Hello!

Sorry for the very extended hiatus. Life’s been busy!

Have a happy holiday, and we’ll be back in the New Year with a new format, so stay posted.

First, let me apologize for taking so long to respond. It’s been a very busy month.

I wish I could give you a straightforward answer to this question, but it’s so difficult. We’re all different and how we respond to these situations – externally and internally – is also very unique. As a child, whenever I got hit with this type of question or comment, I generally gave some answer my parents and siblings helped me with. Honestly, I didn’t always understand what exactly it was I was saying or why, but I can tell you that each time I was asked about why I was different – why I didn’t have the same skin colour as my parents or my siblings; where did I come from; who are my real parents blah blah blah ad nauseam… I felt like my entire soul had shattered. I walked away with my head held as high as possible, but inside my jello legs could barely carry me somewhere I felt safe.

Your child needs to be shown by example how to respond. When you stand up for your child, she will learn to stand up for herself and feel empowered. She should also know it’s OK not to respond to these stupid questions. There is never an obligation to respond to these types of questions. Even as an adult, I get this all of the time – where are you from orginally; do you speak Vietnamese; do you have any family in Vietnam; do you want to try to find them etc. and I often answer each question as honestly and openly as possible and I feel good about it. However, there are days when I answer as I always do and feel later that I shouldn’t have. Their ’simple’ questions are emotionally draining for me. I have to learn to take my own advice and walk away – figuratively or literally – when I don’t feel up to talking about it.

In closing, I think it’s vital to inform the person – child or adult – that their question is not appropriate and is not acceptable whether or not you decide to answer them. How do we do this?  I guess we can just say something like “that question is in appropriate” or “that’s private” or “I don’t care to discuss it right now” or even respond by asking them something just as personal to make a point. So, yes… I think the most important thing is to be able to recognize within yourself and by taking cues from your child when you want to share and when you need to walk away.

Here’s our next question!

Our son had uncorrected clubfeet when we adopted him from China last year.  I’m getting tired of hearing about how “lucky” he is and how “good” we are for adopting him.  Admittedly, his feet would most likely not have been treated in China and life would have been much harder for him, but on the balance we are by far the lucky ones for having him in our lives.
 
What are your thoughts on the frequent “He’s so lucky” and “You’re so good” discussions that come up from well intentioned strangers and friends?  I’m worried he’ll hear it enough he’ll start to believe it and feel he’s got something he needs to live up to.

This is soooo tricky.

Part of me wants to say, let her lead the way. Let her guide the response. But, I also know that in my own life, by four or five I was all too aware of my difference in the world, and never told my parents about the teasing/questions/harassment I endured. So, I urge you to respond. Make her feel safe and protected. It’s easy to brush things off as “ignorance” or advocate silence as a way of “not sinking down to their level”. But that’s a flawed philosophy, because it denies your daughter the space to feel hurt or angry or confused. It denies her the chance to stand up for herself, to fight back. We’re talking about racism here, not some petty misunderstanding from folks who “just don’t know better”. Teach your daughter that people shouldn’t say things like that to her. That she shouldn’t have to be made to feel bad about being Chinese or adopted, or both.

I’m still working on the best way to talk about these things. And the truth is, there probably isn’t any one thing you can do or say that will soothe the pain. But please, respond. And teach your daughter to respond. You wouldn’t teach her to tolerate sexist comments from kids on the playground, so why ignore racially motivated ones? It seems to me that because Asians are portrayed as the model-minority and put into a racial “grey area”, people are unsure about what it means to make fun of Asian characteristics. But let there be no doubt in your mind – jokes about slanted eyes, yellow skin, dog-eating, “ching chong” language or any of the other usual suspects are RACIST, and should be addressed as such.

I’m glad to hear that you’re educating yourself about how to deal with these things from adults. One thing I think is helpful is to know about Asian American History, as well as current events. Chinese Exclusion, Japanese Internment, Vincent Chin: they may have happened decades or a hundred years ago, but they still shape the ways that Asians are perceived, portrayed and treated. And things are still happening today that only prove how far we are yet to come.

