Archive for the ‘Q&A’ Category
Do you believe that interracial adoptions should be allowed?
I need opinions on adoptions.?
Additional Details
Answers (14 answers, 12 of them think it’s great)
It’s great if you want to make a child who’s already had to adjust to a new life even harder, because the world is not color blind, and transracial adoption isn’t going to change that. Who has to bear the brunt of this wishful thinking? The child. And race is also tied to assumptions about culture. And is the other race parent really going to be able to pass the child the necessary skills to deal with that disconnect and lack of cultural knowledge? Poorly at best.
What is the motivation of adopting transracially? Because they’re cute babies? Because the adoptive parents are fascinated with other cultures? Does this have anything to do with what’s best for the child?
Being a transracial adoptee was not a wonderful thing. It was a world of tension, ridicule, not matching anyone, not belonging anywhere, and somewhat disturbing to be a walking billboard for my parents’ charity. Being a transracial adoptee means always having to explain your situation. Being a transracial adoptee means being sentenced to forever being reminded you were obtained unnaturally. Being a transracial adoptee means having to tell yourself, “I was chosen. I was chosen. I was chosen,” every time you’re feeling pain. That’s just the harsh truth, whether you love your parents or not. It’s unnecessary and avoidable. Racial matching is not being racist – it’s being kind to the child.
Yes it can be done. But it’s a messed up thing to do. It was especially hard for my African American adoptee friends separated from that strong and vibrant culture: there is no substitution for that. To be an oreo is to be culturally killed and cut off from everyone who looks like you, but you still have to pay for your skin color.
People just don’t think. THEY just want to feel good about what THEY want to do to make the world better. Children should not be the social experiments of privileged Utopian fantasies.
Source(s):
adult transracial adoptee living in her birth country
Do you think ALL adoptee’s feel the SAME about their adoption in terms of loss?
- 2 weeks ago
Additional Details
2 weeks ago
I agree that it’s not healthy to “stuff” feelings. But is it assumed that adoptee’s who claim to be “not bitter” do that?
NOT CHOSEN Best Answer:
Sunny – I wish I could give you ten thumbs up!
Questioner – I’m going to answer your question, but maybe from a more literal stand-point, just because (most) everyone else is being refreshingly on point and trying to be objective and you’ve got some great general answers there.
– First, I think loss is loss is loss.
– Second, I think you can weight the losses. For example, losing a mom is HUGE, no matter what your age or circumstance, on a visceral level
– Third, losses ADD UP.
losing faith
losing relationship
losing your country
losing your culture
losing your heritage
losing your language
losing trust
losing innocence
losing ignorance
it’s like a soup of pain: the bulk of each adoptee’s experience is loss of mother. then each soup is made unique depending on the combination of other added losses.
my best adoptee friend has all of the above. she lost her mother by death. a few years later she literally got lost. she lost her father by adoption when nobody searched for her father – even though she was 9 and knew his name – she lost her siblings – she lost her country when she was sent to America – she lost her heritage – she lost her culture – after two years, all her language was lost – it wasn’t long before her innocence was lost when her adoptive father abused her – and all this time. she was fully aware of her powerlessness because of her age. So in the end she lost all the relationships she valued, she lost faith in the charity and responsibility of adults, and she lost trust in those pledged to care for her.
We tend to focus on the main loss, but there can be so many. This is why I call myself an adoption survivor. Because for me and many of my fellow adoptees, we shoulder so many losses on top of the main loss.
How can you measure something like that? I’d like to measure it in dollars and sue the adoption agencies. I’m hoping someone with a water tight case can and does.
As for your additional details.
I personally have a great deal of empathy for the “not bitter” adoptees, though I do wish they wouldn’t protest so much and see me and my experience as the enemy. Just like them, I don’t want to be pitied – I just want to see change for the better, and that requires some sympathy. Two different animals entirely.
Regarding those so-called “kool-aid” adoptees, I feel for them. When you’ve got everything as good as it gets, then whatever feelings you have about losing your mother become incredibly treacherous waters to navigate. When you’ve got no other additional losses that can share some of the heat, then you’ve very little allowance to complain. The margin for even the smallest expressions of pain becomes extremely prohibitive. That’s a tight-rope I wouldn’t want to walk, and a much more difficult position from which to discern one’s deepest feelings. Some may call this denial. I call this an ineffective way of dealing with the core issues.
I’d also like to add that a “healthier outlook on their adoption” and positive outlook and self esteem are not the same thing. I can have a positive outlook and very high self esteem and still have a negative outlook on adoption. Maybe instead of “healthier outlook on their adoption” you meant “more socially acceptable outlook on adoption” ? Other than that, it’s just common sense that those who have been treated with more equality and given the truth won’t have to add injustice at the hands of their parents onto their loss will have less of a burden to carry.
We all experience loss and struggle with it in our own ways, due to our infinitely varied circumstances. We all do the best that we can because we have no choice. Peace does come through acceptance of our adoption circumstance. However, some things no human should be asked to be at peace with: like violations of our civil rights, exploitation, abuse, etc. And as long as adoption is involuntary, as long as there is exploitation, as long as there are violations of our civil rights and the obliteration of our identities, then we should not rest.
Because no child should have to experience even one added loss on top of losing their mother, and no child should lose their mother just to fill the arms of another, which happens far more than anyone cares to admit. These losses are preventable. Prevent, and we don’t have to ask these questions.
What does “feelings of abandonment” actually mean?
Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but what do feelings of abandonment actually feel like? How does it actually make you feel? Do you feel alone? How does it affect your life growing up? Do you have difficulty with trust and forming relationships with others?
Sorry, I am not trying to be stupid or insensitive, I just don’t really know what it feels like. I’m doing a project for school about adoption, and I think it’ll be a lot better if I can actually understand what it’s like to be adopted.
All answers appreciated. The more details the better, please.
Thanks so much. :)
I’m still in denial about this. I’m actually pretty cut off from my emotions and can’t describe what I’m feeling most of the time. I only found out about this, and that I probably have it, because other people tell me I must feel this way. So I’m still deducing what it actually is/feels like, and the way I do that is by surveying everything else, since the abandonment issue is like a hole that can’t be defined.What I can do, however, is tell you the symptoms of what might indicate this feeling:
People who are warm and inviting cause alarms in my head to go off, and I push them away.
I expect everyone to be forthright and honest, and am always disappointed: my standards are so high no one can possibly meet them, and I am highly critical of everyone who gives up and/or is selfish in a relationship.
I never believe people I want to be close to will bother being vested in me, so I don’t bother to try.
“I’m a loner!” I say too often, as if it were something to be proud of.
I don’t join things or participate in things: I belittle such social activities as trite, superficial, and a waste of time.
When others around me are forming relationships, I count the days until its demise.
I don’t believe anything real lasts anything longer than a blink of an eye.
I don’t take down phone numbers. I don’t call. I don’t visit anyone. It seems like a waste of time and effort.
I believe everyone, friends, especially, will eventually **** on me.
I always keep my emotions under control. I disdain those that don’t.
How does this all add up? How does this feel? It feels like I am in a fight, and I’m always prepared for the worst. If I let down my guard, then something really horrible could happen.
I guess that something is abandonment.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not totally socially inept – people like me, some think I’m charming, some admire me, many respect me, some even love me. But there is always this inaccessible part of me that I will always keep remote and protect. And if I let anyone go there, I feel I will die.
Again.
What is wrong with adoption because you want a family?
Open Question
Ok I get the hole not telling the adopted child they are adopted, I am in favor of not amending OBC (Original birth certificate0, and just getting an adoption certificate, I am have even changed my opinion on closed adoptions, in fav of enforcing open adoption. However i don’t get why so many of you say it is selfish to adopt. People don’t give birth thinking about the kids needs. They have kids because they want kids. Some people can’t so they adopt. .
Answer
“People don’t give birth thinking about the kids needs.”
I’d beg to differ with you here. By nine months gestation, a mother is thinking a lot about the kids’ needs.
“They have kids because they want kids.”
I’d beg to differ again. Many kids are accidents. By nine months gestation, they are wanted. It is outside forces and circumstances which can sometimes make this want a conflict.
“Some people can’t so they adopt.”
Agreed.
I don’t understand why everyone can’t admit that wanting children is selfish? What’s wrong with that? Nothing, in my book.
What’s wrong is when that selfish want GROWS so large it is to the exclusion of reason. When the ripples it causes that effect others and even the child are of no consequence. When self-reflection and honesty to the child are abandoned to justify this lack of responsibility. When social and personal ethics are set aside for the ultimate goal.
Being selfish is okay. Being selfish without regard to others is not okay. Being selfish and calling it a selfless act is repugnant. The inability to recognize the difference indicates a level of maturity most parents should be above.
So it’s not being selfish which is the indictment. The indictment is for predatory practices, blind ambitions, narcissistic tendencies, and anything that is BEYOND responsible selfishness.
Children deserve not only basics and opportunities and love, but they also deserve to be considered and cared for by balanced, mature, emotionally responsible people.
btw, thank you for taking the time to recognize the child’s civil rights. good job, indeed!
