Tags: life, marriage, parents, relationships
Well, I’ll hopefully finish answering my questions in this post. Of course, if anyone does have further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask more here! You can also ask via the Contact page if you don’t want to comment.
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상실 asked: Are you involved with any IRL, in-person Korean adoptee organizations in Australia, and if so, what kinds of activities do you do with them, and what advantages do you get from participating? If not, why not? And if there aren’t any IRL KAD groups Down Under, have you ever thought about starting one of your own?
As far as I know, ICASN (whose website isn’t working right now) is the only adoptee network in Australia. And I’d love to be more involved with them. I was asked about four months ago if I could be a guest speaker to an audience of prospective adoptive parents, but I was working and wasn’t able to get the time off. There have also been quite a few other events that I would have loved to attend, but there were reasons as to why I couldn’t. 
I think one of the worst things about Australia (and this isn’t just in terms of adoptive associations) is that we’re sort of… in the middle of nowhere. I’m aware of many more similar associations in other parts of the world, but not so much here. I think the main advantage to being involved with associations such as these, is just getting the chance to be around other people involved with adoption and to share our experiences and knowledge with one another.
I did consider starting my own for a while. But I was trying to get myself into a paying career (I still am!), and right now, that’s more important to me. But you never know. 
I’d love to contribute a bit more to the adoption community and just share my experiences and knowledge. 
June asked: I read an adoptee blog a while ago (and I can’t seem to find it again to link here) where the poster – who was very involved with KAD organizations and such – went back to Korea to do a talk about her experiences as a transracial adoptee at one of those homes for pregnant women. I read this like 3 years ago so I can’t remember exactly, but I think the event coordinators wanted her to get the women feeling all warm and happy about putting their babies up for adoption – like, “look at me, I turned out great and I’m so happy I was adopted!” Well, she didn’t. She told the truth about her feelings.
So my question is, would you consider doing something like that? And if you did, what would you say to those women?
I’d do exactly as she did (good on her!) and tell the truth. I don’t see the point of covering up the truth and making complicated matters seem fine and dandy when there’s so much more to them. If I was put in the same position, however, I’d tell those women to consider keeping their babies. I’d tell them that they don’t need to put them up for adoption, unless there’s really a dire need; that their children will gain so much simply by being kept. I’d ask them to please consider the repercussions of adoption: to not only think about how their child will feel, but how will they feel for the rest of their lives, knowing they have a child out there?
I’d also tell them that despite what they get told, there’s no shame in keeping their child/ren who they give birth to: their own flesh and blood. Sure, they mightn’t be the world’s richest people, they might not have partners, but their child would have them, and that means so much more than they care to think/believe. I’d tell them that life sometimes takes us in strange directions, and just because they’re pregnant, it doesn’t mean their lives are over.
t~ asked: I would like to know how you viewed yourself in a family where nobody looked liked you? And did you internalize conversations where family lineage was discussed or other conversations that made you feel different?
Also, do you have an adoptee top 5 things to never do or say to the transracial adopted child in the family?
When I was little, I didn’t really know what to make of the fact that I looked completely different from my family. I tried not to think about, but it was a bit hard to ignore! But for a while, I pretended like I was just like them. I’d just go along with things and not talk about reality, because accepting reality would be a complete denial of the fantasy world I’d made for myself. And I didn’t want my fantasy world shattered, because it was so much better than reality!
When family lineage was discussed, I pretended that my adoptive parents’ families/lineage were mine. I mean… they are, but I told myself that they were the only ones that mattered and that my Korean lineage didn’t matter at all. I definitely wouldn’t say that this was a healthy way of thinking. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I think it would have been nice had my Korean ancestry been a bit more… acknowledged and accepted when I was younger. But even if it had, the paradox is that I didn’t want it to be. And I think that’s where complications really come in for adoptive parents – no matter what you do, nothing can ever really be the right thing to do. Simply because your child didn’t biologically come from you, and although there’s nothing you can do about that, there’s also very little you can do for the repercussions of that one fact. It’s a big domino effect, and I believe that that’s what we adoptees are trying to get across to adoptive parents: you can’t give us the world the way you can for a biological child because we didn’t come from your world. And you can’t change that. You think you’re getting the family you’ve been wanting, or you think you’re doing a great thing for a child in need, but really… you’re only changing their lives. You’re not necessarily making them any better. You’re just changing the direction of their domino tiles, you’re not getting rid of the dominoes themselves.
Nowadays, however, when family lineage gets discussed, I sort of blank out. I feel extremely detached from my adoptive parents’ ancestry and roots. I don’t really feel like I have anything to do with them at all, and when the topics do come up, I can’t help thinking ‘well… that’s not where I came from. That’s not me’, and my thoughts usually wander to Korea. I’m not sure whether this is any better, but I’m happier accepting the truth. I just wish I understood/knew where I came from better, so I did havesomething to feel connected to.
My top five things not to say to a transracial adoptee would be:
1. You were made for us.
2. God intended you to be our child. (I’m sorry, but I hate this. It’s just a huge cop out, and I’m sure most adoptees would see straight through this stupidity.)
