Feb. 13, 2025

Embracing Adoption A Journey of Love and Resilience

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In this enlightening episode of the Living the Dream podcast, host Curveball sits down with Lane Igoudin, a passionate advocate for adoption and author of the memoir 'A Family, Maybe.' Lane shares his personal journey of adopting two children from foster care, discussing the challenges and triumphs he faced along the way. He reflects on the complexities of the adoption process, the importance of understanding the foster care system, and the impact it had on his relationship with his partner. Join us as we explore the emotional landscape of adoption and the joys of parenting, along with insights into Lane's ongoing projects and his commitment to mindful parenting.
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome, um, to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. Um, if you believe you can achieve.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Today, we're going to be talking about adoption, as I am joined by Lane E. Good.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Lane has a book out. He has written extensively about adoption.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>He's been all over the place, you know, on different podcasts, on NBC.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Just all over the place talking about adoption.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So we're going to be talking about that and why he's so passionate about it. So, Lane, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Lane E. Good>Thank you for bringing me on, Curtis. It's a pleasure to be here.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Lane E. Good>Okay. Um, I would describe myself as a, um, writer, as a professor, but most importantly, as a father, as a dad. That pretty much sums up my identity, I think.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, um, so my husband and I, um, have adopted two kids from foster care here in Los Angeles.

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> Lane E. Good>Uh, and that's the subject of my book. And I guess that's what we'll be talking about. I also teach. I teach English as a second language and linguistics at Los Angeles City College, and I've been there 20 years now. M. And most importantly, um, like I said, I'm the father to two kids who at the time were, uh, a newborn and a one year old. And now they are wonderful young ladies who are 18 and 20.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, so what made you want to get into adoption or to adopt?

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> Lane E. Good>Well, what's interesting is that I always. I always saw myself as a future dad.

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> Lane E. Good>And, um, I had this vision of who I was going to be, um, in my adult life. So I saw myself as a father. And when my partner and I met, which was almost 28 years ago, um, I told him about that. And at that time, he wasn't really ready for it. But we got into the process later and, um, at the time when we entered the process, there, uh, were multiple routes available to us, um, to. To, um, to bring kids into our family. You know, surrogacy was, uh, one.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, then international adoption was, uh, another one, and then private adoption. When you adopt from, um, a. Usually a birth mother who is. Who's, um, who is not planning to keep the child, so she's looking for a family to place the child with. And finally the foster adoption. And the foster adoption as a route available to gay individuals or couples like we were only became available in some states, I would say, mostly. Well, in some states, in the mid to late 1990s.

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> Lane E. Good>So at the time we entered the process, which was 2004, 2005, we were pretty much at the, you, uh, know, at the front of the first generation of, I would say, out gay families. And we were still very much under the radar because at that time, um, states like for example California, where we were living, uh, they would place, uh, children, uh, with a gay man or a gay couple, but they wouldn't really be very vocal about it. So we were kind of flying under the radar. But as our community was struggling to gain equal rights, right, including the right, uh, not to be discriminated at work, and also the right to same sex marriage, the word about gay families start to pop out in the media. And so we kind of started to come out of the background into the national spotlight. So the time when we were going through the adoptions and raising our kids was also the time when we were very active in the struggle for equal rights, which was early, like 2005 to 2010. Um, so, yeah, that's what my memoir is about.

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> Lane E. Good>And so the foster adoption. Let me tell you a little bit about that.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Um, I was going to ask you, what did you wish you knew about it before you started the process? So go ahead.

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> Lane E. Good>Uh, right. So we chose to go the foster adoption route because we really wanted to open our home to a child or two from, uh, our community. You know, we live in greater Los Angeles and at that time, and to this day, Los Angeles has the largest foster care system in the country. So at that time, uh, we're talking about 2004, 2005, there were anywhere between 30 and 35,000 kids, uh, who needed a home. And we thought, you know, why should we go abroad and look for a child there when there are children down the street that need a home? So that's how we went into the process. Because to be honest, both, uh, my partner Jonathan and myself, we came from pretty humble backgrounds. Jonathan, uh, is African, um, American, and he grew up on a farm in Central Valley of California in a very large family. And so we talk about rural upbringing. And myself, I came here as a refugee with my family from the Soviet Union. So we also started kind of at the bottom. So we thought why we didn't want to go a, uh, how can I put it? We wanted to. We knew the struggle. We knew the struggle that many people experience. And we wanted to bring a couple of kids into our home and give them a good place. So that's why we decided to go into foster adoption and when we went in, we thought, okay, well, we'll just kind of go through the certification, home study, and have a child or two, and things were just going to work out.

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> Lane E. Good>And the more we got into the process, the more things began to sort of go wrong. And that's when I decided that I should start to document it and write down things as they were and share the story. Whatever the outcome would be, I should really share that story. Um, so that's how I, um, ended up writing this book. A, um, family, maybe.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Wow. How, uh, did the adoptions affect the relationship between you and your partner?