What is this need to KNOW WHERE YOU CAME FROM?
The following question was deleted from Yahoo!Answers. Fortunately, I saved a draft. Please forward to anyone who also doesn’t get it.
Question
What is that, especially after you were brought into and loved by a afmily?It seems rather selfish to me. It also seems like the effort to have a ready excuse for what doesn’t go the way that you want it.
I am trying to understand.
I’ll take a stab at it, but it’s nearly impossible to describe because you have to live it to really understand.Say you had amnesia. You wake up and you are in strange surroundings with new people, and you can’t remember your name or where you came from or anything about your life prior to waking up that day. You get a new name, but you know you were called something else before. You eat food, but you know it is different than everything you ate before. You are cared for, but you know they are not who cared for you before. What a difference one day makes. How can you not remember? You know there are so many things about yourself, but they are all gone and you don’t know who you are anymore. You’re too in shock to know what to do.
This day goes on to the next and the next and you gradually become familiar with this new life. But you are confronted with questions that cause sheer chaos inside you. Draw your family tree. Chaos. How were you born. Chaos. Does your mother have the same color eyes. Chaos. Do your siblings look like you. Chaos. Form field – what ethnicity are you. Chaos. Medical history. Chaos. All you know is you had an identity once and it’s gone now. People keep asking you these things. You look at other families and they all look alike. You have a child and it looks up at you, half your face. You look up like your child and see – nothing but chaos. You look in the mirror and see – a stranger – who looks nothing like anyone else.
Yes yes yes we can and must deal with this. But in my case almost three years got erased. Three years of culture and language is no small thing. It is not just a trivial thing to lose three years. Those were my formative years. They shaped me on a profound level. But all acess to anything that can tell me anything about the beginning of my story, any clue to alleviate that unworldly feeling like you are an alien dropped out of the sky, born at age three, is denied me. To know see how I will age. Denied. To know even one sentence to cover the hole that is three years. Denied. To have even one image to confirm that I am not an alien. Denied.
We can get by all right. We just must. But this amnesia induced by others, our original identities stolen is no excuse we make up to blame others out of selfishness. It’s a very very real loss. That nobody else has to confront except adoptees and amnesiacs. And it is haunting. And heartrenching. And frustrating.
Please don’t trivialize this. You can’t begin to conceive what this is like.
Adoptees: if you could have picked your own adoptive parents, would you have chose the ones you have?
No, not being adopted is not an option.
How would the AP’s you were to be raised by be different, if you’d had the chance to choose them?
Answer
I would have liked to have established a RELATIONSHIP with them FIRST, so I could see what their true colors were and make my decision based upon that. Trust should be earned. Relationships should be built. Even children deserve that.
The problem with adoption is you become an instant family. Back in the day, this was sight un-seen. They at least got a photograph. I didn’t get any. I didn’t know them from Adam, but I had to live with them. Even today, it is typically just a visit or two. I not only had zero choice, but I had zero opportunity to bond except after I had already been totally uprooted and totally dependent upon them for – EVERYTHING. I was stranded with strangers, powerless. I also couldn’t speak English so I couldn’t even communicate my fears, reservations, or needs. I also had no way to leave a bad situation. I didn’t even get an interpreter… I can’t understand why adoptive parents would want a child under those circumstances, where love is forced because there is no alternative. I wouldn’t want a parent willing to settle for something that shallow.
I wouldn’t have chosen the parents I got. They provided well, but they failed not only me but also their own biological children in every other way – in all the ways that count. They should have been screened better. And asking me to choose my own adoptive parents isn’t enough, as I would have also traded in my siblings who didn’t appreciate the fuss and disruption of my presence, so I had to grow up with them hating and resenting me.
If I could have chosen parents, I would have chosen people who bothered to get to know me first, who liked me for me and not because I filled a need and provided a role for them. In fact, I think someone like a caring big brother or big sister would have been a much better choice than having to go live with a new family, to tell you the truth. The amount of quality bonding time might even have exceeded what I got with my parents.
I would have chosen people who respected and loved children enough to not re-traumatize them and abruptly rip them from their country, their culture, and everyone they could identify with. I would have chosen local people in my own country. Local adoptive parents or the orphanage, surrounded with others like myself – that is what I would have chosen.
How would my AP’s be different? My only friend in jr. high school had five sisters, a step brother, a step mother, and her dad. All nine of them lived in a two bedroom cottage and attic space. There was more life and love in that tiny struggling house than could be found in my house times ten. Careful, conservative, proper, respectable people don’t always make good parents, just because they go to church, can fill out forms, and can balance their budget. Opportunity can go to hell. Without a vibrant, caring, genuine family like my friend had, my opportunities seem like poverty in comparison. My parents of choice wouldn’t have been so superficially perfect.
Adoption can be just as creepy as an arranged marriage. You can qualify perfect attributes of the perfect people and they can still be perfectly hideous to live with and govern you. You can create a laundry list of what you want in a child, and find you hate them once they are in your care. And there’s something very creepy about being sought after with no established history and no relationship. Without any test, without any trial relationship, we can’t even establish whether these humans even LIKE each other. This kind of courtship takes time and proximity. It takes more effort. It is so much more meaningful.
In my world, love comes first and legal recognition comes after – not the other way around. That’s the kind of world I want to live in. People who prioritize values like that are the kind of parent I wish I had.
For those who were adopted, when did you start understanding?
My daughter has always known she was adopted. She knows just about everything we know except for issues that she’s still too young for. She’s going to be 10 soon.
We have an open adoption with visits, calls, e-mails, etc. She rarely asks me any questions except for “why don’t I look like my sisters and brother?” and “why don’t they live with us?” We always tell her the truth. When I ask her if there’s anything else she wants to know, I usually get that deer in a headlight look. I know it’s coming. I know she’s going to ask more questions some day. I want to be prepared.
Additional Details
3 weeks ago
Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
I threw myself into my interests – vocational, recreational, and relational with great fervor and passion. On the surface I appeared vibrant and successful. Yet nothing ever lasted. From childhood to present day, I’ve always been a little remote or a little too intense or a little too vested or a little too intimate.
At 43, after a failed relationship, I crashed. I crawled into a fetal position for two months surveying all my relationship disappointments and nearly didn’t make it to my 44th birthday. Until one day the obvious hit me – that I had been living my entire life avoiding and fearing abandonment. And because avoidance had been my main focus, I was ill-equipped to handle the normal ebbs and flows of relationships most people learn to deal with. That the rough start of abandonment and adoption truly was profound. That it shaped my whole life. And confronting that wound and dealing with it in a more productive way will shape the last half of my life as well.
And one of the main reasons for this handicap was because my parents gained more from me than I gained from them. Their self interest was, in effect, abandoning me. This is something adoptive parents don’t want to recognize. When the parent/child relationship is more about the joys and satisfaction derived from children than it is about truly what is important to the child, then who is there for the child and the child’s emotional needs?
I think childhood is not a time when children can express how they feel, or communicate their deep loss or grief or pain. I don’t think they should be expected to. Nor do I think they will necessarily share any recognition they do have with their second parents. Because you contributed to the process that caused them pain, even if your intentions were honorable. And they care about not hurting you. It’s our own private thing we have to deal with, that the child will never trust the parents to relate to. Because unless you’ve been abandoned and adopted you just can’t.
The only thing you as parents can do is put them first. Really care about them. Always be supportive. And never, ever, place conditions on your affections or put your own needs ahead of theirs. You need to be a rock of gibraltar, a constant and abiding source. They need to trust that you will always be there for them and never abandon them – in word, deed, attitude, in any way, shape, or form. Your loving words are not enough – they need to see/feel/know without a shadow of a doubt that they can be totally secure. The more insecure you show you are, the more insecure your child will be…
So I don’t think it’s a matter of having talks about adoption. In fact, that’s invasive, self-interested, a sign of parental insecurity, and a great way to further alienate yourself from your kids. It’s a matter of being a genuine and complete loving parent. And if your child wants to talk about it when she’s ready, know that all she wants is honest answers. NOT happy adoption rhetoric. HONEST self probing answers.
Again, the theme I keep going back to is this: we don’t need adoptive parents. We need PARENTS. Relaxed. Loving. Secure. Steadfast. Comforting. PARENTS.
Hope I’ve been of help.
- Asker’s Rating:
- Asker’s Comment:
- Every single answer gave me a new perspective, so my thanks go to all.
AlmostHuman, your theme of children needing genuine and loving PARENTS really hit a chord with me. Thanks also for sharing what you learned about yourself during your journey.
removing the hypocricy from ethical adoption
This was a response I posted on an ethical adoption site. I have edited portions of it referring to the particular thread to make it more universal.
It is a snapshot of my current evolving view on international adoption.
As a person who can understand WHY people want to adopt, yet as a person who wants all international adoption to END, I’ve found this thread to be very interesting.
