Shownotes
Moses is an adoption trauma educator and therapist, but his own personal journey as an adoptee is one of hardship and resilience. To use his words, Moses was stolen from South Korea at the age of two, by his famous mother, to grow up as part of a transracial, international, and high profile family.
However, beneath the surface of fame Moses faced deep trauma, isolation, and tragedy. His story raises challenging questions about the adoption industry,
This is Moses Journey.
Who Am I Really?
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Transcripts
238 Moses Farrow - Stolen From My Homeland
[:[00:00:00] Moses: this is incredibly important. In our efforts as a society to normalize suicide, or at least talking about suicide, making sense of it,
[:[00:00:20] Moses: And then there's a desire to not live with the pain. Anymore.
[:
[00:01:15] Damon: However, beneath the surface of fame, Moses faced deep trauma, isolation, and tragedy. His story raises challenging questions about the adoption industry,
[:[00:01:28] Damon: Moses grew up with a fabricated adoption story, a reality many adoptees face. As he later discovered, the truth of his origins may have been distorted or entirely fictional. realization deepened his understandings of the trauma that comes with being adopted.
[:[00:02:15] Moses: And from there I was adopted to Mia Farrow, who is mostly known for her acting and humanitarian humanitarianism. And so I was about two years old when I was adopted. And I arrived in. New York all the way from South Korea. And I entered a family that Mia had already adopted three girls, two of them from Vietnam as war orphans post Vietnam war.
[:[00:02:56] Moses: I suppose about eight years old or so, I'm a little [00:03:00] fuzzy about that, but, so I was entering A family in which a adoption was already a part of that family. And yeah. Mia was recently divorced. She had three sons of her own with her former husband, Andre Previn renowned, classical composer and conductor. And so she had three sons. She had adopted three girls. And then as a single parent, she adopted me. And fascinating thing about that is that I came in to the family where the papers all called me the Farrow child. I was the first Farrow child of the family.
[:[00:04:52] Moses: So that piece, I don't know for sure.
[:[00:05:10] Moses: Yes, that is.
[:[00:05:50] Moses: Yeah. Thank you for asking about that. And again, this is something that I've become more comfortable with in my own skin. And [00:06:00] more willing to put out there as someone with a disability. Cerebral Palsy as I know it and I'm always open to learning more about it for myself and for others.
[:[00:06:57] Moses: It affects my [00:07:00] agility, my, my mobility muscle tone other types involve contracted muscles. When I arrived when I was about two, two, I couldn't put my heel down of my right foot. So that tendon in my heel, my Achilles tendon was so contracted that I couldn't put my heel down.
[:[00:07:56] Moses: I don't have the spastic type, [00:08:00] so I'm not always moving around. And so it's not apparent to people. At least at first. So it's added onto that layer of where do I fit in? Cause I'm, I am a disabled person, but in, in some people's eyes, I'm not disabled enough. I'm able to do things that people with more severe disability aren't able to do.
[:[00:08:37] Damon: Yeah. I'm thinking about how you're describing it. I have a friend. I'm at a conference right now and my friend MC is another disabled person like yourself. And she has a similar challenge of appearing more able bodied than she actually is.
[:[00:09:17] Damon: And she is able to walk around fairly comfortably when she is not in a physical crisis. And I'm hearing what you're saying that to the outward appearance of any, but to anybody else, you don't necessarily present as being disabled enough, but you are and there's an ignorance in the consideration of what you're doing.
[:[00:10:02] Damon: That there may have been some memories that you would have of that transition being fairly stark, right? You were in South Korea seeing a bunch of people that look just like yourself going to the United States, where probably almost nobody looked like you, except for perhaps the adoptees in your family who similarly have an Asian appearance, I would imagine.
[:[00:10:33] Moses: It's it's funny that you say that there, there's memories I can't tell you that I do carry memories of my life, my time back in South Korea at that time, of the orphanage that I had stayed in the Intermediary placement before traveling to New York and even as you pointed out the plane ride or any of that, but [00:11:00] what I've learned since.
[:[00:11:34] Moses: While I don't have active memories, What I do have are the after effects and the knowledge. So this is a good segue into the way that I'm understanding what happened to me during that time and not to of. Fluff it up with something that might have happened simply that I was taken from my [00:12:00] homeland.
[:[00:12:39] Moses: Yeah. So all the questions and all the losses, all the layers, of what did happen, being taken away. It does stay with you.
