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- [00:08]
A
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. On today's show will mark National Adoption Month with a conversation with sociologist Gretchen Sisson. The cast of the musical the Seat of Our Pants is here and will perform live in Studio 5. And we'll hear from Sterlin Harjo, the the creator of the new show the Lowdown. That's the plan. So let's get this started with a little politics. Postmortem, New York City has elected its next mayor and New Jersey has elected its next governor. Mayoral and governor races affect us all. And we wanted to give you the opportunity now to voice your opinion and and your hopes for the mayor elect and the governor elect and to hear more about how you decided to cast your vote. Liz Kim is WNYC and Gothamist reporter covering City hall who has been all over the place and all over this race. She has been generous enough to give us her time this afternoon. Hi, Liz.
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B
Hi.
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C
How are you?
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A
I'm good. How much coffee have you had?
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C
I've had a lot of coffee. I'm on three hours of sleep, so forgive me if I'm not 100% cogent, but I'm also running on adrenaline.
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A
All right, we like to hear that. And we also have WMYC reporter Karen Yee who has been covering the governor's race. Hi, Karen.
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D
Hey, Allison.
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A
Listeners, we want to know what are your hopes for Mayor elect Mamdani? What is the issue or problem facing the city you hope he solves? If you are a first time voter, what brought you to the polls? Call or text us now. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. Now if you're listening from New Jersey or what do you want Mikey Sherrill to tackle right away? What do you think she should prioritize? Our number is 212433, WNYC 212-433-9692. While we wait for the phone lines to light up, Liz, every headline this morning said Zoran Mandami Mamdani won decisively. Now comes the hard part, governing. What are his next steps?
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C
Well, in his speech and also in the closing days of the race, he was really stre the three principles of his campaign that really galvanized and energized a lot of supporters. Fast and free buses, freezing the rent on rent, stabilized apartments and universal child care. Now, of Those three items, the biggest ticket one is universal childcare. He will now the next steps is he has to figure out a way to pay for these policies. You know, something like fast and free buses. That's something that's in, you know, roughly the hundreds of million of dollars. But he still has to find a way in the budget to come up with that money annually. He has to negotiate with the mta, which has expressed some skepticism over how to implement something like that. So there's that rent stabilized. Freezing the rent is probably the easiest because he appoints a board. It's, you know, that, that basically makes these decisions every year. So basically he can basically appoint members who are, you know, favorable to having that kind of policy. The toughest one is the universal childcare that has been estimated as costing between 5 billion to $8 billion a year. That he will certainly need money from Albany, meaning he needs the governor's buy in. So, so that is the work, that is the work that he faces because these are the promises that helped really help get him elected.
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A
Karen. In New Jersey, Democrat Mikey Sherrill didn't just beat Republican challenger Jack Citarelli, she beat him by 13 points. I believe this release was predicted to be a lot closer. Why do you think she won so big?
- [04:16]
D
Absolutely. I mean, I was at Jack Ciatarelli's election night party and it was very anticlimactic. I mean, the lights didn't even go off. Right. The party almost felt like it never really the race was called like just an hour and a half after polls closed. I mean, I think Trump. Right. Trump really loomed large in this election. I mean, Mikey Sherrill really played into the Trump card. She sort of positioned herself as the person who could fight Trump. And Cicciatorelli, meanwhile, took the opposite stance. He really leaned into Trump, he really leaned into maga. And I think given where we are, this was a repudiation by the state against Trump. Right. People were saying, we do not want Trump, we do not want Trump in this state. We do not agree with his policies. And I think that' she just coasted such a decisive victory.
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A
Where did Trump play into this election in New York?
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C
I mean, one of the things that distinguished Mamdani, I think, was his willingness to go toe to toe with Trump in a very confrontational way. I mean, there was that video during the primary race of him, him confronting Trump's immigration czar, you know, Tom Homan in Albany, that went viral and he really leaned into that in the general election. I mean, that has been a criticism of Democrats that they have been, you know, a little bit, you know, like one person said to me, afraid of their own shadow. Mamdani is certainly not that. And it's, you know, you can't, you can't say it enough because now that he is the mayor elect, he does have to negotiate with Donald Trump. So you can really say that it was a bit of a risk for him to go so hard at Trump in his speech. I don't know if we have that clip.