It’s interesting because this is a website devoted to integrity and ethics in adoption, and yet it still reflects all the divisiveness of the adoption issues at large. It’s also always interesting to me when children who were once so coveted and sought out grow up to be a source of discomfort and conflict.
Like most of the parents here, my views about adoption began to turn upside down only as I learned more about how it was conducted and as I explored the motivations behind its genesis. It’s not a pretty picture beneath its top layer. The deeper I explored, the more outraged I became. Is this angry adoptee syndrome a popular phenomenon? No. It does not reflect the majority of adoptions (though I do believe time brings us all closer to these revelations). I believe it is a parallel path to those who are willing to ascribe to ethical adoptions, which also do not represent the majority of adoptive parents. Both positions are the result of a deeper exploration and a belief in social justice and personal responsibility. These positions are not set, but are a journey, as we all are seeking the truth.
There is no room for (or value in) blame or assumptions or pre-judging. Especially when what’s done is done. However, more fundamental to all adoptions are the issues of desire, entitlement and all the dark alleys that can lead people down. As a broad generalization, the distinctions between ethical adoptions and the status quo often stop here.
For me, as an idealist who wants to promote the idea of village (a more expanded definition of family in a social context) and the exploration of what a genuine parent is, I don’t feel adoptions are a necessary legal construct. However, as a pragmatist, I feel I must address adoption on two fronts: Support for social services in source countries to eliminate the need for adoptions, and support for the children who have already been adopted. By support for social service in source countries, I believe most adoptions are unnecessary and very correctable if we threw as much energy into caring for one another as we throw energy into rescuing children of the aftermath of not caring for one another. By support for the children who have already been adopted, I mean helping children by helping their adoptive parents provide a more meaningful parent/child relationship. What’s done is done and I want to spare other adopted children the suffering us older adoptees had to endure at the hands of our well meaning (by their estimation) parents.
At the essential core of both fronts is the surgery that is executed for adoption to take place, and the participation of institutions or individuals in that wound. What is frustrating is that the majority of potential and already adoptive parents reject acknowledging their participation in that reality. Because these issues are so fundamental to the relationship of adopted child and parent, the denial of or unwillingness to admit their role in this surgery can lead to an unbridgeable gap of mistrust, a gap that young children are unable to verbalize. The ends do not always justify the means. If the means were ugly, but only the beauty is promoted, then children are taught that their parents are hypocrites that can’t be trusted to be honest. This lack of trust prevents adoptee relationships with their adoptive parents from fulfilling its potential for depth and meaning.
And the means does not only include adoption agencies and countries. It starts with each person, and what set them on the road to adoption in the first place. Too often progressive adoptive parents wear the mantel of truth yet still exhibit their underlying entitlement. I will put forth that adult adoptees have hyper awareness of this when it occurs. There doesn’t seem to be any good way to point out when entitlement is showing without appearing accusatory.
When you hear the “anger” or frustration in the adoptee voice, it is because we are always trying to have a conversation with people closed to any real discourse when it does not validate what they have put so much energy into building. So please be understanding and patient when you deal with adoptees – the frustration and isolation of voicing an unpopular opinion and repeatedly talking to deaf ears can make our voices shrill.
On the other hand, I think that it does not do our cause any good when we try and hammer home our viewpoints, however well argued. This is because there are too many iterations of the adoption scenario and because the ten arguments we may have do not apply to the 15 reasons people adopt. I understand adoptee frustration over ethical adoption organizations, despite being for integrity and ethics, are still advocating adoption, and more radical than that, international adoption. Yet – I think our energies can be spent better eliciting allies amongst them. We don’t necessarily need 100% support. An inroad is an inroad. A little enlightenment is still an improvement and progressive. We need thoughtful parents, like the ones who come here, to help us re-frame the dialog with the rest of the adopting world. We can not do this alone. We need to recognize those that are on this path are heading somewhere positive, just as they need to recognize that our perspectives are valuable, even if they hurt.
Me, I’m a pragmatist.
I see adoption as a great experiment gone horribly awry. I feel we can all learn from each other and all work together to stop the mistakes of the past from continuing to be perpetuated. It is my sincerest hope that for every adoption that goes through, x+ families are assisted to stay together. We should ALL work towards the elimination of the need for adoption to abandon children. Hopefully we can all agree that the need for adoption to abandon children is messed up, that there are things we can work together to eliminate this need, and that reform is a beautiful thing.
Imagine all the progress we could make if each adopting parent who claims they are adopting to save children, would concurrently support programs to save families…now that would be an adoptive parent I could believe in and endorse.
I would hope all of you can join me in open forum, enlightening popular culture as to the complexities and consequences of adoption. I would hope everyone can take what you’ve learned and broadcast it OUT to those that know little about adoption and do what we can to minimize the damage that can happen when people jump into something with simple and reckless abandon. I commend you all for pausing to think and choosing this path. Now that you’re on this path, I hope you don’t stop – but continue on – with me – working for social justice and – with yourselves – doing the hard self analysis.
For the kids
Do all adoptees feel this way?
Here is a question that was closed before I got a chance to answer. (the run-on paragraph makes for hard reading, but bear with it)
Her question
A very common theme I see here with adoptees are the feelings of loss, betrayal, feeling unwanted, different and feeling like they didn’t “belong” to their adoptive families, all of which are justified. I have had these feelings too. I know there are a lot of people with strong opinions here, but please consider the fact that I am an adoptee also. What I would like to know if there are any adoptees that consider their adoption to have been a positive thing? Obviously adoption was a life changing event, whether as an infant and unable to remember your adoption or as an older child, remembering being taken from or surrendered by your family. It seems like a lot of adoptees have lots of negative things to say, almost as if their whole life has been ruined, and but I don’t think for everybody. When I first started asking about adoption on Y!A, I didn’t disclose the fact that I was an adoptee, I came here seeking information on how to adopt. I came under some really heavy criticism from people not knowing my background, assuming that I was just another infertile parasite looking for someone’s baby to take without regard to the child’s feelings at all. Do all adoptees feel like that’s what all adoptive parents are like? I was a baby, I don’t remember anything, so I never experienced the trauma of remembering being separated from my family. My parents have a bio son who I consider to be my brother in every way and I was never ever referred to as an adopted daughter. Now, that isn’t to say I had a great childhood. It wasn’t, but not in the way that a lot of adoptees describe their childhood. I had to get therapy for other issues in my early 20s and am coming to terms that I’ll likely never know my biological family. Are there any adoptees who have no desire to know their bio families? If you are one, are you content with your life as it is and consider your adoptive family to be your only family, period? I thought that my own experience as a child would make me a better adoptive parent, but it seems like that might not be the case. I figure that was the hand I was dealt and it has made me who I am today and though it took a while, I have to say I’m happy. I’ve gotten married to a wonderful man and we are looking forward to building our family, conventionally or not. Some of the comments given to people just trying to look into adoption almost make you want to NOT do it. My feelings aren’t as strong as some others here and if no matter how much empathy I can give an adopted child, if they still are going to feel this way, it makes me wonder if this is the right thing for me to do. I don’t want my child years from now having all these negative feelings, although I realize that’s not going to be in my control. All I can do is be the best parent I can be and hope they know that I know what it’s like. Is there anyone out there who is happy to have been adopted and wouldn’t want life any other way? For the other adoptees who aren’t, what is the source of your feelings, other than the obvious, of course? I understand every person is unique as is each family and each situation. I understand the need for reform. What I’m not always understanding is a lot of the bitterness, perhaps because my situation was different. I really would love to adopt but am no longer feeling as confident about it because of the responses I’m seeing from other adoptees. Is it possible for an adoptee to be truly happy with their adoptive family?
Pretty astounding from an adoptee who was transracial, intercountry, and sexually abused. The deep deep level of how much we want things to be as they should knows no bounds.
To me, adoption is a process. One that had I further complicated with adopting, I might have forever frustrated reaching an understanding of what adoption means: personally, socially, and politically. And recently, I have even begun to recognize adoption as a feminist issue.
I am glad that I did not participate in perpetuating what was done to me. I am glad that I am no longer fatalistic about the hand I was dealt with. I am glad to finally be questioning what adoption really is.
It revealed itself when I had children of my own. It revealed more of itself when my parents passed away. It reveals itself in new color and depth as I begin something I had no desire to ever do – search for my birth family. It seems to have waited until my hair turned gray; It seems to have taken that long to process and acknowledge.
What I’m finding is that adoption is a misguided solution. It treats the symptoms of society’s problems without addressing the root causes: The thinking that by distributing orphans amongst the many who want children, the problems will be cleaned up does not work. The problems will continue to come. The orphanages will just be filled with new results of the same old problems, because the problems are systemic and cultural. But people who want babies aren’t concerned with fixing the system or with the next generation of orphans. This myopic vision, so attractive in its personal rewards, contributes to the neglect of fixing the system, because as long as people are there to relieve the system of its excess pressure, they negate the need for fixing anything. This is why I am against saving children through adoption. Instead of catching one falling child of many, I would rather those that want to save children work together on a safety net for all the children. The focus should be on eliminating the need for orphanages, while at the same time reforming the system by improving social services to women and families, and creating an exit strategy to truly empty the orphanages.
