Love, Resilience, and Adoption in LGBTQ Families
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Cathy Worthington:Welcome to Late Boomers, our podcast guide to creating your third act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Kathy Worthington.
Merry Elkins:And I'm Mary Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference in the world.
Cathy Worthington:Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey our guests have taken to get where they are, inspiring you to create your own path to success. Let's get started.
Cathy Worthington:Hello. I'm Kathy Worthington welcoming you to our latest episode of late boomers. Today, our guest will be covering a topic I think we have never done before. His name is Lane Egutin.
Merry Elkins:And I'm Mary Elkins. Lane is the author of a memoir called A Family, Maybe. He tells the story of fostering and adopting from a perspective of what it's like to raise multicultural children in the first generation of out gay families. He knows about the struggles that come with fostering and then adopting, and we look forward to hearing his per step his perspective on this. Welcome, Lane.
Lane Igoudin:Thank you for having me here.
Cathy Worthington:Great to have you. You're very welcome. We wanna hear a little bit to set the tone. You said you had a a a first chapter of your book that you would like to share with us
Cathy Worthington:and set the tone
Cathy Worthington:for the podcast.
Lane Igoudin:Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. My book is called a a family maybe. That's what it looks like. And we got our kids on it when they were more like pre preteens or toddlers.
Lane Igoudin:But, yeah, so I'm going to read the first chapter from my book. It's called curbside delivery. Well, she kinda describes what what was happening. It's it's the very beginning of the chapter, of the book. So I guess I'll just start from the beginning.
Merry Elkins:Yeah, please.
Lane Igoudin:It was on a hot early summer afternoon, just before the breezes would begin blowing inland from the ocean, that Jonathan shot me an irritated sideways glance. Where is she? Didn't she say early in the morning? That was hours ago. What's taking her so long?
Lane Igoudin:A six foot three athlete with the face of the Bridgerton lead, my partner Jonathan was lining up daisy patterned onesies and burp cloths by the bassinet in a baby room. I had heard him vacuum in this this room earlier and before that tidying up the crib and the toys in the green bedroom upstairs. Patience, dear, I sighed. Give her a few more minutes. She should be on her way.
Lane Igoudin:Like John, I was trying to control my anxiety by being useful, yet I couldn't help rushing to the window every time I heard a car drive by. Jackie Willis, our designated Los Angeles County Social Worker, was neither here nor responding to my calls. Did the county change its mind? Did they release the baby to her mother, Jenna? We had been living with this uncertainty for months.
Lane Igoudin:Jenna was due around Memorial Day. But with office closures and Jackie out on medical leave, the baby could have gone to the wrong home. But that Memorial Day, I received a phone call from Babushka, my Russian speaking grandmother. Mazel tov, she announced. Your Jenna gave birth today.
Lane Igoudin:Well, how on earth do you know that? We've heard nothing from the county. I just know, she said in her raspy, confident voice. Takstonyvalnois is Samovidish. Don't worry.
Lane Igoudin:You'll see it for yourself. I relayed her announcement to John, and he chuckled at my dear 84 year old grandma, our closest ally in the family. I chuckled too, but deep down, I felt even more anxious. What if she was right? I had no experience raising a newborn, nor did John.
Lane Igoudin:Zero. We had been trained and certified, but that was all just textbook training. We were really about to become caretakers of a tiny fragile life, %, twenty four seven. What were we getting ourselves into? Three days later, a social worker called from the hospital with the news that the baby had been born on Memorial Day at noon, just as Babushka had said, but she couldn't be released yet.
Lane Igoudin:She had sepsis, a potentially fatal blood infection, and had to be put on medication. Other arrangements had already been made by Jackie's Department of Children and Family Services. The newborn would not be released to her mother. Instead, she would be detained, that is put in the court's protective custody and placed with us as her emergency foster home. The baby would remain with us as her long term foster parents, while Jenna would be given an opportunity and resources to reunify with her child.
Lane Igoudin:Sepsis made it easier for the county to carry out its plan. Jenna recovered quickly and was discharged home to continue, as we were told, with her drug rehab and counseling. Meanwhile, the baby was improving on antibiotics while the court on the on the department on the county request formally detained her. But Jenna came back to breastfeed, and the nurse leaked the secret. Devastated and desperate, Jenna refused to leave, pleading with the staff to let her take her baby home.
Lane Igoudin:On June 6, the phone rang. I'm on my way to the hospital, Jackie yelled over the freeway in the background. Jenna still there? Oh, yes. Still there, camped out, refusing to leave.
Lane Igoudin:She knows I'm coming to get the baby. Poor Jenna. I couldn't imagine how she would feel or what she would do once Jackie got there. My chest tightened, and it was becoming real for us too. After all these months really real, our life was going to split into before and after.
Lane Igoudin:At 04:30, a black SUV pulled up to the curb in front of our house. Jackie? John ran out the front door. I followed him out on the onto the porch into the blindingly bright afternoon. Jackie didn't hand the baby over, but waited for John to take her out of the car seat inside her vehicle.