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A
Do you have that by any chance?
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C
It's the one where he says, you know, if you're listening, Donald Trump.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Two seconds. Two seconds.
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C
We're going to hear that.
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A
Juliana's going to pull that up for us. And she's looking and she's looking and she's looking and she's looking. And you know what?
- [06:28]
B
Let's.
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A
Let'S take a call. Let's go to Terry in Union, New Jersey. Hi, Terry. Thanks for calling, all of it.
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D
You're on the air.
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B
Hi there. I am a cold, so I'm sorry, I'm a little froggy. But thank you for taking my call.
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A
You're on the air. Go for it.
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B
Yeah. Congratulations to Mikey Sherrill. I'm delighted that she won. It was, as I said to the screener, I said it's the first night I got a good night's sleep in about 10 months. So thank you for that. And one of my main concerns is that we have a massive ICE detention center right in our backyard that is causing huge misery among our migrant neighbors. And I'm hoping that Mikey Sherrill can involve people across the state and actually get that facility closed and actually stop the ICE madness that is wreaking so much havoc. And also just come around and involve people to say no to this because actually the election showed that we are a state of doers and people who love their neighbors and are not haters. So I look to her for this tapestry and to bring this tapestry together and close Fellini Hall.
- [07:53]
A
Thank you so much, Terry. Let's go to Rob in Brooklyn. Hi, Rob. Thanks for calling, all of it. You're on the air.
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B
Hey, how you doing today?
- [08:00]
A
Doing all right. How about you?
- [08:03]
B
Not bad. So, yeah, I'm just calling to say that really what we need to do next, people statewide who supports Iran or support enemy's policies, we really need to put pressure on the state legislature and the governor really, to raise some revenue via, you know, 2% on the top tax bracket and raising our corporate tax to match New Jersey to be able to fund these policies that Jaron has run on and that he has overwhelmingly, I wouldn't want to say, you know, won a mandate on. So, yeah, I just want to encourage listeners to, to look forward to reaching out to the governor and the state legislature to actually raise revenue. And we've seen time and time again that once that has been done, there has not been an exodus of millionaires out of the state. The reverse is true.
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A
We heard that. Yeah. Rob, thanks so much for calling in. We do have your clip that you wanted, Liz Kim. You want to set it up again?
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D
Sure.
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C
This was a portion of of Zoramdani speech last night where he speaks directly to Donald Trump and has a message for him.
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D
Together we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to.
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B
Defeat him, it is the city that.
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D
Gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.
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E
This is not only how we stop.
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D
Trump, it's how we stop the next one. So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you.
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E
Turn the volume up.
- [10:25]
A
He has so much momentum among first time time voters, younger voters. How does it keep that going?
- [10:33]
C
That's a great question, Alison. I mean, at this point, what's so interesting about him is that he has really transcended politics in a way to becoming a cultural figure. And we saw that in the primary, but it was really encapsulated at his election night party because this is unlike any election night party that we have seen in recent time, with the exception being Obama. Right. For a politician, I mean, it was packed to the gills coming out at 1:30. There were still hundreds of supporters waiting outside. They couldn't even get in, but they're waiting outside just for the hopes of catching a glimpse of him. I think that that is really meaningful, you know, and I think that. But you know, it could go sour very, very quickly. Right. Because a lot of it is premised on this promise of making the city more affordable. And that is no easy feat. Right. Because it's not just the difficulty of this is these are very ambitious ideas. Right. But think of it also, that he still has to be, he still has to do the day to day job of being the mayor. He still has to make sure that the streets are clean, that when there's a snowstorm, that your snow gets shoveled.
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D
Right.
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C
When there's a rainstorm, that people's basements aren't flooding, how does he deal with that? Then there's the Donald Trump factor. Right. Ice crackdowns. What happens when we've already seen federal funding diminish? So it's both handling the politics of that while trying to shepherd this very, very big, ambitious agenda. How does he do it all?
