Adopted: The Movie

A few months back I’d heard the buzz about this movie, but until we got Netflix recently, I didn’t have a way to watch it.  This past weekend it arrived in the mail and my husband and I settled in to watch it. I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but this film exceeded my expectations in a gut-wrenching way.

For those who haven’t seen it, the documentary film follows two families: the Fero family, including 32-year-old Jennifer who was adopted from Korea as an infant, and the Trainer family, who are in the process of adopting from China. It chronicles Jennifer’s search for identity, sparked by learning that her mother has terminal cancer, and the Trainer’s journey to their daughter.

And the similarities are striking. While Jennifer’s adoption took place in 1975 when adoptive parents received little to no training in adoptive parenting, the education received by the Trainers (adopting in 2006) doesn’t seem to be much better or at least hasn’t been taken to heart. Jacqui Trainer admits to owning three attachment books, two of which she skimmed and one that she said she’d read most of. They were depressing, she said, so she decided that she would set them aside, and if she needed them later, she would know where to look for the information.

The Trainers acknowledge that there may be tough times ahead once their daughter comes home–that they will be “turning her world upside down” and that ”she’ll be grieving.” But they  feel that they have enough love to cover the hard issues they might face.

In contrast Jennifer’s story is saying that love isn’t enough. She’s conflicted because her parents loved and nurtured her, and she loves her family, yet she says she’s felt empty. “I want my whole identity; my whole life,” Jennifer says. “It’s not rejection of my family; it’s just wanting to be authentic and real.”

Jennifer talks several times about how adoptees are always the ones adapting–from a very early age and possibly over and over. “Families adopt; adoptees adapt. Adoptees are chameleons because they don’t want to be abandoned again,” she said. “So you make sure every thing appears perfect.”

Once the Trainers have their daughter, Roma, home, they say things have been much easier than they’d expected. Roma rarely cries, they say, and she was “fully attached” to her adoptive father on day three of them being a family and warmed up to her adoptive mother by day nine to 10. “I’m sorry, yes, we have the perfect child,” Jacqui says. John adds, “She seems well-rounded. If she has an underlying issue, she’s not made it known.”

Jennifer’s struggles are heart wrenching. She longs for her parents to acknowledge her for who she really is, yet her parents don’t feel it’s necessary to talk about her adoption and race. At one point her father says, “I think she should be thankful she’s here. And I think there’s an overemphasis on the fact that she’s Korean.”

Jennifer’s mother once wonders why Jennifer didn’t share her racial issues with the family as they were happening during her school years. Jennifer says she was too embarrassed by racial taunting in school to talk about it with her family and instead rage began to grow inside her. “I remember being around 12 or 13 and coming out of my room just to yell at my mom. I had so much rage toward her. Because of all the people, a mother should get the angst that I was going through being Asian in a white family and a white community.”

Often in the adoption community, adoptees like Jennifer who are processing what adoption really means for them and who are speaking out about the hard issues that come from adoption are labeled as “angry and bitter.” Yet I don’t see bitterness or anger in Jennifer. I see a wounded little girl who was never allowed to fully grasp what had happened to her.

“This isn’t about what my parents did wrong; I mean look at all the things they did right. It’s about that 9-year-old girl who didn’t have the language. I’m her voice. You can overcompensate and sugar-coat the adoption story … but you’re only getting her because she was abandoned. And she knows that at a younger age than you can image.”

I know that not all international adoptees feel the way Jennifer does, but books and blogs and list-serves have shown me that many have experienced issues similar to those Jennifer details. And while watching Jennifer’s journey made my heart ache for her, I had to wonder how Roma Trainer will feel when she’s older. Will she experience the same emotions? Will she feel that her parents really didn’t understand the journey they embarked on when they brought her home from China? If so, how sad will that be? After all, they have the resources–including adoptees like Jennifer Fero–to help them understand the adoptee’s journey, if only they will listen.

“I don’t have any resentment toward my parents. I feel they did the best they could; they loved me and nurtured me,” Jennifer says. “If people adopt today, I expect them to do better.”

And that’s the question really. Is this current generation of adoptive parents doing it better? Have we learned from adoptees who have been through the struggle? Are we changing the way we parent so it encompasses all of who are children are?

