What Adoption Taught Me About Resilience — My Conversation with Simon Benn on Thriving Adoptees

Is Resilience Built or Revealed? An Adoptee's Take on Foundation, Identity, and Bouncing Back

A young Roof Sweatte as a small child in a cream winter coat, the boy whose foster care and adoption experience shaped the R.O.O.F. Framework.

I had the honor of speaking with Simon Benn, the founder of Thriving Adoptees. We discussed my experience of being an adopted child, my challenges growing up, and how the R.O.O.F. framework came about from those experiences. Now, before I get into the framework and how that matters today, I want to share the story of my experience as a child brought into a home only weeks old, addicted to drugs, challenged with withdrawals, and shaking constantly a child who had to be held by my mother in order to feel safe and secure while also healing from the damage of the drugs flowing throughout my system.

Listen to Roof Sweatte and Simon Benn discuss his journey through adoption → Click here to listen

I've been told I took medication to help ease the attacks I was having from the withdrawals. That was hard. And I can remember being scared, unsure, with millions of questions circling my mind throughout the early days living in the foster care system until I was finally adopted. Over time, the questions I would ask myself became shorter, although I still had them. I would ask myself questions like:

• Why am I here?

• Are my parents coming to get me?

• Why are there so many different people here?

• Am I going to be safe here, or will I be asked to leave?

• Why was I adopted?

• Why did they choose to adopt me, of all the children?

Those of you who grew up with your biological parents, I am sure as a child you had questions about your parents too… sure, on another level, certainly not like these, but just imagine chasing belonging, identity, love, wondering if you're really supposed to be in such a situation, questioning why your parents are nowhere to be found. And then the worst of them all: "Maybe they didn't want me." The questions become louder when you're over at a friend's house and see both parents present for your friend, and you ask, "How did they get their parents? Why don't I have mine? Why is their situation different than mine?"

I was told that my parents couldn't keep me because they were on drugs and not fit to care for children. I also learned I have four biological siblings. I wrote a whole memoir about that in my book Home Away From Home. I was too young to understand fully what that actually meant; it looks so simple at a young age. So it's hard to fathom what the reasons are.

Over the time I spent in a white family upbringing, I remember my father's mother being such a horrible person. Notice, I didn't call her my grandmother. Almost like I was able to pick and choose my family, a position terribly confusing for any child. Nevertheless, she was racist. She would call me names and also didn't allow me in her house when we would visit. She owned a beach house; we would go to the beach, and when it came time to go to her house to shower, she would tell me, "He's not allowed in the house." I was thrown a towel and told to shower outside. A memory I will never forget.

These experiences formed the R.O.O.F. framework because I needed it first. I wanted to create something for people who felt left out. The people who have questions about their place of safety. This framework provides the tools to help those escape such challenges. This could be your place of employment, your relationship, or just the challenges you have with yourself. I designed this for you. I have also created a Find Your Foundation diagnostic test for you to assess yourself. By taking this, you will learn something new about yourself; it will help clear up some questions you may have or develop new ones. Either way, if you're someone who has recently or previously experienced a challenge related to this, I would encourage you to take this assessment test. It costs nothing, and the answers come directly from me, someone who lived through the storms.

Every house needs a R.O.O.F. And a safe place where you feel you belong.

Keep building your R.O.O.F.

• Take the diagnostic → Find Your Foundation

• Read the books → Roof Sweatte on Amazon

• Join the course → I Dare You to Show Up

• Follow the movement → LinkedIn · Instagram · TikTok

Every house needs a R.O.O.F.