Posted by 윤선 | 9 Comments

Choice.

Choice. It’s a pretty small word. Only six letters. But it’s a word that comes loaded with meaning, presumption and action. It’s a word that has been sitting in the back of my mind since starting to blog about adoption. It’s an idea that also comes up regularly on other adoption blogs, whether they be of adoptees, adoptive parents or first parents. We make choices every day. For me, choice is what determines getting up at 7:30 in the morning to go to work; drinking coffee when I get to work; continuing to write my story; whether we have home cooked food for dinner, or deciding to be lazy and order in; it was deciding to marry Robert; it’s the difference between buying or not buying those $500 boots in the window of my favourite boutique… etc etc. These all seem like quite obvious things: things we take for granted in western societies.

Choice plays a huge role in adoption, and I think it’s something that everyone knows is there, but no one really wants to talk about. It’s easier not to think about choice because not thinking about it can make the present easier to deal with.

I think what many people fail to realise is that there are different types of choices. Some of which are luxuries; not available to others in other places. Particular choices are like luxury items. My iPhone 4, MacBook Pro, 50″ TV,  ever-growing collection of books etc etc are luxury items that came from luxury choices. And I love that about my life. I love being 20-something. I love being at the stage where I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I’ve said this many times, but I was a pretty awful teenager. And part of what made me frustrated, as I remember it, was “not being able to do what I wanted”: not having the choice to come home when I wanted or go where I wanted, when I wanted. As a child, they were, of course, things my parents decided for me, regardless of whether I liked it or not. As children, we often don’t have the luxury of those choices, because it’s our parents’ duty to look out for us. Or so we like to think. The items I listed above are the results of my having the choice to purchase stuff that I don’t necessarily need. I didn’t need an iPhone 4. I’ll admit that. Even without a mobile phone, I’m sure I’d likely be surviving similarly to how I am now. I’d still be living in a wealthy part of Sydney, going to work each day, etc. Owning an iPhone 4 is not something that determines my survival in this world.

When it comes to adoption, there are different types of choices that I see get argued back and forth. I think it’s something that’s included in arguments, and probably will be ’til the end of time in the adoption world. Mei-Ling made a post here about whether or not her birth mother had a choice in giving her up. And until very recently, I had a bit of hatred toward my birth mother, because I always felt that she chose to get rid of me. (That’s got nothing to do with my life here.) But having read some birth mothers’ blogs and in thinking and researching a bit more, I’ve come to this realisation about choice: that it’s nowhere near as black and white as we like to sometimes assume.

I’m going to start by saying that, as I see it, there’s a conflict between choice for adoptive parents, adoptees and birth mothers. For most adoptive parents, the choice to adopt is a luxury choice. Just like my 50″ TV, it’s a choice that was made out of want. Regardless of the reasons for doing so, people adopt for selfish reasons. Adopting a child from a foreign country is not a biological need. You do not need children to survive. For survival, we need food/drink, shelter, warmth. We do not need children. And what I think many adoptive parents fail to see is that in adopting, they were lucky in the first place to even have the choice available to them to even consider adoption. No matter how you put it, adoptive parents have benefitted from the lack of choice available to mothers in dire straits and desperate situations. Adoptive parents have taken advantage of the fact that someone else has not had the luxury to choose.

You know what I can’t stand? Is when people make their own choices in life, then proceed to whinge about how terrible their lives are. One of the most recent examples that I saw of this was someone I went to uni with on Facebook, posting about her lack of having a job since she’s been out of uni. For almost a year, she has whinged about having to “only” work as a casual teacher when she wanted to be full time. Whinge whinge whinge everyday. But a couple of months ago, I believe she got some full time work. I, along with many others proceeded to congratulate her. And I nearly blasted her a few days later when I saw her complaining about the amount of work she now had, and that school holidays should be more frequent and longer. For people like this, nothing’s ever good enough and life’s so unfair and everyone else has everything while they go with nothing. My Dad’s family does this a lot. And although we don’t see them all that often, it drives me crazy to think that here are these people who could have gone much further in life, but haven’t because their lives are “just so drastic”. They only perpetuate their own misery and quite frankly… I want nothing to do with it.