My hope is that we are; my fear is that not enough are hearing the message. I’m thankful for Jennifer and other adoptees who are speaking out, sharing the most intimate of journeys to help me better parent my son. And I hope I am doing “better.”

Adoption Oversimplified

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile but after a recent discussion of the topic and reading another blogger’s take, I decided to let it out. The discussion centered around birth mothers, the role they play in the lives of our children, and how we portray these women to our children.

Are they saints for making such a “brave, loving, selfless” decision? Are they uncaring for giving away part of themselves? Or was the decision even theirs to begin with? Did someone convince or coerce them into making this decision saying it would be best?

There seems to be two opposing sides when it comes to adoption. I’ve heard a lot of adult adoptees essentially say that if there weren’t white Americans wanting to adopt (and no poverty and there were social programs to assist families), there would be no need for adoption. It’s supply and demand they say, and adoption brings in huge amounts of money for the country sending its children away.

On the other hand, a large number of adoptive parents feel that adoption is a win-win situation for all involved–birth mother doesn’t want to parent her child, we want a child, child gets a home, it’s all good.

I feel that both sides have oversimplified the topic. Like everything about adoption, there just aren’t easy answers.

Even if there were no parents waiting for children, I believe there would be some women who would chose to place their children for adoption. Some women become pregnant and don’t want to have an abortion, yet don’t want to parent the child either. Even without coercion, I believe these women would exist and for them the best option would be to place their child for adoption.

Many anti-adoption advocates (for lack of a better term) seem to believe that every child is better off with his biological parents. But I don’t think that’s the case. If it were, why do we have children who are abused or neglected by their biological parents? The fact is sometimes mothers keep their children for selfish reasons. I’ve personally seen some instances where this is the case. Keeping the child is more about being a means to an end (getting financial support, for example) than it is about loving the child and wanting to parent him in a loving and nurturing home. Would that child be better off being placed for a adoption where he could grow up in a home where he is loved and nurtured? I would say probably.

Yet, on the flip side, adoption isn’t the perfect answer either. It’s not a win-win situation for everyone. It’s a solution that will have a lifetime of consequences for everyone involved. To believe otherwise is to live in the “adoption fantasy” I talked about in a previous post. Even if that child is loved and nurtured in his adoptive home, his birth family is part of him and he’ll likely wonder and question the decision that was made.

Each adoption story is different so generalities hardly apply. For some women in certain cultures making an adoption plan for their child might be a “brave and selfless” act of love. Given the attitudes and circumstances she and the child would face, maybe she feels like she’s making the most chose. In another instance, maybe placing the child is a selfish act meant to avoid the consequences and hard decisions that come with parenting a child.

And I know that sometimes there’s more involved than just the birth mother’s decision. Since becoming an adoptive parent, I’ve learned more about coercion, unethical practices, and even child trafficking that can be a part of adoption, especially international adoption.

I don’t believe we should turn a blind-eye to the situations that exist, especially in other countries, that lead to some adoption placements. In fact, it turns my stomach to see large religious agencies and churches proclaiming adoption to be the way we can help. I would rather see these large groups find an in-country association or ministry where money or other donations could be sent to keep families intact, instead of believing the children are better off with us.

But also don’t believe that there would be no children placed for adoption, even if we “cured” all the aliments that lead to placement. Even with all of its consequences, I believe that adoption is the best option for some birth mothers.

So I guess I’m saying that in general, birth mothers shouldn’t be either vilified or pronounced saints. Nor should adoption been seen as the cruelest option that’s out there or as the savior to kids who need homes. I feel that each family has to look at it’s story and be honest about what it entails. After all, we were never promised that issues in our lives would be simple.

Love and Lunar New Year (설날, Seollal)

설날, seollal (aka, Lunar New Year), is one of the most important holidays on the Korean calendar. Since the date is figured based on the lunar calender, it’s date on the Gregorian calendar changes every year. And all of that is to say that this year, 설날 falls on Feb. 14, yes on Valentine’s Day.

Last year I did a comprehensive post about 설날 and ways Korean adoptive families can celebrate. I’m not going to repeat all of that.

