Adoptee-centered parenting supports adoptees in finding their joy

Photo above: Screenshot from TODAY with Jenna and Friends, September 2025

A response to Hoda Kotb’s interview on TODAY with Jenna & Friends, Part 2

Guest post by Sara Easterly, Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, and Lori Holden

This is Part 2 of a two-part post written to share our thoughts and reactions to Hoda Kotb’s television appearance during which she promoted her new book, Jump and Find Joy. (Read Part 1 here.) As we said last week, her appearance was inspiring in many ways, but we were disappointed with the messages she shared when the conversation shifted to adoption. Last week, we shared the first five of eight problems we perceived during the conversation. We left off after Problem #5, which was overspiritualizing an adoptee’s story, particularly in deeming one mother (biological) a mere birthing vessel while glorifying another (the adoptive mother). Read last week’s post here.

Problem #6 – Not honoring a meaningful relationship with an adoptee’s first parents.

Even when contact with birth parents isn’t possible, adoptive parents can and must foster a relationship between their children and birth parents and other family members. As shared in Adoption Unfiltered, “A wholehearted commitment to uphold connections between birth and adoptive parents is important to reduce separation and serve the best interests of the adoptees … to help adoptees feel connected to all of the adults in their lives, including those from whom they originate.”

Problem #7 – Not seeking sound sources for adoption education.

If Kotb’s adoption professionals didn’t help her anticipate how to tell adoption stories, what else did they not prepare her for? Did she receive counsel on the many losses adoptees carry, or how adoptees are often swirling in a stew of isolation and confusion? Was she advised on the necessity of openness, whether birth parents are present or not? Was she encouraged to “do her own work” so that wounds from her past (which all parents have) are dealt with appropriately and not leaked onto her children? Resources from adoptees, researchers, and adoption-nuanced therapists abound today.

Problem #8 – Not remembering adoption is a long game.

When adoptees are young, as Kotb’s children are, they often appear to be “just fine,” either because they are uncomfortable feeling the many losses in adoption, and/or because they feel they need to pretend to be unaffected by it, for the sake of adoptive parents, on whom their survival depends. When presented with the idea that adoptees might struggle with at least some aspects of adoption, parents of young adoptees often cry out, “Not my adoptee!”, which Easterly describes as “a knee-jerk, defensive response that blinds parents to adoption-related dynamics that may be uncomfortable or painful to consider—especially when everything seems to be going swimmingly in early childhood.” As she writes, “This posture, though, discounts the real and proven trauma in adoption, missing an opportunity to fully support adopted children and ultimately benefit from closer, more authentic relationships.”

It is important to remember what Lori Holden calls “The Long View” in adoption. All adoptees eventually grow up and most will begin to think critically about adoption. Will they look back and feel their parents supported their emotional health? Or will they feel their parents silenced their valid, complex emotions around adoption? Adoptive parents sometimes forget that they will eventually be called to account for all the decisions around their child’s story, birth parent contact, and willingness to enter into conversations about adoption—and not by any adoption professional, but by their adoptee, once an adult. Taking cues from today’s adult adoptees is essential to becoming more intentional on all fronts.

Rather than following in the ways of adoptive parent celebrities like Kotb, we advise anyone jumping into adoptive parenthood to understand what adoptee-centered parenting looks like, learning from those who have broad and deep knowledge of it and know how to truly support adoptees in finding their joy.

About the authors: Adoptee Sara Easterly, birth parent Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, and adoptive parent Lori Holden are co-authors of Adoption Unfiltered: Revelations From Adoptees, Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Allies (Bloomsbury), which released in paperback on Oct. 16. Collectively, the authors bring more than 75 years of lived experience relating to adoption and are recognized throughout the adoption community as thought leaders, influencers, and bridge-builders.