This week as part of National Adoption Awareness Month we’ve been thinking through transracial adoption. I am really glad to be able to share the story of a friend of mine who has such great insight into this topic as an adult adoptee from Korea. I’m respecting her desire for anonymity and I’m so grateful she’s willing to share her honest experiences here. She even added some additional thoughts after the questions I asked. Heads-up: one of her additional thoughts made me cry. Get ready to be moved and to learn!
Give us a brief description of why your parents decided to adopt.
My parents biologically had my brother (who is 11 years older than me) and then after several miscarriages and some failed domestic adoptions, they decided to pursue international adoption. At the time, transracial/international adoption was very new. My mother said she went to an information session in the big town near ours and after seeing a young, adopted Korean girl interact with her adoptive parents, my mother was sold. She filled out her initial paperwork right there after the seminar.
What is your understanding about why your birthfamily made an adoption plan for you?
I have no information about my birthfamily. I know I was adopted from an orphanage in Seoul. I know I had pneumonia when my parents got me.
What has your adoptive family done to keep you connected to your ethnicity? To your birthfamily?
The top drawer of my dresser growing up held the mementos of my adoption. There aren’t many, but it’s a little pair of Korean shoes, a book about Korea and the stuffed bear that I arrived with. We never did much to embrace Korean heritage (as far as eating food or celebrating Korean holidays), and that is honestly fine with me. The main thing I think was that my family always spoke highly of South Korea, citing how beautiful it’s supposed to be and how the people there are nice. My mother always spoke extremely highly of my birthmother and with gratitude in her heart. I think this freed me up to feel that I could connect to my ethnicity in whatever capacity I desired. I do not have any connection to my birthfamily and really know nothing of the circumstances that I came from.
Do you feel a commonality with other transracially adopted adults?
Not really on just the basis of being adopted. I did connect with a domestically/racially homogeneous adopted friend after we both had our daughters but that was less to do with being adopted and more to do with being freaked out new moms!
How do people respond when they find out you’re transracially adopted?
They don’t say much. Rarely will someone ask further questions or engage the matter. It’s mainly taken as a fact and then we move on. I don’t know that people know how to respond. But overall it’s not a bad thing, it doesn’t bother me.
What realities of being a minority could your family not prepare you for?
Honestly, the most racism I experienced was in my early twenties when we moved to a culture that was very homogeneous and did not know how to interact with other races. Between being asked if I was an Eskimo/Chinese/Japanese-it doesn’t matter cause it’s all the same anyways, someone stating “I don’t like you cause you’s black”, and a high schooler telling me that her dad said that “my people” were stealing all the jobs- I don’t think that anything my family said could have prepared me for that. It’s not that it was hard core racial discrimination or anything like that, it’s just sort of surprising to hear things like that to your face and then to have to come up with a response. In general, my family taught me to respond to those who are racially prejudiced with compassion and with the acknowledgement that their ignorance and discomfort/fear of anything different are what fueled their comments. I think that was wise.
On a very small note, teach your adopted children how to write “N/A” at the top of family medical histories. It saves so much time.
How have you as an adult chosen to relate to your birth culture?
I don’t really do much to relate to my birth culture. I don’t feel very much connection there, however nor do I feel a gap or like something is missing. I tried Korean food but I don’t really care for it.
What do you think you missed by being raised in a white family? Do you feel there were advantages?
I don’t think I missed out on anything by being raised in a white family when the likely alternative was to age out of the orphanage and get into drugs or prostitution or both. I feel like being plucked from an orphanage in Korea and brought to the US was the biggest advantage that I could have hoped for. I have had so many opportunities and have such a great life here. Anything I could have “missed” pales in comparison to what I gained.
What do you wish your parents could have understood about what it is like to grow up as a minority child?
I honestly can’t think of anything- I feel like our children always wish to be understood more by us as parents. But I can’t think of anything that is specifically because I am a minority.
Did you ever experience teasing? How did you respond to it? How did your parents help you cope?