Just remember it’s not New Year without tteokguk (rice cake soup), your best or new clothes, and games such as yut nori. If your child likes to color, you can find a coloring sheet featuring a Korean family in their new clothes for Seollal here. (You can find last year’s detailed entry on Seolnal by either clicking on the Korean holiday how-tos category and scrolling down or looking at the January 2009 entries.)

2010 marks the year of the tiger so you could also have tiger-themed crafts or coloring sheets for Seollal. You can one tiger coloring sheet on the Crayola site. And here’s an interesting Korea Times article on Korea’s connection to tigers and the year of the tiger.

Since lunar new year shares it’s date this year with Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about Valetine’s in Korea. Although it’s still a day about love and chocolate, it’s celebrated a little differently in Korea.

You see many American guys would just as soon forget Valentine’s Day. Well, in Korea they can. In Korea on Feb. 14  girls give chocolates to guys they like, but the guys don’t have to give anything on that.

But don’t think that Korean guys are totally off the hook. One month later, on March 14, Koreans celebrate White Day. It’s a day for guys to give candys and gifts to the girls in their lives. Tradtionally the candy given on White Day isn’t chocolate, although I’ve read that some guys now give white chocolate.

Researching this post led me to find out about the “love days” in Korea. More on that in an upcoming post.

In the meantime, 새해 복 많이 받으세요! (saehae bok manni badeuseyo). That’s Happy New Year in Korean.

Your Adoption Story Is Not Your Child’s Story

Recently I’ve heard a couple of adoptive parents describe two of the highly recommended adoption books as “negative.” (FYI, the books being referred to were Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge and Beyond Good Intentions by Cheri Register.) And the description bothered me–it seemed harsh, especially when one of the books was written by an adoptee. 

Both books detail some of the hard truths about adoption–loss, trauma, racial issues, etc. And those truths can be difficult to hear, no doubt. But I feel like I’m a better adoptive parent for having read, and taken to heart, those hard truths. So I began thinking about why an adoptive parent would label these books as negative, and I had a light-bulb moment. It’s because adoption is a completely different experience for most adoptive parents and adopted children.

For the parents adoption is filled with joy and love. It’s a way to become a parent for the first time or expand a family already filled with the joy of children. It’s the agony of waiting, which is completely forgotten in the elation of meeting your child for the first time. Adoption is a one-time event in the lives of the adoptive parents. They go through the process, finalize the adoption, and it’s done–they’re a family.

For the child, adoption is a lifetime experience. An experience that’s filled with trauma, loss (of families, culture, language), sadness, questions, and feelings of not belonging, as well as joy and love.

I have no doubt that the majority of adoptees love their adoptive parents and families. But from reading about those hard truths, I’ve learned that the joy and love they have in and for their adoptive families doesn’t prevent them from feeling sadness over the families they lost or wondering why they were placed for adoption.

Before we started the process to adopted our son, I too felt that adoption was a win-win. There were children who needed homes, and my husband and I had no desire to have biological kids. Back then I thought it was all joy too. That you just love the kid and everything will be “normal.” But books like the ones written by Eldridge and Register helped enlighten me to truths about adoption. My view pre-adoption was what I now call the “adoption fanatsy”–that adopting or being adopted is no different from having biological kids.

What I’ve learned in the three-plus years I’ve been part of the adoption community is that many adoptive parents never let go of that “adoption fantasy.” They continue believing that love is enough and that adopted children can be raised exactly the same way biological ones are raised. An example of this is that one person I heard call these books negative was a parent-in-process who is waiting for a referral. She’s still educating herself and learning more about adoption. But the other has a child adopted transracially as an infant who has now been home for seven years.

While it’s true that in some areas raising adopted kids is the same (for example, they should be loved, disciplined, and taught responsibility), in many other ways it’s not the same. And it shouldn’t be the same because love ISN’T enough.

Raising an adopted child requires more understanding, a willingness to delve under the surface of behavior and attitudes, an openess to discuss some difficult topics that no child should have to experience. It requires an understanding that being separated from the mother who carried you for nine months is a traumatic experience. That babies feel things we don’t give them credit for feeling. That children aren’t as resilient as our society wants to believe. That our world isn’t a colorblind place in which race doesn’t matter.