- [12:22]
A
We got a text that says, I want Cheryl to redistrict New Jersey. I wanted to ask about something that happened in New Jersey. The Department of Justice sent federal election monitors to Passaic County. What? Why?
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D
This was a request by the state GOP to do to the Justice Department to do some monitoring. We had a reporter down there at. In Passaic county looking at the polling sites. It didn't seem like they were a large presence or really created much of a problem. I haven't heard any reporting or anything that that sort of caused any issues so far.
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A
And apparently five other New Jersey counties flipped Democrat to Democratic.
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D
Is that true?
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E
Yes. Yes.
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D
So this was, I mean, part of her decisive victory. There were five counties that voted for Trump, flipped back for Cheryl. That's Gloucester County, Atlantic, Cumberland, Morris, and Passaic.
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A
Let's talk to Karina in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. Hi, Karina. Thank you for making the time to call all of it. You're on the air.
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B
Hey, Alison, thank you so much. Big fan of your show. So fantastic to hear the discussion this morning. Really wanted to get the reaction of your panel to a comment that I heard a commentator on TV just saying to the power of Mondani's campaign that it really became a source of connection for Gen Zers. Right. This is a generation that sometimes struggles making connection. You know, in real life. They. They have a very dominant digital life. But, you know, they came together, they volunteered, they met new friends, they made new connections. So I thought that was a really straight, interesting take on the campaign. So would love to hear the thoughts of the panel on that.
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C
No, absolutely. I mean, it's something that Mamdani talked about in his speech is how do you take something abstract like politics and make it really touch people's lives, have.
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A
Meaning in their lives?
- [14:26]
C
Yes, yes. And that's sort of what happened in his campaign was suddenly he was able to mobilize people around this singular idea about we need to make this city more affordable. And he really was really relentless in that approach. And then he activated People through different platforms like social media. But I would say that even more than the platform, I think a lot has been made about him being this sort of tick tock politician. But it really starts right with what is the animating idea and how, and him as a messenger and how is he able to communicate that? I mean, you heard in his speech where he's like, he's giving hat tips to the aunties, to the bodega owners, to the taxi drivers. And it made me really think, especially when he drops little bits of Arabic, Spanish, you know, Hindi, he's speaking the language of New York City. And again, it's a language of diversity. It's a language of immigration. Right. So that too, I think really was able to tap into the, the young people who live in New York.
- [15:42]
A
Now, Dylan's got an interesting question. Karen, I want you to listen in on this one. Hey, Dylan, thank you so much for calling, all of it. You're on the air.
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B
Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.
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A
And your question is so less a.
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B
Question or I guess maybe the reaction from your panel. But you know, in hindsight, given how close everyone thought the Mikey Sheryl Citarelli race was going to be, I was curious about your thoughts on when Mamdani kind of pseudo endorsed Mikey Sherrill and then when Sheryl was given the same opportunity to reciprocate that support and didn't given that at that time it was projected to be a much closer race. And we keep having these conversations about all this energy behind Mamdani. You know, what does that mean as far as the lessons Democrats are taking from this race nationally?
