May 31, 2010
Posted by 윤선 in Australia, adoption, family, parenting | 14 Comments
A Response to Ignorance: The Typical Idea of Gratitude
A few weeks ago, a member of my husband’s extended family left me a long, rather offensive comment here. I deleted it because not only was it highly offensive to me, but I knew it wouldn’t go down well with other adoptees or birth parents. I’m usually OK with blog comments and people discussing adoption topics here (that’s part of the reason for having a blog), but I felt that this comment was only written to bait me, and I’m not writing stuff here simply to have people post comments that are only offensive, as opposed to discussion-worthy, so I deleted it. However, in thinking about it, I’m sort of annoyed that I did delete it. Despite its forceful and offensive undertone, it was the perfect example of the masses’ general attitude that they seem to like forcing down our throats whenever we adoptees say anything other than perfectly positive things about our lives. To quote the only bit of that comment that I seem to have (used in other’s response to it):
Perhaps instead of being critical of them and illustrating that you have no gratitude for what they have done for, and given to you, maybe you might like to consider how your hurtful comments about the mistakes they have made might make them feel… remember your “Adoptive parents” who have done everything wrong have done so much more for you.
I know the concept of gratitude has come up quite often. Not only in my own blog, but other blogs of adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents, alike. We all seem to be relatively aware of this idea, and it seems to cloud both adoption and parenting in general. It’s kind of like this shadow that just hovers around adoption and everyone involved in it. We all know it’s there, yet many don’t seem to know how to deal with it.
But in saying that, while I was walking to work today I thought: ‘why is the idea of gratitude in parenting only isolated to adoption?’. I think one of the worst things about the whole concept of gratitude in parenting is the underlying idea that the children have to be thankful and if not, it’s something that parents can hold over them for the rest of their lives. In flipping the idea of gratitude upside down, if my parents were to turn to me now and say: “you should be thankful we adopted you and gave you all that we did. Your life would have been miserable, otherwise”, what would that do? For me? For them? For my sister? For our family? For my husband? Aside from the fact that I’d probably look at them, say “stuff you” and not talk to them again for a good, long time, what would that do for our family and its relationships in the long term? I believe it would change the relationship I have with my parents for good. If I lived the rest of my life knowing that I am/was just a liability on them and something they “saved”, I doubt I’d want to have a lot to do with them. If anything, it’d probably cause me to run to Korea more and to find out more about my natural heritage and background.
I think adoption gratitude comes from both sides. On the one hand, we get told that our birth mothers “gave us up for better lives” (so we should be grateful), and then on the other side, we get the attitude of “our adoptive parents saved us from fates worse than death” (so we should be grateful). It seems we can’t really win. Why bother adopting if you’re going to forever hang this idea of gratitude over a child’s head?
I’ve been watching the second season of MasterChef on TV, recently. One of the contestants must only be about 21, and I can’t help but feel sorry for him. When he’s on camera having interviews, he’s said a few times, things along the lines of: “I really want to get through this competition and do well so that my father gives me praise and support in my following a career in cooking”. When we both heard this, my husband and I sort of looked at each other and said: “well, that’s a funny reason for going into such a competition. What sort of a father is that, to not support what his son obviously really wants to do?”. Maybe that’s judgmental to a degree, but his reasons seemed somewhat odd for going on national TV to be a chef. It seems the poor guy is spending his life simply trying to prove himself to his father. It’s like being in a constant state of debt, and I’m not sure about others, but I hate having debt hanging over my head.
Constantly telling adoptees that we should be grateful to our parents (adoptive or biological) is like putting a debt over our heads. Why bother having children at all (adopted or not) if you’re only going to tell them: “hey, don’t forget that you should be grateful to me: I saved you from a life much much worse”. Don’t parents usually adopt to have a “normal” family? Would you say such things to biological children?
In referring to the above quote, I didn’t really understand the:
remember your “Adoptive parents” who have done everything wrong have done so much more for you.
I think one thing that people seem to automatically think is that bringing up the difficulties we’ve experienced as adoptees is synonymous with saying “my adoptive parents have been bad parents. Because they’re so bad, I’m going to cry and whinge and talk about how much I want to go back to my birth country”. This is so far from the truth. Despite the way this blog comes off at times, I actually think it’s possible to be a “good adoptive parent”. But as sad as it may seem, adoptive parents can’t fulfil everything for adoptees, and that’s where challenges for us arise. And like many adoptive parents are telling me, we’re all dealt different hands in life, and we all have to figure out ways to cope and manage those hands. Writing this blog – for me – is one way of confronting things about my life that have been pushed to the back of my mind for the past 20 or so years. But it doesn’t mean my parents have done anything wrong. Some of these specific challenges – I think – just come with being adopted.