That’s what Eldridge’s and Register’s books are trying to say. They’re not trying to be negative but instead are trying to educate adoptive parents about the thoughts and feelings of adoptees. Will every adoptee experience everything covered in these books? Probably not. But the fact seems to be that the majority of adoptees struggle with at least some of these feelings and emotions at some point in their lives.

Our adoption journey thus far has shown me the truth behind the hard facts these authors discuss. While our son is very attached to us, he’s still at times insecure wondering if moving to another family is in his future. The education I’ve received from these books and others like them mean I don’t just brush off his comments or concerns, but instead tackle them head on.

Yes, my adoption journey is quite different from my son’s journey. But my adoption education has allowed me to empathize with his journey in a way I couldn’t have while living in my “adoption fantasy.” Hopefully that will be a help to him as he grows.

The Enthusiasm of a 4-year-old

We have family stationed in Japan with the military, and they’ve just asked us if we’d like to meet in Korea for a vacation together. Our son heard us talking about it over dinner and his response, “Yes! I want to go to Korea. Let’s go now!”

I love his enthusiasm. He’s like his mom–passionate about the things he’s interested in. So now we’re looking at a trip to Korea sometime in the next 18 months or so. Since bringing our son home, we’d planned on returning to Korea several times throughout his childhood. We can hardly wait to show J the country that is his by birth. But it will also be fun to share the country with our relatives.

We tried to explain to J that the trip wouldn’t happen anytime soon; that these trips take planning and saving. But those concepts are hard to grasp as a 4-year-old. His response to our “later” speech was: “OK, I’ll go to sleep ad when I wake up we can go.” Boy, don’t we wish it were that easy.

J is passionate about Korean things. He knows he’s Korean and recently explained to us that he’s the only Korean in our family, emphasizing that Dad and I aren’t Korean. There was no sadness connected to the thought (although I know there might be in the future); it was just a matter of fact. He loves Korean food (his favorite restaurants are “the Korean restaurant and Chick-fil-A”) and is very excited about the Korean dining table we recently found at a thrift store. J wants to learn to say more things in Korean and someday wants to “break boards” (tae kwon do).

I love his pride in his Koreaness. I hear so many stories about adopted kids this age who just aren’t interested in Korea or Korean things. And I wonder what makes J different. Is it just his nature? Is it how we’ve chosen to parent him (including Korean things in our daily lives)? Is it a little bit of both?

We’ve never thought the parenting strategy of “we’ll do Korean things someday, if my kids are interested” would be in our son’s best interest. After all, if we as parents don’t introduce things into our children’s lives, how will they ever become interested? I don’t believe my son would love basketball the way he does, if we’d never given him a basketball to play with or took to watch a game. Likewise, I believe at least part of his Korean pride comes from the fact that Korea has been presented to him almost daily in a positive light.

But on the flip side, I realize that just giving a kid a basketball doesn’t guarantee that he’ll love the game. That’s where I think J’s enthusiasm for Korean things is partly just who he is. But the fact is when he came home as an infant, we had no idea if he’d be interested in Korean things or not. We just decide to parent him in what we felt was the best way when it came to his birth country and culture.

Does talk about Korea and Korean things fill our day? No. Our days are filled with learning the English alphabet, playing basketball, cooking, and so much more. But we include mentions of Korean things often in our regular conversations. And as a result, I feel that we’ve been laying a foundation that will help him as he begins the hard work of developing his own identity in a few years.

I hope is that J is always this passionate about his Koreaness. But realistically I know that his feelings about Korea and his ethnicity will probably ebb and flow throughout his childhood. And someday, when he’s older, we’ll know whether our choices were the right ones. In the meantime, we’ll plug along doing what we believe is best for our son.

Happy Holidays

For those who check the blog regularly, I must apologize for being absent. While November and December are busy for most people, these months are kind of insane at our house considering that in addition to the holidays we have some birthdays and a wedding anniversary thrown in.

