Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. This is episode 104, we're the Nelsons. I'm Lanette. And I'm Shaun. And in today's episode, we actually have a conversation between Lanette and Alisha Gallagher. And Alisha is our Director of Communications here at the Open Adoption Project. She is wonderful. And so we have a discussion about boundaries.
We've been doing a bit of a series the last few episodes where we've been talking about some of these questions we get pretty frequently about openness and adoption and these relationships. And so in this episode, we're talking about some common questions we get about establishing healthy boundaries and open adoption relationships. We're so grateful for Alisha and the role that she's played, especially in helping us with our social media.
She was also the editor on the openness guide that Lanette just recently published. If you're interested in learning more about that, go to openadoptionproject.org and just scroll down and it'll be on the home page. And again, we're just really thankful for Alisha, for her help and volunteering to do so much. And we're just grateful for her to be in this episode as well. So we'll cut to the episode and conversation right now with Lanette and Alisha Gallagher.
We are here today with Alisha Gallagher. Alisha is our Director of Communications here at Open Adoption Project. She is fantastic and helps us keep things running here so smoothly. And Alisha is also a foster parent. Alisha, do you want to tell us a bit about yourself? Yeah, sure. I live in Alameda County in California. I've been a foster parent for four years. And the kids that are with us now, we are moving toward adoption with them.
So we have some fostering experience moving to adoption and really support everything that Lanette and Shaun talk about on open adoption. Awesome. So we're so honored to have you here talking today with us. As we talk about boundaries, this is such a big and challenging topic to discuss, honestly. I feel like it's probably one of our most frequently asked questions, questions regarding boundaries. How do I do this? And so I think it's an important thing to chat about.
But it's also really sensitive, right, and so individual. Yeah, it is. I think knowing what your own boundary is, because it will change from person to person, so knowing yourself well enough to set a boundary, knowing the people that you're trying to set a boundary with well enough. It's so unique, so the principles can feel so broad. But I wonder if that's why that's one of the most common questions that we get.
Yeah, well, and a relationship with one birth parent might be totally different than a relationship with another. And then there's other family members. And each of those relationships are going to be so individual, and just working with different people, different personalities. It looks different. And so it's challenging to paint a broad picture of how we approach setting boundaries when people are all so different and situations are different. But it's so true, important to talk about.
Yeah, so as we've chatted, me and Alisha, about what we want to share with you today, we've talked a little about how we first establish these boundaries, right? And establishing them from the beginning. So why do you think it's important, Alisha, for us to set boundaries from the start, or at least try to? The trying to, I think it's the trying to. Because I'm sure with your first adoption and our first experience in foster care, you know that setting boundaries is a good principle.
But how do you actually do it, and what should your expectations be? So I feel like at the beginning, it's a little more rigid, because you're just copy pasting what other people have done. And now you actually have to implement it, and so it's going to change over time. But I think you have to have something from the beginning in terms of amount of what level of communication.
The birth parent is expecting what they want, and then in that conversation, you're also able to express what you're wanting. So maybe at the beginning, it's more of just having that conversation about boundaries first. And then you can kind of feel it if they're uncomfortable or comfortable with something that you feel differently about. I love that. I think that's really good advice.
When Shaun and I were adopting for the very first time, we had a lot of these conversations with our social worker about setting boundaries, and we weren't really sure what to do or what that meant. So it's like you said, where we were kind of just doing what other people told us they did. And so I think we had this prescribed amount of visits we were going to do in a year.
It was like four visits a year or something like that, and we talked about this with these expectant parents, and they were chill with it. But as time went on, we were like, these aren't really the boundaries that this relationship needs. Interesting. We realized we're fine having you visit any time you can. And it doesn't need to be like this rigid calendar in this relationship. But maybe we should have been talking about other things instead. We didn't know because it was a new relationship.
So you felt like for you, you opened up a little bit more. Is that right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah, our experience in the foster care system is it involves boundary setting with so many different parties. So there's boundaries in terms of contact with the biological family members. Sometimes the caseworker will ask if you're comfortable letting them have your phone number. Other times, they might ask you to supervise a visit.
