…a note from Ellen:As an AMS ambassador, I value the connections I’ve made with other adoptees, though I sometimes struggle to articulate my lived experience. I’ve moved beyond viewing adoption as simply “the best choice for me” and now hold a more nuanced, complex relationship with my story. From this perspective, the objects I’ve collected related to my adoption help me process my evolving identity. At last month’s first show-and-tell event, I invited four adoptees to share artifacts from their lives before adoption - one adoptee talked about a VHS tape from her foster family that she hasn’t watched in decades. Another spoke about uncovering her birth mother’s family history, navigating race and identity in ways that reshaped her self-understanding. A third described her father’s long legal effort to find her, while another reflected on newly accessible records that had been withheld for years. Thinking back to childhood show-and-tell sessions, selecting and sharing something personal can elevate its meaning. What may feel confusing or heavy alone becomes easier to accept within a safe environment.
Creating room for adoptees to bring these objects into conversation connects individual experiences to a shared understanding. It also reminds us that our stories are not fixed; meaning can shift as we revisit what we carry, in our own time.
Email info@adopteementorship.org if you’d like to be added to the waitlist for future show-and-tell events. I absolutely love hosting the events.
Ellen Reeve, PhD
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