Your inquiry shows me that you, too, are on this process. That you’re starting to reflect on the more profound aspects of what a parent and family really is, and hopefully your path will lead to a further exploration of the larger social impacts of adoption.
Today I am glad I did not pursue adoption. Just like I try to not to purchase items made in sweatshops. I realize not all of the workers are exploited. I realize my boycott does not directly improve anyone’s life and that my boycott could mean loss of jobs for a few. But it sends a clear message that exploitation is unacceptable and that markets will disappear if unethical practices are allowed to proliferate unchecked. Public awareness and pressure successfully causes systems to adjust. For example, Walmart will not suffer another Kathy Lee scandal. Walmart has just announced it will only purchase products from green factories. I would rather do without the enjoyment of certain items I want, than to know I had a hand in the viability of a system that perpetuates exploitation. So-called orphans are the by-product of systems which prey on the disenfranchised and cultures which don’t support and disrespect women. By providing help to families in crisis, we eliminate the need for orphanages. By increasing opportunities and social services to women, we increase their chance to succeed – and when women are successful, unwanted pregnancies and relinquishment are reduced. Changing systems is slow and painful work, but I would rather prevent tragedies than clean up the aftermath.
I think it is an over simplification to categorize adoptees as happy or bitter, and it is also an over simplification to correlate that with adoptive family relations. One can hate adoption and love or hate ones adoptive parents. I am not bitter about adoption, I am sad about adoption because it is a preventable tragedy. I am bitter about some things my parents visited upon me, but I can also distinguish their individual issues from the fact of me being adopted. I can also say that adoption distinguished me and that it influenced some of my parent’s actions, which is an added burden for children.
Is it possible for an adoptee to be truly happy with their adoptive family? Yes. Part of them can be truly happy. But part of them will always be deeply disturbed in some way by adoption. There’s just no getting around this dichotomy.
Pushing Culture
Response to an Amom about her daughter’s culture:
She has NO desire to learn about Korea at this point and takes offense when I suggest anything cultural
yeah, this IS pretty offensive, actually. I was the same way.
You know – there’s ACADEMICS and there is REALITY.
Transracials are acutely aware of inauthenticity. We question the motives behind everything having to do with suggestions related to race and culture. We get tired of having to put up with ignorance of racial issues, especially when they come from our own families.
CULTURE is something you have to LIVE. It’s commonwealth, born of common struggle and overcoming, which is handed down person to person. YOU can not provide any culture to your child that you do not know yourself, or in a vacuum removed from a cultural environment. It’s impossible/futile. Attempts to display cultural esoterica will come off as caricature. Over interest in culture will appear to be the cultural appropriation it probably is.
Pushing culture based on a person’s race is therefore even more offensive. Here’s this impossible thing you should strive for because you’re (insert nationality here) and because you’re not from here…you’re an alien.
Loss of culture is just one more sadness a transracial adoptee has to deal with. But because it seems so out of reach or so inadequate, a lot of us buried the desire to acquaint ourselves with it, resigned ourselves to that, had to reject it to defend ourselves.
If you aren’t near any people of your child’s birth culture, but are truly interested in your child being exposed to their culture so they don’t feel a loss later, then MOVE to some place where their culture is evident in their environment. It’s a horribly isolating feeling to be the only person of your race where you live, know nothing of that culture, yet bare the burden of representing your entire nation of origin, simply because of the color of your skin.
If you have the good fortune to know any people of your child’s birth culture, THEY can introduce your child to their culture. But it shouldn’t be formally. It has to be real. S/he has to see/experience how they live and develop their own thirst to learn more. S/he has to like hanging around them. Culture camp is another thing entirely. It’s not real, but it is at least a bubble. It can whet an appetite. But it’s just a bubble, and the child will know that too. They’ll no doubt develop an interest in their culture on their own when they are not feeling the tension over it that they do now.
Yes. That’s right. Tension. That you bring it up creates tension.
Repeatedly the worst disservice adoptive parents do as ignorant racists – that’s right, racists – is contribute to the retardation of the child’s exploration of culture by pushing it. I don’t say this to beat adoptive parents up. I say it in all sincerity that they just don’t know – they’re just being dumb. Most racism is just sheer ignorance on people’s part.
Odds are, you are an example. If, for instance, you are interested in knitting, your child might take an interest in your interest. Most adoptive parents aren’t TRULY interested in their child’s birth culture except to gather some exotic things and to try and elevate their children’s specialness. As if we need more reasons to justify how different we are.
Am I making myself clear here? Unless you’re going to fully embrace exploring their culture and making it part of daily life and immersing yourself in that culture and that community, then lay off – keep it pressure-free for your kid, and the kid will probably come to the table on their own. Your job is to provide them an environment with pressure-free access, and to support them when and if they show any interest.
Why can’t people believe that we do exist?
Question
Well, here I am and I know that I’m not alone. I was adopted as an infant and have been with my family since that time. I have a loving mother and father as well as an “egg-head” sister and a “goofball” brother. I love them all unconditionally for who and what they are, my family. It’s been that way for the 45 years of my life thus far.
I’ve never felt any sense of loss over being adopted. As far as I’ve ever know or considered I am of Scottish decent, the same as my family. I’m bald, my (adopted) father is bald. When I had hair it was reddish brown, the same as my (adopted) grandfather on my (adopted) mothers side. I’ve loved camping my whole life while my (adopted) brother and (adopted) sister consider the Banff Springs Hotel as being as close to the great outdoors as they care to get. (I put the word adopted in brackets only for clarity sake)
And most shocking to some, I’ve never felt a need to search for my birth parents.
Why is it that people expect us to believe their stories of pain and suffering over adoption issues but at the same time they deny that some of us are happy and well adjusted in our situations? Those against adoption will rant on and on about all the different ways they feel their rights have been infringed upon which affects their right to be happy. Does trying to deny my happiness and that of others somehow balance things off for those who are unhappy?
Additional Details
8 hours ago
7 hours ago
My Answer – NOT Chosen Best Answer:
I believe your experience and that you exist.
I also believe my experience and that I exist.
Our truths co-exist.
The vast majority of people I meet get really excited about adoption – it’s one of those things a lot of people entertain doing. I know I did at one point. And then they find out I’m adopted and they get all happy. And then they find out my outcome was not a happy one, and then their first response is to look for ways to continue being excited about adoption. These are some of my closest friends! So my reality gets denied all the time too, Randy, in a very personal way. So I feel ya.
The thing we share, though, is I never thought adoption had anything to do with my unhappiness for the last forty years of my life. Two years ago I may not have painted as sunny a picture as you do, but I wouldn’t have ascribed any of my unhappiness to adoption. And all my life I totally rejected the idea of searching for my birth mother. Had no desire to do so. She was irrelevant. Adoption was not an issue, and even if it was lurking there somewhere, my emotions were so completely compartmentalized I wouldn’t have recognized it.
The thing we don’t share, however, is that back when adoption wasn’t an issue with me, I never would have thought of coming on to a public board defending my adopted status. So those of us who have come to the realization that adoption, actually, had a pretty huge impact on the direction of our lives, wonder why the content adoptees are even here at all, why they are thinking about adoption at all, and why they protest so much. It’s just a curious phenomenon is all. One I don’t understand.
Adoption did not become an issue for me until I had a major major MAJOR crisis in my life. Major enough that my very existence was a tenuous prospect. If that hadn’t had happened, I would probably be carrying on the same way I always had – where the word and the concept of adoption never even entered my thoughts.
Sometimes it takes facing something as big as death to look at the intangible parts of your deepest being that are all intertwined with abandonment, and how adoption complicates and obfuscates that. Previously, identity as a concept didn’t register on my radar either. I mistook it for personality. I’ve got one of those, so I didn’t need to think about it further. But almost dying makes you face the profundities of life. And birth and identity are part of that.
I’m happy for you that you got a good match, that you don’t know any different, that you feel secure, and I for one am totally willing to let you go on feeling that way. I’m just trying to explain how some of those who aren’t willing to let you feel that way might have come to that conclusion.
And, of course you know adoption is a political issue as well. And though our grievances get a little equal time here at Y!A , they get practically zero time in the real world. So a lot of us feel like our voices are being negated by the happy adoptees. Because we’re surrounded by people who want to believe only the good things about adoption, as if it was only all good. The thing people miss is – WE wanted to believe too. We truly did.
Our realities can and do co-exist because our truths are our own. It’s just stupid to fight about it. I see you. Do you see me?
Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
- Asker’s Rating:
- Asker’s Comment:
- I received a tonne of good answers here but I had to choose one. You captured the meat of my question perfectly. Thank you.I won’t comment on the 17 negative emails I’ve received or the free psych evals other then to say they were read and appreciated for what they were.
Would you have preferred to have remained in an orphanage?
Q. What if you were one of those children who became an orphan by true means and no other family in your own country was able to adopt you? Would you have preferred to remain in an orphanage in your birth country for your childhood as opposed to being adopted internationally?