That's happened to us before, and we've had to assess our comfort level on that. Then there's also boundaries that the caseworkers who are needing a lot from you, can you give rides if a ride falls through? And then there's the children who might have grown up in a home that had different rules than you did. So it's baptism by fire to jump into it and then realize that you need to eventually learn what your boundaries are or you're going to burn out. Yeah. Yeah. I can totally imagine that.
Well, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds really challenging. And I feel like it's not quite as complicated on the domestic adoption side, but you do have all of these different relationships. And sometimes maybe the birth parents are together at first and then they break up. And you have these boundaries of I don't want to be the middleman in this relationship.
It's about the child and just trying to keep things focused on why these relationships matter, I think, is a really helpful compass for navigating it. But it doesn't mean we always know what the boundaries need to be in the beginning. So I think it's so important to try to establish these boundaries in the beginning and be really honest and clear about what you're expecting, but also recognize that we're not going to be able to anticipate everything we might need to talk about from the start.
Yeah, some flexibility and trust by then has hopefully been established. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So yeah, I think it's really important for us to be clear about expectations, be self-aware, and think about our own expectations so we can honestly communicate them, but also compassionately think about what the hopes and expectations of other parties are. And then also focus on the child. We've been talking about, right? We want to be focused on child well-being.
Open adoption should always be focused on adoptees. And so that can be a really hard tightrope, I think. Yes, yes, it can be. So I like what you said, though, that it's focused on the child. Because the boundary setting at the beginning between biological family members and the adoptive family, if you agree that this relationship and boundary work is worth it for the child, then you can always have that to come back to.
I don't know if you've experienced anything like that or heard of anything like that, Lanette. Yeah, so we get a lot of people asking us questions about, like, hey, this open adoption relationship has gotten really hard. And I just can't handle it anymore, right? I feel like it's just too much. It's overwhelming, and I can't do it. And I can relate to that, honestly, because some of these relationships are hard. They're emotionally taxing. They can be challenging sometimes.
Some personalities kind of clash a little more, and it might be challenging to work in some situations together in this way where you're really focused on the child. But it's also so important, right? It's so challenging because you need to be taking care of yourself, but you're focused on taking care of this child, and that's your number one in the openness.
Yeah, I was just going to ask, do you feel like when people are talking about being stressed and burned out, that that's a signal to set, like, define the boundary more clearly? Because if they feel like they're overextending themselves, then is that an opportunity to say, like, all of this level of contacts in this season is too much? Can an adoptive parent feel empowered enough to approach that? I think that that's a really challenging question.
I think maybe, but I also think that often, we, our culture, I think, is getting really good at recognizing the importance of self-care, but I think it also sometimes treads a little too close on the line of getting our priorities out of whack, right? And so if things are getting too challenging, maybe you need to say, hey, I need someone to help support me in making this open relationship more possible and plausible without it all being on my shoulders, right?
Like, maybe there's someone else who can step in and help, but I would be really cautious about receding openness just because it's feeling taxing on you. If there's an issue with safety or promises being broken, then those can be addressed because those are different issues, right? But if it's because it's so much emotional work for yourself to have this open adoption, then I think that's really a sign that you should talk to someone. And there should not be any shame in that, right?
And talking with a therapist and saying, hey, I'm trying to work through this. This is for my kid. It's really important. I'm invested in it, but I'm also feeling burnt out and I had to find a way to keep this relationship strong, but also take care of ourselves. Yeah, I really like that you said you could bring in other help. Because I think another disservice that some of narrative in Western culture, at least, is that moms can do it all, and they can do it all themselves. And they can't.
And I know that's one of the number one things. And open adoption project is that you are not enough, and that's OK, because you're not meant to do it all by yourself. So there are other people who can come in and help. But that maybe the burnout is a prompt to seek support instead of retreat. Yeah, absolutely. And I really think it's sad that our culture is so focused on trying to do it all, because we can't do it all.
