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Who deserves to be a parent?

Adoption has long been celebrated in our culture - but do we need to think about it more critically?
Frank Martin/BIPS/Hulton
Adoption has long been celebrated in our culture - but do we need to think about it more critically?

Our culture loves to celebrate adoption stories - and a lot of state governments put millions into promoting it. But adoptees and birth parents are opening up online about "coming out of the fog" - a term for becoming more openly critical of adoption, or facing the grief within their adoption stories.

November is National Adoption Month, and Brittany Luse takes a closer look at how adoption functions in our culture by examining the supply side of adoption - the birth parents. She's joined by Gretchen Sisson, the author of Relinquished: the Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood. They dive deep into the stories told about birth parents, and how our culture decides who deserves to be a parent.

Copyright 2024 NPR

Brittany Luse
Brittany Luse is an award-winning journalist, on-air host, and cultural critic. She is the host of It's Been a Minute and For Colored Nerds. Previously Luse hosted The Nod and Sampler podcasts, and co-hosted and executive produced The Nod with Brittany and Eric, a daily streaming show. She's written for Vulture and Harper's Bazaar, among others, and edited for the podcasts Planet Money and Not Past It. Luse and her work have been profiled by publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vulture, and Teen Vogue.
Liam McBain
Liam McBain (he/him) is an assistant producer on It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders. He's interested in stories at the margins of culture.
Barton Girdwood
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
Jasmine Romero