Reality VS Fantasy

I know that there are many adult adoptees out there who sound angry. Many of us sound angry and frustrated with our lives, along with our constant asking of “what if?”.  I know I am one of them. Although I wouldn’t consider myself to be “angry” these days, I definitely have been angry toward my adoption and I do still tend to focus on what my life would have been like had I not been adopted. It’s so easy for us to concentrate on the negative things surrounding our adoptions – to look at what we have lost by being pulled away from our countries/cultures of birth. And it’s really hard to “ignore” the yearning many of us have to go back and “be one” with our original countries, merely to attempt to be happy with ourselves and our identities the way everyone else around us seem to be. I’m sure there are people who read our blogs and our stories and think ‘if you’re so unhappy with having been adopted, what do you want? What is it that would make you happy?’. I’m aware that there are lots of adoptive parents these days who are attempting to bring up happy adoptive children, and to “make up” for what they think their children have lost. They’re also trying to do what they think our parents didn’t do, because ultimately, they probably don’t want their child/ren to be angry/ashamed the way my generation of adoptees has been.

Ideally, in answer to the above question, my answer would be something like: I want to be happy with who I am. I want to feel like a whole person, not one who’s always wandering around like a lost, confused soul. I want to be able to identify with the things and people I see around me. I want to understand who I am, and like so many people around me, I just want someone that I can look at and think from time to time ’so that’s where I got that trait from!’.

However, in thinking about adoption on a more worldly scale, and in trying to think outside of my own experiences, I have recently found myself wondering: is adoption a good thing? I’ve gone back and forth on this question throughout my life. And it’s really hard for me to come up with an answer to this question, because I struggle between my own inner experiences and the reality of what’s going on in the world.

As the year draws to a close, as Robert and I weigh up our finances and we both settle further into our jobs, I have been mentally creating a list of things I want to do when we travel to Korea next year, and when I go “home” for the first time since I was born. One thing I’d really like to do would be to go back to Eastern Social Welfare - to see what they’re like now and to see and experience the services they provide to Korea’s needy nowadays. Recently another adoptee went to an orphanage in Korea. Her post opened my eyes to the reality of such a small country in the world – and the fact that although I can be particularly emo about adoption, it doesn’t change the fact that there are many children out there who simply want a loving, caring home – loving parents to come home to every night, a meal on the table every night and the simple joy of knowing you’re loved by people they can call “family”.

In my fantasy world, there’s no such thing as adoption – no one would have to miss out on living happily around the countries, cultures and families they were originally brought into. We’d all be able to identify with those we see around us – we’d speak the languages that are “meant” to be spoken by us, and we’d just be the people we were “meant” to be from the very beginning. In thinking about my fantasy, it’s easy to justify my feelings of frustration and anger over not being able to identify with seemingly simple things. And it’s hard to accept that whether I like it or not, the world simply isn’t like that.

A couple of years ago, if someone had asked me, I would have told them that I was 100% against adoption. Why? Because I simply felt that adoption had caused me to feel insecure, angry, out of place and strange amongst the only world I knew and remembered. I couldn’t identify with my family, my “extended family” were like strangers to me and I just wanted to be in my world – the one I was born into. Although I still do believe that being adopted caused me to feel very insecure in my own skin, I now wonder: was this a selfish way of thinking?

Since getting married, I’ve never really considered adopting. Actually… I’ve never really considered adopting. Despite the fact that I’m terrified of any physical pain, if I ever had a family, I always wanted to have a child that was between me and whoever I got married to – to see a small me and him running around – to be lost in our own little world of our family. However, having seen only a small insight into what the wider world is really like, I wonder what it would be like to adopt – to adopt a child who actually needs certain things that I know Robert and I could provide.

What’s more important to me: my inner, personal struggles and battles or the wider world? What would all this mean if Robert and I were to have a family one day? I don’t believe that adoption is a GOOD DEED. Nor do I think it should be a simple matter - an easy solution - of starting a family when it’s not possible, biologically. I think it’s wrong to think ‘I can’t conceive? Meh. I’ll just adopt’. But it’s also hard to see what’s happening in the world today and not think a little bit outside of your own sphere.

Really… what’s more important? The issues we adoptees experience, or not living in an orphanage for the rest of your life?

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