Whatever Next?: On Adult Adoptee Identities

404 Inklings #10

by Josephine Jay, Adaline Bara, Hannah Feben-Smith

For adoptees, the word ‘lucky’ gets thrown around a lot. They’re regularly told they’re lucky to not be in an orphanage, lucky to have been brought into a family, lucky to be adopted at all. Often they’re depicted in media as being broken, in need of saving and fixing. Then they’re expected to become the hero of their own journeys and overcome their origins.

Whatever Next? considers how these traditional narratives surrounding adoption have both dominated and damaged adoptive communities for many years, and what we should do to avoid these pitfalls.

Inspired by the conversations within their Whatever Next? community project, Jo, Addie and Hannah explore the key tropes that adoptees grapple with and how these conversations are evolving, with the goal of kickstarting new dialogues around the adoption experience more broadly, and showcase how beneficial shared discussion can be.

Genres: Nonfiction, Adoption

120 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2022

Reviews

[Jean Menzies · Rating 4 out of 5]

It only recently dawned on me how little of the media that deals with adoption is about the children’s experiences - it is the parents’ narrative - and this book is a great example of why that needs to change!

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 5 out of 5]

The multiple perspectives add so much to this topic. I also like this book is processing a topic and does not give the answers. Certainly a really good quick read that other adoptees would find comforting and thought provoking

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great Inkling, again I went in knowing very little on the subject of international interracial adoption and after reading this I’m glad my first critical interaction with it came from the perspective of three adult adoptees. I can easily see how the narrative around adoption is controlled by parents, social workers, and a media with little to no direct personal experiences. The only adoptees I know (to my knowledge) are now adults with their own children, and I am somewhat aware of the identity issues they’ve experienced as they’ve gotten older, without the added complexity these three women have of being interracially adopted.

Something really interesting is the young age of the three authors. All undoubtedly adults with complex and informed opinions, I always think about what my very intelligent and insightful friend Kristen thinks about when she reads memoir and non-fiction: has the author fully come to terms with and/or processed their trauma before writing? With the Whatever Next? project I think the whole point is the changing relationship with, and on going process of, being an adult adoptee and therefore Jay, Bara, and Feben-Smith are in the perfect positions to write about their experiences so far while also providing opportunity for them to revisit this work later and assess how things have developed for them.

Often Inklings have interesting, easily digestible structures and this was no different. The writing and editing is of high quality, I found no errors.

[Genevieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously I'm biased because my pal Jo is one of the writers (and I'm credited in the acknowledgements eeeek!!!) BUT friendship loyalties aside, this is such a fascinating exploration and analysis of the different narratives surrounding adoptees - from 'lucky' to 'broken' to 'heroic'. Particularly fascinating were the references to popular culture (which is packed with more adopted characters than you might think). Part of the wonderful inklings series ✨ well done Hannah, Addie and Jo!

[em de · Rating 5 out of 5]

as an ivf by donor baby, this was a super interesting read. in many ways, this is the closest i’d felt to feeling seen for this curious part of my identity, though i recognise that a large number of the curiosities related to international adoption simply do not apply to me.

this shone light on an interesting part of the world, adoption is common and narratives are entrenched in popular media. i would truly have never questioned these if not for this book. i enjoyed how this crossed adoption with other social standings or issues: race, socioeconomic background, the backsliding of reproductive rights.

short, well structured and a super interesting read. 5/5 !

[tia · Rating 4 out of 5]

super short and interesting read. it unpacked three narratives that are constantly mentioned alongside adoptees in the media and was super enlightening. it also packed in a lot of info even though it’s such a small book which was very impressive.

[Libby Low · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a brilliant series of essays depicting the experience of being an adoptee and growing up in a Western culture.
We so little hear from the point of the adoptee in these narratives, outside of the fictionalised 'hero' narrative detailed in this book (I doubt it'll take more than a minute for you to think of at least five adoptees/orphans in movies and books), and this book does a wonderful job of altering the perspective we have been shown our whole lives.

[Philtatos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as someone who only knows people who were adopted; it challenges the tropes we have for adoptees in our narratives and media. It is written by three adoptee adults.

[Martin Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic series of essays combining the authors' own experiences with a wider discussion of the narratives surrounding adoption. Disclaimer: I'm not an adoptee. My closest connection is being named after my grandfather's adoptive parents. But this book was very accessible, and addressing these narratives requires we all get on board. I learnt a lot and, like the authors, I hope to continue solving my own Rubik's cubes.

[Hanna Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like the courage of these three adoptees exhibited speaking on their transracial adoptee experience was inspiring and meaningful to those who are also affected by adoption tropes.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and eye opening!

I felt it was ever so slightly let down by it seeming a bit repetitive, but am wondering if that’s the nature of a book structured this way with three authors.

[Littlebookterror · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know you cannot do everything in 120 pages but I was hoping for a little more substance. Aside from the constant but unexplained references to Whatever Next?, their podcast, this felt very surface-level in its exploration of adoptee narratives in media (and of course, we can't go without HP either) and personal feelings towards labels like "lucky". The last part was the most interesting if only because the 3 authors were talking from personal experience.

In the introduction they talk a lot of about disagreements and struggles on how to structure this work as to where it stands in the larger narratives surrounding adoption, transracial and otherwise, yet we don't get to see anything of that in the actual text.



This reads more like supplemental material but does not stand on its own merit despite clearly having important things to say.

[Dannie Lynn Fountain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book discussed "Adult Adoptee Identities" and does an incredibly powerful job of discussing the impact of adoption in adulthood for international adoptees. I did learn a lot from the perspectives shared, and at the end of the book, it was acknowledged that adoption journeys are like a Rubik's Cube (hence the cover) - there are 43 quintillion possible outcomes. However, despite that acknowledgement, adoption via avenues other than international placement didn't come up at all (I don't think) in this book. My own adoption journey was domestic and due to CPS involvement, an unfortunately common foster-to-adoption scenario, and wasn't represented at all. In short, I learned a lot from this book but the title misleads the depth to which diverse adoptee perspectives are covered.