A. I have a Korean adoptee friend who was adopted at 9 and fully aware of the impact of her adoption. She preferred growing up with others in a shared circumstance, rather than being isolated in a new and foreign country. She had happiness and solidarity at the orphanage. She had only herself in North America. The isolation of our experience is the hardest part to bear.
Myself, I can not answer what-if questions. My life has been full of tragedy, and if I dwelt upon what-if’s I would be rendered incapacitated to live in this world. I try to address this hand I’ve been dealt with, with as much grace as possible. It is not easy, because I’ve been dealt a particularly lousy hand. I certainly won’t be grateful for being spared from an unknown what-if either.
I often fantasized I was in an orphanage playing with other children as I was growing up. Every adoptive parent means well and likes to think they will be an improvement to their kids lives. However, the parent’s perceptions don’t always match what we kids experience. Despite the higher mandate to provide the disadvantaged child with a better life than it had before, that mandate is poorly understood, implemented and enforced. My parents felt they were good parents, but I will never be grateful. You can read my story here:
https://adoptionsurvivor.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/anger-guilt-and-the-grieving-adoptee/
I worry about meeting my birth mother and what I will tell her when she asks about my better life she gave me up for. Like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. And even if I wasn’t abused, I think I would question whether our culture or our society is really any better than the one I was saved from.
Q. Your adoptive mother obviously provided well for you (it is evident in your writing style, and obvious education). Would you have rathered she not have adopted you?
A. My adoptive father was a music teacher, my mother a housewife. They were educated, but not critical thinkers. My brain has always worked differently than everyone in my household. I drew. They played music. As a child I spoke in metaphors because I thought in metaphor. They could never understand what I was saying because their ability to derive meaning from a metaphor was non-existent. It is a lonely place to be when you are raised by people so radically different than you.
You will find many adoptees are excellent writers. There are so many things we are not free to express as we are growing up, that the words just incubate, waiting for the right time and place to be be born.
I became an at-risk teenager and even ended up in remedial classes. I left home at 17, dropped out of school at one point, though I did graduate. I married what would become an alcoholic, and did not return to school until I was a divorcing welfare mom. I excelled at my university and even got accepted to Yale. Today I reject my degree and choose to live as simply as I can.
There is more to life than success. Filling in the years that were taken from me and erased, searching for the beginning of my story, starving for just one face that reflects me has become a yearning that some days seems to drive all I do. I suppose it is not unlike the yearning of a barren woman. Only my identity was mine to begin with, so I am reclaiming something taken from me. My first three years formed me, don’t you think they didn’t. That experience is like the word you can’t remember, the idea you can almost put your finger on, the deja vu that makes you pause and wonder about other lives. For adoptees, that’s not just speculation. It is the vestiges of an imprint.
I know many of my troubled years were a result of being abused, adopted, inter-country, and transracial. It wasn’t until I reached my forties that the deeper impact and implications of abandonment and adoption reared their ugly head. As I said before, being severed from your identity by international adoption is surgery. On top of the wound of abandonment, which may never heal. Clearly, my life has not been better or any worse than had I stayed in Korea. But I talk to non-abused adoptees, and except for the added complication of abuse, we all are profoundly impacted. I won’t call this damage, though damage is there. I think we’ve just been forced to deal with a lot of things the majority of people have never had to deal with in places the majority of people have never had to walk. You can’t get much more profound than identity.
Coming to America did not bring me any distinct advantages that I can appreciate. Korea, the country of my birth, is an educated nation and now a first world economy. And, as prosperity has increased, so too have the conditions and regard for its women. I am researching my birth country and find many elegant things about it that belie its marginalization I have been taught to think of as a westerner.
http://holtsurvivor.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/the-han-of-being-kyopo-or-korean-interrupted/
I am moving to Korea in February and will establish residency there as I search for my birth family. It is true I probably had more opportunities here. But opportunities do not always equal happiness. I feel, I feel as if my path has been interrupted by adoption. Like it’s taken forty years to find my bearings and find my way back home.
Yes. I’d rather I not been adopted.
Two words: Exit Strategy
International adoption has a double standard and a double face that few adoptive parents are willing to recognize. International adoption is based on the premise that less privileged societies can not take care of their own. International adoption is based on the premise that greater means = better life = more love. International adoption is full of rationalizations that promote the self-congratulatory nature of rescue and the satisfaction of contributing to a color blind world, which is a fantasy. The truth is with more support services parents in temporary distress would not relinquish their children. The truth is poor families love their children. The truth is people instantly respond to people of a different color than they do people of the same color. The truth is the little cute asian bundle of joy is going to grow up one day and realize all of the above. They may be grateful. They may love you, what choice do they have? But they’re also going to secretly be disturbed.
Potential adoptive parents say they are doing it for the children, but in all honesty, the primary locus for the vast majority of adoptions is centered on the prospective parents’ desires to complete themselves and validate their existence. This is called placing the adults’ needs above the child’s needs, and its manifestation can wreak all manner of havoc and confusion for the child. This desire, this need to have at all costs is something that needs to be deeply explored by prospective parents in terms of its healthiness to both the adoptive parents AND the child they are acquiring.
International adoption, due to the imbalance of nations, has been a ripe field for exploitation by first world countries, with little over-sight and regulation. It is a shameful and barbaric statement about our privilege when we find it unacceptable to accept unethical practices in our own country, but we can find ways to look aside or tolerate unethical practices in other countries, if it is to our benefit.
International adoption has been an experiment. An experiment that started out with good, humanitarian intentions, but that has been subverted, expanded, and capitalized upon until it has become an entitlement. It has taken many decades for the outcomes of international adoption to become evident, and because the practice continues, its constant evolution will always be decades away from clear understanding.
First world countries have been too slow to adopt ethical practices and regulate international adoption. It stands to reason supplying nations have learned from the past few decades of this experiment , have become alarmed, and no longer want to be a part of this exchange when they see the aftermath and feel the shame of exporting their babies and the mismanagement of this process. How would you feel if it were your nation on the supply end?
While I disagree with the sudden and complete withdrawal of these supplying nations and the financial and emotional heartache that can result in receiving nations, I can not fault them for finally stepping up to the plate to take a more responsible role in the welfare of their own citizens. I agree with potential adoptive parents when they say, “what about the children?” who languish in limbo post withdrawal and pre reformed social programming. That is why I believe in a ten year exit strategy instead of sudden withdrawal. However, the same criticisms can be levied on our own, wealthy nation. How can we expect to get international adoption right if we can’t even get it right in our own country? Who can trust us?
All potential adoptive parents should examine themselves thoroughly and, like any good actor ask, “what’s my motivation?” Deep honesty will pay off by eliminating much of the politicizing and polarizing. For, upon examination we should better be able to hold our desires up against what is truly in the best interests of the child. In the case of the international adoptee – it’s culture, it’s heritage, it’s place in society, something they can identify with. Many of these intangibles of when held up against a life with foreign parents with greater means are marginalized. But their value is intangible and beyond measure. International adoption is radical surgery that leaves scars on top of the given adoption scars of abandonment and loss.
And for those potential adoptive parents who absolutely think they are god’s gift to rainbow children as if what they have to offer will make all those costs to the child tolerable, to insure the availability of ethnic children, I would hope that you get in on adoption reform and the ethics bandwagon. Quickly. Otherwise, more and more countries are going to follow the lead of Vietnam, and you will be forced to deal with what you have here at home. You know – those kids who really NEED parents. The ones whose parents have really died. The ones who were abused. The ones whose parents couldn’t cope with their disabilities. The ones languishing in OUR foster homes and group homes. What about them? Did I mention something about double standards before?
I repeat: If you’re smart you’ll get in on adoption reform and support it wholeheartedly. There will be less children available, but their interests will be better looked after. It is better (from your perspective) than having the option cut off completely.
As a product of one of these transracial, intercountry adoptions, the end of international adoption would be a dream come true. I hope the adoption agencies exploiting disadvantaged people on one end and separating you from your money on the other end are exorcised out of existence, and I hope this trend towards domestic preservation continues. I’m going to continue to speak out, as more and more of my fellow adoptees do, about the realities of international adoption from the adoptee’s perspective. Our parents were not so different from you. We are not so different from the children you hope to be adopting. We didn’t ask for this. But despite better conditions, we have had to live the consequences of your decisions, and we’re the ones who are asked to adjust and we’re the ones who have to deal with all of our losses. And we don’t want any other children to have to suffer the added separation of country and culture on top of losing our mothers. We just want you to think deeply and hard about what the hell you’re doing. About your wants and your rationalizations.
Sage Advice for Adoptive Parents
After reading the heavy traffic that this group generates, I was
wondering if the adoptees would like to share specifics of what was
good and not good, what would have helped, what should have been
avoided, in their upbringings.