Lane Igoudin:Liability reasons, I assume. In John's hands, the baby looked small like a small, like a delicate light brown doll, her face not bigger than John's palm. All she had on was a pink onesie with the word baby embroidered embroidered in white across the chest. Oh. Despite my hesitations, a strong affection washed over me the moment I saw her, barely awake, helpless, innocent.
Lane Igoudin:And John just melted. Eyes on the baby, breathlessly, he carried her into the house. Jackie looked a bit shaken. Jenna had confronted her in the parking lot yelling, accusing her of betrayal. Jackie handed me the cooler bag with several bottles of formula and a three inch binder with medical information and placement papers.
Lane Igoudin:The baby and the bag. No black baby blanket. Nothing else.
Merry Elkins:Oh.
Lane Igoudin:Then she glanced at her watch and said, I gotta go, guys. Trying to beat the rush hour. I thanked her. Jackie got back into her SUV and left. It was done.
Lane Igoudin:I found John inside in the hallway, standing still with a baby in his arms, awestruck. Keeping eyes on her, he passed the infant to me, Then he picked up his car keys from the dining room table and headed out. I knew he would be back in a few minutes and not alone. In my arms, the baby felt warm and heavy, an unfamiliar weight. And she was whispering whimpering.
Lane Igoudin:She was whimpering. She was hungry, I assumed. So I sat down on the couch, and Kraline, the little girl, gave her a feeding from one of the disposable formula bottles left by Jackie. While she sucked from the blue bottle nipple, I moved with my index finger a slick of her slick lock of her hair to the side of her forehead. What a lovely baby.
Lane Igoudin:She had a full head of raven black curly hair that receded in civility fuzz on her forehead and chin. Bumpy rosacea the spots dyed her plump cheeks. Her eyes, as dark as John's, had almost no eyelashes, and the scarlet birthmark smudged her left eyelid. Her gaze seemed unexpectedly focused and introspective as if while looking at me, she was thinking of something else. How long will she be with us?
Lane Igoudin:What will the court what will the court do with her and her mother? I wondered. I was still feeding the baby when the front door opened, and in walked John with a toddler holding him by the index finger, her cheeks rosy after a day of play at her preschool, the baby's older sister, Mariana.
Merry Elkins:Oh, instant family. Chapter.
Lane Igoudin:That's the
Cathy Worthington:first chapter. Oh,
Merry Elkins:I can't bring these to read more. We are.
Lane Igoudin:We've got a newborn, and we got a pre toddler, a 20 year old, her sister, also with us.
Merry Elkins:Woah. Well, that's a handful or two. Mhmm. How how did you and your partner, Jonathan, decide that fostering was the way to go? It's hard, isn't it?
Lane Igoudin:Especially It was all new.
Merry Elkins:Extended the two babies at once.
Lane Igoudin:It was all new. It's just the two of us. You know, I helped to raise my younger sister who is, who was eight years younger than I was. And I always wanted to be a father. That's something I I always saw in my future, really.
Lane Igoudin:I I knew I was gay, and I kind of saw myself as a father with two kids, as a single father with two kids. Well, I ended up being a married father with two kids. But still, I mean, I always wanted to be a dad. And at the time, when we went into the process, we had multiple options open to us. As you know, we could, we could have gone through surrogacy, that was that was available.
Lane Igoudin:And we could have done that because we were both a professional couple, you know, with with with income. We could have gone internationally. We could have adopted a child from from another country. And but we thought why should we do this when when we, you know, we we live in in in Los Angeles County. We live in Long Beach, California, which is part of Los Angeles County.
Lane Igoudin:And at that time and today still, Los Angeles has the largest foster care system in the country.
Cathy Worthington:Really?
Lane Igoudin:At at the time yes. Yes. And at that time, in 02/2004, '2 thousand '5, Los Angeles had more than 30,000 kids in this foster system. And we thought, why should we go and travel and and all that when when there's so many kids that actually need a home right probably right down the block from where we live? So we went into the system very sort of, like, clear eyed.
Lane Igoudin:Let's help the world. Let's open you know, and then give them a permanent forever family. And, so that's how we ended up going into it. I'll be honest, and my book is very frank and honest, Jonathan wasn't always on board with that. He did not want to have children at the beginning.
Lane Igoudin:So it took a took a took a while for him to get into it. But once he did, he was a he's been a very, very dedicated father. The baby that you see us bringing in as a curbside delivery that day into the house grew up almost literally in John's chest because he would be he would be anywhere. You know, he will go everywhere with her, and she'll be right here with her ear on his on his heart. He'll be vacuuming.
Lane Igoudin:He'll be cooking. He'll be, you know, running the laundry or his computer, and she'll be right here. So there was, like, this very, you know, went straight from the hospital into to into his arms. And yeah, so that's how we started. We went into the process.
