now we've got to talk about this and figure it out and how do we support each other? So it was a combination of preparation, but more so preparing ourselves to go through something stressful. Less talking our way out of the stress. I don't know if that makes sense, but less, like, talking ourselves out of it. [00:42:19] Speaker A: Make sure that we are always remembering that our parenting partner is a whole human that is wired very differently than you are. I mean, that's really the essence of some of what you're saying, Becca. Right. Like, Mo is going to need very different things than I do, and I shouldn't expect him to read my mind, meet all of my needs, intuit my every mood, you know, respond perfectly every time. He needs time and space and energy and grace to, like, become his best self. His best self is going to look very differently than my best self. My sticky spots, my history, my own family of origin, my. My attachment patterns, my. My stress response is different than his. He is not a clone of me. He will not parent the same way I do, he will not feel the same way I do. He will not respond the same way I do. And if I can see that as a gift most of the time, I do not see that as a gift all of the time. That is just the truth. I would say that if he was here. But if I can see that as a positive part of our family dynamic, things are just going to go better. This is harder for people who are falling, like, away from their spouse in their family. Like when the dynamics of the family and the growth of a parent is just deeply pulling you away from your parenting partner. So I want to be really careful in just this being, like, a point in this larger conversation about community to not nod to. This does not always go well. And lots of families and marriages do not last through parenting, parenting period, and then parenting complex needs. So I think it's important for us to say that does not always go so well. And sometimes it doesn't end with people staying together. But I do think that part of the staying together is both of you having a growth mindset. Mo and I were able to go speak at a marriage conference of foster and adoptive families last year, and when we stood back and were like, what do we feel like is like the most important thing to share with a room of people, a captive audience, if you will, for two full days, about doing this thing together. And the essence of what we felt compelled to share is you will make it. If you can both be willing to learn and grow and change. And if one of you is stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck, and the other one is trying to change and evolve and grow and adapt, and one of you is sort of doubling down on. You could fill in the blank with 100 million things. It's not going to go so well. Which to some extent is what we're talking about with community. If you're in a community that isn't able to flex and meet your needs, you can go find new friends. Go find new friends. It's not so easy to find a new parenting partner, you know, so how do you sort of keep them and sustain that relationship and not expect them to meet all of your needs, Needs. So sometimes our community is part of that dynamic of staying with that person and giving them time and space to grow and change. So that's a. That's maybe my just little nuggets to kind of frame the parenting partner as part of the community conversation. [00:45:44] Speaker B: Nugget is the right word because this isn't an episode on marriage. And so I know it's Hard to nod to it and then be like, and thanks for joining us. [00:45:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:45:54] Speaker B: But I, I also want to acknowledge that our parenting partners are part of our community. [00:46:03] Speaker A: Right, Right. Exactly. That's right. [00:46:05] Speaker B: Part of our community. And. And if that's not, if there's conflict there, that even adds to the isolation and you know what, what we're needing from the greater community. So I'm going to pull together some of what you guys shared. I appreciated that you said one of you also, Tana, several times when you were talking about, you know, one of you may do this, one of you may do this. Like, we often will think about ourselves as a unit with who we're parenting with. You are one person and they are one person. And I think what immediately becomes apparent in addition to what you're saying, like you have your own wiring and all of that is you have your own history, you have your own way that you were parented. That's baked in there. And guess what? You're not going to find out until it just comes out of you and you're like, whoa, where did that come from? In them or in me? So we're making sense of that real time as it's happening. Right. No matter how much we've pre processed. Right, Becca? It's a lot of that is we're discovering it as we go together. So I really appreciate the growth mindset that you talk about, Tana. I think the things that I. Yeah. What did you want to say? [00:47:23] Speaker C: I just want to tie it a little bit back to our earlier conversation. I think be realistic that you each have different community needs, so you may be more of an introvert. You need that once a month coffee date with a friend and you're good to go. And your parenting partner may need more time with friends. And it can be easy to kind of get a little, like you said, Tana, expecting them to need the same thing as you or being frustrated when they need something different. So I just think being open to, hey, we want to lean on each other. We can't only lean on each other, which you said already, Tana, but I want to just name. We can't only lean on each other. We need other friends. But the amount or the time or what that looks like could be really different. Maybe you need to go play pickleball with your friends to meet your needs, but your other parenting partner needs these, like, deep coffee talks. Like, you may need totally different things from friendships. So I just wanted to kind of tie those two things together briefly. [00:48:24] Speaker B: That actually teased me up perfectly because it was. It leads right into what I was going to say. And I think I want to loop in. You know, I'm like, gathering the loop in my arm through the arm of our single parents here. Because, you guys, if you're parenting alone in your household, inevitably you have people you've pulled in close to you that are providing support. If you