3. You’re my/our child. You will always be my/our child.
4. Your biological/first parents don’t matter. It’s your life here that matters.
5. Get over being adopted. Just enjoy your life here.
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Thankyou to everyone who contributed. Again, if you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask! You’ve given me food for thought and some more things I can write about in future! ^_^
윤선
Tags: adoption, adoptive parents, Australia, childhood, identity, 한국, life, me, parents, race
Again, thanks everyone for contributing to my little question-answering… thing! Again, if you have questions, please ask here!! Anyway, here are some more answers! Again, if you don’t see your question here, it’ll be answered in subsequent posts! I’m just going through them all in the order they were sent to me.
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Mei Ling asked: I was wondering if you did a Korean language exchange and how that may or may not have helped your overall skills in the learning process…
I haven’t done an exchange, per se. I believe I did have the opportunities to do so as I was growing up, but like I’ve said in this blog – I was so desperate to just be like everyone around me, that it wasn’t something I wanted to do. Having said that, though, I have had Korean Sunday school classes recently (with other kids!) – something else I could have done as a child – and I think that has helped to a degree. I think being immersed in Korean culture with other Korean people (yes, being with KOREAN people helps. Not just being with other people who are learning Korean. They’re very different.) has also helped a lot, too. It’s made me feel much more connected to a group of people I naturally belong to, and it’s made me see the language in its natural “habitat”, I guess you could say. I think that learning Korean and learning about the culture in an academic way is completely different to just living it day to day. As an adoptee, I feel the living option is much more important than just learning from a text book. You learn a lot more than just a bunch of symbols on paper.
Sara_2 asked: I have been telling my 5 yo (adopted from China) that, not only does she have parents in China who look like her, but that there is an entire lineage in China, grandparents and great-grandparents and maybe brothers and sisters, that she is connected to all these people even though right now we don’t know who they are. This is something I came up with because of reading a number of adoptees who feel that they were just dropped on the earth somehow….. I am hoping it will help preempt that feeling a little bit. Wondering if you and your readers think this is a reasonable approach.
Also – do you have any thoughts on when and how to try to explain racism in any form, and then again, racism and objectifying sexually specifically directed at Asian women.
Umm… yeah, I don’t see anything wrong with telling your daughter about her lineage in China. Although I’d suggest being aware of how you’re wording things. Maybe I was just an overly sensitive child (which is very true), but the way you say things is very important. The best way I can explain this, is: have you, as a woman, ever been told something by a man in a seemingly insensitive, awful way? Not to blame him, but sometimes (and I do believe this is a man thing, not just a Robert thing!) my husband has the tendency to say/ask things to me in a way that sounds like an insult, despite the words he’s spouting. More often than not, I get offended because of the way he’s said something. EG: a sincere apology means a lot more than one simply stated as a short, abrupt: “sorry”. It’s the same when talking about adoption to an adoptee.
So I think it’s great that you’re talking about and acknowledging (acknowledgment is very important) that she has lineage in China. But just be aware of how you’re saying things. Sometimes, when Robert says things that, to me, sound awful, I just want to say: “go say that same thing, just as you did, to yourself in a mirror, then see what you think”. I think this is advice we could all use once in a while.
Following the email you sent me before commenting here, I’m really sorry that you came to Oz and had the experience you did. It’s funny in a way – the area of Sydney you were in was… what’s known as a bit of a dodgy area. Personally, it’s an area I avoid like the plague. Yes, it’s a poorer area, but generally speaking, people there can be a bit more narrow minded, racist and prejudiced. Not all of Sydney’s like that, I can assure you!
Having said that, I was very lucky that for the majority of my childhood, my family lived in a very wealthy, affluent and diverse area. Later, when I was about 16, we moved closer to the area you were talking about, and that’s when I really began to experience racism and the whole Asian sexual objectification that some (sick) people seem to have. I think it made my parents really sad when this happened, and in my naivete, I didn’t really get what was going on. My parents sort of got away with not needing to worry about it early on! But if you’re feeling the need to discuss this matter with a 5 year old, just take things slow. It was hard for me to understand as a 16 year old, let alone a 5 year old!
Also, if you have random people saying sexual-type things around your daughter, like any parent, adoptive or not, I’d simply MOVE. At this stage, I’m sure your daughter’s probably only just getting her head around being from China, let alone the sickness of adult assumptions and fetishes. I wouldn’t be mentioning that now!
But if you’re trying to talk about racism to a 5 year old, I’d be very general and just say something like: “some people in the world don’t understand about other places in the world. You don’t have to get on with these people”, or something. I’m not a parent, but in this case, at her age, I’d let her lead. Don’t force things down her throat. Just let her know that you love her, and she’s welcome to ask you anything she likes. ALSO: make sure she knows you won’t be offended by asking/talking to her. A lot of the time, I held back talking to my parents about my adoption because I didn’t want to hurt them. This is wrong. It should be your job to talk to her about anything she wants, regardless of whether or not you’re hurt by it. Of course, you’re going to have emotions, but you don’t want her to be afraid of talking to you or hurting your feelings!
Tonggu Momma asked: I realize there is no magic formula for all of this, but in your personal experience, what five things did your parents do/ encourage/ assist you with that helped you the most in your life-long adoption journey? And what five things did they fail to do that you most wish they had done?
This is getting really long. LOL. So please click “continue reading” below for more questions and answers. ^_^
Tags: adoption, adoptive parents, Australia, childhood, identity, 한국, 한국어, me, parents, race, racism, stupidity
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