Lane Igoudin:Yeah. We got certified, had our parents in classes, you know, had our live scan, all that we were all fine. You know, our homestead was all fine. And things started to go wrong very early on. And I decided to start to document this because I had no idea that things may might not work out the way they're supposed to.
Lane Igoudin:And I thought, okay. Okay. Well, once this whole process is over, I will share this experience with with with other, you know, prospective parents. It's just for the people who want to know what it's like to go through the foster system and then adopt out of foster system.
Cathy Worthington:In in hindsight, what do you wish you knew about the adoption process before you started it?
Lane Igoudin:Well, I wish I'd we'd been a little bit more prepared for it. You know, I wish we what what I say is, you know, I'd I'd tell prospective parents that, you know, you should expect unexpected because there are so many, because, you know, public adoption is a very complex process with multiple parties involved. So you've got the birth parents. You've got the the county, which detain the children that the county are, you know and the children are are in in the custody of of the county. You've got the judge.
Lane Igoudin:You've got the children's attorney. And so we've got all these multiple parties, none of whom, except for the birth parents, would ever actually get to meet the children.
Merry Elkins:Mhmm.
Lane Igoudin:And they all are making decisions. They're making deals and all these things. And so and all of that happens behind the closed doors of the children's court because because unlike regular courts, you know, if you're not one of the parties to the case, you have no access to to the proceedings. So, the more the further down we went into the the the more we with the the further we got into the process, the more we realized how powerless we are, over the decision making concerning the children's the children that we're raising, you know, which we went into the process wanting to adopt the children. So we we didn't really plan to foster.
Lane Igoudin:We planned to foster to adopt. And what we're told that the baby at the time was actually the older child would go straight up for adoption. Well, that didn't happen. She actually, you know, things got much more complicated than that. And so we ended up in this process where we're very, really powerless to to do anything about the children that we're that we were were attached to.
Lane Igoudin:They only know us as their parents. And we're in it week after week, month after month, and as it happens, year after year. And Yes. Because a lot of
Cathy Worthington:a lot of fostering does not result in adoption. Right. So you went in expecting to adopt the foster children, but that very often doesn't happen. And I think it break breaks the heart of everyone involved
Lane Igoudin:because Absolutely.
Cathy Worthington:You have to give back the child.
Lane Igoudin:Absolutely. And the whole idea of being a a foster adoptive parent parent, there is a dilemma. You know? There I mean, there's there's a tension between you know? To foster means you you you, you know, you take care of them, you get paid, and then you give them up when when the county tells you you give them up.
Lane Igoudin:Right? Usually, to the to the to the to the birth family. When you adopt somebody, you you're taking a child to raise it as your own for and and to be their family forever, and you don't want anybody else involved in it.
Merry Elkins:Yeah. Well, how did it invent your relationship with your partner, Jonathan?
Lane Igoudin:Well, what's interesting is that, hard and I would say in some ways traumatic as the experience was, it brought us closer together. Mhmm. Because it was just the two of us. You know, we did not have our extended family involved, really, you know, John's parents passed away, you know, and he at the time, he went to the prosecutor, he was 43. You know, I was a little bit younger.
Lane Igoudin:And, my, you know, my family lives in in in Northern California. And as you will find out very early on as you as you as you read my book, my mother refused to help us. You know? I have a very sort of complicated relationship with my mom. I'm much closer to my dad and my grandmother.
Lane Igoudin:So it's just just the two of us. So we had to basically pick up the slack, you know, wherever it was. And, and so that's how it's it was throughout their childhood, you know, it was just the two of us working full time and then raising two kids. And, but I would say that we we also, grew kind of a supportive network of of friends and, I would say, primarily moms. Moms in our neighborhood.
Lane Igoudin:You know? And, you know, I'm I'm, you know, I'm kind of getting off on a lot of tangents here. But but, you know, we yeah. Because there are other parents with kids of of our kids' age, and we naturally bonded with them. And, you know, we were helping each other.
Lane Igoudin:You know? Hey. I'm running late. Can you pick up my kids? You know?
Lane Igoudin:Hey. You know? I I have this, this, and that. Do you have it in your house? So so, yeah, it became kind of a very sort of lively network, which continues, honestly, to this day.
Lane Igoudin:You know? We just went out with fabulous. Yeah. To a show with with with the parents of of of another, you know and and most of them are, you know, just straight months. It also, I think, was good because, you know, I'm asked like, now I'm giving interviews about our experience, and and people sometimes ask, well, you know you know, is it do you really believe that there should be a, you know, a mom and a dad in in the household to to have a child that grows up to be healthy, you know, and all that?
Lane Igoudin:And, honestly, I don't believe that. I believe it takes a responsible adult, a responsible functioning adult, whoever that adult is. I was raised by my grandparents, more so than my my my my my my mom and dad, but my but my I I grew up with my grandparents. So it takes a responsible adult. However, to, you know, to to to do the caretaking and all the physical, physiological, all that and and love and give all that and that sense of, you know, strength and safe safety and security.
