Your child may grow up to be a lot like me (and that's not such an awful thing)

As of this month, I will begin contributing on a monthly basis to the adoption resource website, "Grown in My Heart."

GIMH describes itself as "a place where all adoptive parents, adoptees, and first moms know they feel safe to air their opinions, regardless of differences. It is a group of women joined, somehow, by adoption."

(Now, I know some of you may cringe or wince at the name of the website. Understandable. However, the website truly does offer a diverse set of voices, some with which I can relate and others, well, let's just say, that challenge me--and that's a good thing, because the adoption community truly consists of a wide range of various perspectives and experiences. Besides, I need to be challenged so that I don't become stagnant and complacent, and so that I sincerely can deal with any flaws or shortcomings in my own thinking. I truly appreciate the eclectic range of voices and writers represented at GIMH. I also see this as an opportunity to interact with people that I might not necessarily have the opportunity to engage with otherwise.)

My first "article," Your child my grow up to be a lot like me (and that's not such an awful thing) just posted today. Here's a teaser excerpt:

You shouldn’t fear that your children could one day grow up to be a little or a lot like one of us. Rather, your focus should be to be there no matter what your children may feel, no matter what conclusions they may reach. The goal is not to groom a certain outcome in your adopted child, but rather to provide the environment and relationship that will enable and empower your children to become the adults that they will inevitably be. The point is not to control the situation and outcome but to provide the freedom for your children to find their own way.

I hope you'll stop by GIMH and give it a read, and who knows you may end up finding the site itself a helpful and insightful resource of diverse voices. Or you may end up finding yourself completely annoyed and irritated. And if that's the case, the great thing about the internet is that you don't have to go anywhere you don't want to...(*smilewink*).

I didn't search because I was looking for a new family

I didn't search because I was looking for a new family.

My decision to search is not a reflection of you as a parent. I didn't decide to search for my biological family because you somehow failed me as a parent.

I did not decide to search because you as a parent were not enough.

In fact, although my decision to search certainly affects you, it actually has very little to do with you.

My decision to search is primarily due to the innate, inherent desire of every human being to want to know from whom and where we began.

My decision to search has more to do with the natural and normal longing to know one's origins, one's history, to answer such basic questions as, "Who am I?" or "Why am I the way I am?"

It's not that your love as a parent was not enough, it was simply that your love can not answer the questions that linger and hover over me. Your love cannot tell me why my original parents relinquished me. Your love cannot tell me what happened. Your love cannot give me the answers that have eluded me all of my life.

Only searching can help me to face these questions. And although I may not find the answers that I seek, I hope to find more of who I am along the way.

The best thing you can do is to understand that my desire to search is not about you as a parent. The best thing you can do is to be there for me, to let me know that you're not going anywhere, that you're secure enough in our relationship to let me take this journey.

The best thing you can do is to let go, while continuing to love me, knowing that although your love cannot answer all the questions I have, it can be a source of strength.

The best thing you can do is to not pull away or feel threatened by my desire to know more.

I am not leaving you in search of a new family. I am holding onto you as I search for the ones who--not unlike you--made me the person I am today.

What not to say to an adoptee...

Wow, you're [adoptive] parents must be such special/good people to have adopted you. [Translation: You're parents must be such amazing people in contrast to you--the lowly little charity case. They really must be saints to have been willing to take you into their family and home because, man, obviously neither your original family nor anyone else in their right mind wanted anything to do with you.]

You're so lucky. [Translation: You're so lucky that you don't know a thing about your original family--whether they are dead or alive.]

You must feel so grateful. [Translation: You must feel so grateful that you lost your original family and have no idea what happened to them].

You are so fortunate that someone adopted you. [Translation: You are so fortunate that someone wanted you.]

Don't you feel blessed that you got to come to America? [Translation: The country you came from was such an awful, terrible place and the people didn't want you anyway, so you should feel fortunate that America is so much better and so much more willing to accept someone like you--someone your own country and own people wouldn't take care of...]

Wow, you must be so glad that you didn't have to grow up in [country of origin]. [Translation: The country you came from was such a poor, uneducated crap hole, it is best that you stay away from that place anyway.]

You're not [ethnic origin], you're AMERICAN. [Translation: Just ignore and forget about who you are and where you came from, how different you look and how differently others treat you--it's not important anyway.]

It shouldn't matter to you whether you ever find your biological parents, you already have a family. [Translation: You're being ungrateful and foolish. You shouldn't want to know who or where you came from or what happened. You should just be grateful.]

* * *

I know that when people say things like what I listed above, they generally mean well. That's actually one of the primary reasons I posted this list.