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> Lane E. Good>You know, what's interesting, I think, is it brought us closer together, even though we went through three years of, um. How can I put it nicely? Hell, um, three years of extreme uncertainty. Um, you know, when you.

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> Lane E. Good>You're raising children, uh, like, you know, our younger daughter, she was a newborn, and then they tell her that she won't be with you next week. And, you know, so we almost lost her, you know, four times, you know, to the system, uh, and things like that. It's just heartbreaking. And you think it's going to, you know, rip, uh, your family apart. But instead, I think it brought us together because it was only the two of us, John and me, and we didn't have, like, a large family to support us. It was just the two of us. And then. And also the network of friends in the neighborhood that we build up, you know, kind of, you know, to, uh, help us and help them as well.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, so we had to rely on each other and work as kind of two hands, you know, 20, um, four, seven.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, and so that really brought us together. But one thing that I learned is, Is, um, about it, is that is not to, um, is to remember to take care of your partner. Um, because basically, I would say the core of our family is my partner and me.

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> Lane E. Good>This is where it starts, and that's where it should be when the process is over. So, basically, no matter what parenting will put you through, you must do all you can to stay together. So I've seen families split by the, uh, uncertainties of the adoption process and the power struggles over parenting strategies and things like that. Um, so I realized I really need to keep an eye on my partner.

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> Lane E. Good>I need to love him more, I need to give him more, and I should never take him for granted. And I think maybe some of that helped us, uh, to stay together as well. So this was one of the takeaways, um, from our experience and maybe another one if I could also share with you is that when you go into something, um, as unpredictable as adopting from the foster care system, you need to expect and expect it. Basically you need to learn about the system and arm yourself with resources because it's a very complex process with multiple parties involved in the child's present and future.

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> Lane E. Good>Their birth families, birth parents, social workers, court appointed attorneys, the judge, and everybody's needs and responsibilities, um, don't fluctuate and that makes the outcome very unpredictable.

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> Lane E. Good>So, um, just to give you an idea, some of the uncertainties that we met along the way were that the birth parent may or may not have the ability to parent the child, or a known or previously unknown biological relative could step forward and to claim the child and receive preference over you.

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> Lane E. Good>You may discover that the child has deeper psychological or physical needs because of the, because of the trauma from previous placements or the child's attorney and social workers that you've grown to rely on may suddenly disappear or be replaced by a new person who knows nothing about the case. So all of that in some shape or form happened in our process. So what you do is you need to really develop knowledge about the system and you can learn from books, you know, like mine, but not necessarily, um, websites, social media groups, experts, adoptive parents in your community. You know, reach out because people will share their experiences and that will give you the understanding and tools that you need to address the issues that will arise.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, talk about the process when you went through it in the early 2000s, like how has the process, you know, the adoption process changed from now to then, for better or worse, as far.

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> Lane E. Good>As adoptions, um, in some ways, first of all, fundamentally, it hasn't changed fundamentally. Um, the primary responsibility of the children's court is to reunite, um, the birth families with their children. It's only in the situation when it's not possible that what's called a concurrent track, which is long term foster care, but preferably adoption, uh, kind of comes in, which is what we were in the situation of our kids in the long run.

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> Lane E. Good>In the long run, uh, uh, they couldn't go back to their families for various reasons which I describe in my book. Um, so we, the ones who actually raised them became um, their legal family.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, so in that sense the process hasn't changed much. It's still the same parties in the court. Uh, the, uh, foster adoptive parents are still being sort of kept outside for the most part, outside of the court cases. In some ways I think it's gotten maybe even um, harder because I think I know that, um, um, there's now even more preference and kind of like the foster care is being treated, especially group homes are being treated as sort of like, definitely not the desirable option. And I personally disagree with that, uh, because I believe that families, uh, that actually raise the children, whatever they are, the extended, uh, birth families, grandparents, um, or caretakers like us, should be, uh, as respected and honored in the process as everyone else and should be as much, um, as part of the process as everyone else. And, uh, in our experience, we weren't, um, when we applied, um, to be considered de facto parents, uh, which means that it will give us the right to be present in the courtroom and help the court make the decisions about the kids that we were raising. Uh, we were thrown out, um, uh, literally in three minutes. Um, so we were kept outside the entire process for, um, as we were raising the kids, uh, from week after week, month after month, year after year. And so that should not be happening. That should not be happening. I think the birth family should still have all the rights that they still do. Um, but also the adoptive family, um, should be given more prominence, uh, in the process. Because honestly, people usually ask, uh, so how did things change in your family once the court decreed, uh, you, uh, to be adoptive parents? And I said, nothing has changed. Absolutely nothing changed in our relations with our kids.

