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Week4PublicPrivateInterpenetrationsGLBTQFamiliesandAdoption_ASEM_2_W22.pptxWeek 4: Public/Private Interpenetrations in the Adoptive Family; LGBTQ+ Families and Adoption
Week Four: ASEM 2696 Communication & Adoption
Course Learning Objective #5: Feel a sense of connection, community, and belonging with the professor and students in this course, continuing to learn from and with each other as DU students and alumni long after this course is over. [human dimension learning goal]
Please create a Name Card
Circle of Voices:
Restate your name for your peers
Answer:
What is your major?
If that wasn’t your major, what would your major be?
Professor Suter leads the circle
Week 1-3 Class Critical Incident Questionnaire ASEM-2 Student Summary Report, Jan. 26, 2022
Professor Suter Provides Summary
Pre-class learning activities
Deepen
Deepen understandings of how public discourses, norms, and institutions shape the “private” family
Read
Read: Ch. 3: Adoption: Private Decisions, Public Influences (pp. 55-72) in Making Families Through Adoption
Focus on
Focus on issues related to sexuality and the adoptive family
Read
Read: Suter, E. A. (2014). Communication in lesbian and gay families. In L. H. Turner & R. West (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of family communication (pp. 235-247). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (in Files)
View
View: Daddy & Papa Documentary (56 minutes) (Course Reserves) with viewing guide (files)
Engage
Engage with gay adoptee voices
Read “Finding the universal: Reflections on a multi-prismed identity” by Mark Hagland (files)
Week 4 In Class Reflection: Sentence completion Exercise Think-Pair-Share Format
Learning Objective: To ensure Week 4’s discussion connects to student concern.
1. THINK
Toggle to Canvas, Find Week 4 In Class Reflection.
Reflect on the sentences.
Choose whichever seems appropriate.
Complete the sentence (free-write 5 mins)
Post reply
When finished close laptop
2. PAIR
Triads discuss
Group chooses one concern, question, or insight
3. SHARE
Representative writes on board
Further whole group discussion
Professor Suter’s Mini Lecture
Family as both a private & public institution
duality of families as both private (intimate) and public (influenced by law, economy, etc.) predominant in adoptive families
Adoptions pass through courts, sending/receiving governments
“Visible difference” blurs p/p boundary
E.g., Racial differences;
e.g. Two parents of same sex
“heightened visibility”; “intrusive interactions”
Examples from Daddy & Papa?
Who Adopts?
“What has not changed is that a large majority of adoptive parents are white, older, well-educated, and relatively affluent.”
Influencing factors
Home Study: examples from Daddy & Papa?
Adoption Qualifications: e.g, prove have income and savings to pay adoption expenses & costs of child rearing
Systemic, socio-historical inequities in race, education, and class in U.S.
Characteristics of adopted children
Shift: until mid-twentieth century USonly children considered mentally and physically healthy adoptable.
Today:
all children considered adoptable in U.S.
US: “Age out” of the foster care system at 18
Increasing # of states allow children to stay in foster care after 18 up to 19, 20, 21
“special needs”
determined state by state
Special Needs as determined by state of Colorado
Physical disability (such as hearing, vision, or physical impairment; neurological conditions; disfiguring defects; and, heart defects).
Mental disability (such as developmental delay or mental retardation, perceptual or speech/language disability, or a metabolic disorder).
Developmental disability resulting in educational delays or significant learning processing difficulties.
Educational disability that qualifies for section 504 of the rehabilitation act of 1973 or special education services
Emotional disturbance (such as post-traumatic stress disorder, bi-polar disorder and other diagnoses).
Hereditary factors that have been documented by a physician or psychologist
High risk children (such as HIV-positive, drug-exposed, or alcohol-exposed in utero).
Other conditions that act as a serious barrier to the child’s adoption. Conditions may include, but are not limited to:
a healthy child over the age of seven
sibling group that should remain intact
medical conditions likely to require further treatment.
Ethnic background or membership in a minority group which may be difficult to place
US ADOPTION LAWS Impacting LGBTQ Families
States range in protections against discrimination in adoption based on sexual orientation
Currently 28 States, 1 Territory = D.C.: prohibits discrimination (57% of US LGBTQ families reside here)
Currently 11 states: permits state-licensed child welfare agencies to refuse to place and provide services to children and families, including LGBTQ people and same-sex couples, if doing so conflicts with their religious beliefs (20% reside here)
Learn about your state:
Movement Advancement Project. "Equality Maps: Foster and Adoption Laws." https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/foster_and_adoption_laws (January 21, 2022).
Public Discourses of lesbian & Gay Adoption
Discourse of Heteronormativity
Narrates
natural, normative, family ties created through heterosexual sex between child’s parents
Discourse of Homophobia
More fear-based than heteronormativity
Narrates fears such as:
LGBTQ parents
“unfit”
“untrustworthy around children”
“will turn their kids queer”
How voiced in Daddy & Papa?
Discourse of Doing Family
Narrates
Family is created by:
“doing”: ordinary family interactions
“acting” e.g., care & support
“loving”: mutual exchanges of love
Invites external recognition of family status
e.g., validates 2 daddies
private Discourses of LGBTQ Adoption
Discourse of Internalized Heteronormativity
Internalized marginalization of LGBTQ+ parents “lesser-than" heterosexual parents,
“gay” & “father” as incompatible
heightened self-scrutiny of parenting
Internalized sense of having to prove themselves as parents
Ex’s from Daddy and Papa?
Discourse of Polymaternalism
Children can have more than one authentic mother
Denaturalizes biological motherhood
Meaning allows for motherhood outside genetic ties
Transformative potential
radical potential for kinship
creativity in envisioning best-interests of the child
Forecasting: Thursday’s Assignment Disc board Post 1
CanvasAssignmentsDiscussion Post 1
