Posted by 윤선 in adoption, identity, life | 6 Comments
Adoption: One of “Those” Things
You know what I’ve come to realise over the past few weeks? Adoption is one of “those” things: one of those things in life that – really – can’t easily be understood by those who have nothing to do with it. Yet it’s one of those things in the world that everyone seems to have opinions and assumptions on. It’s a multi-faceted issue that becomes so simple when you don’t understand it. Common misconceptions seem to go along the lines of:
1. “Adopting a child is a good thing, because you’re giving them a ‘better’ life than that of which they’re coming from”
2. “There are so many orphans in the world, why would you want to have your own child/ren?”
3. “It’s natural for adoptees to want to find their ‘real’ families someday. Why wouldn’t they want to?”
4. “Adopting is ultimately saving a child from a fate worse than death”
5. “Adopting a child from overseas is making them more of your culture and taking them out of that which they’ve come from”
…and the list just goes on.
Although I mostly really like the people I work with, I’ve found myself getting a little frustrated at one person in particular. Let me tell you something about him: he’s the gayest person I’ve ever met (I don’t mean that in a negative way), he’s incredibly full of himself (but in a way that makes everyone around him laugh), he thinks he knows a lot more than he probably does and he’s extremely self-centred. All this being said, he is a good guy and really funny to talk to. But he says a few things that make me want to scream, at times. Yesterday, I can’t remember what we were talking about, but he said: “you know, you would be a totally different person if you were still Korean and you hadn’t been brought up by European parents!”. And that wasn’t the first thing he’s said. He’s also said things along the lines of: “Marcel (another guy we work with) is – really – more Korean than you are” (because he’s married to a Korean woman). And there have been other things that have been similar.
Now, I don’t think this colleague of mine is an awful person. Nor do I dislike him. Quite the contrary. But I can’t help but feel annoyed when things like this get said.
I guess it’s similar to instances like this.
Similarly, one of my Dad’s sisters apparently made an assumption to my Mum the other day in regards to a relative we never see coming to Sydney next month. She said something like “I guess it’s natural to want to see family: like it would be natural for an adopted child wanting to find their natural family”. My Mum just had to bite her tongue.
But why is this annoying?
(Click “read more” to read the rest of this post.)
Quite frankly, I don’t really know. Because I’m perfectly aware that assumption is a natural part of being human. We all make assumptions and people always make assumptions about us. But adoption is a sensitive issue. To me, anyway. And – I’m sure – to many other people who are entwined in its net. (You just have to look at the multitude of websites and blogs on adoption currently out there!) It’s not easy to just brush aside the assumptions that people make of such personal issues that can be really complicated. Statements like “you would be totally different if you were ‘still’ Korean”, I feel, simplify adoption and everything that’s gone along with it, and I don’t really think it’s been an easy ride, being adopted. And it makes me feel like I’m… not less of a human being, but… that I’m still different: in a way others aren’t. It seems a way of – once again – highlighting my differences.
Seriously… how can you assume you know so much about something that can be so complicated?
I dunno… maybe that’s why people say such things: because to them, things like adoption aren’t that complicated. But to me… they are. Living adoption is different to looking at it from an outside perspective, and I wish people understood that.
I think my colleague’s statements annoy me because they’re making such definite assumptions about my identity: something that I don’t think can be so easily summed up. It’s something I’ve taken 26 years to get anywhere near to comfortable with. How can you just sum it all up in one little sentence and say that I’d be a totally different person had my situation been different when you have no idea what you’re really talking about?
Ultimately, I guess people would just watch what they say and who they’re saying things to. Especially when it comes to things like adoption. When my Mum told me what my Dad’s sister said to her, I couldn’t help but wonder if she had a few screws loose. I mean… didn’t she know who she was talking to? Or is she so wrapped up in herself that she “simply” didn’t think before the words came flying out of her mouth like uncontrollable, wild birds?
Bah. This post has just turned into a big rant. But it was needed. =P Sometimes… adoption is just tiring. Sometimes I just wish I had nothing to do with it. Sometimes I wish I had the luxury of being one of these dumb and/or ignorant people who have the luxury of making such assumptions.
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You wrote: “you know, you would be a totally different person if you were still Korean and you hadn’t been brought up by European parents!”
Is it more along the lines of “God knows how you would have been raised if your Korean parents had raised you!”
Or did he mean it as “You know, you likely would have been a different kind of person if you had stayed in Korea…”
OR… did he mean it as “You’re not *really* Korean because you were raised by European parents!”
Because you took offense to it, interpreting it as the third paragraph (evidently), and interestingly enough, I thought of it as more like the 2nd paragraph – more like a general remark about your ethnic background.
So I’m wondering what his tone was like, and what led up to that statement.
I don’t think I got offended. More just annoyed.
He meant it more akin to your third option. I’m not sure what else you want me to say? Are you implying that he really meant it as the second, but I just took it as the third???
I had no idea. I read into your reaction as being offended.
That’s what I was trying to ask: How do you FEEL he meant it as, based on the context?
(I, too, thought of it as the third option, but I didn’t know about the context, and tone can easily be misinterpreted over the Internet, so that’s why I was asking.)
How did I feel about it? I guess I just felt like he was trying to tell me something about me and my life when he really… has no idea. How else am I meant to feel about that, but annoyed? Aggravated? Confused?
I think it’s difficult for other people to see that adoption is so complex and sometimes painful because it has been so neatly summarized and packaged for public consumption. Like the sort of “stock phrases” you cite in the beginning of the post, it seems like the general attitude towards adoption is that it is a good thing. I think this makes people more comfortable in summing it up concisely, rather than acknowledging that it is a complicated situation that touches people differently. I’m pretty sure that no one is intentionally belittling your feelings, but it is frustrating, for sure, that adoption has such a one-sided explanation for so many people.
Yes, you’re probably right. And you’re probably also right that no one does things intentionally. I just wish they’d think a bit more before they blurted out stupid things. Particularly people that are supposed to be members of my family.