S4: Ep 7 - Erin Quick, founder and CEO of PairTree on modernizing modern adoption
As you know this season is focused on Covid pivots - people who despite the worst circumstances have dug down, found some resilience and done incredible things. My next guest embodies the pivot. I’d like to introduce Erin Quick. Erin is a professional - she’s a 3 time startup founder, 20 year marketing and branding professional and mom of two kids. Erin’s team reached out to me after hearing the L’Avant interview thinking that Erin’s new company might be a fit for this new season and boy was she right.
Erin and I have lots in common as it turns out - we’re both the exact same age, we’re from Spokane, both started our careers in very similar ways…but where we differ is in our paths to motherhood.
This is a very humbling and emotional episode for both of me. it feels really entitled to admit that I was able to get pregnant very easily twice- I fully realize. For those of you who have listened to this podcast from the beginning, my interview with Ali MacBeth, the Seattle Fertility Doula, is the first experience I had taking a deep dive into what it’s like when you’re diagnosed with infertility. For one in 8 families - this is the case and that number is only growing. Ali’s struggle ended with a viable, healthy pregnancy and baby, but for people like Erin, when the story doesn’t end that way, the other obvious choice is adoption.
I reference this in the episode, but I’m from the Teen Mom on MTV generation. Because I have virtually no experience with adoption personally, what I thought I knew is mostly stereotype. When Erin’s fertility path led to adoption, she, as a marketer and brander, began asking questions about the process and wondering why it had to be the way it was - expensive, discriminatory, and long. After deviating from the norm and adopting two kids with her own team, her circle started reaching out to her for help. That circle grew and before she knew it, she realized her calling was to modernize adoption, and figure out how to allow all families to grow without an agency if they so desired. All in Spring of 2020. While she was homeschooling her kindergartner.
I need to give some trigger warnings here - we talk about infertility, miscarriage and loss in this episode. We talk about adoption, placement, and all the things that come with it. So if this episode is not for you, please stop now.
That said, I left this interview feeling so much hope for the future of adoption. There are so many LGBTQ families, single parent families, and others that have been denied the opportunity to become parents - PairTree is an incredible option for those who might not be successful at other agencies. Being in the presence of a visionary like that, Erin Quick, whose accomplishment is born out of such a deep grief, is a truly moving experience.
This episode was recorded the Friday after the Robb Elementary school tragedy. Erin and I both had such heavy hearts going into this session, but what struck me about the timing was that Erin recognized that an antiquated system needed to be overturned…that’s where we seem to be as a society. Clinging to norms that are harmful just because white men want power isn’t working for American society - in fact it is literally killing innocent victims. There is nowhere else to turn for a solution - we have to turn to ourselves, like Erin did, and start acting. Start doing. Start toppling norms for the sake of the greater good. Like Erin has done with adoption, the single question of “there must be a better way” is going to change the face of American families in a way that no one has ever done before. What if we did that with guns? With health care? With education? I believe in this generation and the one coming up…we have to do better and with leaders like Erin Quick to look up to, I have hope we can get there.
Find PairTree here