haven't, I hope you will find those people. You need respite, right? You need help just the way that any of us need help. And so it's. You're going to have your people, right? Is it your mother? Is it your aunt? Is it your best friend? Like, who is the person that you call when you need support? I think this piece of advice that we're giving is applying to that relationship as well. And it, for me, it's going back to what we were talking about previously. We're holding the tension between having those conversations, being able to tell our person what we need. Like, we've got to be able to say that bravely. We've got to be able to identify it in ourselves and say it. And to some extent, we've got to be able to be giving grace for where that person can meet us, right? And they've got to give us grace for where we can meet them, because we can't be the everything. So. And it's going to look different than that friendship I was talking about earlier. But I think I've done that in marriage with Nick, too. It's just like, I need this. And he's like, well, I can give this. Or in my own awareness, I'm like, he can only give this, or vice versa. And knowing that, like, we're. We're going to do our very best to grow together again. Shout out. To cultivate connection, in fact, on demand would be awesome for y' all and with your parenting partner to both be able to interact with something like that and then talk about it, talk about it together. Because I think one of the things that we're going to need to do is you can't get on the same word or same sentence, but doing our very best to get on the same page or in the same chapter, right? Or maybe into the same book, right? Like, you've got to start somewhere. But, you know, when. When we're parenting small humans, we've got to be able to come together in a united vision in some direction of that. So that would be my advice. What's the most beautiful thing that walking together with a community has given you guys as we Close out. [00:50:56] Speaker C: I think it has just sustained me like I think it just, just has sustained me through the hard times and the exhausted times. And then I think it has also. It's just fun to share in the joys with community. So I'll briefly say we got to finalize our adoption very recently. We had a few people. It was kind of last minute. We didn't have. We had like five days notice. And so after waiting over a year and so we had a few people that came physically and then the court clerk was like, you have like three pages of people on zoom. And so just being able to share in the joy and then being able to lean on people in the tough times I think is what community has given me. [00:51:42] Speaker A: I feel this deep sense of like gratitude and sharing the real thing, the vulnerability and the authenticity of the real thing. And so the biggest gift of community for me has been a sense of not aloneness and not the only oneness. And the risk of transparency and vulnerability has always come back to bless me more and more and more. So that's the biggest gift. We are not alone. And while our situations may be unique, take a risk, even if it's a non adoptive friend. But you know, they love you. Just take a risk and share the heart and the essence of something. I mean I. There was a sweet woman that was part of our church community that was not adoptive foster parent. She was not in the throes of the parenting stage I was in. And she came and put a meal in my outdoor freezer in my shed every Monday afternoon for a year. And that came out of some tears I shared probably in a quick greeting at church. How are you? And I didn't say fine because I wasn't. And I shared vulnerably. And she wrapped her arms around me, prayed over me and made me every Monday a meal. And it like so every Monday I felt seen and loved and supported and known and cared for and it was a meal. So that is what community has done for me. The sense of being seen and known. But I had to practice vulnerability first. It didn't come any other way. [00:53:44] Speaker B: I love thinking about how community has taught you and positively reinforced you to do that too in that kind of personal transformation and change growth. I shared in the last episode. Nick and I recently celebrated 20 years of marriage. And so I've been thinking a lot about year zero or the wedding, you know, and when in our ceremony, in our wedding ceremony, I did things a little differently with my wedding bouquet. I is it bouquet bouquet. Which one would you say, guys, I [00:54:25] Speaker A: call it a bouquet. [00:54:26] Speaker B: Okay, you're a plant pecan. [00:54:29] Speaker C: I mean, here we go. [00:54:30] Speaker A: We have a collection on that. [00:54:32] Speaker B: I'm going with the plant person bouquet. I instead of having it pre arranged and pre made, I. I love gerber daisies. I still do. So I had given, I had asked a collection of people that were meaningful to me in my life to stand on the aisle and they each had a Gerber daisy. And as I walked down the aisle, I collected each flower from that person and that was my bouquet. And at the end, my mother tied a bow around it. [00:55:02] Speaker A: It. [00:55:04] Speaker B: And I think that's what Community has done for me. I think in the beginning it was just the idea that those people had invested in me and they believed in me, that they believed. They believed in me of the vision of who I could become and who I was. But when I think about that as parenting, like, I have gathered things from people along the way over the years in my community and it has made up this big bouquet of, of parenting experiences and wisdom that I get to bless other people with now. And I am so grateful for that. And it is beautiful. So, yeah, it just. We just add beauty to each other's lives. I'm grateful for what community has done for me in that way. Guys, thank you so much for another awesome conversation. I hope that you are inspired to walk together and find your people to walk together with and invest in those people. And we'll see you next time. We hope you enjoyed the episode. If you're interested in learning more, head to empoweredtoconnect.org for our library of resources. Thank you to Kyle Wright, who edits and engineers all of our audio, and Tad Jewett, the creator of our music. On behalf of everyone at etc, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on the Empowered to Connect podcast. In the meantime, let's hold on to hope together.