Probably the hardest thing about growing up the only Asian kid in a white family, and one of three kids of color in my entire elementary school was that I had no role models, no one to look up to. In any sense. There were few Asian characters in TV, movies or books (and the ones that were there often relied heavily on stereotypes) and all of my teen magazines promoted a standard of beauty that I could never attain, simply by the nature of my skin tone, face shape, eye folds, hair color, etc. If a local/regional adoptee organization had some sort of mentorship program, I would definitely try to get involved. Even intermittent contact with an adoptee – someone who looks like you, someone who has been hurt in the same way, someone who is there to legitimize your daughter’s feelings on a level that you never will be able to to – could be extremely beneficial.

Whew. That was a mouthful. The bottom line is that this is hard. There’s a lot more I could have enumerated here. And it all adds up to a situation with the potential for your daughter to feel alone. But the most important thing is to keep an open line of communication about it. Support her. Defend her. Never question the way she feels – you aren’t living this, she is.

I think it’s important to remember that most of the time young kids just want to know why the other person looks different. Kids usually don’t need long drawn out answers…just a basic explanation. Growing up I was called names and rude questions were asked, but I always seemed to handle it. My mom taught me to stand up for myself & have a basic answer ready, but also to be careful not to assume someone was being racist until I knew true intentions.

In my own experience…people are curious because 5′8 1/2 & Korean. I still get asked (about once a month) where I’m originally from etc. For me…part of this whole experience is being comfortable in my own skin so to speak…so when strangers stop and ask me questions about why I’m so tall or why my skin is so light for being Korean…I just say the truth.  Granted…if I’m really annoyed then sometimes my answer isn’t as patient.  However, in my experience I’ve learned many of the people were not intending to be rude.  So…I tend to look at it more like a chance to educate them.

When kids are young…I believe education is the key. For example, my daughter always has some type of “cultural celebration” each year in school. This gives me a chance to go into her classroom and teach the kids about Korea. This has been extremely successful each year and has helped K. be proud of her heritage, which I give equal time to teach about Germany…K’s part German.

Hi everyone.

Sorry for the delay in my blog posts. School has started here, and it’s taken me a little while to get settled. But, I should be back on track now.

Our next question:

My daughter was born in China and was adopted by my husband and myself at 11 1/2 months.  She has been part of our family for almost 2 years now.

I have been trying to educated myself on dealing with ignorant questions from adults and her peer group as she gets into the school system.  However, I have been getting questions from very young children, and I am really caught off guard by this.  I know children are young and want to learn, but I do not want to hurt my daughter’s feelings by answering questions in front of her, so I am looking for advice.

Two situations:
1.  A 5 year old girl was playing with my daughter at the park, and while she was pushing her in the swing, she looked at me and asked where did I live.  After I told her, she asked where my daughter lived.  I explained with me that she was my daughter.  She did not understand how we did not look alike or what adoption was.  I did the best I could to answer questions about adoption, but I have to admit this made me a little uncomfortable talking about this in front of my daughter.  How do you answer innocent questions without hurting your daughter or talking about her life so matter of factly?
2.  A 7 yr old boy was playing with my daughter.  He looked at her and then at us, and said to her “hey, you look Chinese”.  She looked right back at him and said “I AM”, and kept right on talking to him and playing with him until he left.  I asked if she had any questions or wanted to talk about anything, and she said “No Mama”.  Although I was very proud of her, I also could see that she was  troubled by this type of question coming out of the blue.

I realize that there are always going to be ignorant questions, I just did not think an almost 3yo would have to deal with them so early.

Any advice for how to handle children’s as well as adult’s questions would be apprecaited.  Also, I would love to hear some of your “pat” answers to these types of questions.