[:[00:13:10] Damon: If the child was separated at birth, that's a major trauma right there. If for some reason there was a family dissolution and the child was a little bit older, but the family falls apart and the child has moved on. Hopefully they had some level of connectivity to their biological family, even if it may have been a traumatizing time for them, but for the international adoptee, especially somebody like yourself, who perhaps was found in a phone booth as an infant.
[:[00:14:04] Damon: I make the assumption though. I don't know this. I doubt that Mia spoke South Korean such that she could welcome you into the home in a way that would have been comfortable. For example, again, the mirroring presumably missing as you entered the United States where not everybody had a South Korean appearance to them, but there's a diverse array of appearances.
[:[00:14:56] Moses: I appreciate you holding in on that point about so [00:15:00] there, there's a couple of different layers to this in terms of transracial adoption as well. So There's genetic mirroring in which being separated from biological family I in more ways than one have been separated and removed from, taken from There is no chance for me to know where my eyes came from or where my nose came from.
[:[00:16:14] Moses: in terms of making it something that America has needed to address for a very long time. So in terms of being Asian
[:[00:17:08] Moses: So say for example I could say that I was born in Seoul, which is very different than other parts of South Korea. Say Busan, for example, I'm from Busan. Or more local village, in the outskirts of one of these major cities, so it's recognizing.
[:[00:18:08] Damon: right?
[:[00:18:13] Moses: Identity is very important.
[:[00:18:32] Damon: And and especially given the sort of social justice challenges that alluded to earlier, you are reminded of your Asian ness in America and therefore other than separated. But then in any attempt to go home, reestablish connection to a culture. They've told me that they felt too American to feel comfortable in their country.
[:[00:19:11] Damon: Not quite American because they're Asian and not quite of the country that they come from because they're so American having been raised here. Is that something that resonates with you?
[:[00:19:42] Moses: person of color. Growing up. I did and I didn't. And the racism part is that I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be like like the people around me. I wanted to fit in. I didn't want to be different [00:20:00] and I have a couple of different layers to this being a person with disability and also being a member of a minority group.
[:[00:21:10] Moses: And instead I have the cultural references and experiences from. America from New York, so the kinds of things that I grew up with watching movies like the Lone Ranger and Superman and New York, going to the Big Apple Circus type of thing, going down to Rockefeller Center, the, these are the the references, the experiences for me growing up in a big city like New York.
[:[00:22:18] Moses: We took a trip down to Chinatown. We took a tour around the Asia Society building. So in a way that was a really nice shall I say tip of the hat for me to at least to be in touch with My Asian self.
[:[00:22:45] Damon: And I couldn't help thinking that you actually have a very unique adoptee experience in that you were adopted by a celebrity. And I'm wondering how that was for you. [00:23:00] This is, and I'm not trying to sensationalize it. What I'm trying to get to is. Other adoptees are adopted into families of various socioeconomic strata.
[:[00:23:27] Moses: I'm wanted to take this in a couple of different directions or at least my mind is split between two two trains of thought here. And I think I want to go with this one because I've heard you use. The word dot D a number of times, and I have decidedly not to use that term as a way to identify myself.
[:[00:24:23] Moses: Many of us are bringing attention to, but there's so much more that happens before we're adopted. And there are people who identify themselves as I have, as being taken, as being relinquished, as being abandoned, all of which happens before being adopted. And yet this is how we identify ourselves.
[:[00:25:20] Moses: This is a great point because there are many of us who say adoption is trauma. I've gone as far as saying there is such a thing as adoption trauma. Certainly. And fortunately many others have propelled that as well, have amplified that point as well. Adoption is trauma at the same time.
[:[00:26:08] Moses: So let's get to the real truth. Let's call it out for what it really is, whether you were taken or stolen or trafficked or relinquished or abandoned or, let's just call it for what it is. Let's get right into the story. So in terms of my early childhood experiences. And I appreciate your point not to sensationalize, but there's no way of getting around that when you bring up, I was raised by a celebrity couple.
[:[00:27:19] Moses: In any case, in that context, All that has done has created for myself a burden where there's no privacy and everything that happens behind closed doors. That is typically, to your point, that is typically private, is not. And that has been a very big challenge and also has presented opportunities.
[:[00:27:56] Damon: How do you mean?
[:[00:28:24] Moses: It's just, it's hitting me emotionally.