Many themes have caught my attention lately so I have lots I’d like to be writing about. But it’s going to have to wait until after the holidays. I’m truly thankful that this blog has received some attention this year and hope that our journey is helping other adoptive families as travel down similar roads.

So happy holidays to all of my readers. I hope that the new year brings you much joy.

Love, Culture, and Identity–What’s Really Needed?

After attending our Parents In Process class, my husband and I decided to delve into Korean culture with both feet. Everything we learned in class pointed to the importance of our son being acquainted with his birth culture. So we didn’t hesitate–we began eating Korean food and learning the language. After what we’d learned, we no longer believe that love was enough in parenting our son. He would need us to be more informed, educated, and understanding.

At the time, I had no idea that many would consider our take on adoption parenting “out there.” I couldn’t believe that so many people would still believe that love was enough, that race didn’t matter, that birth culture would be a matter of interest or it wouldn’t, and that speaking the birth language really didn’t matter so much. But truly, I’ve come across more parents who have a “que sera, sera” attitude (whatever will be, will be) than I have parents who are proactive about building cultural foundations for their kids.

And lately, there’ve been a couple of articles that on the surface seem to exempt parents from “doing culture.” (I wrote about one article in my July 2009 post, “What’s an Adoptive Parent to Do?”) One article was in Brain Child magazine; it was titled “What’s My Heritage?” It was written by an adoptive parent. A second one appeared on Boston.com. This one was titled, “Another Country, Not My Own: One overseas adoptee explains, Parents embrae of the ‘home’ culture can have its costs,” and was written by Mei-Ling Hopgood, who also authored the book Lucky Girl.

Some parents have used these articles to say, “See if you go too far with culture stuff it can be just as damaging as doing nothing. Damned if you do, damned if don’t. So why put in the effort.”

But if you really dig into these articles, they’re so saying so much more. They’re saying that culture needs to be more than a once a year culture camp, Korean food on selective Korean holidays, or learning traditional celebrations or dances. These articles are saying that it’s more important for internationally adopted kids to know people who share their ethnic heritage, to have mentors and role models who look like them, and to live in diverse areas.

These articles aren’t talking about doing less, but doing more. And the findings of a recently released study done by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute uphold the need of going further in adoption parenting. The study is titled, “Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation in Adoption.” The report is 113 pages long, but the institute’s web site has a summary of the report, so you can see the conclusions they came to without reading the whole report. (On the summary page, there is a link to the PDF of the entire report, if you’re interested.)

The conclusion of the report’s introduction says, “The findings of this study reflect the need to go ‘beyond culture camp’ to provide children with ongoing experiences and relationships that promote postivie racial (and adoptive) indentity development. Our respondents valued cultural celebrations and other opportunities to learn about their origins, but such singular events appear insufficient. … Further, there seems to no question about the need to provide transracially adopted children with opportunities to be in diverse settings and have diverse role models.”

This report talks about doing things that might take you, the adoptive parent, out of your comfort zones. Moving to a more diverse area, traveling to your child’s birth country (shown to be very important for international adoptees in learning about their origins), understanding what it’s like to be the only person of color in community.

The conclustion continues, “Commitment and love of adoptive parents, exposure to positive aspects of the child’s culture, and perhaps connection with other families who have adopted from the same country were thought to be enough to support the development of positive identity. As this study demonstrates, the integration of “being adopted,” of one’s racial/ethnic identity and one’s identity as a person adopted from another country is a complex and continually evolving process.” [emphasis added by me]

The findings of this study are nothing new to me. Over the last year and a half, the realities of the what this study concluded have been weighing on me. I’ve come to understand the need of living in a diverse area; of having close family friends who share our son’s ethnicity and who love him and are interested in mentoring him and helping him achieve a healthy identity; of doing more than the surface culture stuff.

And it’s hard. I admit it. I know the importance of it, but achieving those things is hard. It’s hard to make connections. But I know that me not doing what’s hard could make things infinitely harder on my son. So the hard way it is. With God’s help, I know we can achieve the life that will be best for our family.

Korean Language Primer

It seems like more and more adoptive families are wanting to learn the languages of their children’s birth culture, which we think is great. We started our Korean language learning three years while waiting for our son to come home. We were fortunate to find a willing teacher who sacrificed her Saturday mornings to get us started. We learned some essential phrases and a even impressed a couple of people in Korean with our use of those phrases.

