Posted by 윤선 in Australia, adoption, family, identity, life, parenting | 7 Comments
“Sisters… Are Doin’ it for Themselves…”
Me, my Mum and sister when I was, like... 3 or something. =P
For those who have read my blog for a while, they’d know that I have one sister. She’s two and a bit years younger than me and is my parents’ biological daughter. My sister and I haven’t always gotten along. Like most siblings, we’ve definitely had our good and bad times, but I’d say we’re pretty close now and I couldn’t imagine what my life without her would have been like. Looking back on my teenage years, I feel very sorry for all the things I would have put her through, but in a way I feel like it’s made us closer now: having been through some difficult times, at least we know that as siblings, we can weather quite a lot. =P It’s also great now: my family seems very harmonious and my husband really thinks of my sister as his little sister. He’d go out of his way to protect her as his sister, which is gorgeous. <3 So although the following post may come off sounding a little cold, please be aware that I have a sister that isn’t adopted. So I’m not wholly crazy in making this post. 
In reading the blogs of adoptive parents and adoptees, it’s been somewhat interesting to see the different families that have been created through adoption. Our blogs so often seem to be very focused on the parent/child relationship, but it seems not a lot of thought is really given to the sibling relationship. Which – I think – should be just as important as the parent/child relationship: siblings are just as much a part of a family, right?
My parents adopted me because, like many adoptive parents, they wanted a family. For whatever reasons, they were unable – at the time – to have biological kids, so they got me. And then my sister randomly and unexpectedly came along. Like I said, I couldn’t imagine what my life without my sister would have been like. I think that having a sister has taught me a lot, and as someone that is pretty closeted, anti-social and would prefer to spend her time in her own world, having a sister has been beneficial to me as a human being.
The one thing I wonder about some adoptive families, though is: why do they adopt internationally when they already have biological children? I’ve seen it claimed many times that it was “God’s intention for them to adopt”, or they thought it was “the right thing for them”, or even the dreaded reason of they wanted to “save a child from an ‘unfortunate’ and ‘disadvantaged’ country”. I guess this question is one that I don’t understand because my parents obviously didn’t adopt for the same reasons, and I can’t help but look at some of these families and question how a child of a very different racial background would feel having four or five older siblings, all of which are Caucasian. My ultimate question for them is: how do you think your child feels? You may justify your actions by saying to yourself and others: “but we took them out of such a disadvantaged place in the world, and we have so much wealth to offer them!” etc etc, but remember: your child likely doesn’t remember a whole lot about being “disadvantaged”. Even if you’ve adopted a child that’s two or three, how are they meant to look back on those years and think: ‘yeah, they sucked’? Even though I’m sure they’re going to have many wonderful times and experiences as a member of your family, they’re also going to have to deal with being the odd one out, and that’s what they’ll remember.
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Now, before you go claiming that I’m judgmental and awful and inconsiderate, I will say that this is based purely on my own personality and experiences. So yes, maybe that is judgmental when it comes to how you feel, but what about how your child feels? As horrible as I may come off sounding right now, I’m actually thinking about how the child would feel. I’m sure many families get lucky: they adopt kids that are far from being like me: shy and insecure. But I’m sure there are many other adoptees out there (actually, I know there are) who are like me: who have struggled with and do struggle with being the only child of colour in their families. And you know what? As an adult, I may be able to articulate my feelings and experiences… okay. But as a child, that was so difficult to do. Yes, I always loved writing, but not being able to say how I truly, deep down felt was so frustrating. It was like being silenced constantly when you have something totally amazing and out-of-this-world to say.
Like I said, I’ve had – and continue to have – many wonderful times with my sister, and I’d say we’re pretty close as sisters. But in all honesty… I can’t imagine what it would have been like to grow up in a family of five or six as the only member of colour.
When it comes to being the odd one out because of racial background, I remember feeling:
~Weird
~Left out (even though my parents did their best to include me)
~Frustrated. Because even though I knew my parents and sister loved me, I couldn’t really say anything. Not because I didn’t have the words, but because I was scared: scared that if I did say something, it would only come off as selfish and horrible. And I didn’t want to make my family feel that way when I knew that they were doing their best. But I still struggled.
~Scared because I thought that if I did admit my differences, it would make them very real. It was so much easier for me to live in my fantasy world that I’d created: the world where I wasn’t any different from those around me. But if I brought up the subject of being different, well… that world would be shattered and I’d have to face reality. Do you want your child doing this? Making up their own little world just to feel secure in their own skin? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
~Stupid. Just for being the odd one out.
~Very very insecure when kids at school would come up to me and say: “why don’t you and your sister look alike?”; “why are you Chinese and your sister isn’t?”; “do you and your sister have the same parents?” etc etc. What’s more is that I’m quite certain my sister went through similar things. Yes, she was/is the Caucasian one, but I’m sure (stupid) kids were coming up to her and asking the same things. So before you go thinking that adopting a child is only affecting them, it’s really affecting your whole family. The worst days for, probably, both of us were sister photos: when we had to get sibling photos on school photo days. Lining up to have our photo taken was hell. In those times I think I would have preferred to have been hung up and physically tortured than stand in those damn lines and been drilled by stupid, ignorant kids. Have you ever wished that the ground would just swallow you? Yeah, well… those were definitely some of those moments.