That being said, I’m not saying this is something all adoptive parents do. But I often read adoptive parents’ blogs, many of which have an abundant amount of writing about how they feel so sorry for their child’s birth family and the loss their child has to experience. Yet I can’t help but think that had they not adopted in the first place, they wouldn’t be perpetuating, encouraging and continuing adoption and the lack of choice that many women have. Of course, this is not the only reason why adoption continues (DUH), however it seems a double standard to me when people adopt, then go on and on about how terrible it is for their child to have lost their birth heritage. Do you not realise that through your choice you have only continued to take things from your child for the happiness and satisfaction of your own wants? Again, I am NOT saying that adopting is wholly wrong (heck, I actually considered adopting one day, myself, the other day). And nor do I think adoption will ever truly end. But I think people really need to think much deeper about what they’re doing by adopting. Remember: it’s a choice. It’s a luxury. And as much as I hate to think of myself as another commodity like a television, that’s, in a way, what we are. We make others happy, we’re purchased, we make money for a third party.

Adoptees had no choice in being adopted. And this is what has often frustrated me the most. Despite what I just said above, I still love my parents. I couldn’t imagine any others. But I hate that I had no choice. OK, what baby gets a choice into what family they’re born in? Why is it different for adoptees? Well, quite frankly, regardless of who my family ended up being, I didn’t choose to have my heritage stripped away from me like a layer of skin. Having my Korean-ness taken away from me was through others’ choices. And that makes me angry in some ways. I wish I’d had the luxury to choose whether or not I sacrificed a part of myself.

I’ve experienced a very love/hate attitude toward my birth mother, and it was always easier to hate her at times, because I used to say to myself that she chose to get rid of me. I even got annoyed when I read birth mothers’ blogs, saying they didn’t have the choice but to give up their children and were still living the pain from having done as such. In my view, they were no different to the people that I mentioned above: those that make a choice then continue to whinge about the repercussions of that choice. But as I’ve read more, I’ve begun to think that maybe birth mothers don’t have this choice. Maybe adoptive parents are really the only people involved in the adoption triad that have the luxury that the rest of us would have loved.

You may (like I was/still am sometimes) be inclined to say “but your mother did have the choice. She didn’t have to give you up”, but I go back to what I said earlier about survival. Keeping in mind what Korean culture was like in the 80s (and still is), what would the alternative have been for my mother (assuming that she was, in fact, just another victim of harsh Korean society)? Had she kept me, would her family have kicked her out of the family for good (AKA: something that’s terribly unimaginable for traditional Korean families and their group mentality)? Would she have been living on the streets where I only would have died? If so, wouldn’t her only other “choice” be to give me up for adoption? Sure, giving me up and living on the streets is a “choice”, but it’s not a luxury one. It’s one that comes from need and fear. It’s not a choice that’s the same as whether or not one buys the latest technology. I don’t really like saying these things, because I don’t know my mother’s story and so I can only assume based on the research I’ve done over the past years into Korean culture and listening to the stories of other adoptees and their families. It also feels like I’m making excuses for her when I still harbour some sort of resentment toward her.

I don’t like to think that I go around feeling sorry for myself. And I don’t believe I do. But I can’t get parts of myself back. Sometimes that intangible loss feels as though I walk around without a physical limb. And what annoys me even further is that people think they can tell us adoptees that what we’ve lost in being adopted isn’t as bad as how our lives “could have been” had we not been as such. This often comes from white-privileged individuals: people who have become so accustomed to their luxurious choices in life, they think they can assume what it’s like to be in an adoptee’s shoes. But honestly: who are people in those positions to decide? Who are they to choose how we should and shouldn’t feel? Who are they to tell us such? Hence… who are Caucasian people to adopt us? Who are they to come along and take a child out of their home? What has decided this? Is it the fact that they had the choice in the first place? If they hadn’t had the choice; if all birth mothers had kept their babies, they would have been the ones without the choice. What is it about choice that gives power over others? Just because you have the freedom to choose something, why does that give you the right to impose on another’s life? Hmm…

Choice is a big thing. And like I said, it’s an idea that’s been sitting in the back of my head, simmering away. It plays a huge role in adoption when we don’t even really know it. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m the huge control freak that I am because I hated not having a choice about my identity when I was a baby. I’m a tad obsessed with the idea that I have to control my own life. When I was a child I used to think ‘I’m destined to be the way I am. I should have been white’, but now I just try to deal with my circumstances and do the best I can with them and make the choices that I have now. (Hopefully) without regret.

Anywho, it’s lunchtime! And it’s a beautiful day outside. I could probably write a whole lot more, but I think I’ll go sit outside with a book and my phone and my music.

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Posted by 윤선 | 22 Comments

“Orphan”: What is Wrong with this Word?