But it really does take a village to raise a child and to sustain ourselves, too, I think. Yeah, yeah. I've had to have really honest conversations with our caseworker. She's wonderful. She visits us and the kids once a month. And in between, she's checking in on us. And she was seeing how I was handling a few things with this huge load.
We went from no kids to having three kids, and the life changes we were trying to make, while also supporting members of their biological family who we have grown close to. And she just said some really hard truths that I didn't think I was the type of person to say, no, it's fine. I can do it all, because people say it over and over again. You can't do it all. You should get help. But somehow, I had fallen into that. And so we're an offer for her. I think we've been in a very different place.
So ideally, we recognize it in ourselves and seek help. But if we can't, hopefully, there are other people around us that love us enough and care about us enough to say the things that are hard to say. Absolutely. I don't want to get too deep into this tangent, but I recently read an article about how adoptive parents often feel some shame or stigma from society that makes them feel like maybe less than parents. And I imagine this transfers to fostering as well.
And how it results in quite often feeling like they need to do more and how adoptive parents actually are more involved and spend more time helping volunteer at school and doing things with their children, spending time with them, how they're doing more, but also feeling like that's not adequate because of this societal stigma that they're trying to make up for it. And I think it's important to recognize we want to be excellent parents. Absolutely. We also can't do all the stuff. Right?
Yeah. It's like there's this perception that you have to make up for some loss that has happened in a very overworking fashion. And that's not accurate or sustainable. So to open it up a little bit more to think about boundaries and what's reasonable and healthy is probably healthier. Absolutely. And absolutely destigmatizing, getting help, getting support. So what do you think are the things that adoptive or prospective adoptive parents should think about when setting boundaries?
Like contact is probably number one. Are there other boundary setting things that? Yeah. So like contact frequency, styles, yeah. So based on questions we get from people who listen to the show, we've had a lot of people ask about social media usage and like, should we have conversations about? We should. The answer is yes. But should we have these conversations about, can birth parents post pictures? Like I don't post my child's pictures online, but is it OK for their birthday way to do that?
Like we need to have these conversations and have an honest and compassionate dialogue about our expectations there. I hate that this is on my list, but it's a big thing that comes up often too. Gifts can be a contentious topic sometimes. There's a lot of things like hospital expectations are something you need to really talk about with a social worker. Expectant parents should be talking about that with a social worker, not with adoptive parents.
But then adoptive parents need to know what the plan is so that they can support that plan and not add any different pressures or you know. So that's also on the list. There's a lot of things like religious and political preferences are often things people want to talk about. One thing that we get other questions about is immunizations and circumcision for when you have a new baby. Have those conversations ahead of time. Yeah, there's a lot to talk about.
Yeah, this is making me think of the openness guide to open adoption that you created, that you wrote that a lot of the FAQs are actually about boundaries. That you have a whole section on gifts and contact and disagreeing about different things. So yeah, it's a different kind of relationship. It's not as common in society to see how an open adoption works. And so people get caught up.
And I grew up in this kind of family, but now I have a family that requires more support and it includes more people. Yeah, yeah, and I just think it's so important to have those open walls for communication where people feel safe bringing up any concerns, including making sure that birth parents feel safe talking about any boundaries that they are needing or any concerns they're having.
I know that we've talked with one family where their child's birth mom was feeling really triggered as she got texts and pictures all the time of baby right after placement. And so she was like, you know, maybe I want these pictures. I want them, but I don't know if I can always handle them just popping up on my phone. And so maybe we can make a different account. You emailed them to me.
I still want all of them, but I just need to have this boundary where they're not coming in at all times because I'm still grieving and working through this process. Yeah. And that is different from Alexa, who we've interviewed on the podcast before. You had a great conversation with. And she talked about how she, it was shortly after she placed her baby for adoption, but that she wanted all of the pictures and all of the things.
