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The recording begins mid-introduction on National Adoption Week. Calvin Pang hosts a conversation with Annette Baran, co-author of The Adoption Triangle, and Frances Wong, a Family Court judge. Baran traces the history of American adoption from the post-World War II boom, when agencies placed babies with infertile couples under strict secrecy and coached birth mothers to put the experience behind them. Her research found that birth mothers lived with what she calls "an aching pain" for decades and that adoptees searched not because they had bad adoptions but because they needed missing pieces of their identity. Frances Wong describes Hawaii's sealed-records process: once an adoptee turns eighteen and the family court has consent on file, identifying information is released; otherwise an intermediary contacts the birth parent to ask. The panel's sharpest disagreement concerns open adoption: Baran argues that after finalization, adoptive parents face no legal obligation to keep agreed visits open, leaving many birth mothers without recourse. Wong urges courts to support connections rather than sever them but acknowledges no bright-line rule exists. Callers ask about the Hawaiian hanai tradition and whether informal fostering could be formalized; one recommends a recent book on the science of infant-mother bonding.
Transcript
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