Lane Igoudin:But, I also believe that a child should be exposed to the role models of their gender. So in our case, my sister, at the time, she was alive. She passed away later on. But so she was present in in our kids' lives. You know, we have, you know, met Shamat dinners.
Lane Igoudin:You know? And so she would always come over. But also these moms that I mentioned, you know, there are strong women, you know, running families, and that's what our daughters grew up seeing. You know? That's what, you know, who you should be.
Lane Igoudin:You should be a strong woman in this society knowing you know, knowing, knowing who you can be and and what you should do. So so that's that's your own community. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.
Cathy Worthington:How would you say the challenges that you faced in the early two thousands differ from the ones that adoptive families might face today? And tell us if the adoption process has changed at all for better or for worse.
Lane Igoudin:Well, I wish I could tell you something very, very positive about it, But I would say that the it and it's it's essentially, the the process hasn't changed much. Mhmm. And the struggles we face as adoptive parents in a system which really is designed to return the children to their birth families no matter what, And it's only in the situation where it's not possible. You know, children get onto what's called the concurrent planning, the on on on the on the parallel track, which is either adoption or long term foster care. That process hasn't really changed.
Lane Igoudin:You know? It's still very much the same, you know, and pretty much every step of the way. In some ways, I would say it got even more strict. There's been a lot of, I mean, adoptive families are still I still, view it as kind of less than and the unwanted outcome, I should say. And it really breaks my heart because because that's not how I believe it's the whole thing should be.
Lane Igoudin:Right. You know, I believe that from the moment the child is is is is is, removed from their birth family for all these criteria that they have to fulfill in order to do it. Believe me, the state doesn't want your children. A state like California, you know, which is already overburdened with with, with tens of thousands of children, does not want any additional cases and and all the cost and that that it entails. You know, social workers have far too many cases on their desks.
Lane Igoudin:Court children's, children's court judges have far too many cases to handle. They don't want their children. But if they have to remove the child, I believe that from the get go, there should be they they're called concurrent concurrent planning. It should be concurrent planning. They should plan for the return of the child to the birth family, but also to to make sure that the family that they're in is is supported and and respected and given as many resources as everyone else, which was not the case with us.
Lane Igoudin:So, unfortunately, it hasn't changed much.
Merry Elkins:Mhmm.
Lane Igoudin:As for us as as gay parents, because we were like the first generation of of of of our gay parents out there. It has changed. We do have, equal rights in in all 50 states. But of course, that can also be taken away. And we may end up being exactly what we were twenty five years ago.
Lane Igoudin:So hopefully, that won't change.
Merry Elkins:Knock on wood.
Lane Igoudin:Let's hope so. Let's hope so. Yeah. Because back back then back then, throughout this whole process, we remained two single individuals. Jonathan and I, even though we'd been together for for a while at that point.
Lane Igoudin:But but still, you know, raising two related children. You know, we're raising two sisters being completely known to each other in the in the hands of the federal government. And if we were to take these children, even when they we adopted them jointly, you know, if we were to cross the state line into some states, our, parental rights could have been taken away. It was quite crazy back then. So we won't go back to that.
Lane Igoudin:But, but I'm hopeful things things will will work out. But unfortunately, this whole process is hasn't changed much. No. So I think that's important for whoever is considering that they they know what they're dealing with. It's a system which has a lot of unknowns and a lot of, ideologies, which made it the way it is.
Lane Igoudin:So
Merry Elkins:Mhmm. Well, on on a different note, you are Russian Jewish, and your husband, Jonathan, is African American, and your kids are part Hispanic and mixed race. So And
Lane Igoudin:white. You know? White. The mother is white.
Merry Elkins:How many do you have now? I have to ask. Two.
Lane Igoudin:Well, we say, well, I have two. Okay. And Good. So how how do you manage all these cultures
Merry Elkins:in one family? It must be quite interesting to deal with all those cultures in one family. And and also, how did your Jewish faith and heritage become part of your nurturing process?
Lane Igoudin:You know, this actually preceded, us deciding to have children. When John and I met, and and he is, African American, also mixed race, And myself, I I am I am Jewish. We we decided that whatever you bring into the relationship, we will honor it. And so it never bothered me that bothered me that John would put up a Christmas tree or, you know, we have Christmas presents and for, you know, Easter, you know, the the, the the Easter icon. I mean, it's perfectly fine.
Lane Igoudin:That's And
Merry Elkins:your kids love it.
Lane Igoudin:Do it. And they love it. Yeah. They love it. They would help them put up the the the ornaments.
Lane Igoudin:You know, we started having, you know, like, when we moved in together, we started having Shabbat dinners, and then my sister would join us. So it was before the kids before the kids. So sort of it was a natural transition. And my my husband, you know, he hasn't converted to Judaism, but he helped me raise them Jewish. What I believe in, and, honestly, is that for the children whose biological roots have been cut because ours is a closed adoption, You know, so it's that there is no connection to the biological family besides the biology itself.