[:[00:28:29] Moses: That I was a child and I was mistreated.
[:[00:28:37] Damon: are you saying that you and the other adoptees in Mia's home were mistreated?
[:[00:28:44] Moses: and coming from the perspective of a mental health professional as a family therapist I've come to understand it as this is intergenerational trauma. This is what I learned, in family [00:29:00] therapy terms, the intergenerational transmission of family patterns.
[:[00:29:16] Damon: Is that what I'm hearing? Absolutely. Wow. I'm really sorry. That's, you don't have to go into it, but I detect and you've said it's an emotional soft spot for you and I'm I don't want to push on it, but I'm sorry for what you lived through.
[:[00:29:44] Moses: It was giving myself a moment as that moment is continuing, for the inner child in me, for the little boy in me. It's important that we allow ourselves to take that pause, to take a moment, recognize that [00:30:00] child in us.
[:[00:30:10] Damon: They hurt. That's why it's called hurt, right? It's called pain because it's uncomfortable and it's a thing that we get really good at. You build a callous over the pain and. when you don't take time to sit in it, acknowledge it, mull it over and try to figure out what it has done to you and what you have taken from it that you have built on to create something better in yourself.
[:[00:31:01] Damon: There's no question about that. Again, no, no need to apologize. You have every right to be in this world and do everything that set out to do. And and I think you should, hold on to that power and keep pushing for it. You know what I mean? So may I ask you then Moses, usually when I speak with an adoptee, I will ask them about a catalytic moment that made them decide they wanted to search for their biological family.
[:[00:31:45] Moses: I want to say, Damon, that from the moment that we're adopted, the moment that we're relinquished or the moment that we are taken, it puts us on that journey, that quest. So in terms [00:32:00] of. Having a moment in which that got flipped on or I would, I was, I want to say that
[:[00:32:24] Moses: where it all started. And I remember being in a presentation by Adam Pertman, who at the time was the head of the Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York. And he constantly shared about, Longitudinal study that they had done in which he indicated or the study indicated that as we got older in life, searching for our roots became more important to us [00:33:00] and it makes sense in terms of the lifespan and in terms of life events in which from a teenage hood.
You,
[:[00:33:39] Moses: Where am I rooted? It becomes more and more important and with more people in your life as well, as your life expands, there's others who present those questions to you.
[:[00:34:17] Moses: So I, I want to say that rather than looking at a catalytic moment, that my whole life has been a search.
[:[00:34:55] Moses: knowing oneself in the eyes of our [00:35:00] ancestors, that it's about family legacy and what that means. The way that I'm presenting it is if we think of ourselves as the present day historian for our families that go back thousands of years, and we can go as far back as ten, tens of thousands of years, that each generation was presented with their own set of struggles and challenges and obstacles to survive, to live.
[:[00:36:07] Moses: So beyond the immediate need to reestablish a connection with biological family members. I bring it all the way back to the generations upon generations of my family's legacy, what they had to overcome and what they had to achieve in order for me to exist today. And I'm constantly questioning how important or how many people really think about this in today's world and recognizing truly how important they are, and this is not about ego at all, it's just knowing your place in the universe and time and space in human history that through the ages.
[:[00:37:05] Damon: I have this, I always think of metaphors as my guests are speaking, and I couldn't help but think of this image of your ancestry. and, I've had this image of a tree that's growing on a river bank.
[:[00:37:41] Damon: And it's a unique tree. It's only your family tree. So it's unique to the bank on which it was growing. But now your tree is found somewhere way down river and everybody's wondering how did this branch get all the way here? Where's this tree, right? You're the severing of your family tree was the image that came to mind for me.
[:[00:38:22] Damon: Because I, I don't like to let these metaphors go away. And I wonder how that resonates with you.
[:[00:38:38] Damon: It may have been in the back of my mind. I hadn't really thought about that, but that's a really good.
[:[00:38:44] Moses: He was sitting on the roof.
[:[00:39:07] Damon: And so I sat and paid attention to this call that you were on. But I know that you have been an advocate for the adoptee community, specifically in the areas of trauma, suicide and attempts on the lives of adoptees. Can you just talk a little bit about your work as a therapist? And what you hope to accomplish in your
[:[00:39:26] Moses: Certainly,
[:[00:39:55] Moses: And again, moving away from the adoption aspect [00:40:00] the kind of trauma put on the people who are stolen and taken, trafficked, kidnapped forcibly removed, separated, and there's, there is a lot of coercion. And in fact, a colleague of mine, I've taken her. Her term that we live in a culture of coercion.