This is a tricky issue. Of course, if you maintain a relationship with your child’s birth parent(s), you need to be transparent about it. This creates pressure, on both sides. The birth parent(s) may expect to have a relationship with the child. Conversely, the child may feel pressured to have a relationship with them. Not every adopted child wants to know their birth parents. But most adopted children feel a heavy obligation to please their aparents – this could lead to potentially damaging encounters if the child is not ready. There may be small things you can do – perhaps getting paperwork from the agency in the homeland. But establishing contact…it makes me nervous.

As far as open adoptions – it’s almost impossible to say because it would change the face of international adoption. It would limit the mothers who would put children up for adoption – in Korea, for instance, agencies won’t contact birth mothers if they were unmarried at the time of birth.

I see your point and that could be an option, but he may or may not want to ever meet his birth parents.  In any case you would have already done the “leg work” so to speak.  As long as the birth parents knew that it was up to your son to ultimately decide if he wanted a relationship or not…I don’t really see any issue.  I have friends on both sides…some have conducted searches and other are not interested at all.

Thanks for asking this question – I think, for me, I really just need to clarify my earlier post. I do think it’s important that you do what you can on your end to facilitate a search for your child. You’re right – in 30 years it may prove very complicated. That may be just contact with the birth mother / family via a phone number. However, it could also mean becoming friendly with them on your own. And, by keeping the dialogue open with your child, you will be ready to help open doors. Of course, if you do develop a relationship with your child’s birth family it’s important that your child knows a little about this.

With regard to the domestic versus international adoptions: I believe that if, and that’s a big if, adoptions must be – then domestic is better than international. Of course there are a lot of pros and cons to each. However, a lot of the issues surrounding culture and identity with regard to international, transracial adoptions are minimized with domestic adoptions (transracial or not). I don’t know if they’re emotionally easier, but certainly the idea of searching, keeping your mother tongue (most of the time) and  understanding cultural backgrounds are easier to some extent. Adopting regionally helps keep another important human right – the right to know and live in the area of your birth. And as an added bonus for both of you, there also tends to be less “isn’t (s)he so lucky” and “how much did (s)he cost” sorts of comments, which is always a positive.

Here in Canada, most people adopt internationally because it’s faster and there’s more likelihood of getting an infant or toddler rather than by domestic adoptions where the wait is longer and the children older with more “problems”, not to mention image, trends, and the no less misguided need to feel like a humanitarian.

Domestic adoptions in Canada are a provincial / territorial responsibility and even further broken up into regions. So this obviously raises a lot of bureaucratic and organizational problems. It’s my understanding there is a lack of severe communication between regions making the process long and full of headaches and heartaches. That’s a major issue that needs to be addressed.

And while I can understand an Aparent’s desire to adopt an infant or very young child, it doesn’t mean that the adoption will be a smooth, happily ever after experience. Many adoptees have attachment and emotional issues, for example,  even when adopted as an infant. And not all older adoptees will be “delinquents” either. It’s a gamble we take no matter how you choose to become a parent – whether by giving birth, sperm donor, or domestic or international adoption. The most important thing is to have resources at your fingertips and a support system for all of you.

Another question dealing with birth parent searches:

I have a follow-up question on the birth parent search issue.  I, too,
have been thinking about ways to open our adoption a bit more on
behalf of my 3-year-old son.  I noticed that each respondent said that
the decision of whether or not to have birth family contact should be
up to the child.

My question is, doesn’t waiting 15 or 30 years remove the choice
somewhat?  It seems that, if I am able to contact my son’s birth
family and maintain some level of contact with them over the years,
then my son truly does have a choice about whether or not he wants to
have contact with them as he grows older.  If we wait to pursue a
birth parent search, it may be impossible to find his birth family,
effectively leaving him WITHOUT a choice to have contact.  Or am I
misreading this somehow?

I also wonder how your respondents feel about the suggestions from the
domestic adoption community that open adoptions are ultimately
healthier for children and their identity formation.