Lane Igoudin:So I think it's important for them not feel that they're, like, out there sort of floating and then sort of a vacuum. I usually use the metaphor of of our children children being grafted onto our family trees.
Merry Elkins:Oh, so That's fantastic.
Lane Igoudin:That they're being yeah. And and and, you know, John's family, you know, they they come out from Central California quite a bit. So so so and and and he is, you know, he is, he has a very, very, rich history, you know, African American culture and history very much present in our household. And so they feel like, okay, we're we're part of that too. You know?
Lane Igoudin:And then raised Jewish. They're that, that's that's the faith that they grew up with. And I think today I don't know if you guys know about this, but especially living here in Los Angeles, we have this kind of a kind of a rising sense of, like, being what what what it means to be Jewish, like, being, the race with the sense of being Jewish women of color. Because we do have quite a lot of inter you know, interracial marriage in my community and and and people converting from outside of, outside of the community. So so they're they're definitely not alone.
Lane Igoudin:They don't feel they don't feel in any way, so, like, oh, you know, been different. You know, believe me out here, it's it's it's it's it's very common. But they do have that that connection to to God and and to to faith and and to to the tradition, but also to the communities where it came from. We did expose them as much as we could to to the Hispanic culture because they are part Latina. You know?
Merry Elkins:What did you do?
Lane Igoudin:What did we do? Okay. So, the the the the the preschool that went to had Hispanic staff, and so we asked them to speak Spanish to them. We we had them enrolled in summer camps at the Museum of Latin American Art here. We've we've got to Dylan, we've got to great lengths.
Lane Igoudin:I used we used to paint our faces for for day of the dead and march in the procession. It was fun. But, ultimately, they've been exposed to that. We've been to Central to to Mexico and Central America with them. At the end of the day, I would say up until now, I think I'm much more excited about it than they are.
Merry Elkins:But but
Lane Igoudin:I feel you know? And and I've taken Spanish in school, and then so so they they they do know the language. And then we live in the in the culture where it's it's it's right it's all right here. So it's like they've been exposed to that. Now that they're adults, you know, it's up to them to decide how how much they want to be part of it.
Lane Igoudin:I don't see too much interest, to be honest. But but if they want to connect, I mean, it's with with with with with those with those roots, I mean, it's it's there. It's there for them. It's available to them, and we've exposed them. I feel like my my job as a parent has been done in terms of exposing them when they're children, but now they're adults to make decision.
Cathy Worthington:For sure. And I wanted to ask you a very, maybe, touchy question.
Merry Elkins:But do
Cathy Worthington:you do you have new fears now with our new administration, the stand on LGBTQ rights?
Lane Igoudin:I do. I do. I see what happened to the adoption rights. And I'm I I'm afraid it might go down the same route because it takes one Supreme Court decision to to undo the 2015 Obergefell, court case, which which, allowed, you know, same sex marriage in all 50 states. So I am definitely worried.
Lane Igoudin:I also see that this new generation of the LGBTQ youth sort of grew up in the years of of, of, tolerance. And and they take a lot of things for granted, which we didn't because we did not grow up in that sort of environment. We had to fight Mhmm.
Merry Elkins:For our
Lane Igoudin:rights. And that part of that actually, is is in my book too, the sort of, like, coming of age. Because what happened is our family story overlaps with the struggle for for for same sex marriage and just for for for equality. And when we went into we're kinda, like, under the radar. You know, there there was a few states which would allow gay men to adopt as as individuals or as couples, but but a lot of states wouldn't.
Lane Igoudin:So, like but as as a struggle sort of on, you know, on, you know, as as a struggle, kind of came into the public spotlight, so did the gay families. And so that's the the save the children argument is just
Cathy Worthington:what Right.
Lane Igoudin:I'm afraid. So so we we were very much part of it, you know, and I and I do do, describe how we were we were, you know, yeah. We did a lot of things. You know? We're all the way to the judiciary committee of the senate to testify about our family story, to be honest, and trying to overturn.
Lane Igoudin:Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. We did a lot.
Lane Igoudin:And I'm I'm afraid we might be back. And, but but I also believe, honestly, I I've spoken on in some very conservative, I would say, radio shows and, and some podcasts where where my audience would not be what you would expect expect it to be. And I felt that it's important to reach across the aisle. Because what I found, and I'll be I'll share with you, what I found is that the other half of the country has has many concerns, which we would share, for example, about public about child welfare. And they might come from a different place, they might have different solutions.
Lane Igoudin:But the issues are the same in many ways. So it's it's talking and trying to to acknowledge that, okay, we are concerned about we are concerned about shell welfare, we're concerned about all these 10s of 1000s of kids that are rotting, I'm sorry, to use that term in foster care, they shouldn't be there, They should not be there. If they're they can't go back to the families, you know, they, you know, they they should be they expedite their adoption and other other other scenarios instead of having stuck in this in this rough force for years. Okay? So we're concerned about so what can where can we find this common ground to to change the system?