As cruel as this may sound, I find it almost cruel and extremely selfish seeing wholly Caucasian families adopting children of colour. I don’t understand why you’d do this. Maybe parents do it to make themselves feel better? To feel like they’re doing a “good deed”? I don’t know. I really don’t know. Have they really thought about what they’re doing? About what they’re getting themselves and their families into? Does “doing a ‘good deed’ really justify bringing a child of colour into an all-Caucasian setting and family? I don’t think so…
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Our son (from Korea) is an “only child” so I can’t say I’ve had experience at all with the situation of bio siblings and an adopted sibling. (I was an only child and my husband was “almost” an only child since his only sibling is 9+ years older and they aren’t close at all. So, having an only child doesn’t seem bad to me.)
I do know of people with a couple of sons who really wanted a daughter but were medically advised not to attempt another pregnancy, so sometimes I think it’s the desire for a daughter. (And sometimes families want a son too.)
I did see a program once about alcohol and drug abuse where the family did an intervention and the substance abuser was adopted from India into a “very white” family (blonde, blue eyed, very Midwestern Scandinavian cultural background). I think the family had 5 bio children and they decided to adopt a “street child” from India for religious reasons. The adoptee really felt that he never fit in, especially since there was no acknowledgment of his heritage at all and because as he grew up he didn’t share the evangelical beliefs of the rest of the family. I think for him, one of the worst moments came when he and his cousin were wrestling and his grandfather came upon them and told him to stop and said he didn’t belong in the family anyway. It seems that the drug abuse was his attempt to self-medicate because he had so much emotional pain. I think his parents felt that religion was enough, but clearly it wasn’t.
I think some people adopt because they want another child. It may or may not have anything to do with God. Most of the people I know do adopt more than one child of color. They try to educate themselves about adoption and race issues, as well as family dynamics. They don’t stick their heads in the sand and assume that everything will be just fine.
So that’s it, then? They just want another child? Hmm… OK…
YoonSeon – Well I can speak to certain aspects of your question. I grew up with a sister who was also adopted from Korea, my parents were unable to conceive a child. That’s pretty straightforward. As for my family? Well, I have 3 bio kids, all half Korean, half White. And one daughter adopted from China at age 6, she is now 7. I can only give the reasons we adopted… I wanted another child. I wanted to provide a home to a child who might not have one, who had spent a long time without one – NOT a newborn!! I was open to a daughter or son. I felt qualified to raise an adopted child. She was not adopted completely transracially, which I thought would help. And, despite some enduring “issues,” I am utterly grateful for all that I have in this life – the good, bad, otherwise. And I felt some sense of paying that forward.
Are these good reasons? I don’t know. Was I selfish? In many ways yes. I cringe when people discover we have adopted and go on about how wonderful WE are and how lucky SHE is to have US. No people, you’ve got that backwards.
I feel stained by all the ugliness of adoption, and now I feel culpable in passing that on to my daughter. Everything is paradox. We have wonderful blessed lives that I am alternately immensely grateful and guilty for.
Hey Raina!
As bad as this is going to sound, I think it’s “better” when people of Asian background adopt a child of Asian background. In some ways I think that’s “better” than Caucasian families adopting from Asian countries. It might sound incredibly shallow, but people – in most of my experiences – tend to look at people and not look twice if they see a family of a similar heritage. Many people cannot tell the difference between those of different Asian cultures, particularly countries like China and Korea. When I went to the same school as my half-Malaysian cousins (who look NOTHING like me, in my opinion), no one said anything or questioned anything when they found out we were cousins. It made sense to them, ’cause all three of us are Asian. And I think that’s as far as many people’s perceptions go. As sad as it is, in many ways it comes down to what others will think/what they will say/ask. And seeing families who are all Asian seems to negate any differences they may have. Sad, but true.
There is adoption. There is international adoption. And there is transracial adoption. There are children adopted by parents would might never properly empathize with the abandonment and adoption experience. I hope that I can parent my daughter well, because of our similarities. Because of our common experiences. I agree, being the same race helps. It’s frustrating, though, to have white people tell me that my Chinese daughter looks more like me than my bio, half-white children.
But yes, you are right. I think we will have it easier, in many ways. People see what they want to see. Issues of race may be a little easier. She’ll come home to faces that look like her own.
We have the type of family you are wondering about.
Greg and I had three bio kids and then he had a vasectomy. As they started getting older and our youngest was in Kindergarten we decided that we had the time, love, and resources to parent more children. At least that was our rational at the time. In hindsight we selfeshly we loved being parents and wanted to raise more children.
I think that it is very important for our younger girls to have each other. It seems to me it would be harder to be the only adopted sibling.
I can relate to the paradox that Raina speaks of. We get the privilage of the addition of two more wonderful beings into our family. Our youngest daughters and their birth families have lost so much.
We now give financial support to organizations that help keep children with their families and we are actively searching for our daughters’ birth families.
I don’t know if being internationally adopted is made harder for our youngest 2 daughters because they have 3 older siblings that are not adopted. My gut feeling is that the positives outweigh the negatives for both all five of them, although certainly both exist.