Talking about the challenges and difficulties of being adopted is not synonymous with the assumption that my adoptive parents have done a bad job. And writing about them also doesn’t mean that I’m not grateful everyday for what my life in Australia has become. However I feel that way not because my parents have hung a black cloud of guilt over my head, but because I love them and I think they’ve done a great job at helping me to become the best person I can be. But there are certain things that come with heritage and racial background, and it’s the one thing that I don’t share with my family, so it’s the one thing they can’t provide for me: it’s something I need to figure out for myself, and that’s where my struggles as an adoptee lie.
Related posts:
The test for me of whether something is offensive toward adoptees would be to substitute the word “biological” for “adopted.” For example (please forgive the pop culture reference), I recently read a review for the movie Sex and the City 2 where the writer said, “Charlotte is overwhelmed by her adopted children.” Notwithstanding the factual error (only 1 of her 2 children is adopted), I think this is offensive because you would never read something that said, “Charlotte is overwhelmed by her biological children.” There are a multitude of differences between a child being bio or adopted, but for someone to blatantly point that out seems wrong to me. More to the point, I think that when someone says a person should be grateful to their parents, I feel like it’s okay if they are saying this in general because everyone (bio or adopted) should feel some gratitude if they were raised in a loving, healthy home. However, when someone singles out an adoptee and says they should be grateful that seems inappropriate to me because it implies that the APs “saved” the adoptee and ignores what the adoptee had to give up in order to become part of their adoptive family. The comment you’re referring to seems to be the type that singles out the adoptee, more along the lines of “you should be grateful they adopted you” rather than the less offensive, “you should be grateful that your parents provided you with a loving home, just like all of us whose parents provided a loving home should be grateful.”
I thought I mentioned it somewhere in here, but of course I’m grateful to my parents, like you said. But I believe there’s a difference between being grateful because we love our parents and being grateful because it’s an idea that’s been drilled into us through guilt and constant reminding. But yes, like you said, the above comment did have the tone of “you should be grateful because your parents SAVED you from something so much worse”. And this is the attitude that seems to be so common amongst people that – really – have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to adoption. But that’s not to say it doesn’t affect us when it’s said to us. Yes, it’s a sign of ignorance and obvious lack of thought, but it becomes sort of… annoying when it’s said over and over.
I see gratitude is a wholly personal experience, not one that you can share with or force upon another. I also see it as something inexpressible, something that can guide our actions with others, very difficult to put into words, because what we are grateful for often comes at a cost. I can look back on events in my life that were painful enough that I often wish they had never happened. But as I follow their aftermath through time, I find they always lead to the people and experiences I treasure most in my life.
I’ve stopped trying to analyze it, and just accept it all for what it is. Life simply is this way. Maybe someday the relative who left the comment you describe will figure that out.
Thanks for your response. I agree with you that it is something personal. I don’t really think anyone has the right to come along and say “you SHOULD be grateful”, particularly when they don’t even know the person they’re talking to.
My parents never gave me the gratitude trip, fortunately. I think more often, as was the case with the insensitive comment, it is people OUTSIDE of the family unit who decide to impose their feelings about adoption and the “required” gratitude. It seems that most people not touched by the adoption triad are not really clear on what it all entails, so they make naive comments based on how THEY would feel in a similar situation. Robert’s family member probably thinks “Well, if *I* adopted a child, *I* would obviously be saving him/her from a terrible life, so OF COURSE, s/he should be grateful,” which is totally one-sided.
Along a similar note, I just got an e-mail from a friend of the family who had just heard about my reunion with my birth mom. The focus of her message was on how fortunate I am that my adoptive parents and boyfriend are cool with this search. There really isn’t much mention of me at all, nor of my birth mom and how lucky we are to have found one another. I really got the impression that she thinks I was taking a huge risk of alienating my family in starting my search in the first place.
I am certainly grateful that my adoptive parents and friends support me in my search. Nevertheless, I would not expect anything less from them.
I’ve always felt that an attitude of gratitude mostly comes from within, kind of like being optimistic instead of pessimistic. One person saying to another “you should feel grateful for XYZ” does not lead to gratitude in the same way that “look on the bright side” does not lead to optimism.
Having said that, I completely separate trying to raise my daughter to have an overall attitude of gratitude from our conversations and my thoughts about her adoption. Because I don’t expect her to feel grateful that she was adopted. I see ingratitude as a symptom of entitlement; basically it’s an attitude that arises when people feel they are owed XYZ in life. And… ya know… every child IS entitled to be raised by their biological parents in a safe and loving home. They ARE owed that. Every child is entitled to that, every child is owed that, but not every child experiences that. And that loss is why gratitude should not play any role whatsoever in talking to adoptees about adoption.
Yeah, in our experience, the “he’s so lucky” variety of comments come from church or acquaintances, not close friends or family. Any one close to the situation understands that WE are the lucky ones. If people are even thinking about the child’s loss at all, they are probably thinking that the child lost their first family already, nothing can change that, so NOW they are lucky to have found another family. I don’t know, maybe I give people too much credit for thinking in that much depth about adoption if it is not their own experience!