[:[00:40:50] Moses: The truth and helping them start their journeys or continue their journeys into seeking out their [00:41:00] truths of what really did happen and then work towards making sense of that and accepting what is, because to your earlier point, it is painful, it is an overwhelming amount of hurt that goes beyond our capacities.
[:[00:41:23] Moses: in a large way. We're
[:[00:41:32] Moses: So getting to my advocacy, which I. I see myself more as an activist who's advocating for a number of different, and I just recently posted about what is the most important message the world needs to know about the adoption industry? And I, I chose those words carefully. My first point adoption is [00:42:00] a criminal industry. The buying and selling of people for profit is human trafficking. The second point is that adoption is modern day slavery.
[:[00:42:42] Moses: Those who are doing the adopting
[:[00:43:06] Moses: So modern day slavery.
[:[00:43:39] Moses: And present day war crimes, which has been named in the Russia, Ukraine war going on today that Ukrainian Children are being again adopted into Russian families and going through a process of propaganda pro Russian [00:44:00] propaganda to brainwash them, to re educate them, to being pro Russian.
[:[00:44:12] Moses: With reports of homicides of fostered and adopted Children worldwide.
[:[00:44:34] Moses: The, the one that I am most outspoken about these days are the murders of Children in foster care and adoptive placements.
[:[00:44:55] Moses: where that came from, for me, because [00:45:00] people may want to know why is this so important to me?
[:[00:45:10] Moses: the fact that I have three, three of the people that I grew up with who are also adopted. Who are also Asian, also disabled. Three of them have died. That Tam, who was adopted from Vietnam, who was blind, she overdosed in 2000 and then my sister. Lark, also from Vietnam, war orphan, she had died from an an age related lung infection.
[:[00:45:56] Moses: And I, I can understand where [00:46:00] people don't want to see that as also giving up on life.
[:[00:46:07] Moses: Yeah. And this is incredibly important. In our efforts as a society to normalize suicide, or at least talking about suicide, making sense of it, understanding that there's a desire not to live.
[:[00:46:29] Moses: And then there is Thaddeus. That was Lark in 2008 and then eight years later, Thaddeus he shot himself
[:[00:46:45] Moses: And he did. So he died and. 2016. Sorry. So with their lives and their deaths as well as my own my own attempts at [00:47:00] suicide, I identify myself not only as a child abuse survivor, but a survivor of suicide, a suicide attempt and suicide loss.
[:[00:47:18] Damon: And it's important, one, to acknowledge their lives, but two, to acknowledge their intentionality in not continuing in this life, as you've alluded to, the fact that they decided that it was not, they did not want to continue with the pain. And I want to say I'm glad that you're here because your advocacy, your education, Your work is incredibly important.
[:[00:48:09] Damon: And it's indicative of the trauma that is adoption that you have today. educated us on. And I just want to say one, I'm glad you're here to continue that education and that hard work. But to that you were here to talk with all of us about what it is that you are empowering everybody to realize, the challenge of trauma.
[:[00:49:04] Moses: And my hope is that as I lend my voice, others will be inspired to do so as well. That this is going into my second point,
[:[00:49:49] Moses: And it's imperative because There are these very real outcomes of death and death, whether by suicide or death by [00:50:00] murder,
[:[00:50:28] Damon: Thank you again, Moses, for raising the alarm on behalf of everybody who's not able to do it for themselves. You've created a megaphone for yourself and it's super important. So I want to thank you for being here, man. .
[:[00:50:41] Damon: Absolutely. Absolutely. My pleasure. You take care, man.
[:[00:50:47] Damon: Hey, it's me. Moses's story is one of immense complexity and pain, but it's also a [00:51:00] story of resilience and advocacy. He has lived through tremendous trauma, stolen from his homeland, living with the loss of his identity, resulting cultural disconnection, and living with the physical challenges of cerebral palsy.
[:[00:51:41] Damon: His message is clear. It's time to reframe the way we think about adoption. To hear the voices of those who have lived through it, and to support adoptees in their journey toward healing. I'm Damon Davis, and I hope you found something in Moses journey that inspired you, validates your feelings about wanting to search, [00:52:00] or motivates you to find the strength along your journey to learn. Who am I, really?