Some of this may overlap with the answer above but as a child, I did experience teasing probably a few times a year. From the elementary school playground to inappropriate comments from people at WalMart, I mostly tried to ignore it. I do remember that sometimes I wouldn’t tell my parents about it because I didn’t want them to feel bad. I wanted them to know I was thankful they adopted me and maybe in a child-like understanding didn’t want to seem like I was unhappy about it. Overall, I think they just taught me to respond in the same way you would teach children to respond to bullies in general. Kids just had extra ammo with the race card, but it wasn’t like my parents launched into any sort of special “racial teasing” lesson.
If you were counseling pre-adoptive parents, what would you most want them to know about raising a child of a different race?
That no matter how hard they try, they are going to fail in some ways, and that’s ok. It’s parenting. Whether we’re raising a biological child, a same-race adopted child, or a transracial adopted child, or your niece’s brother’s cousin’s child, we’re going to fail in some ways- and that’s where we can choose to become super anxious and hypervigilant, to crush under the pressure and tap out completely, or to rest in the freedom of Redemption—that God is sovereign and His love covers over a multitude of our sins. Sure, having a transracially adopted child adds another element into the parenting mix, but I see it as just that- just another element in the parenting mix.
This next one is purely my opinion so take it with a grain of salt. I think that sometimes in the effort to embrace the culture of the birthfamily, some parents have a hard time doing two cultures well. I think there is a fine line between being culturally saavy/fluid in a good way and making a mess of a cultural hodge podge. If you are not sure that you can embrace two cultures well, just stick with your own culture. Again, this is all based on my own anecdotal experience, but I feel very deeply connected with my US Southern heritage and my family’s heritage in general. Nothing made me prouder as a child than to hear my grandmother say “well that’s the Wienges (her maiden name) coming out in you” when I had accomplished something. I remember taking tours and hearing of how I was related to John C Calhoun and various other SC historical figures. We practiced southern hospitality, ate fried okra and biscuits with honey, and were die hard Clemson fans. The gentlemen in my family still stand when a lady enters a room or gets up from a table. I did not lack culture growing up. My family brought me in to every aspect of their culture and traditions and heritage and never made me feel on the outside since I was not technically related by blood. I loved hearing similarities in both nature and nurture to my family and for these to be attributed to nature. Even as a child, I understood that this did not make sense biologically, but still loved hearing it anyway. I feel very secure in my culture and maybe that’s one of the reasons I don’t seek out Korean culture as an adult. I don’t feel the need. Maybe some people will think that’s sad or that I should feel more connected to Korea, but let’s be honest, I only hope that’s the biggest tragedy of my life.
How do you feel about transracial adoption now being “trendy”?
Well I’m not surprised since I have always been a trendsetter… Actually I don’t know how I feel about it. Part of me fears for the child of the parents who stumble upon a pretty hard situation and find that their original footing was not very secure, based in being trendy, the “idea” of adoption, or knowing people that did who it worked out well for. At the same time, there are probably some great adoptive families out there who began investigating adoption because of the trend or the greater publicity and ended up with a great situation for everyone involved. And when you think of some of the situations that these kids are escaping, even a dysfunctional family in the US can be preferable to the alternative. All in all, I don’t know. I struggle in general with having the “right” motivations to do just about everything in life from brushing my teeth to helping my child eat vegetables. I do know that if the functionality of our world depended on people doing things for the “right” reasons, we’d be screwed. God is bigger than our trends. And nothing like our children can humble us and bring us to our knees.
Have you considered adopting a child?
I always assumed I’d adopt a child and now as an adult have had to examine this more. Not because my feelings have changed but because I didn’t think “well I always assumed I would” would be enough to sustain me in the hard times. My husband and I are very passionate about adoption and had considered adopting first before we got pregnant with our daughter. We still think that we will adopt, Lord willing. Sometimes I think that for people in our situation (stable, love Jesus, have extra food and love) the question is not “why should you adopt?” but “why shouldn’t you adopt?” I have yet to find a good reason. (Ok- I know it’s not that cut and dry and I am not saying that everyone in the world should adopt, just that when I really think about it, I don’t know why I wouldn’t other than if the Lord said no.) Most of my hesitations are based on fear, mostly of the unknown. If God is indeed calling us to adopt then He will help me sort out those fears. For some reason, I think we fool ourselves into feeling like we have a little more control over the outcome for our biological children (with prenatal care, genetics, nature + nurture combo) but we really don’t. If I really think about it, my fears and hesitations with adoption can be easily transferred to potential situations with a biological child as well.