Since coming home with our son three years ago, we’ve had a harder time continuing our education. This fall our son could have started Korean school but with the economy what it is, there just isn’t money for that at this time. So I’ve been looking for other ways to learn. In this post, I’m going to share some language links that can help you get started learning Korean.

Let’s Speak Korean on YouTube.com is an excellent resource. I’ve just recently found this one. Each episode is approximately 10 minutes long and goes over essential phrases in Korean. It’s easy to understand but they don’t Romanize (put into the English alphabet) the phrases, so it’s helpful to know your Korean alphabet.

The Korean alphabet can be practiced at this site put together by Indiana University. This site goes over how to pronounce basic vowels, complex vowels, and consonants, as well as gives words that have that sound. You’ll hear both a male speaker and a female speaker pronounce each sound and word.

Another site by Indiana Universitys is a Multimedia Korean Dictionary. Set up like the previous site listed, this one goes over words and phrases that are common, such as colors, animals, clothing, numbers, and more. Again you’ll hear each word or phrases pronounced twice, once by a male speaker and again by a female speaker.

Learn-Korean.net is another online resource. This one has several lessons, but I don’t believe any have audio. Most words and phrases, however, are romanized so learning to pronounce words might be easier. I would say this site is best used in conjunction with the sites already listed since they include audio of the pronounciation.

SurvivalPhrases.com is another great resource. While there is a subscription service on this site, there are several free lessons available online or through iTunes. Each lesson also has a downloadable PDF guide to help you through the lesson.

Korean Language Online is part of the Indiana University language center. I’ve just been introduced to this one so I haven’t had a chance to do much with it. It seems like most of it is listening. The audio files reference a book, but I haven’t found it on the site yet. I think it’s helpful to both see the words written in hangul and pronounced. Seeing the characters as you’re hearing them reenforces which character makes which sound. This site does have multiple levels of learning, which is cool. I’ll have to spend more time exploring this site, for sure.

If you search the Internet, you’ll find many more resources to help you learn Korean. The ones listed here are my current favorites. As previously promised, I still plan to post words and phrases that are useful for adoptive families with a new baby home from Korea. But hopefully these sites will help you get started learning Korean.

Be Prepared, Part 2–The Expanded Version

Last week I wrote about what to do while you’re waiting for your child to come home to you. But I felt that I should expound on some of those ideas, as well as add some that weren’t included in the first round.

Learn the Language. Of course, you probably aren’t going to become fluent in the language of your child’s birth culture while you’re waiting. But you can learn some important words and phrases that might help with the transition. A few such phrases might be:
Yes
No
Hello
Goodbye
I love you
I don’t understand
Don’t be afraid
It’s OK
I plan to do a post in the future with some of these words and phrases in Korean that you can use.

And learn some songs in that language to sing as lullabies once your child is home. If your child was born in Korea, you can check out the links I’ve previously posted to songs on YouTube. There are also several shopping sites that have CDs with Korean children’s songs or lullabies. I’m sure you can find the same type of CDs in other languages too. We bought a children’s song CD in Korea and used it every day at nap time. Our son loved hearing the language that was familiar to him.

Find out about foods your child is eating. In Korea most babies eat jook, which is a rice porridge. Eating similar foods may be comforting to your child, so why not learn to make a few things now. Here is a recipe for jook, although I’m sure you can find many variations. Babies also drink barley tea in Korea. Our son’s formula was even mixed with barley tea. You can find it at your local Korean market, or if there isn’t one in your area, Komart online has it too.

Make a list of questions, if you’re meeting the foster family. This can be invaluable to you as you learn to parent to your child. What is your child’s daily schedule like? What is his temperament? Ask about the day before and the day of pick up. What did the foster family do with and for your child? Did they have a party? Or pack bags of clothes and items that will go home with the child? If you’re child has a sudden outburst once you’re home, knowing these things can help you understand what’s triggering it. (Maybe the child associates parties with getting a new family.) What about favorite TV shows? Many of the Korean children’s shows are available on DVD and VHS. If you know which ones she likes, you can purchase some either there or once you’re home (several shopping sites have them). Does your child have a favorite toy or blanket? If so, ask if the child can take it with them.