And she even acknowledged that this is what I wanted, and somebody might need it different. And she might have different feelings after a couple of months. So for the birth parent to realize how they're responding to it and then feel comfortable approaching it is so helpful. Just that it sounds like the adoptive parent role is to make sure that they're feeling connected and open and comfortable so that those topics can be discussed. Yeah, absolutely.
So have you seen a change as you are preparing to adopt these kids that you have been fostering? Is there a change in how boundaries function in that shift? Yeah, it's a dramatic change, especially because we have such a close relationship with biological family members when the kids were reunified. So the kids that we have lived with us for a year and a half, there was an amazing year of reunification with biological family.
And then they came back to live with us, and parental rights were terminated. So we'll be adopting them in the next year. And it's uncomfortable, to say the least, to have to say, we used to have you over for Sunday dinners regularly. And we would bring the kids, and we would spend time together. We would have holidays together. And now, because of where things are, where you are in your life, this relationship has to change.
And we have to change these boundaries for the kids because it's difficult for them to, they're trying to get a sense of a new life. And there are just so many elements that go into it. So those conversations have only just in the last month or so been happening because it's still so fresh. And it's very taxing. It's very hard. And the number one thing that we have to consider is what is best for the kids. And that's, I mean, that sounds so obvious, saying it out loud now.
But when you also really care about the biological family and you want them to feel safe and supported and get the help that they need, then there are parts of you that want to make that the priority sometimes because it's such a more urgent need in some ways. And so we've had a lot of help from support groups and friends and therapists and family just to help us stay focused on what would be good for the kids and then set it up that way. Beautiful, but really hard.
Yeah, so on positivepsychology.com, they have these four steps for setting personal boundaries. And I thought it was actually a really helpful way to look at how we establish boundaries in our families. So the first one they have is to define, identify the boundary that you want to set. And then second, to communicate and share what's needed. And then they say to keep it simple. And then fourth is to set consequences and make sure that it's shared why this is important.
Yeah, is there, out of all these four, Lanette, one that you have either the most experienced with and feel really comfortable with or one that you struggle with the most that you want to talk about? I think setting boundaries can always be kind of uncomfortable, right? Because it's a very vulnerable thing. And you want to make sure that you're keeping love in the focus of this relationship, but also setting these boundaries. It's such a hard tightrope.
So yeah, for me, I would say it kind of fluctuates between the communication and the consequences. I would say usually communication is the hard one, because generally, there's not a need to set these firm consequences. But when there is, that's the hardest one for me. Because you, I mean, it's probably easier with your children to follow through with consequences. But when it's adults and relationships that you really care about, then it's just a different muscle that you're flexing.
Right, well, and yeah, with your children, it's expected, right, that there's going to be all of this learning curve. It's very up and down. And yeah, of course, you have to communicate and set boundaries all the time. But when it's with another adult, it can be a lot more challenging. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, how about you? Which one's hardest for you?
Defining, I think because it's so new right now in this new relationship, because before, most like the goals were, and the communication was determined by somebody else. It was kind of that there were elements in this relationship that the court is defining. That the goal is reunification. And to reach that goal, then you are obligated to bring the kids to these visits, support them in this way, have this level of contact with the biological family.
And now, once parental rights are terminated, the court is no longer involved in facilitating that relationship between the foster parent and the biological parent. So it's this definition stage of what is good for you, what's good for the kids, and what are we able to do to be a mediator in it. Yeah, it's super hard. Yeah, so I know that in our family, and in some of our friends' families, we've seen some of these unanticipated boundaries that need to be set later on.
And they're challenging, right, when you need to have these conversations later in the relationship. But one example is we had a family member who called on the phone and said, hey, can I come over right now? And we were like, yeah, that's great. We're happy to have you come over. And then they didn't show up. And this was a family member who hadn't been here for a long time. And their child was really excited to see them. And they got really upset with us.
Why aren't they here, angry at us, right? And it's so hard, because we really advocate for always speaking positively and kindly of both families, right? But also, you need to be honest, right? And so it's like, OK, we have this open door policy. This family member is invited to be here. But we can't make them come. And just trying to help our child understand, they love you. I'm sure they wanted to come. But something happened.