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D
Hey, Dylan. So, yeah, I mean, I think in many ways, you know, just hearing Liz talk about her assessment, I mean, Mikey was not, you know, a lot of her criticisms was that she was sort of a milquetoast. Right. Candidate. She, she didn't really have a bullet point of, or a plan, a specific plan to sort of address the affordability crisis. Like, I mean, she kind of spoke more in generalities and, and I think part of that, and really she really leane Trump hard. Right. And I think part of that was she was trying to appeal not just to the urban vote, but really appeal to moderate swing voters. Right. And she really captivated the independents here. I mean, she won independence and that's really who tend to determine these elections in New Jersey. And so I think she was sort of playing it safe in that way. And you know, you know, I think in many ways maybe she was the perfect candidate for this moment for this moment, where people in the state don't, you know, maybe they didn't love her as a candidate or she wasn't inspiring as a candidate, but they just didn't, aren't agreeing with what Trump is doing. And so I think maybe in any other year, right, you had a Republican candidate in, Jack Ciatarelli, who was energizing voters, who was able to unify both establishment Republicans and sort of MAGA Republicans, who was very charming, who felt very much New Jersey. Right. Here's a guy who visited every single of the 600 plus diners in New Jersey. You know, in his speech, in his concession speech last night, he said, I've had more BLTs and onion soups than anyone else. Right. And sort of people in the audience were screaming back their favorite diner food. Right. He was a very New Jersey regular guy. And that's what I kept hearing from his supporters. It's the first thing they said. They didn't talk about his policies. They said, Jack is a regular guy. He's just like us. Right. It's someone you find in the diner. I think in any other race where Trump was not such a huge factor, he probably would have won. Right. And so I think here Mikey was making a very smart, in hindsight calculation that paid off for her to sort of play it down the middle, right, to be the centrist Democrat that could get not just the progressives and the Democrats and the urban vote, but also the suburban vote and moderate, moderate centrist Democrats.
- [18:53]
A
She's also the second female governor of New Jersey, the first Democratic.
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D
Yes, that's correct.
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A
New Jersey.
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D
Yeah. And her lieutenant governor is the first male lieutenant governor in the history of the state.
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A
I'm speaking with wnyc. Gothamist reporters Liz Kim and Karen Yee were reacting to the election in our area last night. What are your hopes for Mayor Elect Mandani and what are the issues, do you think, that are facing the city that you hope he solves the most? And if you're in Jersey, what are the first things you want Mikey Sherrill to do? Call us or text us at 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. I want to talk to Daniel because Daniel's guy is not really in the conversation right now. Hi, Daniel.
- [19:36]
B
Hey, how are you? I'm here. All right. So I just wanted to speak on Mom, Donnie and how, you know, it's like a big misconception. This guy speaks about free transportation and like extreme rent stabilization as if the city is ran on just, you know, inspirational quotes and make believe.
- [19:54]
A
Yeah, but you know, Sliwa reporter, right. You were a Sleewall supporter, is that correct?
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B
Yes, absolutely.
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A
And how are you feeling this morning?
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B
I mean, it's terrible that Curtis Slievel was the only candidate that you could, that you could honestly say truly cared about New York City more than being a politician, but that he was. He's fighting off people with his bare hands. How could you not give, how could you not put someone like that in office?
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E
Yeah.
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B
You'll never find somebody who cares about the city more than Curtis Lee was. It's insane. Then you have mom Donnie talking about free transportation.
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C
Yeah.
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A
We know you're a Curtis Lewis supporter. We really feel your pain this morning. You sound like you're. You sound like it matters to you, and that's important that the elections do matter to people. Like they're really invested.
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C
You heard Daniel.
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E
He's.
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A
He's like really hurt that Curtis Lewis didn't get represented.
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E
Right.
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C
You know, the turnout was historic for this race.
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A
It was wild.
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C
Two million voters, the most since 1969. So that shows you how energized people were to show up at the polls, you know, for, you know, you know, for various. For various reasons, whether they were Mamdani supporters, Cuomo supporters, or Sliwa supporters. And I think that, you know, that energy, I think it's going to continue for the coming months. As we see how Mamdani puts together his administration and the early days of.
- [21:32]
A
His governing, he's got to put together his transition team.
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E
He's got to figure out his budget.
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A
Does he get any of that information before January 1st?
- [21:41]
C
Well, he has advisors who have done this before, and that was something that he emphasized during the general because, you know, one of the, one of the criticisms of Mamdani is that he's 34 years old. He's never run city government before. And he really, during the general, tried to counter that. And how did he counter that? He. He really went out of his way to have meetings with people who did run government, people who worked for former mayors like Bill Deblo, like Mike Bloomberg. So by surrounding himself with those people, he's trying to give New Yorkers a sense of confidence that, you know, I'm leaning on people who have done this before. You do sort of get a little bit of a pass, as when you're the first time mayor in terms of the preliminary budget, it's usually due in January. But I kind of look back on my reporting and I Saw that when Eric Adams took office. He released his preliminary in February. And it's not like you get dinged or anything like that. I think that's fine.