Line up help, but not for the baby. For bonding, it’s best if the parents do 100 percent of the baby care. Feeding, soothing, diapering, and bathing should all be things that only the parents do. But that doesn’t mean that others can’t help you. Ask your family and friends to provide meals for you. It might be best to have the meals brought before you travel and have them in the freezer. You’ll all be tired and jet lagged once you get home, especially during the first week or so, and may not be eating on your normal schedule for the first several days. Family and friends can also help with cleaning or laundry or grocery shopping. If you have older kids, family and friends can help by taking the older kids out for special activities or making sure they get where they need to go (school, activities, etc.).

Having a new baby home is exhausting; having a newly adopted baby is no less exhausting. Our friends didn’t seem to understand that we essentially had a 20-pound newborn when we arrived home from Korea. He was 9 months old so they assumed he would be sleeping through the night (still not at almost 4). “You’re past all that newborn stuff,” they said.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. We had a baby whose whole world had been turned upside down. He had no idea what was happening and was starting over, just as if he were a newborn. The more you know, the better prepared you’ll be. I tell parents to expect and be educated for the worst. More than likely, it won’t be that bad but at least if it is, you’re armed and ready to do what you have to do.

Something to Celebrate?

November is National Adoption Month. For some it’s a month to celebrate. I wish it were more a month of adoption awareness. My feelings on adoption are very conflicted at times. I love my son dearly, and without adoption he wouldn’t be part of my life. Yet, now I know so much about adoption that it’s hard to be “in love” with the idea like I used to be.

And really I think the views of society on adoption are just as conflicted. For the most part, America seems accepting of adoption but not yet wholly accepting. If adoption were wholly accepted as a way to build a family, adoptees wouldn’t be asked about their “real” parents and adoptive parents wouldn’t be seen as “saints.” It would just be a way to build a family–not so different from the old-fashioned way or using fertility treatments to assist.

If adoption were wholly accepted, families built by adoption wouldn’t be seen as different. The children wouldn’t be seen as “unwanted” and the parents as “less of a mother or father” because the child isn’t biologically theirs. There wouldn’t be questions like, “Can’t you have children of your own?” or “Why didn’t you get an American baby?” People wouldn’t look at mothers and fathers who adopt with pity and sadness because they can’t have “their own” kids.

If adoption were wholly accepted, birth mothers who decide to make adoption plans wouldn’t be looked down on for placing their children. Phrases like, “How could anyone give up such a cute baby?” would never be uttered. Instead people would understand that placement is not an easy decision, and know that birth mothers are only trying to do what is best.

If adoption were wholly accepted, people would understand the loss that comes with adoption. They wouldn’t pass off babies as “resilient” and trivialize the trauma that comes with the early losses that our kids have experienced.

If adoption were wholly accepted in America, there would be a better understanding of corruption and unethical practices that still occur from time to time in adoptions. There would be a better understanding of the circumstances abroad that lead some birth mothers to feel they have no choice but to place their children for adoption. And with that knowledge, churches, organizations, and ministries would be working with those countries to help promote change. (I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. I don’t think white Americans should charge into other countries and tell them what do or not do. But I do feel that instead of advocating for people to adopt, these groups should be finding programs that already exist in these countries and supporting them as a way of taking care of the orphans.) This article, written by Jane Jeong Trenka, perfectly expresses the anguish and helplessness some birth mothers feel.

Adoption has been around for centuries. And I truly believe that no matter what we do, there will always be children who are placed for adoption. That fact is some women who become pregnant aren’t ready to become  mothers. But I wish we could come to a place where every adoption plan that’s made is because the birth mother believes it’s the best interest of the child. Not because she’s too poor to feed her child or because her society doesn’t support single mothers. Not because she feels she had no other recourse.

That’s what I wish National Adoption Month was about. Not simply celebrating it as a good thing to do, but talking openly about the sensitive issues of adoption, making people more aware of everything that adoption entails. Maybe then we could get to a place of true understanding and sensitivity about adoption.