Here are Sunny Jo’s perfect answers:
do’s:
keep b-culture alive in daily life through contact with immigrants from
the child’s b-country who can take the contact beyond ethnic food and
cultural artifactsmake sure contact with b-culture (mentioned above) is introduced early
on so to make the b-culture an equally natural part of life as
the ‘culture’ of the a-familykeep in contact with other a-families
live in diverse areas where your child won’t be the only person of
colour. do NOT believe, however, that ‘anything but white’ is ok, an
adopted korean child won’t necessarily have more in common with a
person of african or arab origin than a white person will.go on frequent homeland journies back to the b-country, and even
(partially) pay for the child’s first (and/or subsequent) homeland
tours as an adultinvolve the entire a-family (parents, siblings etc) in the
adoption/cultural activities, without appropriating and appropriating
it (a difficult tightrope to walk)read ‘beyond good intentions’ by cheri register
if possible, enter your child into a mentor program which gives him/her
a chance to meet adult adoptees (and/or ‘native’ koreans)encourage language studies
give back to your child’s country of origin by supporting social
change, e.g. through sponsorship through SOS children’s villages or
other charitiesread books, articles, websites, blogs etc written by adult adoptees
(and APs with adult children)support local adult adoptee orgs (e.g. financially) but accept that
it’s up to the org to let you in to their events or notlove your child like your own, but accept that s/he never will be
fully ‘your own’allow your child to grieve and be angry
seek professional help if necessary
don’ts:
adopt only one child from the same country, esp. in families with bio
childrenadopt children from totally different countries/culture (e.g. africa
and asia)accept adoption agency advertising, information and propaganda at face
valuebe possessive, an adopted child will never be ‘yours’ in the same way
as a bio child since the BPs will forever, whether known or not, be
part of your child’s life (and APs can never take their place)think that food, education and other stuff valued in your culture, will
make up for the losses caused by adoptionignore or trivialize racism, e.g. by comparing it to injustices you
have sufferedexpect your child to be grateful
think you ‘saved’ your child since many adoptees have bio siblings who
stayed with BPs and are doing just finefeel threatened if your child wants to move back to tyhe b-country as
an adult or young adultaccept any kind of racism or bigotry coming from family, friends,
neighbours or anyone elseaccept your child to be treated as an exotic pet, e.g. by strangers who
want to ‘pet the hair’ or ask private questions about the child’s
background etc etcbelieve that it was god’s will that your child came to you, b/c that
would automaticly make it god’s will for your child’s BPs to end in the
unfortunate circumstances which led to the abandonment – and no god
worth worshipping should want that on anyoneforce your religion, culture etc onto your child since it might
conflict with the child’s original religion or culture. as a family
member the adoptee should ofcourse be part of celebrating holidays like
anyone else, but if the child chooses to opt out of certain regulations
(e.g. dietary regulations which prevents certain foods from the b-
country) then this should be respected
Since everyone who has been adopted is sad?
Not Chosen Best Answer
You know, I find all your sentiments lovely and your exploration of a deeper understanding wonderful.
However, the desire to save is often misguided. There is too much left to interpretation of what is a “good” and a “bad” life. There is too much cultural stereotyping that goes on about other nations and what is backwards or progressive. There is too much propaganda over what an adoption from one of these countries can accomplish, and there is too little acknowledgment that the person adopting might be gaining more than the person they’re adopting.
Have you traveled much? Have you stayed in a rural setting and gotten to know people in a third world country? You will find incredibly intelligent people with amazing potential working to improve their communities, even if there is no sewer system and lack of reliable water. You will find huge extended families and parents breaking their backs to give their children the best they can possibly give them. Even in war torn countries, you will find siblings fighting to stay together and separated families achieving the impossible to find one another. You will find that when you are poor, sometimes all you’ve got in the world is your flesh and blood. You will see the rich heritage and the common traditions and the love among the strife. In many places these backwards places have a much richer life than our own. And in many places their lives are oppressed because big consuming world powers influence , fuel unrest, and capitalize on local weaknesses. Further destabilizing families and communities by introducing the hungry adoption market aids in undermining these cultures, not helping them.
More than anyplace else, adoption in third world countries is often a permanent catastrophe based upon a temporary setback. Many orphanages are staging points while families pull their lives together, and when the parents accomplish this and return, they find their children are gone forever. And in other countries distracted by more pressing basic needs, children are stolen and placed in orphanages for profit to fill the huge western appetite. Until you investigate all the very real ethical violations that occur in these countries as adoption is being established as an institution and sometimes even after it is regulated, you will think of saving children from a horrible fate a wonderful option. But when you look closer, you will find grieving parents and extended families. Adoption often contributes to as much sadness and heartache over time as it does help. And to what end? For the price of one western adoption, that money could save several entire families in some countries. For the price of one adoption, whole communities could have clean drinking water and school supplies or the beginnings of a sewer system or…
Being saved is what brought me to America. I have decent clothes and food and shelter. But I have been severed from my culture and isolated by the color of my skin. So on top of the impact of adoption in the source country, there is also the experience of being raised transracial, of being a minority in a different culture composed primarily of people you don’t resemble at all. Adoption is a very VERY complicated issue on its own. Then add on top of it being intercountry and transracial, and what you have left is an incredibly confusing path for a child to maneuver through. Yes it can be done. But is it really the best option? I don’t think so.
Please read this previous Y!A I answered: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…
I really do hope you and others explore DEEPLY what the impact of your decisions mean and choose to find more effective ways to “save” the planet. There are less radical ways to save children than to surgically remove them from their homelands and place them in an alien landscape, where people speak a different language, where they can not initially communicate or express themselves, and where they are entirely dependent on the very same people (strangers) who removed them from all they knew and loved.
I hope I’ve been of some help.
ETA:
About this movie…
http://www.theartstarandthesudanesetwins…
There are far too many of these documentaries existing on trafficking and corruption and conditions of international adoption. China, Cambodia,different African countries, India… And, there aren’t enough of these documentaries getting airplay.
Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
I was adopted as a baby, along with my twin, by a dad and a mom (who could not have children for some unknown medical reason). My life with them was much better than what my life with my birthmother would have been. (She did drugs and smoked, had no husband, lived a hippie lifestyle, and had bipolar disorder, which I have, and can be very debilitating). I would rather have grown up adopted by them, than been raised by my birthmother. But (even though I have never met her) I love my birthmother! My point is, I would think that child would like to be saved from a place where their quality of life is not very good and be raised by a loving mother, where, like me, he/she has more opportunities. I am adopted, and I am not sad, I am glad. Hope this helps!
- Asker’s Rating:
- Asker’s Comment: (A classic example of someone only hearing what they want to hear)
- Thanks! Some people were such ***** about this. I would be doing this for the child and I would not be removing it from its country, its mother would be.
Adoption, pros and cons?
Best Answer – Chosen by Voters
international adoption MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE AN ALIEN from another planet
– you’re almost always in the spotlight: either total strangers will be squealing in delight about how cute you are gushing about adoption or asking probing questions they would never ask if you were white.
– people will have ignorant expectations based on stereotypes about you, and you will always have to explain your background, your lack of history,and your lack of culture to people.
– you will be hounded by people with a fetish for the exotic.
– you will learn about your culture but it will be ACADEMIC and you will be torn between its added imposition and a yearning to fully know it, which is impossible unless you repatriate.
– you will be surrounded by a sea of white faces so your whole world is white faces. you will stop and pause when people approach you differently or respond to you differently. you will dismiss this. and then when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror you will be horrified to want to treat that image differently as well. you will be horrified that the image staring back at you is not the image you are used to seeing. you will despair. you will be always the odd man out. you will want to seek out more like yourself, but you will be embarrassed to be seen with them. because there are no images of your kind in popular culture. because you see how that kind gets treated and you think you are somehow not like them. this is called internalized racism.
international adoption MAKES YOU FEEL ISOLATED
– you will meet other adoptees as children and be thrown in together, but actually you’ve nothing in common.
– you will meet other people of your culture, but there’s no way to connect to them. they will speak to you in their tongue. you will awkwardly explain you can’t speak in their tongue/your should-be tongue. they will walk away, disappointed in you and sad for you.
– you can not entertain searching for your birth mother, because she is buried deep within another country, a country where you can’t communicate, a place teeming with those people.
– your parents will be proud of themselves and what they did by getting you. because you are different looking, you will have to suffer that pride by your very presence every time anyone sees you together.
– your parents will want to talk about adoption, but you know they can’t handle anything negative you might feel about it. and you’re too young to verbalize it. you suck it up because you have to. you have to deny the reality of your difference and thereby negate any of the problems associated with being different. you have to fabricate a false front that can handle everything with cheery optimism. you become the good will ambassador for adoption, but it’s a lie. that’s a lonely place to be.
international adoption eventually MAKES YOU ASK QUESTIONS
– why did my parents have to rip a child from its culture?
– what kind of rescue fantasies did they have, and are they valid?
– what does charity mean? how charitable is adoption, anyway?
– what is my birthmother’s story? was my adoption ethical? did my parents check into this?
– what were they trying to gain/proove by choosing this radical route?
– who did they think they were?
