- Hey everybody, I have a wonderful
and special guest, Mindy McKnight.
- Hi guys.
- Tell them a little bit about what you do on your channel.
- So I have two channels, one is Cute Girls Hairstyles
where I just do hairstyle tutorials,
particularly for moms with little kids.
And then I also have another channel called Millenial Moms
that's all about kind of parenting
for the millennial generation.
- Yeah, and I'll put all the links in the description,
so hop over there and check it out,
'cause we've done videos over there as well.
But today I wanted to talk a little bit about adoption.
- Yes.
- I have received questions from many of my viewers
and I guess to start it off, I'd like you to share
a little bit about your adoption story.
I know that you've adopted two children.
- Yup.
- So how did that come about?
'Cause you have your own children as well
that you've had with your husband,
and then you decided to adopt as well.
How did that come about?
- So we have four biological girls,
and then I experienced secondary infertility,
and we really wanted to have more,
which I know sounds crazy, but we really wanted more.
And I couldn't get pregnant after that,
so we decided to adopt and just,
I mean it's a very long story, but to make it very brief,
we came across our kids very easily,
and really we put our papers in
and we got Dax in nine days, and Paisley
we put our papers in and we got her,
we matched like a month and it took like three months
before the mom delivered.
But they were both at birth, they're transracial,
we're a transracial family now,
so both of my children are African American.
- And I think it's so amazing when families
will open up their home to children
and adopt them, because there are a lot of,
I've talked about the foster care system
and how broken it is, and a lot of people
not being able to take care of children.
I think that that's a really wonderful thing.
The questions I've received from my audience
are more along the lines of how to be a good
adoptive parent and make sure that they feel
the same and loved the same.
- Yeah.
- I know that's a hard question.
- I mean it is, but it's not,
and I don't, I suppose maybe it depends on the person
a little bit, but at least for us, it was very easy.
It wasn't hard, like our kids instantaneously loved them
as though they were siblings,
and in some ways, I always tell people,
in some ways I almost love my adoptive kids more
and I know that's kind of, you're not supposed
to say that if you're a parent right?
But it takes a different set of miracles
to get an adopted child to your home.
When you have your own kids it's, you know what happens,
and then they're there.
You deliver 'em and they're yours,
and it doesn't take a lot of work or effort typically,
but when you adopt a child, it's a lot of,
you're really putting yourself out there,
and when you're meeting the adoptive families,
I mean there's so much that goes into it
that it really takes all of the stars
to align just right.
So in a way, when you finally get 'em you're like,
you were really meant to be mine, you know?
- Yeah, like it feels like you've put all this effort in
and all this work, and then you finally,
everything comes together to give you the child
that you were supposed to have kind of.
Yeah, I can imagine feeling that way,
and as far as the other kids and everything,
do you ever have to manage any angst between them,
or it's been pretty seamless?
It sounds like it's been pretty seamless.
- Yeah, it's been pretty seamless,
I don't think we manage that frustrations
because they're adopted, I think that there's questions
that naturally come up.
My children don't look like me,
they have a different skin color,
and so it obviously is going to be a subject
that we talk about right?
It's not something that's hidden in our family
from birth, we've been very open about it.
We still call their moms even like Mommy Stephanie
and Mommy Jokovi, and for me that doesn't take anything
away from me.
It's like my babies were blessed with two moms
and it makes 'em extra special,
and so we very much go into it being just like
your adoptive families are just kind of another piece
of our family that we don't see regularly or at all,
but you mean you know...
- That's so they understand where they come from,
'cause that's the other question,
and really the last question is,
how do you have that conversation,
especially 'cause they're really young,
and it's been since the beginning.
So what are some of the things you say
or verbalize and Mommy Stephanie or?
- We do, we verbalize, I mean we call 'em Mommy,
we talk about their family, we talk about their siblings
as though they're part of their family.
I really think my kids will want to have a relationship
at some point with their family,
and that's okay with me.
So it's just like, I guess I don't feel like it takes
anything away from me.
I can still be their adoptive mom
that raises them, and they can still have a biological mom,
you know, and that can still, we can
all cohesively work together.
- It's not mutually exclusive.
You can't just have one if you have both,
it's almost like you got blessed with two families.
- Right, we haven't seen either mother
since we adopted our children, but one of the moms
we keep in closer contact with, 'cause she wants
a little more openness with us.
So we text, and I mean Paisley needed glasses they thought
at school the other day, and I texted her mom
and said, do you guys have a family history of glasses?
And the mom was like yeah, we all wear glasses.
And I was like, oh, well we better take her in then.
You know, so we have a really fun relationship,
where it's kind of like this mutual effort
that's not at all obtrusive to me.
Does that make sense?
- And I think a lot of it may be being able to
understand roles in people's lives
and not feel intimidated or like things
are taken from you as a mom, because you can still
be a wonderful mom, and we all have,
I always call it support systems and families.
Those all are the same, and it's great
that you have access to that.
- I love it, I wish we had more access with my son's mom,
I really wish that was there with him too.
It's really fun, Stephanie texts me,
and she says, Paisley looks so much like her grandma,
and I'll be like send me a picture you know,
and she'll send me a picture,
and it's like look, here's your grandma.
Look how cute she is, and so it's very fun.
- Yeah, and it's not lost heritage then,
they still get to keep in touch.
I think that's really great.
Well thank you for sharing your story.
I know I get a lot of questions about it,
and it's great to hear someone who's had a great experience
and is still, has an open adoption I assume
to some extent.
- I think it just depends on the situation,
I do have to preface, if you had a certain type
of birth mom or there were drug issues,
or something that you thought was scary
about the baby, then maybe you wouldn't wanna do that.
But in our situation, it really was emotionally devastating
for both of these birth moms to place their children,
they just literally could not take care of them,
and they knew that the kids would be better.
And so, it's been really fun to still kind of have
a little bit of an open relationship.
- Yeah, and especially then they can kind of know
that little bit about them, and I do agree,
if it's safe for the child for them to have access
I think is a really great thing.
- Well more than anything, it probably just opens
a dialogue I think that the child feels like they can
ask questions if they have them
without it being like I'm gonna hurt your feelings Mom,
adoptive Mom, if I bring this up.
I want my kids to feel like, no I wanna hear your questions,
I want you to feel safe.
- Yeah, and I would encourage any of you,
if you're contemplating adoption,
or if you have an adopted child,
I think having the conversation and letting it be
an open discussion always is really important
so the child doesn't feel like they're taking
anything from you or they can't talk about it
because essentially that's part of them,
and I think it's part of their story,
and changing the way we talk about that story
I think could be really powerful, just like Mindy
and her husband have done.
Well thank you so much for sharing.
- Your welcome. - I think this is so helpful
and like I said, we did other videos on her channel,
you can click over here to subscribe,
and I'll have all the links in the description,
and we will see you next time.
Bye. - Bye guys.