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> Lane E. Good>From, uh, you know, the day before a judge at some. In some courtroom 20 miles away decided, uh, to grant us, you know, the. The adoptive parent status to the next day. We're still. We're still the same adults that were raising those two beautiful girls, uh, the day before and the day after. So, you know, this whole dilemma, uh, between sort of the legal side of things and the human side of things is something that really came, you know, to the front of our story. Nothing has changed.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>How are your kids doing today?

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> Lane E. Good>Well, um, as I mentioned before, they are young women now. And let me tell you, as you go through parenting, like, just when you sort of get something down, you know, let's say preteens or teenagers know, you know, they're on to.

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> Lane E. Good>To the next. To the next phase of their development and you try to catch up with them. So now we're learning how to. How to parent, uh, adult children, you know, adult women, I should say, uh, who have boyfriends and the boyfriends have families and.

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> Lane E. Good>And all that. So that's. That's. That's our new reality.

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> Lane E. Good>But they're wonderful. They're absolutely wonderful.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, our younger daughter is attending college, um, and. And, um, actually, because it's not Too far from where we live. Uh, she takes the train into town and as we speak, actually my husband is on the way to pick her up from the train station. So she'll be with us for the weekend and then her sister who lives nearby, uh, and we're supporting her and helping her sort of to establish herself independently as well. So she'll be joining us for dinner tomorrow night. And so we get together once or twice a month and it's. And so we're still very much a close knit family.

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> Lane E. Good>And, um, we were really blessed. We were really blessed. Despite all the difficulties that we've gone through, um, we are really blessed to have our family. And I will tell anyone, you know, uh, don't be turned off by the difficulties that you may face, because it's worth it. It's worth it.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Absolutely. Well, tell us about your book, like, why you decided to write it and what it was like writing a book filled with social and political issues such as LGB and all that stuff like that.

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> Lane E. Good>Well, um, I didn't, um, Professionally, I'm trained as a linguist. I teach language, I speak multiple languages. And so I never planned to write this book. But what happened was that as things began to, um, open up in sandarian, unexpected ways and not very positive ways, they decided to document it.

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> Lane E. Good>And the one thing that really drove me, I would say, that really motivated me to write this book in the end, was I would say, anger. Anger at the way we were treated because we were facing this double stigma of being foster adoptive parents, excluded from the process, excluded from the decision making about the kids that we were raising. And at the same time we had the second stigma of being a gay couple.

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> Lane E. Good>And at that time we had no rights. We couldn't get married. So we were two unrelated adults raising two related children. Okay. And we lived with this kind of, you know, absurd situation for years, you know, and even when we got married in the state of California in 2008, then five months later, our marriage, um, same sex marriage, became illegal again in the state of California. So we were kind of stuck in the limbo for the next eight years until it became legal in the whole country.

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> Lane E. Good>So there was a lot of anger. And I'm like, you know what? I really need to tell our story because people really need to know what it's like. Um, but to be honest, I mean, I had boxes. I would throw all the court orders and faxes and all that into it. And I kept a diary and I, and I kept all the faxes and emails that went Out.

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> Lane E. Good>But once we were done with the process, I just couldn't face writing it. So it took me, I would say, another four years. Four years to even begin to write about it, and then another eight years to complete the draft. So it was a long process. It was a long process, um, because you're trying to tell the story being as authentic as you could be, but also you're not the person that you were then, and you begin to look at things a little bit differently. You begin to understand things a little bit differently. Let me just give you one example. So as we were going through the process, I was very, um, I would say upset. You know, I was very disappointed with the way, you know, the judge was acting in the case of our kids. I felt that she wasn't, uh, really acting in the children's. In our children's best interests.

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> Lane E. Good>However, I started to look more into it, and I learned that these children court judges are supposed to have about 160 cases as their caseload. Some of them in our state handle up to 600 cases. They're beyond overburdened, and so are the social workers. The amount of cases that they handle is unimaginable. And so, I mean, the system is really stretched and overburdened. And there's just so much I can sort of whole. You know, I can blame the system when the system is so underfunded and overstretched. So it's more complex than people might think, you know, because everybody, Everybody wants the best. But ultimately, there's just so much they can do, you know, and in the end, what happens is, you know, you know, who suffers? The children and the families that raise them. So that's what drove me to write the book. But again, I want this experience because the book ends with adoptions of the kids and with kind of brings the reader up to where we are now. And so we have a very, I would say, happy ending. So, um, this is why I'm telling you, no matter what you read about there, it's worth it. It's worth it.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Absolutely. Well, tell us about any current upcoming projects that you're working on that people need to be aware of.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, well, um, my book came out last year. It came out last February.