Just because someone is well-intentioned, does not automatically mean therefore, what he or she is saying or doing is helpful or beneficial, and in fact some of the most "well-intentioned" words or acts can often have the most unintended detrimental and hurtful effects.

Particularly when it comes to adoption, many people have good intentions, but they are MISGUIDED or MISINFORMED intentions.

If you've ever said these things or thought these things or they just generally reflect your view of adoption, I'm not bashing you. I'm simply trying to "enlighten" you, or in simpler terms, just trying to educate you and correct your misconceptions.

If you're an adoptee and someone has ever made the above statements to you, I also recognize that such statements may not translate in the same way to every adoptee. Other adoptees may be less sensitive or may have different perspectives regarding their own personal adoptions.

I'm just sharing these things based on my experience and the experiences of other adoptees I personally know.

Certainly it is not an exhaustive list, but I think it communicates the overall point: Generally, most people prefer to see adoption as an act of saintly charity in which the heroes are the adoptive parents and the adoptee is the lowly, grateful recipient of their charity.

Often, ignorantly and unintentionally, people end up coating adoption in thick layers of euphemism and misconceived notions, because the practice of adoption is more comfortable and more digestible that way. To others, it feels better to view it that way.

But it doesn't feel better to the adoptee.

It's not that I do not love my family. I do. More than I can even express.

But it's also not that I do not grieve and ache over what has been lost. I do. More than I can express.

And the ongoing struggles and issues with which I must cope as an adult adoptee do not diminish or magically disappear, simply because I have found my biological family or because I am now an adult. Rather, they grow and intensify. They remain.

In more ways than I know how to explain.

adoption: generally misunderstood

The persisting lack of knowledge and awareness regarding the issues that adoptees face continue to astound and confound me.

I was reminded recently how rampant and pervasive are the utter ignorance and incomprehension when it comes to the profound loss that adoptees experience.

My husband was speaking with a friend. We'll call him Clark.

Clark and my husband, Mike, happened to stumble into a conversation about a friend of Clark's. Basically, Clark's friend has a daughter in her early 20's, who Clark described as troubled and distant. Clark's friend was described as being a father who is removed and frustrated by his daughter's apparent disconnection and detachment.

Well, eventually it came up that Clark's friend's daughter is adopted. And not only is she adopted, but her [adoptive] Mom died recently and suddenly--only two years ago--in a car accident. (The first loss of her biological family is compounded by the loss of her adoptive Mom).

Of course, as Mike was listening to Clark describe the situation, Mike was startled by the lack of awareness and understanding and proceeded to try to explain to Clark how being adopted most likely accounts for much of the daughter's behavior.

Clark demonstrated difficulty grasping the concept, and in response to my husband's efforts to educate Clark, Clark asked, "Well, do you think it's just better for parents not tell their children at all that they're adopted?"

Inside, Mike is thinking, "!!!!!!!!" There seemed to be no acknowledgment of the double trauma experienced by Clark's friend's daughter as a result of being adopted along with the recent loss of her adoptive Mom.

Although frustrating and alarming, neither Mike nor I should have been surprised.

As much progress that has been made, we still have a long way to go.

It is estimated that there are anywhere from 6 to 8 million adoptees living in America. Sure it may only be a small percentage of the overall population but it's significant enough that most people know someone who is adopted, if not multiple persons who are adopted.

And yet, the adoption experience remains one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted issues even today. It is subject to repeated euphemism and often the general public thinks they understand when they really have no clue.

What other trauma or loss is treated in the same way? Divorce, death of a loved one, returning from war--all of these major life events are viewed appropriately and treated with matching sympathy and compassion.

Yet when it comes to the adoption experience, society ignores any acknowledgment of trauma to the adoptee. It's not simply frustrating, but it is detrimental and hurtful to all of those involved in the adoption triad.

When a woman experiences a miscarriage, generally, most understand the loss involved. (Although, certainly, there will always be people who say well-intentioned but utterly misguided things).

How great is the loss when a woman relinquishes the child she has born? How deep the grief when that child must spend his or her life having lost the first mother and even more so having no answers, no knowledge of what happened.

It is indescribable the frustration and angst I experience in response to the lack of respect and understanding for the situation that adoptees face.

I continue to encounter individuals who not only do not understand but make no effort even to acknowledge the simple fact that adoption involves a profound loss and the accompanying grief and sorrow, confusion and pain that such loss involves.

I hope with time, more and more people will be willing and open to acknowledge the inherent trauma that adoption involves.

And if you're reading this and you think that perhaps you're one of the folks who perhaps does not quite get it, but you're willing to try to at least attain a basic understanding, please keep trying.