And there are different challenges in this relationship with communication, where maybe they didn't understand that this is really a hard thing for you. And so they're really challenging conversations to have. And so that's the kind of situation where I think it's so important to talk to that family member and say, hey, you were really missed. This really affected our child and was really hard for them. And so in the future, if you want to come visit, please tell us and not them.
And so if something comes up, we can manage that ourselves. We will be able to handle it. But it's not putting that on this child's shoulders where the disappointment is so crushing. Instead, they'll just be really happy if they can make it. That is so hard. Can we ask, since then, do you still feel good about the relationship? It was a positive conversation. We don't have to go there if you don't want to. Yeah, no, I think that when we have these conversations, the focus is on the child.
And our parents love them too. And so they can feel that this is coming from a place of we're trying to help this child. You love them. We love them. We're all trying to help them feel loved. And so I think that as long as that's clearly communicated, then it's felt. And so they can still be hard conversations. And it doesn't mean that it won't be a challenge in the future.
But being on the same page about why maybe this boundary is set where please talk to us instead, it just helps keep everyone on the same page. Yeah, well, I really like what you said at the beginning of this, that you said that setting boundaries is such a vulnerable thing. And that really struck me because I don't think people always think of boundary setting as vulnerable. You think of I'm setting a boundary. I'm putting up a fence.
I'm putting up a wall to protect what's within and defend against what's without. And that's not really the case. To set a boundary, you have to have some emotional awareness of what you're experiencing and what the other person is experiencing. And it's a meeting point instead of a division. And so I really like that shift to boundaries. Boundary setting is a vulnerable process. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like Brene Brown is a great voice on boundaries.
I would recommend any of her books because she talks about boundaries a lot. But yeah, it's really an exercise of vulnerability, I think, that Brene Brown is the one who actually said that originally. Yes. Credit to Brene. Yes. There's something, just with this fence analogy of boundaries, I've just been thinking about that setting up a boundary of any kind really does allow you to take better care of what's within that boundary. Starting a family is kind of like striking out west.
You're going out on this big adventure. And you have to decide where are you going to build your house and where are you going to put your fields and where is the barn going to go, where are we putting the chickens? And then you have to put a fence somewhere. And because if you don't have that, then you're looking out at the vast beyond. And you feel like you have to take care of all of it.
When really, if you have that boundary, that fence, then you can take better care of what you can take care of what's within that. It's not a great analogy. It always breaks down at some point. But just that caretaking of what's in that fence. Well, I think that it shows that the relationship's important to you. Not setting boundaries, I think, is an irresponsible way to address a really important relationship. Because you take care of what matters. And these relationships are so important.
And that's why setting boundaries is important. It's not like a punishment. It's a protection for everybody. Yeah, it's really true. I really love the book Crucial Conversations. Have you read it? I haven't. I have tried a few times, but then get distracted with other things going on. So I need to. Well, it's an excellent book. I feel like it's so helpful for navigating open adoption relationships and really any challenging conversations.
And so in the book, it talks about how these conversations that are high stakes, like something that you're really invested in that matters, like an open adoption relationship, these are crucial conversations. And so when you're faced with these really crucial conversations, it's really important. I mean, it talks about so many things. And we can't cover it all here. But it talks about how it's so important to speak in a way where you're not attacking.
You're trying to explain how you see it, but you also want to keep things open so that the other party can share how they're seeing it, what their experience is, so that you can both understand each other better and come together instead of becoming distanced or having this barrier between you. You want to understand where the other person's coming from, which I think is just so telling of what we want in open adoptions.
You want candid and respectful dialogues where both people are comfortable sharing. Yeah, that's very empathetic, really. Yeah. So any parting thoughts on how we address boundary setting in these relationships? I really think that it's really all about self-awareness first and really trying to hear the other person and what matters to them. Because I think a lot of people come to adoption, open adoption, foster care with their walls all the way up and a lot of uncertainty and fear.