Lane Igoudin:You know, I think that's, that's that's what we should. So I try not to I tried, I think we should really try to reach across and see what is it that we can actually connect on. Did you find where we are. We we've got this administration that we have. Okay.
Lane Igoudin:What can we do about it now?
Merry Elkins:Did you find any common ground with any solutions?
Lane Igoudin:I I did, and I found it. I would say, again, for them coming from where they are, it's like an an out gay dad speak speaking about
Merry Elkins:Yeah. I mean, true.
Lane Igoudin:Family realizing that, listen, you know, when it comes to caretaking of a child, we're no different than you are, you know, or a neighbor's next door. You know? You know, I have you know, it's the same diapering, and it's the same, you know, PTA, and it's the same, you know, for for, you know, trials and tribulations that we we go through as parents.
Merry Elkins:Yeah. But are the laws different for two mom versus two dad families?
Lane Igoudin:Well, not anymore. Not anymore because of the because of the Supreme Court decision 2015.
Merry Elkins:Mhmm.
Lane Igoudin:But, we got married in the state of California in 02/2008 when when the Supreme Court of California back then legalized same sex marriage. But five months later, we were stuck in a in a limbo because, we had a we had a we had a we had a we had a we had a problem with the proposition that passed, which outlawed same sex marriage again. From 02/2008 from '2 to 2015, we were in this limbo. We were married in the state of California, and we were single in the eyes of the federal government, and half the states which didn't which didn't recognize same sex marriage. And that affected us as a family that have also affected the status of our kids to some degree.
Lane Igoudin:So, so yeah, so the last ten years have been good, but we can go.
Cathy Worthington:Well, tell us, how are your kids today? And how old are they?
Lane Igoudin:They're 18 and 20. And they're wonderful young ladies, now. And so, again, you know, as a parent, you learn, like, each stage of parenting as you go through it. You probably know about it. And just when you got, let's say, you're, you know, the preteens, they're now teens, just when you kind of survive the hell of their adolescence, they're now adult adult women with boyfriends.
Lane Igoudin:You know? And that was a whole other reality as to how much you can influence their decisions. And, so and and so so things change. So we're learning we're learning, how to we're now empty nesting. You know, our younger daughter now started college.
Lane Igoudin:So yeah.
Merry Elkins:What what is she majoring in? What is she interested in majoring
Lane Igoudin:in management? Environmental science. She wants yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lane Igoudin:She's she's at a UC. So she is an emerging environment, environmental science. And, yeah, that's, that's her passion. And we're here to support support her, of course, you know, our oldest daughter is more like looking for herself. You know, she tried college.
Lane Igoudin:She, you know, she left college. She might be going back to college, working a little. So we're supporting her. And but we still get together regularly because, the campus where our younger daughter is is just you know, she can take the train into into town. So I would say every two, three weeks, she comes over and stays for the weekend.
Lane Igoudin:And so we all get together and we FaceTime. And so, you know yeah. Transalore has to do this after, you know
Merry Elkins:Yeah. Yeah. It's no different than any other parent, really, with that. Yeah. Yeah.
Merry Elkins:It helps
Lane Igoudin:to translate who we are and what we are after twenty years of parenting.
Merry Elkins:So talk about the idea, the writing your book, and talk about the idea of how the idea came about. And, and then I'm curious how long it took to write it and complete it.
Lane Igoudin:Yeah. Well, like I said, I I wanted to share our experience with with with just with with people. Just, you know, tell them, hey. You know, you see that that huge, you know, children's court up on the hill, you know, at the at where, you know, a seven 10 meets 10. And but do you really know what's going on behind the closed doors?
Lane Igoudin:You know? Well, let me tell you what it's like. You know? Let's say it's it's it's quite a trip. It's quite a trip.
Lane Igoudin:So I wanted to tell this story of family building and of, you know, of our child welfare issues, you know, problems that we're really, you know, facing as society. And so I kept, like, putting all these, you know, faxes and brochures and all that into boxes, court orders. And and I thought, okay. I'll once we get through this, I'll sit down and write a book. Well, when once we got through this, I couldn't.
Lane Igoudin:I was so so PTSD about all this. I I couldn't face any of this for, like, another
Merry Elkins:four understand.
Lane Igoudin:Four years, another four years. And then I started I decided, okay, like, I think four years later, I decided that, okay, let let me see what's in those boxes. So so I started to write, you know, little bits and bits and pieces and started sort of stitching the narrative together. Took me eight years, eight years to to put together a draft, and and then find a publisher. The book is published by traditional publisher, which is based at Portland State University.
Lane Igoudin:And, and so when I had a book tour, it started in Portland, and then we went down to LA. And I did a bunch of talks here, Palm Springs and West Hollywood, Los Angeles. And then I spoke all the way down to took me all the way down to Mexico City. So it was mostly West Coast. Yeah.
Lane Igoudin:But now thanks to that's quite a tuner. Our story with with with, with, readers, and listeners to wherever they are. So that's that's a great opportunity.