I don’t think the concept of “luck” should really come into adoption at all. Even APs saying “we’re the ones that are lucky” still comes with certain connotations that don’t accompany having biological children. It still comes with the implication of: “we’re so lucky we got you”. What’s wrong with this? There’s always an opposite. Thankfully my parents didn’t say this to me. If they had, I sometimes would have thought: ‘what? You’re lucky and… my birth mother isn’t? You’re lucky… and other APs aren’t?’. I don’t think the concept of luck should be anywhere. You wouldn’t say it to a biological child, would you?
I think you might actually say to a biological child, “I’m so lucky you’re my son/daughter” or “I’m so lucky to have you” but I see how in some ways it’s different because there is no parent in another country to take into account. This has given me something to think about because I hadn’t really considered the big picture. I had thought that it would feel good to any child to hear that their parents feel fortunate to have them, but now I see how it could be confusing or upsetting since it ignores the birth parents.
Yeah. Like Mei Ling said, adoption’s complicated and difficult, because there’s always another side. Whenever you say something about adoption, you’re also indirectly saying something about the opposite of what you mean. That might sound really convoluded, but kids do pick up on these things quite easily, even if it’s “just” through emotions.
“I had thought that it would feel good to any child to hear that their parents feel fortunate to have them, but now I see how it could be confusing or upsetting since it ignores the birth parents.”
Yeah.
Whenever someone says that, the opposite side of the coin is not really taken into account because then that’s like saying the child is lucky they weren’t kept by their ‘birth’ parents.
And then people are like “Well, no, I didn’t mean it in that way.”
I realize that but they have to understand that the child is being told they are lucky because they are ADOPTED. They are ADOPTED because their ‘birth’ parents couldn’t keep them. Therefore, they are lucky to be adopted because their ‘birth’ parents couldn’t keep them… so they are lucky they were not kept.
And then this buys into the stereotype that ‘birth’ parents are cold, unfeeling, unloving, abandoning monsters.
P.S. I totally realize that you, Elizabeth, did not once say ” ‘birth’ parents are cold, unfeeling, unloving, abandoning monsters ”
But that is how the generic stereotype rises up – from the very act of abandonment/relinquishment/surrender itself.
I posted some thought related to gratitude and luck a while back…http://1crazyfamily.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/comments-that-make-me-fume/
I will say, when I was in Guatemala completing my first daughter’s adoption, several older Guatemalan women told me how lucky my daughter was to be coming to America with me. It gave me a very different feeling than when people here say it.
I would also add that my parents (who are my biological parents) have told me they are lucky to have me. Had a different sperm broken through the egg shell first, I could have been an entirely different person, even with genetics from the same two people. Having several cousins who are less emotionally and psychologically stable (and all genetically related to my parents and me) have caused my parents to say that to me. I also feel lucky to have been born to them because I had nothing to do with the fact that my parents were well educated and able to provide me with so much. I work with a lower income group of women and I see many of them who’s only difference from me is that they didn’t have parents who were willing or able to provide them the financial resources to get a good education. I do feel luck with having the parents I do had a great impact on where I am in my life today.
That being said, that is just my opinion about my parents. I do feel lucky to have the daughters I do because they are who they are, in large part, due to their other families. For my younger daughter, who never lived with her Guatemalan family, it’s all nature. For my older daughter, who lived with her Ethiopian family for 7 years, it’s nature and nurture. It is obvious that she was well loved and cherished in her family. I feel very lucky because that has had a huge impact on her transition to life her and who she is as a person in general.
I don’t, however, expect my daughters to feel lucky or grateful to have me as a mother. If they do, that’s fine, but as others have said, that’s a feeling that comes from within and can’t be forced on another person. What they feel in that regard is totally up to them.
Kerri, I haven’t read the post you’re referring to, however I believe you may have slightly misunderstood my post. Perhaps you’re just giving me your opinion on the general idea of gratitude, but that wasn’t what this post was about. I never said I wasn’t grateful for the way my life has become, period. Of course I’m grateful for my life. I love my family and I love what has become of my life. Like I said:
“Talking about the challenges and difficulties of being adopted is not synonymous with the assumption that my adoptive parents have done a bad job. And writing about them also doesn’t mean that I’m not grateful everyday for what my life in Australia has become. However I feel that way not because my parents have hung a black cloud of guilt over my head, but because I love them and I think they’ve done a great job at helping me to become the best person I can be.”
I am not grateful because my parents have drilled it into me. Unlike what my husband’s relative (by marriage, mind you) said, I feel grateful out of LOVE for my family. The comment my husband’s relative left was more like saying: “you should be grateful BECAUSE YOUR PARENTS SAVED YOU” – that’s the type of grateful I was talking about in this post. I believe there is a difference between feeling gratefulness for your life through love, as opposed to guilt, which is what – I felt – this relative was getting at in his comment.