Since you have a same race adopted sibling, do you feel it is easier or harder for you to deal with adoption issues when you are so obviously adopted?
My adopted sister and my biological brothers’ baby pictures are almost identical. I think there are even a few that are marked as “sister/brother” because they don’t know who it is. All of my family is white except for me. I can honestly think of ways that it was both easier and harder to have a same race adopted sister. On the one hand, you’re forced to begin dealing with how to talk about being adopted from an early age and sometimes it would seem nice to be able to sort of blend in until you wanted to talk about it. At the same time, on good days being different was special and a constant reminder of where I came from. I think the Lord used this to foster a sense of gratitude in me from an early age (not that I’m some thankfulness rockstar, but I do think I was acutely aware of what could have been and was therefore thankful). So all in all I don’t think it really impacted my adoption experience that much, positively or negatively.
What wisdom would you want to share with the kids growing up transracially adopted today?
Oh man, I don’t know that I have any wisdom. But I would share this- that in life there are many things we don’t get choices about. But, we do get the chance to choose the meaning we assign to certain things. And they have the chance to choose the meaning they want to assign to their adoption, to their identity, and to their future. I know I speak as someone who grew up in a pretty functional adoptive family who saw my adoption as something special and treasured and sadly not every adopted kid has this experience. At the same time, I have seen many people with horrible situations start damage control by choosing the meanings they want to assign to the things that happened. They are not changing the events that happened, but the way that they will reflect upon them, what the events say about them, what the events mean to them. I think it is worth their while to take some time to process which meanings they would like to assign to the various details and overall situation of their adoption.
What do you want your daughter to know about her Korean heritage?
Honestly, I have never thought about that. I am mainly thinking of how I can convince her that sharing is good. I will think about this more, but at first glance I plan to just be open about it with her. To be open about my adoption and the ways I feel connected with Korean heritage, and the ways I do not. And then to try to communicate with her that she can choose to connect in whatever way she desires, and I will do my best to help her in that.
Some additional thoughts:
1) Most of the dysfunction that I think of in my family I attribute to just the difficulties in being a family, not to anything connected to me being adopted or my sister being adopted or my brother biological. Most of the struggles or heartaches I grew up with I attribute to childhood in general, middle school, or really life in general rather than any specific aspect of being adopted. I don’t know if this is bad or good, or what this says about my identity or the way I think about adoption. I just wanted to put that out there.
2) One thing that my family, specifically my mother, did really well was to create a rich narrative surrounding my adoption story. Probably like what it must be like to hear of the 9 months you grew in your mother’s tummy, the way she was excited or felt you kick, how they heard the heartbeat, etc- my mother had an equally special and detailed account of my adoption. How she would lay in the hammock with my picture, thinking of my name or how the other people on the plane stayed in the gate area to watch the pilot deboard the plane with me in his arms and how he was so gentle in handing me to my mother. That when the adoption agency made the match, they told her she could say no and they would rematch me but that she took one look at my picture, which was 1×1 inch in size, and knew that I was meant to be hers. How I had my days and nights mixed up for the first few weeks we were together and how everyone in the extended family was so excited to meet me. She saved the outfit that I was wearing when she met me and I have pictures of my daughter wearing that very same outfit. I loved hearing these stories when I was a child and my mother tirelessly told them over and over again. So, if we are blessed to adopt one day I will do my best to craft a rich narrative that my child will want to hear over and over again. I think it was an important part of me processing my adoption and it set up the way that I think about it in a positive light.
3) I had a little friend in grade school who was also adopted from Korea. We have since lost touch but I remember feeling a sense of camaraderie and not feeling so weird because AJ was also adopted from Korea. We were always put in the same classes and I look back on this as such a blessing. I know it’s not feasible to pair your adopted child with someone from the same country in the same grade, but to the extent that you can have relationships with other adoptive families I think this is a positive thing. And then let the child determine the extent to which he wants to identify with the children from the adoptive families.