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A
Do we know what Andrew Cuomo is going to do next?
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C
We do not. I think that that will be an interesting question is what's his next chapter? Does he just leave politics altogether or does he try to mount a run for governor, which everybody has always said that really is the job that he has always wanted.
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A
Karen, is there anything that we've missed about the New Jersey races that you haven't heard talked about on the news? People talking about it nonstop. But is there anything that you think is important to think about as we go forward?
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D
I mean, I think similarly to New York City, I think affordability played a huge part in this race as well. I mean, I think supporters on both sides. Right. I mean, even last night when I was at Ciarelli's party, everyone was talking about their taxes and their utility bills. Right. And so what we can expect, I think, from Mikey Sherrill in her first days is she's said that she's going to declare a state of emergency to drive down utility bills. Right. And so that is she's tackling affordability sort of day one. I mean, the other big thing is sort of unterminating Gateway, right. And how she plans to do that. And so I think we'll similarly see how she plans to deliver on these big promises that are affecting New Jerseyans, right. In terms of housing and affordability. I mean, a lot of young people are concerned about their future in this state and being able to afford property, being able to afford childcare, being able to find employment that can maybe pay if they have student loans. Right. And so I think regionally these are issues that everyone is feeling and that really sort of drove people to the polls. But at the same time, you also have, you know, this sort of ongoing issue with the shutdown and sort of the long term implications from that. Right. We still have people on SNAP benefits that have not gotten their benefits this month. Who knows how long that will take? Who knows how long they'll have to go hungry and sort of the state having to step up. Right. To fill those gaps increasingly as the federal government sort of recedes. And I think that's going to be a big issue for her once she comes into office as well.
- [24:51]
A
Let's try to get one more call in here. Let's talk to Rachel in Nyack. Hey, Rachel, thanks for calling, all of it. What are you thinking this morning?
- [25:00]
B
Well, thank you for taking my call. I am just calling with Chilex smartphone. The joy that I feel, particularly as a mother of three girls ages 26 to 32, who have been feeling so discouraged in the last number of years. Just that, you know, discouraged with Joe Biden, terribly discouraged with Donald Trump, obviously not feeling like any of them are looking out for their interests as women and many other concerns of what's going on in Gaza and all of that. But this hope that they feel with this man who seems to be looking out for everybody and just the joy that they have, some hope is so wonderful for me to feel that joy for them. And I have an eldest daughter who just got engaged to be married, and she and her husband would love to have children, but they have come to terms that that is a very. There's a very good probability they won't because they live in New York City and they can't afford it. They're young. One's an actor who doesn't make much money, and the other's a New York City high school teacher. So they now think, well, if we really could pull together free, free child care, it could be a reality.
- [26:33]
A
Yeah.
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B
And that's just so joyful.
- [26:35]
A
Rachel, I'm gonna. Thank you.
- [26:36]
E
I'm.
- [26:36]
A
Thank you. So I'm gonna dive in real here. Thank you so much for your call. This text says I'm a lefty, but New York City runs on corruption. Real estate, for example. I fear Mamdani will have an uphill battle to get things done. What are you going to be looking at once you get rest?
- [26:53]
C
I'm going to be looking at how sort of the traditional forces of New York City politics, much like the person who texted, you know, real estate, for example, how that shapes Mamdani as he really takes office. Because a lot of it is. It's almost like a gravitational pull. And how in those. Like, what are the kinds of compromises he makes, for example? Because it's quite a different thing to campaign and then be forced to govern and then to make deals. Right. Uncomfortable deals that perhaps portions of your base don't like. And then how do you. How do you respond to their demands? So it's going to be really tricky. And he's young, too. He will be the youngest New York City mayor in over a century. So how does he handle it?
- [27:42]
A
You know, and I'll have to go on Brian Laird. He promised.