And feel free to contact me any time. I am more than willing to help you understand. And I promise I will be patient and considerate--just as I would hope that you would be patient and considerate toward me.

why being adopted matters

It’s so hard to try to explain to other people why being adopted is not always the most fun, because basically you’re trying to convince others as to why you have a right to feel sadness and grief, and as to why life is just hard for you at times.

When people smile and tell me it’s “great,” I know that they mean well. But that smile can slice through my heart like a piece of broken glass.

There is this strange tension that happens when it comes to the issue of adoption. Those on the outside expect an adoptee should be grateful and content with the “second chance” in life that has been allowed them, while the adoptee feels a deep sense of loss and displacement that conflicts with this notion that he or she should feel “grateful.”

These well-intentioned yet oblivious folks fail to acknowledge not only the persistent and unresolved loss and grief but also the complex issues that come with being adopted.

When someone loses a spouse or a loved one, people know to respond with compassion and understanding, with patience and gentleness.

Well, for those who don’t know, an adoptee has also lost loved ones. He or she has lost both her mother and her father, and for international adoptees, their first language and culture also. That’s nothing over which to rejoice and feel “great.”

If you meet someone who lost her parents in a car accident when she was 3 years old and was raised by her grandparents, I would hope you wouldn’t respond by saying, “Wow, you must feel so fortunate and so lucky that happened to you!”

Well, when you tell an adoptee, “Wow you must feel so fortunate and so lucky to be adopted,” you’re essentially saying the equivalent of the example I just gave. I know that you mean to say that the adoptee must feel grateful to have a family, but you must remember that the whole reason she or he had to be adopted in the first place was due to the fact that the adoptee first LOST his or her original family. And no matter what, the initial loss is not rectified or undone by the action of adoption.

It’s more complicated than what you may initially think. It carries a lot more emotional consequence, baggage, and difficulty than what you might first realize.

An adoptee didn’t come to be adopted because she decided one day, “Hey, I want to be adopted.” But rather some form of tragedy occurred that left her as an orphan without mother or father or any other family member to care for her.

And although it is the case that she eventually received a family, it does not then nullify the tragedy and loss that preceded her adoption. It does not erase or prevent the hardship that she will face for the rest of her life as a result of the subsequent displacement and ongoing irresolution.

I know there are people out there who feel as though adoptees like myself seem to only focus on the “negative” without acknowledging the “positive.”

I have no problem acknowledging the good things that have emerged in my life. But I do have a problem with the lack of understanding and, at times, the chosen ignorance regarding the adoptee experience.

If my experience as an adoptee demonstrated that people have overall come to understand the hardship and difficulty that adoptees face, I would not feel such a need to “educate.” But it is the apparent oblivion and unawareness, and sometimes even a favored disregard that compels me to continue to write and talk about these “negative” aspects to the adoptee experience.

Things have come a long way. I’ll admit to that. But there is still a long way to go. And I feel almost a responsibility to help it get there.

thoughts from my husband

The following is an email that my husband sent to me after reading the link to Mei-Ling's post, "failure" (http://yoonsblur.blogspot.com/2009/08/failure.html). I wanted to share his thoughts. Here is the email:

After you posted the link on your blog, I was thinking about international adoption...

I know it's a very complex issue and that there is no perfect solution. But I started thinking about the reasons why so many people, particularly in Korea, end up giving up their children. It's a matter of support, right? The women in many of these situations feel they will not have the resources to raise a child.

So let's make it personal. What if you and I were thinking about adopting from Korea? In a practical sense, we would have to raise a lot of money and plan on spending a lot of money in the future to support a child, right? But then money, in part, is what is keeping the mother from raising the child herself. I think of JH for example. Would it be better that we adopt her child, or that we give her the money to help raise her own child (provided that is what she wants to do)?

I guess what I am getting at is that it takes the same amount of resources to support a child that isn't your own as one that is. Yet I don't really hear any enthusiasm about programs to do this--a kind of adopt-a-parent rather than adopt a child. Help the parent to have the resources to raise the child themselves.

I know it's complicated. I know that adoption is about more than helping someone--it's about love and wanting a relationship with a child. There's something that would be much less emotionally gratifying about supporting a child from afar than raising a child that becomes your family.

But I guess I'm with you as far as thinking that if a child is able to stay with their parents, that is often the best situation. I just wonder if there isn't more that people could do to facilitate what is ultimately best for the child. It seems strange when you step back and think about the money that is changing hands--from the costs of running orphanages, the cost of adopting and travel, etc. And in the meantime the birth mother is sitting there alone, wishing that she could have had a way to raise her child herself.

Even when well-intentioned human beings hurt other people deeply. I hope some day we are able to come up with a better way that doesn't end up in so much pain and loss for people.

Love you!