I was recently e-mailed by another adoptive parent, thanking me for giving my adoptee insight. Fine. That’s nice. I’m glad you can benefit from my experiences in life. She recently made a post here, talking about why people should adopt yadda yadda yadda. Despite the general point of her post, I really resent her repeated use of the word “orphan“. It makes me angry and it makes me angry on behalf of any children they may adopt. Harsh? Perhaps, but before you go commenting about how cold-hearted I may sound in saying that, I believe some people need to think about what they’re implying when they use certain words. Names are not just pretty sounding things. They are a way of identifying both ourselves and those around us. Hence the reason why many adoptees tend to go back to using their names given to them by their natural parents.

Firstly, what is so wrong with identifying a child by the term “orphan”? I’ll start by thinking about the way/s I used to identify myself as a child:

~I was Australian

~I was Korean (which I didn’t like)

~I was different from the rest of my family

~I was an adoptee (which I also didn’t like)

Aside from the first point, I didn’t really like the others. They made me feel ashamed, different, alienated. Although my parents have always referred to me as their daughter (no different to their biological daughter, my sister), I knew deep down that I still have natural parents out there somewhere. Throw in the word “orphan” by my parents, and I believe I would have felt even more shame in myself and my differences.

“Orphan” comes with negative connotations. It comes with the assumption that either:

1. Our natural parents died

or:

2. Our natural parents abandoned us: that their part in our adoption/s were wholly negative, cruel, selfish and inconsiderate of their child. Sure, that may be true in some circumstances, but my point is, you don’t know. You don’t know the stories behind birth parents. You don’t know why the child was given up. As cruel as it may seem to abandon a child, using verbs like “orphaned” implies that something unimaginably cruel was done to your child. I’m not discounting that giving a child up is cruel, in some respects. But who are you, as an adoptive parent, to judge the lives of the people you are getting a child from?

Furthermore, what sort of an image of self identity are you passing along to your child? How are you making them feel about themselves, to constantly go around saying “you’re an orphan”, “you were orphaned, so we took you in”, “your parents orphaned you” etc etc? Not only are you placing a rather negative image of them onto them, you’re building in them a negative image of their natural parents when they don’t even know their story. Don’t they deserve to have the chance at developing their own opinions, as opposed to hearing your negative terminology over and over?

I wince when I see adoptive parents using the word “orphan” so repeatedly like the above parent. It comes off as disrespectful for the child and the natural parents and puts them on a pedestal as if to say “I’m better because I have the power to take this child and make them my own. I have the money to make me look like I’m doing the world a wonderful service. Who cares whether I know the backstory or not?”. I feel for the child/ren that are adopted by people who say/imply these sorts of things, because adoptees have enough to adapt to, as it is. We don’t need to hear negative crap and negative terminology used to identify us, our backgrounds, heritage and roots as well. I feel for these adoptees and the shame they’re going to have to overcome: not only the shame that comes with being different, but the shame and further difference placed on them through the use of a “simple” word.

Would you do that to a biological child? Identify them as anything other than your child? No. Then why do it to an adoptee?

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Posted by 윤선 | 4 Comments

My Birth Mother: A Victim?

Yesterday I came across this blog – another adoptee blog. In it, the author has written an entry about Korea and who – really – should take responsibility for the huge amount of children it’s sent overseas for adoption. As many people know, Korean overseas adoption really took off during the Korean war, and since then, has just… kept going. Korea has become rather notorious for being the country that puts many of its children up for adoption, and I am only one of thousands of us that have been sent away from Korea to a “wealthier” western country and society.

As many readers of this blog know, I have the tendency to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my birth mother and the image in my head of the woman who brought me into this world. Although I don’t know her face-to-face, I still feel like I know her intimately (which is a strange feeling, mind you: feeling like you know a virtual stranger), despite not knowing her at all. One frustrating aspect of this is that even though I’m her flesh and blood, I don’t know what her specific situation was when she chose to give me up. I’ve often wondered things like: ‘did she just not want me to make her own life better?’; ‘was she forced or coerced into giving me up by her family and peers?’; ‘am I the result of an awful, abusive relationship: the result that she could never face ever again?’; or simply ‘was she a “victim” of Korea’s somewhat harsh Confucian society?’:

Neo-Confucianism defines formal social relations on all levels of society. Social relations are not conceived in terms of the happiness or satisfaction of the individuals involved, but in terms of the harmonious integration of individuals into a collective whole, which, like the properly cultivated individual, mirrors the harmony of the natural order. From here.