Cathy Worthington:What what would you say are the challenges of writing a memoir that highlights social and political issues like this?
Lane Igoudin:Yeah. Well, the challenge, I I would say there are multiple challenges. One is, how much research do you want to bring into writing a book like this without trying to to, pass it off as a social studies? Because if I were to do that, I should really interview multiple parties, and it should be more objective. But I realized that but that's not what this really is.
Lane Igoudin:This is a first person narrative, what it's like to go through the process. So first, my book was actually about 50% larger than what it is now, because of all this research and all the studies. And then and then I decided to, you know, let let me take out most of it. I'm I'm I'm still using some of it. You know, for example, when I'm talking about Los Angeles County foster care, I mean, I do bring statistics showing that that we had, you know, over 30,000 kids in it.
Lane Igoudin:At that time, the system cost, the department, budget was $1,600,000,000 back twenty years ago, bringing things showing that, you know, critical as I am as of of the social workers and the judges, when I started looking into what you know, their workloads, they're crazy. I mean, like, really? Like, a judge is supposed to have, like, a 60 cases on her desk. She you know, they would have up to 600 cases to manage. You know?
Lane Igoudin:Anyone that can never get to really relate to any of these kids when they have to process these, you know, massive caseloads. You know, the social workers, you know, what what they have to deal with and then then and the way they change, you know, the the children's attorneys, you know, that we we have one in our case, in our children's cases that work with them. And then all of a sudden, she's gone. And there's a brand new person who has no knows not nothing about the case and gets this file thrown on her desk, you know, the day before the before very important, you know, court date. You know?
Lane Igoudin:It's it's it's it's an so I so I had to bring a little bit to just to kind of to to to provide some sort of a background, some sort of a basis for what what was going on. I would say another challenge.
Merry Elkins:Bringing AI into it and
Lane Igoudin:not Yeah. Really. Write it for me. Well, don't tell my students that, though. I tell them, if you use the AI, you know, you'll just get a zero on my on your essays and research papers.
Lane Igoudin:You have to do it yourself. Old school. Old school. But I would say another challenge was that, in terms of social, when you write about a social issue, I really I was really curious about the history of adoption. How did adoption start?
Lane Igoudin:Because adoption is not common to many cultures in the world. You know, it's it's I mean, in many ways, it's very much an American phenomena.
Merry Elkins:Really?
Lane Igoudin:You know? Yeah. Yeah. Even in Western Europe, you you know, it it exists, but on a much smaller scale proportionate to the size of the population. But still, it's kind of like it's more on the it's more on the fringes of the society as as an institution.
Lane Igoudin:Whereas in America, it's very much sort of part of our social fabric. And so I was curious about how it started. And I when I discovered, to my to my surprise well, as any, I would say, liberal social issue began in, guess where, Massachusetts. Massachusetts was the first state to abolish the to abolish slavery. It was I think it was one of the first states to allow, interracial marriage.
Lane Igoudin:It was the first states to have same sex marriage. It was also the first state to pass the adoption statutes back in eighteen fifties, I think, roughly speaking. And what had happened, it it also set up set a certain precedent for what adoption law should be, for better or for worse. One of which is that children are treated as property. I I was very surprised to discover children in 1850 were very much treated as a property, I guess, as wives were too, by the way, not just Yeah.
Lane Igoudin:Slavery in The States. You know, a chattel. Right? We're talking about the system of chattel.
Cathy Worthington:Mhmm.
Lane Igoudin:And so the return of the property to their rightful owners was at the center of it, and it sort of, like, overshadowed everything else that might happen to the child, him or herself. Right?
Merry Elkins:Mhmm.
Lane Igoudin:So, so there's some very interesting precedents set by the statute. So I I do talk a little bit about that. So you have so as a social issue, there are a lot of ideologies and beliefs that come into setting up the system and, which becomes very inflexible. You know? It's it's hard to to change them, to break them over time.
Merry Elkins:Mhmm. Not once you change them now.
Lane Igoudin:So so that was that that was one challenge. Another challenge, I should say, is that I I changed as a person. When you write a memoir about yourself, you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago well, not twenty. When I wrote it, it was it was ten, fifteen years earlier. I have changed through the process, and I changed as a person.
Lane Igoudin:So this this growing distance between between Lane who lived through the through the events and Lane Lane who is writing it, like because I'm like, well, why did I do that? I wouldn't do this now. Like, you know, certain things or, like, I wasn't thinking about it. But but also but I I tried to that that was a big that that was that was a major challenge. And and trying to kind of still say tell the story in the voice of the person who lived there through that, but also kind of stepping aside a little bit and putting it in perspective.
Lane Igoudin:You know, for example, my understanding of the birth mother who's who really, really struggled, really kinda grew over time. You know, at that time, I was really concerned about the the children's future, and I didn't maybe see it as as much as I did as as once the intensity of it went away. And I really I feel so I feel so sorry. I feel so much compassion for her, you know, and for for the life that she led and for the life she's probably still leading. You know, I I really hope things worked out personally.