- [27:45]
C
Exactly. For example, that is exactly like a classic promise. Right? Like, he made that promise during the campaign. And I did. I did hear him Reiterate on Hellgate that he had made that promise. So, you know, fingers crossed. He does follow through, but exactly. That is not an easy thing to do to submit to Weekly Questions, not just by Brian, but by our callers. Will he do it?
- [28:11]
A
Yeah, he'll do it. We'll make sure he does it.
- [28:14]
C
Okay.
- [28:16]
A
Liz Kim and Karen Yee, thank you so much for being with us.
- [28:20]
C
Thank you.
- [28:21]
D
Thanks, Allison.
- [28:32]
A
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. November is National Adoption Month. A lot has changed since Daddy Warbucks adopted Little Orphan Annie. In the comics you have private adoptions, transracial adoptions, open adoptions. And politics has taken a front seat. Remember when Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked why abortion was even necessary if adoption was an option? That happened during the oral arguments in Dobbs vs Jackson Women's Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade. Adoption changes lives. And we wanted to talk more about it with a researcher who spoke to more than 100 women who have given up their children for adoption. Gretchen Sisson wrote Relinquished the Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood. She got her PhD from Boston College and is a research sociologist at the University of California, San Francisco. And she focuses on the social constructions of parenthoods and to keep things honest. Her work was cited in the Descent to Dobbs. Her point being that adoption is not the right answer for everyone. It's an important and complex decision making process. A decision making process involved for all. Gretchen, welcome to all of it.
- [29:43]
E
Thanks for having me. Allison.
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A
Listeners, are you adopted? What has the experience been like for you and your family? 2124-3396-9221-2433 WNYC are the apparent of the adoptee? Do you wish what do you wish that someone had told you good or not so good? Or if you opted for adoption yourself, what led to your decision? Our number is 212-433-9692. I wanted to say that in your book you talk about the of adoption in the back and we don't want to offend anyone, but there are very terms that are used. What language did you decide was best to use when writing your book?
- [30:22]
E
Oh, this is a really tricky question and I'll say, you know, as a writer I have to make a choice about what words to use just to get the job done. But I think that the rewards I chose were not necessarily the words that every adopted person or every parent involved in adoption would choose to use. There has been a lot of work from agencies and from people who promote adoption to adopt a specific lens, not using the term adoptive parents, rather just using parent, using birth parents instead of natural parent, first parent. There's a lot of different language floating around there, and a lot of it carries its own political charge. I use relinquishing parents, usually in my language, to describe the families of origin for adopted people. That is a fraught term. A of the mothers that I interviewed prefer birth parent, first parent, but it really runs the gamut. And I use the term adopted people as much as possible, rather than just adoptee, to focus on the fact that these are not just adopted children. They grow up. This is something that adoptive people live with throughout the entire course of their lives. And then I do use adoptive parent to describe the people who come to parenthood through adoption, largely to qualify that their relationship with their children was formed that way rather than through other processes.
- [31:46]
A
Why do you think the language is a fraught subject?
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E
I think the. The challenge of language really reflects so much of the power dynamics and adoption. Who holds the power and who gets to choose what words we are using? For a very long time, the language that we are using has really centered the primacy of the adoptive family. It has rendered the adoptive parent just the parent in a way that linguistically can erase the family of origin from their role in the adopted person's life. I think a lot of the adopted people who. And I'll be clear, a lot of adopted people are fine with the term adoptee. But some of those that I interviewed for the book were uncomfortable with it. They felt that it made them kind of like the product or the person who was transferred and reflected the underlying market of adoption more than they wanted to understand their own identity. And so they preferred something that, as adopted people included, people included that, you know, their. Their personhood and their full identity and the complexity there. So I think there is really no consistent way that really anybody involved in this wants to, you know, there's no agreement on the words that they are using. But I do think that the reason why it's fraught is because one side of the equation, specifically the adoptive families, specifically the agencies, have really promoted a specific, correct way of talking about adoption that doesn't recognize those power dynamics and that nuance.