Even through my somewhat limited experience with Korean people and Korean families, it’s still obvious (after having lived in Australia all my life) that Koreans and Korean society still has a very strong idea of the “group mentality”: that everything you do is for the benefit of the whole family, not just yourself. I have trouble accepting this ideal, as it sort of clashes with my own upbringing and the values that have been passed on to me, not just through my parents, but simply through the values of western societies. In thinking about the Korean “way”, I can’t help but wonder about the effects that my birth and existence in the world would have had upon my birth family, not just mother. With their complete lack of understanding and respect toward single mothers and “illegitimate” children, along with their history, I can’t help but think that I would have only tarnished the appearance of my family. Perhaps my mother didn’t have a choice in giving me up…? Young Sook/Leanne said:

Yes, I was thrown away.  But was it by my parents?  I think I was thrown away by my country, through the design of others’ deceit.  I was severed from this country by foreign forces intervening in the delicate structure of a country at its most vulnerable.  In the minds of Korean parents at that time, their children were not being thrown away, but handed up.  Up to what?  No parents (my parents) would leave a child alone on the street, in the middle of the harsh Korean winter, if they hadn’t known HOLT was there collecting children to send to magic lands where the streets were lined with gold.

I’ve always said “yes, it was my mother that gave me up”, but… was it really only her? Or was it also the outside forces and the beliefs instilled in her, also, that prompted my adoption? Sometimes I say with defiance that my birth mother “only” gave me up for the betterment of her own life and her own happiness. And perhaps that is true, but did she do it for others, other than herself? Did she also do it for her/our family? Her parents, siblings, Grandparents?

Furthermore, is the industry and influence of adoption so strong, that unwed mothers in Korea really do feel like it’s the best thing for their children? Are they really given no other option, or are they really made to believe that adoption is the only option available to them in their moments of vulnerability and confusion? What if adoption didn’t exist? What then? Sometimes I can’t help but think that in adopting, adoptive parents are only encouraging adoption to continue, and in turn, encouraging mothers to give their children up and send them away from their birthright.

A few years ago, Robert and I lived in a suburb that was mostly populated by Korean people, and this was where I had exposure to the culture that I was sent away from. On the one hand, it was interesting, but on the other it was really quite confronting and it made me dislike and resent Korea (for reasons other than what I did as a child). It was sort of… harsh and I didn’t like feeling that I almost had to bow down to people that were older than me, despite their personalities, personal differences and the fact that I didn’t know them at all. It was hard living around people that looked like me and expected me to act just like them when I didn’t. And I didn’t like having strangers come up and ask me how old I was (Korean society, manners and relationships are based on age).

When I was a teenager, I rebelled more than my sister did. One thing I remember disliking were the “rules” that went with living under a family roof, and feeling like I couldn’t simply do “whatever I wanted” (yes, it was difficult as a 16 year old to just let my parents know where I was during the day). I’ve never liked being told what to do, and I like being able to make my own decisions in life. Yes, I’ve screwed up many times and gotten myself into strange situations that were (very) regrettable, but I’ve learnt from them and I feel like I’ve come out the other side OK. And I like feeling like I have responsibility and ownership for my life. In living amongst Korean people and a virtual Korean society, it felt like my teenage years all over again: being expected to succumb to inherent rules and expectations that I didn’t like, nor did I understand. Was my birth mother really just a victim to a society that didn’t tolerate difference and “illegitimate” children being brought into tight family units? Did she not have the luxuries I have today of independence, individuality and ownership of one’s own life? Would I have been a burden not only to her, but everyone I was acquainted with, also? Would I have simply brought shame down upon all whose blood I share? Is all of that really worth giving up your own flesh and blood for? Or did she really feel like she had no other choice?

I feel extremely conflicted with these thoughts and possibilities. Despite the fact that all these things are possible, and perhaps it softens my blow of opinion on my birth mother, but how am I supposed to deal with and handle that? Knowing I was shameful: a plague upon one’s house and household? In thinking about that, maybe it’s better that I was adopted? Have I really a more fortunate life here, knowing I’m not bringing shame on the people who care about me? It’s hard to accept that my birth mother could have “simply” been an innocent victim, caught up in a whirlwind and complex web of a harsh society and the pull of money and power because it has repercussions on me: me as a human being and my identity. It means that not only was I just a pox on her and her family, but that also the culture – the world – that I come from and I apparently love (to a degree) is also to blame for losing aspects of myself as a person that others simply have, inherently. There’s a bigger picture to the “simple” fact that a woman sent her child overseas: it brings into play many other people: people that are both alive and dead, along with a culture that is thousands of years old. It means that adoption isn’t as “simple” as a woman saying: “oh no, I’m pregnant! Bah, I’ll just give it up for adoption”, but it’s an issue and an industry that is plagued and riddled with manipulation, power-hungry humans and values that are foreign to me and who I am right now.

…and in the end, all I can really ask is: how are adoptees meant to handle that weight? As children and adults. How is all that to be reconciled?