– was i just a toy for purchase?
adoption hurts – we walk around with no beginning to our stories, no connection to anything, devoid of roots, dropped here as if we truly were aliens.
international adoption hurts even more
– there’s so much more lost, and it’s irretrievable.
– we’d rather our countries had helped our mothers
– we’d rather our extended families had had access to take care of us
– we’re outraged to learn very few children are real orphans
– we’re outraged that so many relinquishments are based on temporary economic hard times.
– we’re outraged that the people who run non-profit adoption agencies board members make six figure incomes
– we’re outraged at the hidden costs of adoption and that people are profiteering by our sale
– we don’t appreciate how adoption siphons off the problem of out of wedlock childbirth, when the countries could address these problems with adequate birth control and social programs but adoption allows them to shirk their responsibility to their own people.
– we’re outraged that there is a market to exploit all these
– we’re outraged that the so-called potential adoptive parents who claim charity as their purpose would not bother to sponsor families to avoid relinquishment.
– we’re outraged that the cost of one adoption could save multiple entire families in the country the child comes from.
– we’re outraged that the civil rights of adoptees get violated daily, that their histories are fabricated, that their names are changed, that their birth records are tampered with, and that they are denied access to their records.
– we’re outraged adoptive parents do not do their home-work, or choose to ignore unethical practices.
please adopt ethically.
please adopt domestically.
please adopt one of the children passed over here because they are no longer babies.
Adoptees, were you completely truthful with your adoptive parents?
Growing up, when you were asked how you “felt” about adoption did you tell the truth? Or if you were asked if you wanted to “find” your parents, were you honest with your adoptive family?
I had wonderful parents and, as a kid, when they wanted to talk or asked how I felt about searching, I didn’t want to hurt their feelings so I told them I had no interest.
Answer:
The only people to inquire about adoption were strangers upon first meeting me. Because I was sheltered, my parents were always right there. Nobody ever asked me how I “felt” about it. Instead, they framed the questions in such a way that there was no answer I could possibly say except what corroborated their own conclusions.
For example:
“you must feel very lucky such nice people adopted you, don’t you?”
Meanwhile, mommy and daddy are standing right next to me smiling, nodding, and expecting me to nod too.
People were not really asking me how I felt. People were really praising my parents and admonishing me to feel grateful.With that much pressure and so little interest in what I actually felt, honesty was never really an option.
The truth is, I didn’t know how I felt about adoption.
The truth is, every time that question came up it paralyzed me.
The truth is, I wanted to believe with all my heart adoption was great and wonderful.
Even during all those years I was being abused, I wanted to believe with all my heart adoption was great and wonderful!
The truth is, I had to search for and settle for breadcrumbs and leftovers of affection and it was anything but wonderful.If I could have verbalized the truth I felt, my truth would have been that having the distinction of being adopted made me feel like the loneliest child on the planet, because I was the only adopted person I’d ever met.
The truth is, I knew no one wanted to know the truth.As for being asked about looking for my birth parents, the only people who ever asked were new friends. I always felt other people were living out some talk show investigative adventure fantasy through me, and I didn’t want to contribute to that. I didn’t want to be a novelty, a freak or oddball. I already felt odd enough as it was. The truth was I was the odd man out. I was the only person of color I knew.
When I actually did consider searching for a moment, I would look at the sea of white faces around me that I didn’t know and think about the impossibility of finding a Korean face, thousands of miles away, in a sea of black hair and black eyes, in a country I couldn’t remember and couldn’t speak their language, and be sad that I could say, “all asians look alike.” They were all aliens to me. The possibility of finding my mother was absolutely futile and hopeless to me as a child.
Still later, when asked that same question, I would reflect on the many years of abuse I’d put up with and how I’d been abandoned to begin with and think, “families suck.” So finally, as an teenager when people asked me, I would say “i can’t handle one family. How can I handle two? No. I don’t need the heartache.”
It wasn’t until my parents died two years ago that I could finally be truthful publicly about how I feel about adoption. It took over a year to wrestle with a lifetime, over four decades, of being a brave solider and suppressing never being allowed to express how I really felt about adoption.
Today I am forty four. Ask me today and I will tell you how I feel.
Adoption hurts.
Are view of interracial adoption different in various parts of the US?
my husband and i are white, we are looking to adopt. the race factor isn’t that big of an issue to us.
we live in central california, and we see bi-racial couples and childeren all the time, and no one seems to be bothered by it.
is it different in other parts of the US? and why
because it doesn’t seem to make a diffence in our area, what is you opinion on us adopting a child of another race?
and does the race matter?
Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
sadly, i think the fact that it’s even up for discussion indicates what an uneasy relationship we all have with the topic of race, much less when we are forced to deal with it’s ism in our lives…
i do not believe racism can be narrowed down by region anymore. we live in a mobile culture, and people with bias have been broadcast from sea to shining sea. and the nature of racism has changed, because it is aware of it’s public face, so its manifestation is more subtle and nuanced. you never can know when you will meet it or what form it will take. but it lingers. it is everywhere. in practice, we have not caught up with the ideal of “we are the world” yet.
even in a cosmopolitan city your children will encounter racism. but in a cosmopolitan city, there too will your children encounter more people to identify with. even in a city, there are regional differences. i live in a major city, but its cosmopolitan has moved to the edges of the urban center, so the center is now predominantly an economically advantaged racial mono-culture, while various races are forced by economics or by choosing community to hug the city’s margins. the racial divide is now a fifteen minute drive by car. it is the inverse of the white flight found during the genesis of surburban developments.
and if you travel to the rural areas, an hour drive by car, race and economic class become even more distinct and separated. i don’t believe there is more racism there, just that it is more obvious.
odds are that, even with your best efforts, you will never be able to offer an experience that can give your child adequate access to their race’s experience, as your race might be the limiting factor for entry into a racial community. no matter how open and supportive you are with your children, you will not be able to shield them from society recognizing and remarking on how different they are from you. this will come in the form of celebrity, curiosity, criticism, hostility, or second class status. and no matter where you live, your child will encounter subtle and sometimes overt racism. nor will your experiences dealing with race differences in any way match or effect you in the same way it effects your child. this will take its toll, but it will be their own private burden to deal with. so yes, race matters. it hurts a lot. it hurts in ways that deeply alter your self esteem, and the subtle variety takes years to recognize and dissect in order to understand why you feel bad.
i will not speak about my own experience at this time, but i will share the story of an african-american male adopted friend. his well meaning caucasian parents adopted him believing their love and understanding would cancel out the race factor. he was considered too white by the black minority where he grew up. he was considered too black by the white majority where he grew up. (this was a liberal, open-minded community) and though his parents tried to be color blind and provide a color blind world view for him, the truth was his world was color focused. because even if there is no hatred and the society is accepting, the fact is that people still address and relate to people of color differently. it wasn’t until he was in high school where some african american sisters took pity on him and helped TEACH him how to fit in better as an african american male that he began to stop feeling like an alien. all of which was to the detriment of his place in white society and to his relationship with his adoptive family, both of which he rejected to be more fully black. he spent his adult life very angry over having been put in this avoidable situation, and it wasn’t until a nervous breakdown that he finally came to terms with his adoption and forgave his parents.
this is a stark example. however, most of us transracial adoptees have parallel paths. i believe, if given a choice, most of us would have preferred to be placed in a home that matched racially.
here’s some interesting commentary on YouTube:
struggles for identity
struggles for identity 10 years later
When and if you met/meet your real mom, what did you want to know?
Answer:
To her i will ask, “what were the circumstances behind my conception, birth, and relinquishment? I want to know the beginning of my story and be able to tell my children about this history, so they may have a stronger link to their heritage.”
secretly my heart will be bleeding and i will be asking, “why did you put me in the hands of strangers? why did you not do what it takes to keep me? how could you have a happy day in your life after having given away your flesh and blood?
but all of the above is just a fantasy. there is not even a breadcrumb from which to find my mother, much less ask her any questions.
to know you have been abandoned is the worst feeling in the world. i wish i didn’t have to replay this meeting in my head over and over.
i wish this question/pain
didn’t exist/didn’t need to be asked
to/for/by anyone.
A question for adoptees?
