The following podcast is a deer media production.

Hey friend, it's Nicole, host of the Nicole Walters Podcast.

Here's where we laugh, we cry, and we grant ourselves grace as we do life together.

Let's get started.

Hey friends, so if you've been keeping along with what's going on on social, if you

aren't, I'm over at Nicole Walters on Instagram and also on Facebook and TikTok and all those

little Jimmy Jams, but you know it's back to school season.

If you know that the Puffin, my little one is 11 years old and officially in sixth grade.

She's a middle schooler and this is such a formative and important season.

If you are a mom or an aunt or sister or heck, if you remember for yourself, 11 to 15 is

a wild season of life.

So you know, a lot's happening around here and I know a lot's happening in your homes

with back to school and just transitioning into fall.

So sending all the energy and vibes for that, but the thing I want to talk about is actually

something that happened and I don't want to say that this chat is awkward for me, but

I get a little fired up about it because it's so personal.

And if you are an adoptee or adoptive mother or if you're someone who's ever been responsible

for taking care of someone else's kids, I think you're going to feel the heat and the

charge of what I'm going to tell you.

It's actually the most offensive thing that I think someone can really say or at least

up there with the most offensive things that people could ever say to an adoptive parent

or legal guardian or someone who's in care of another child and it happens often.

...