Lane Igoudin:Right.
Merry Elkins:How do you feel about your book now? And, what kind of feedback have you had from your readers?
Lane Igoudin:Well, what's interesting is I'm continuing to change as a person and as a writer. You know, I write a lot. I write a lot about about parenting. I also write a lot about spiritual growth and then faith and things like that. But I, you know, mindfulness, all of that.
Lane Igoudin:So I'm changing as a person. But the book is is is set in, you know, prints, you know, that the book is not changing. And now the book is taken on a on a life of its own. Because now I I mean, like, you know, if you look up, let's say, of, adoption, it pops up. Right?
Lane Igoudin:So now it's like it's like part of the canon on adaptive writing or on on something else. So it's like, I'm not a, you know, so to me, it's like, you know, it it it took on a a life of its own. In terms of response, I would say, well, I've had very positive response. I haven't had any negative encounters, but I've been thankfully, ever since the book got released. Oh, good.
Lane Igoudin:Very different types of responses. One response is from a general audience, you know, and which is, oh, that's, that's, oh, wow, you know, all these things we didn't know it's so wow, really, it's really like this? Yeah. It really is like that. All that.
Lane Igoudin:But I get a very different response from anyone who has actually gone through the system.
Merry Elkins:Oh.
Lane Igoudin:Usually, adoptees, people, you know, who have been adopted out of foster care or who have been through foster care or who who have tried to adopt anybody who is familiar with foster care, in any shape or form. They have a very visceral reaction to the book, and they're like, thank you for selling it exactly how it is without trying to to, in any way sort of to to to romanticize it. Because as a as a lone liberal or progressive, I want things to be different. You know? I really want, you know, to to believe that, oh, if you just give some resources to to the people, they can just build themselves up and become the the the the parents, that they really should be in the in the first place.
Lane Igoudin:And in some situations, you know, yes, they can. But in some, as my book shows, it's impossible. And it's just, it's a by doing this, you really continue sort of cascading the trauma down to the kids, and it costs a tremendous amount of money to the to to the taxpayers. Yes. Really not fair to to the families that are raising them, like us.
Lane Igoudin:You know? So so that type of message, which may be uncomfortable to some people, people who who are familiar with foster care, like, thank you. Thank you. Because that's, unfortunately, how it is, you know, that, you know, we often, we often, like, wish for, you know, this, like, for some sort of a pie in the sky solution to this one. The other, people are who they are.
Merry Elkins:It it sounds to me that you've written a book that really is important for everyone involved in foster care, every aspect of it, whether you're a social worker or the courts or a future parent. Sounds like a book that everybody should read. Do you have one solution to help the system at all?
Lane Igoudin:Well, I do think I do think that the, adoptive families should be part of the part of the discussion very, very much so. Not not something that is like, okay, it happens if if if things don't work out at the end because we are there. We are the twenty four four seven caretakers, who who who love our kids, and then our kids love us. And then as in our case, they don't even even know, their birth parents as parents. Yeah.
Lane Igoudin:So, so how can
Cathy Worthington:you Along along those lines, Slaine, what what would you what advice would you offer our listeners as a takeaway today? Any advice or anything you really want them to remember as a takeaway?
Lane Igoudin:You know, I'll, I'll probably leave you with with an unexpected takeaway on this, which is, which is, we love our kids, of course, and our kids love us and are part of our lives in many ways. And, but I would say, think, remember your partners. Because that's one thing that really became clear to me. You asked me, Well, how did you work on this? You know, work on this because I we realized that our family starts with us, with adults.
Lane Igoudin:And it's easy to to, to overlook and to take for granted your partners. So just remember to support your partner, to love your partner, love him more. You know, and be there. And because that's that's that's that's the foundation of your family, and that that's what the kids should see. And that's and that's a kind of, you know, that I think that really helps to to build your family.
Lane Igoudin:So I would say it starts with a partner and continues with your kids, and and that's where how how it should be.
Cathy Worthington:It forms Nice.
Merry Elkins:I love that. Thank you. Our guest today on Late Boomers has been Laine Ygoudin, author of the very well reviewed memoir of Family Maybe. You can contact Lane or read more about him on his website, laneigoudin, l a n e I g 0 u d I n Com. Thank you, Lynn.
Merry Elkins:That was really powerful and very informative and touching.
Cathy Worthington:Yes. So tune in tune in next week when we'll be meeting another exciting guest. And please subscribe to our Late Boomers podcast on YouTube, and take us along in the car and on walks on your favorite audio platform. Let us know what gets you inspired. We are on Instagram at I am Kathy Worthington and at I am Mary Elkins and at late boomers.
Cathy Worthington:Please share the late boomers podcast info also with your friends who may not yet be listening to podcasts. Thanks again, Lane.
Cathy Worthington:Thank you for joining us on Late Boomers. The podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at lateboomers.biz. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of Late Boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry Elkins:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.