- [33:22]
A
I wanted to ask you a little bit about the history of adoption. You write that it wasn't until the 20th century that the adoption of infants became prominent. When and why did legal adoption start?
- [33:38]
E
So there have always been infants and other children who have been in need of care outside of their the families that have given birth to them. And that has always happened, that we have found routes to external care. But the formal, legalized process of adoption as we practice it today is a relatively recent invention. If you look back at the history of family separation, and I talk in the book, looking at the broader context of family separation, from American enslavement to the separation of native children through boarding schools, to the orphan trains which shipped children from east coast cities towards the Midwest, I think that you can see these patterns in why children are separated from families. And there are a lot of different historical reasons rooted in control, extraction of social obedience, genocide, assimilation, and poverty that have led to these family separations. If you were a poor woman who had more children than you had capacity to care for in, say, the 1800s, you might send your child to what was called a baby farm, where you would actually pay someone to care for your baby. There was not a market demand for that baby in a specific way. This would be just a way of providing sort of this very untenable level of care if you were not in a financial situation to raise another child. It wasn't until the early 20th century that a real market demand for children developed that shaped the way we practice adoption today. So right now, we have far, far more families who want to adopt infants than we have infants available. And that has been true since after World War II, probably a little bit before as well. But certainly the peak was from the end of World War II until the 70s with the baby Scoop era. And that was a time where abortion was broadly illegal in the United States. And single parenthood, particularly for unmarried women, white women and girls especially, was very stigmatized and shamed. And so you saw a tremendous market value for their children. And that really drove this coercive, secretive system that we saw that really changed dramatically in the 70s and 80s with increased accessibility of contraception, legal abortion, as well as changing norms around single parenthood and the growing acceptability of that. So the adoption market, the domestic adoption market, really plummeted after that.
- [36:22]
A
Yeah, let's take a call. This is Victoria, who's calling us from Montclair, New Jersey. Victoria, thank you for taking the time to call all of us. Tell us your story.
- [36:33]
B
Hi. Thank you for having me on the show. My story is that I got pregnant at 16, and my family decided that I could not keep and raise my daughter, my child, myself. So I was forced to give her up for adoption. It was a private adoption, and I met her many years later. We had a reunion, and I'm really happy that this being my daughter, is on the planet because she's a lovely person. But the fallout for me emotionally from having a child that young and having to give it away is something I'm still dealing with and I'm in my 60s now.
- [37:06]
A
Thank you so much for calling in. In your research, Gretchen, did you encounter people like Victoria?
- [37:14]
E
So many people like Victoria. Victoria's story is, is very typical of, of adoptions from a certain era where you would have these young, young women, girls who would become pregnant. They didn't have their family support. They didn't have a path that made parenting feel possible. In some instances, they were sent away to maternity homes that were often run by the church. And they were given very little choice at all to raise their children. And many times the children were taken away soon after birth. Sometimes they weren't allowed to hold them. These adoptions were closed. They did not know who their child's parents would be, if they were healthy, if they were. Well, most of those adoptions now are in reunion because, of course, the adopted people are now adults and have reached out and with our ability to do, you know, commercial genetic testing, nothing is secret anymore. And so a lot of these families are in reunion and are able to contact one another. But I think what Victoria says that is most powerful is the idea that she didn't just walk away. Right. So many of these women were told, you are just going to give up this baby and move on with your life and you can have another family under better circumstances and you're not going to want this child. You're not going to want to contact this child. And that is almost never true. All of the mothers that I spoke with, not all of them were in contact with their children, but all of the mothers that I spoke with wanted to have some knowledge of some relationship with their child. And it was very traumatizing when that path to knowing their child wasn't supported in some way or allowed at all.
- [38:56]
A
Our guest is Gretchen Sisson. She's a research sociologist from UC San Francisco. She wrote a book called the Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood. Listeners, are you adopted? What has the experience been like for you or your family? The number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. We'll take more of your calls and we'll have more with Gretchen after a quick break.
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D
Our state has changed a lot in.
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C
The last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single making our communities healthier that comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services, and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@ multicare.org.
- [39:53]
D
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