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Posted by 윤선 | 6 Comments

Mother’s Day

Well, despite the assumptions that were made on my post a couple of posts back, I’ve been thinking about mother’s day and its implications on all people involved in the adoption triad and the idea that I have two mothers. It’s weird. Really, it is. Accepting my adoption wholly means accepting that fact. This mother’s day (like all mother’s days) was spent with my family. We had a BBQ and my sister and I gave presents. It was a good day, especially after Robert’s 30^th. Normally in mother’s day cards, I write messages like: “Dear Mum, Happy mother’s day! Thank you for being the best Mum I could have asked for” or something along those lines. And I mean it. When writing in these cards, I’ve never really thought about my other mother living somewhere across the ocean on the little peninsula of Korea. I normally think about my life spent with the people I know.

 

I have always seen mother’s day as a celebration: a celebration of the person who has loved us and helped turn us into the people we are, today. But I’ve been reading the blogs of first mothers and their feelings on the day. Not surprisingly, I have read quite a few thoughts about how attitudes around mother’s day should be different, or about how the day is only a reminder of the painful things they may have experienced in losing the children they gave up. Again, it’s the adoptive parents/mothers who benefit from the pain experienced by others.

 

However, in saying that, I wonder what mother’s days would have been like, for me, had my birth mother been acknowledged on the day. What if my family had had a separate birth mother’s day and separate adoptive mother’s day? Where would that have left my sister who is my parents’ biological daughter? John Raible recently referred to the un-adopted siblings of adopted kids (which has sparked an interest in the experiences of my sister). He said:

 

“These white siblings described feeling different from other white folk, and named their experience in unusual ways. For example, one woman said, “I know that I am Swedish American,  and that I have white privilege. But I am so immersed in African American social networks that culturally, I feel as much African American as Swedish American.” Another woman reported, “I feel like part of the transracial adoption culture. But what does that mean to someone who hasn’t experienced it?”

 

I’m sure the experiences of un-adopted siblings are probably just as unique as the experiences of us adoptees: they were also “caught” between the decisions made by adults on their family. And again, I ask: where would that have left my sister, not just on mother’s day, but throughout life, if there had been separate acknowledgment of my birth mother? What would have been the effects on my family, for me to be the one who has two mothers?

 

One great paradox that I constantly find myself experiencing in being adopted, is the fact that no matter what you do, there’s a flipside. I’m often saying that I may have benefited and been slightly more secure had I had more exposure to Korea, Korean culture and Korean people throughout my childhood. But at the same time, I always just wanted to be like those around me (whose backgrounds lie around Europe, somewhere) and to belong to the people I went home to every night, so adding that acknowledgment of my cultural heritage would only have highlighted, once again, the differences between me and them. Where do you draw the line? Is it even possible for everyone involved in adoption to be happy? I think not…

 

Like I said, I’ve always seen mother’s day as a celebration. What would I celebrate about a woman I don’t know? I don’t even know if she thinks about me. I feel like it’s up to me to find her (if I want to have anything to do with her), as she obviously hasn’t made any effort to find me. Yes, I can celebrate and thank her for carrying me in her womb for nine months, and yes, I can thank her for “giving me a chance at a better life”, but really… am I thankful? Would I really be celebrating? Where would that leave the people I know, today?

 

Like I said before, to me, mother’s day is celebrating our Mums and the things they’ve done to influence us. I feel like I’d have to dig pretty deep to really figure out my birth mother’s input into that, aside from her action of giving me up. I don’t know her individual situation and I don’t know the true reasons for why I’m in Australia today and not Korea. But I feel that, for my individual life and situation, acknowledging and celebrating her place as my “mother” would have had implications on not only me, but my family, too. In his article that I linked above, John Raible mentioned the fact that adoptees stand out, because we not only (often) look different to many people in our societies, we also look different to our family members. Because of this, I just wanted everything to be “normal”. It was a struggle enough just to deal with the fact that I look different from everyone, so I always wanted everything else to be just like those around me. Having and acknowledging the fact that I had/have two mothers, I think, would have made me feel extra weird. That may come as sad to any birth/natural mothers reading this, but that’s just how I would have felt. Growing up, I just wanted the one set of parents: one thing that “everyone else had” – a Mum and a Dad, and that’s it. I didn’t want to have to acknowledge, let alone celebrate, the existence of another mother or another father. It would have just made me weirder than I already was. What child wants to feel that way?

 

Now, I’m not entirely sure how I’m meant to feel, or what I’m meant to do. I think I’d have to meet my birth mother and have some sort of relationship with her to truly decide…

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