Question:
Hey, I go on the general pregnancy and parenting board which often
brings up questions from the adoption section that I sometimes look in
on. I hope you don’t think I’m butting in, I’m just asking this out of
curiousity, feel free not to answer if it’s too intrusive a quesion!In my life I’ve only known 3 adoptees (two with the same adoptive
parents, both adults in their 30’s, and the other one is with seperate
adoptive parents and is a teenager). The three people I’ve happened to
know were all adopted as babies, and they’ve grown up always knowing
they were adopted, being fine with the fact they were adopted, and
seeing their adoptive parents no differently to how everybody else sees
their biological parents, and none of the three have ever had any
desire to want to find their birth parents. So I’d always just
(probably ignorantly) assumed this was the case for most adoptees (well
I know a lot do try and seek out their birth parents, but I mean I
assumed that most adoptees grow up feeling happy and natural with their
adoptive parents). However I read a lot of questions and answers on
here from adoptees who appear to be very unhappy in their situations. I
was just wondering, if these people who are unhappy tend to be people
who were adopted at a later age? Or, even if you were adopted shortly
after birth, is it actually very different from growing up in a
household with biological parents? Or is it that teenage adoptees clash
with their parents in the same way non-adoptees clash with theirs, but
put the issues down to having been adopted? (I’m not saying I think
that’s the case at all, I’m just wondering). I always read a lot of
answers, in response to questions saying they’re thinking about giving
their baby up for adoption, from adoptees saying please think twice and
give your child a chance to know its biological parents etc. Do you
feel like you have a hole in your lives not knowing your biological
parents, even if you’ve been with your adoptive parents since birth?I just want to say I’m sorry if these questions are personal or if they
cause any offence, they’re not intended to be at all, I’m just seeking
to gain knowledge over something I know very little, but I know your
lives are none of my business so only answer if you want to, sorry
again!
Answer:
i will pick up from a line in the video (posted below)
“i always felt entirely and utterly alone.”
i was adopted a few months prior to my third birthday.
my earliest memory is the plane trip to america.
it was as if someone went into my brain and surgically erased all that i was prior to adoption.i am told i laughed at cartoons by myself.
but all i remember from the plane ride forward is being terrified.
this terror would be explained away as shyness.
i never in my entire life felt happy or natural with my parents.nobody knew this.
i kept it to myself.
i was a good, obedient kid.when asked about biological parents, i would say i had no interest.
because i didn’t. i didn’t harbor those kind of hopes as they were
interferences that would disturb the peace. i had to file that interest
away, lock it up, and throw away the key.and, quite the contrary, my teenage struggles had to be about
everything BUT adoption. because adoption was a not recognized as an
issue, by me or my parents, then i wasn’t free to subscribe any
conflicts to it or use it as ammunition. i talked about adoption as
little as possible. i wanted the topic to disappear. i worked hard to
make it disappear. i tried so very very hard to accept my situation.it wasn’t until my own children were leaving home and my parents died
and i didn’t have to think about others first, that i began to
recognize the detached feelings i held within me had something to do
with the disruption of my childhood. that the adoption really was an
issue, and that being abandoned had everything to do with everything.
you ask about a hole in our life? yes. an abyss.it is more than a hole because you can never verbalize it.
you are just a kid and these feelings are confusing.
you don’t even know this is why you never talk with your parents, why no conversation is real. you just know not to go there.
and in subtle ways, they let you know not to go there.
they let you know they can’t handle the truth of your feelings.
you smile instead.
and be a good girl.you can never get relief.
because you don’t want your parents to feel rejected.
you don’t want them – anyone- to feel even an ounce of what you feel every day.you become the guardian of everything that oppresses you.
this feeling? i don’t believe this feeling is age dependent.
i think we all feel that hole – that yearning, that loss. for some like
myself, it takes decades to acknowledge and work through.
Adoptees: have you mostly gained or lost in being given up and adopted?
In what ways?
Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
what have i lost?
i’ve lost so much, it’s barely fathomable.
my culture, my history, my identity. i was emotionally deprived and sexually abused. i lost my innocence. i lost my childhood. i was always an alien, being the only minority i knew. because of my abuse, i made choices that affected my entire adult life, not realizing i had more options. i never had a sense of belonging or love. i grieve the loss of my pre-memory mother. i sometimes imagine i can feel her holding me. that is the biggest loss of all.
all the arguments about adoption providing a better life just don’t hold water. my birth country is now a major first world economy. the status of women is increasing as the economy increases. they have excellent schools and high tech jobs.
here in america, i have been a ship without a rudder, sad and extremely isolated – by my looks, by my experiences, by my lack of significant or meaningful connection to anything.
what have i gained?
well, they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. i almost killed myself, so i must be really strong.
what i have gained is a terrible insight into the mind of a pedophile, the pathology of adopting for the wrong reasons, the perspective of a target of racism, and the glimpse of the american dream from the very bottom. i have conquered all and made myself a success and earned respect. and i have learned that none of that matters.
what matters is how you touch people, one on one.
what matters is knowing you are loved.
and to never, ever, abandon anyone.so the biggest thing i’ve gained is a value system based on caring for the emotional well-being of others and respecting human dignity.
but if all this pain was the prerequisite to this knowledge i have, then i’d rather have gained nothing. all i really want is to be embraced and cared for and experience one moment of being a child in its mothers unconditionally loving arms.
- Asker’s Rating:
- (((almost human)))
Thanks for your honesty.
To Adoptees: Any Advice for an Amom?
Question: To Adoptees: Any Advise for an AMom?
We adopted our daughter as an infant. She is 2-1/2 years now. I have heard so many times about how Adoptees aren’t happy that they were adopted and it worries me how my daughter will feel as she grows older. I would love to know what I can do as an AParent to either help her not feel this way or help her through feeling this way (does that make sense?). I want nothing more than her to grow up to be a happy, healthy, and well-adjusted adult…but yet I’ve heard so many people say that’s next to impossible for an adoptee and, as a mom, that scares the crap out of me.Not sure if this is needed for a good answer or not, but our adoption is semi-open with no visits with the BMom; however, if/when our daughter shows interest in getting to know her BMom, we will then do everything we can to make sure she gets that contact.
Best Answer – Chosen by Asker
My greatest advice for any Amom is to be totally honest with your child, and to be totally forthright about all you do, both attractive and unattractive. To me, a mom is “real” or “not real” based upon that criteria, which has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with how much respect I can have for a person, and especially, how much I can TRUST what they say to me. Trust, as you know, is a big issue for people who have been given away.As an adoptive child, I would have loved to have just heard the truth from my parents: I wanted you out of selfishness or lonliness or (you get the picture) and you brought this or that to my life, but now I realize this or that and I appreciate you as not as a thing to fulfill my life, but I now appreciate you as a person for x real reasons. But it has to be real. Because we know b.s. when we hear it.We want real relationships with real people who we can really count on who love us for who we are. Is that too much to ask for? It seems like it’s pretty rare…
Part of the problem with my own Amother and, unfortunately, too many of the Aparents whom I encounter on-line, is a stubborn unwillingness to admit fallibility. A refusal to paint themselves in anything but a soft warm light. Now, I realize no humans are perfect. But when Adoptive parents set themselves up as such, the adopted child is forced to develop a bullshit meter. And I have no idea WHY it seems like so many adoptive parents seem to over-compensate, but it doesn’t make them easy to be around – as acquaintances and even worse to live with as their kids. All this could be avoided, and a wonderful relationship established, if Adoptive parents were more real with their children and left their rose colored glasses at the adoption agency…
Yeah, we want chill parents – not hyper vigilant super parents…
Visits with the BMom need to be a regular event – how regular is whatever the Bmom and you feel comfortable with, but it needs to be something everyone can count on. It needs to be as constant as long days in the summer and dying eggs at Easter, and pumpkins in the fall. Irregularity will cause total chaos! To have anything less will put too much pressure on your child to be the deciding factor of who, what, when, how much everyone’s lives get disrupted and feelings get hurt. That’s too much of a burden for a child of any age, much less those who can’t express their feelings yet.
It would be also a great mistake to treat your adopted child as if they were your natural child, because that has an element of denial to it, and kids pick up on that. They know they’re different. Don’t ever underestimate your child’s innate intelligence! Again, treating adoption with anything less than the reality it is will only make the contrast seem more stark than it already is, and make them trust your judgment less.
On the other hand, to over-emphasize their adoption interferes with having a normal life. What we adopted kids want is a recognition of their own challenges, but with a steady reassurance they can count on someone. They don’t necessarily want or deserve to be reminded constantly about how “special” (abnormal) their situation is.
As a parent of two awesome, well-adjusted, critically thinking citizens of the planet, I feel that elevating adoption above regular natural births is a little disturbing as well. I’ve read some of those children’s books, and while they are ego-stroking, I don’t necessarily feel they have a handle on reality, and I feel too many of them brush some of the concerns little children have right under the rug. A little kool-aid can really disrupt your children’s own critical thinking process, confuse them, and cause them to make bad choices for themselves as they grow. They NEED to be exposed to reality. But they also need guidance so they know reality is something they can live with successfully.
You and any other adoptive parent have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to worry about if you take the time to dispense with whatever stupid parent roles you read about in books and spend the time actually getting to know your kids and having a real relationship with them. They will have to one day deal with all the question surrounding their non ideal beginnings, and it may or may not bring up a lot of pain for them. But if you’ve been real with them, then that will give them added strength to get through it.
Relax. Be honest. Be empathetic. Be a friend.
Stop being an Aparent!Then, you’ve got no worries.
- Asker’s Rating:
I was so impressed with your answer…thank you for taking the time to type it all out. I think I’ll print it for future reference. The second to the last sentence really got to me…Stop being an AParent! Before I knew it, I was crying because you are so right…my daughter deserves a PARENT! Wow!
Adoption Survivor 