And our response to fear is to just shut out everything that's unfamiliar and just do what we know. And that's not the way it should be done. There's a lot more softening and opening and welcoming and vulnerability that's required to have healthy relationships that have to start with really good boundaries and respect for each other. Absolutely. I love that. Well, and I love how earlier you were talking about how we want our focus to be on our kids, on these adoptees.
But how that can be challenging also when you come to really love their biological family too. And I think that it's so important to build that empathy and that relationship with birth family too as a bridge. And so I mean, it's like I agree with what you're saying about the priority is always the adoptee. But I also think it's so important to get to know the hearts of these family members and really have this genuine respect and love for them. Because it'll guide our boundaries better.
Yeah, that's really true. I'm glad you said that. Because there is also a lot of consideration that goes into like, am I like I want to support this family member and I also want to support and help my child. And so but like which version of my child am I trying to support right now? Is it the one right here right now that is struggling with having contact or is it the one that's 10 years down the road they're going to ask all these questions, why didn't you do more?
And so there is a lot of thinking about the future and that should be considered too. Because if we just do what we're comfortable with now, then we're not stretching. I think getting outside our comfort zones a little bit is just going to be inherent in these relationships that you don't have control over. You are there to help and support and love them and welcome them in. My goodness, I think that is the best note we could leave on. I love that perspective of thinking down the road.
All right, Alisha, thank you so much for being here. Yes, I'll always love talking to you. Thank you. I feel like discussions about boundaries are so important, but actually acting on these discussions and these points that we talk about can be really challenging. I know for you and me, it's hard, right, Shana? Yeah, I mean, we love our kids' birth parents a ton.
There's this balance that we have between the love that we show and also communicating really clearly things that are hard for us, right? And so in any relationship, communication can be difficult when it's something that we know might cause somebody to be sad or frustrated about a situation. But it's really important for us to communicate when there are issues or when there are things that ultimately affect the experience of our children.
Yes, and I think that's the most important thing to remember in these conversations, to keep it child-centric, to keep it focused on the well-being of the adoptee. Because I mean, there are so many things that you can say, oh, yeah, I feel like boundary discussions can get taken too extreme very easily. And as adoptive parents, it's pretty easy, I think, for us to say, oh, yeah, this might be affecting my zen, or I don't know, right?
Like, it's important to keep the focus on why boundaries matter. And it's not about us. It's about our kids. Yeah, it can be difficult sometimes to have the conversations that we need to. But we need to do it for the sake of our children. For example, if there's a birth parent who communicates to one of their child that they're going to come visit, and then they don't show, that can really affect the child, right?
And so maybe we just set this boundary and say, whenever we talk about setting up visits, let's just make sure it happens between us as parents, and that our kids don't know. And we'll just make it a surprise. Because maybe there are times where other things come up for you, and you're not able to make it, but you've already communicated to this child that you can make it, right? So that's an example of keeping the children centered around this boundary that we're creating.
Well, and I think that it's also important to recognize that boundaries can change, right? For sure. And so, yeah, maybe you have a birth parent who is struggling with something right now, and so there's some boundaries in place to keep things positive for adoptees. And then they get to a place where that's not a struggle now, and those boundaries are needed, right? And boundaries don't have to stay forever. So, yeah, keep them flexible, right? I don't know.
Keep that conversation open so that you're always evaluating what is going to be best for your child. I'm sure this will be part of a lot of future conversations that we continue to have, because it's an important aspect of open adoption relationships. But I'm super glad and grateful for this conversation, and I'm walking away with a lot. Yeah. So thank you so much for all of our listeners who submit questions to us so that we can talk about things like this on the podcast.
We are really excited to be jumping into some interviews in the next few episodes. We've been getting those ready and are so looking forward to sharing them with you. Yeah, so we should have some episodes coming out pretty consistently every other week for the next several weeks. And yeah, there are some really great people that you'll hear from. All right, well, thank you so much for listening and for being here with us. I'm Shaun, and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.