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> Lane E. Good>And last year I really focused on the book tour.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, I talked about the book, and, um. Um, I had a book tour with 12 stops from Portland, where the press is, it's at Portland State University, um, down here to Los Angeles, Long beach, uh, Palm Springs, and all the way down to Mexico City. So I Had these book talks last year, which I'm continuing to speak more about my book. But this year I'm focusing more on opportunities to reach out, uh, the audiences which are outside of California.

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> Lane E. Good>For example, yourself, Curtis, and I'm very thankful to you for bringing me on so I can speak to the people that wouldn't be able to learn, uh, about our journey otherwise. So I'm very active right now on podcasts. Some of the podcasts are also affiliated with radio stations. And I'm also writing quite a bit. And, um, um, I have a lot of interest in faith and spiritual growth. And I'll tell you, I am a person of faith and we raised our kids in the Jewish tradition. Um, and I'm pretty traditional, actually, I should say.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, and so the intersection of parenting and faith, parenting and spiritual sexuality, uh, mindful parenting, those are the things that I've been writing quite a bit, a lot on. And so if somebody is interested in that, I would encourage them to look up my website, which is laneeguden.com because I've been publishing quite a bit. Um, and I also published, um, this free newsletter on mindfulness, on spiritual mindfulness called, uh, Blessing the Sea.

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> Lane E. Good>And so if anybody is interested, I would encourage them to check out my website and, you know, take a look at the newsletter if you would like to, to, to, to get it. Just, just sign up and I'll be happy to, to add you to the mailing list. I have, I have a couple hundred people, um, uh, subscribing to it. So, so like I said, this is just something that, that really is central to me, uh, these days. And so besides talking about, um, uh, you know, adoptive parenting and, and foster care, I also write about, uh, spirituality and mindful, uh, parenting as well.

00:23:07.190 --> 00:23:09.917
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, well, you just answered my next question.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Throw out your contact info. So that's LaneyGooden.comm so close this out.

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> Lane E. Good>Or, um, if anyone is interested, they can also find me on Facebook and Instagram at lainagooden. Absolutely.

00:23:23.430 --> 00:23:35.453
> Lane E. Good>Shoot me an email or a post, dm, whatever to call it these days. Sms. No, it's not sms. It's a, uh, know, messenger, whatever it is, just, just reach out, reach out. I'll be happy to hear from you.

00:23:35.622 --> 00:23:43.250
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Right. So close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Lane E. Good>Um, I would say that if you are parenting, and this is something that I also learned later, not, not, not having to do with a foster adoption, but with. With parenting, just, Just, you know, I try to enjoy being a parent despite all the challenges of raising kids, Especially like in our case, raising two daughters. You know, I'm thinking about, uh, making this T shirt which says, I survived my daughter's adolescence.

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> Lane E. Good>Okay? So, um, what helped me was maybe becoming more mindful about it. Things, uh, like pausing to notice those parenting moments and kind, uh, of to be there. Um, as I, as I, as I, as I'm. When I am with my child, when, you know, when they were little, when they're walking them to school or shopping for new sneakers or being with them on the playground.

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> Lane E. Good>But now it's like more like driving with them or facetiming them. Really focus on who they are, where they are, and also, you know, you know what else? Learning from them. I think of my kids as my spiritual teachers in many ways. You know, uh, for example, I remember my daughter when she was a teenager, she said once, like, we were talking about, I was trying to figure out something was going on. And she was very emotional about it. And finally she blurted out, she said, you don't understand what I'm going through.

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> Lane E. Good>And instead of reacting to that, I told her, you know what? You're right. I don't understand what you're going through.

00:25:08.465 --> 00:25:13.882
> Lane E. Good>Why don't you tell me? You know, teach me so I can help you, so I can understand you and I can help you.

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> Lane E. Good>So I'm trying to raise my kids with that sort of, um, you know, while being aware of that, um, that, you know, uh, trying to learn from them, trying to learn from this experience.

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> Lane E. Good>So that's probably my. That's probably my parting thought.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, ladies and gentlemen, laneeguden.com y'all make sure you check out the book. Follow Rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. Jump on your favorite podcast.

00:25:41.609 --> 00:25:56.589
> Lane E. Good>And I would also add that you can find my book on Amazon, Bookshop, uh, wherever. It's called a family, maybe. But if you'd like me to sign it for you, you can find it on my website and you can just get it there and I'll be very happy to send it to you or to whoever you would like.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>There you go, ladies and gentlemen. So LaneyGooden.com jump on your favorite podcast app. Check out the show.

00:26:04.122 --> 00:26:19.172
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Follow us. Leave us a review Share if you have any guest or suggestion topics. Curtis Jackson1978t.net is the place to send them. Thank you for listening and supporting the show, Lane. Thank you for all that you do. And thank you for joining us.

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> Lane E. Good>Thank you so much, Curtis. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>until next time, stay focused on living the dream.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Dream.