What’s Worse?
There’s something I’ve been thinking about. I hope you don’t think I’m a downer–I’m usually not, but I guess this is kind of a downer topic.
I think a lot of people might think of Korea as a country that is not able to care for its orphans, which is why so many foreigners adopt from Korea. But, actually, in 2007, domestic adoptions surpassed foreign adoptions in Korea. That’s a great thing! It means that every year more and more children are staying in their country and their culture.
Great news, right? What you may not realize is that for the most part, the domestic adoptions are being completed in secrecy. I don’t mean illegally. I just mean that the adoptive couples are keeping this a secret from their friends, community, and, even more shocking, the child they adopt. We’re talking fake pregnancy bellies and/or moving to a new neighborhood immediately after adopting in order to pass the child off as their biological child.
This is probably confusing to most of us, so here is an excerpt about this practice from MPAK (Mission to Promote Adoption in Korea, lots of interesting reading there):
Parents are afraid of the possible ridicule and discrimination their adopted children may face as they grow up in the Korean culture. Children who are openly exposed as adoptees in Korea are vulnerable to other children who are not adopted. Some children (or adults) may look at adoptees as people who are less than equal. Some Korean parents forbid their children from associating with adoptees for fear their children may be negatively influenced by the children who they consider are less than equal. Some parents will not permit their children to date or marry adoptees (or people with orphan backgrounds). Some look on adoptees with pity. If an adoptee makes an ordinary mistake or gets into a trouble, he/she is judged differently from their biological children who get into the same trouble. Therefore, parents do not want to subject their adopted children to an environment of negative social stigma. Thus adoption in Korea take place in shrouded secrecy.
Okay, so why am I talking about all of this? I have blogged about the guilt I felt after bringing Matthew home. I really beat myself up about taking him away from Korea — the language, the culture, making him into a minority, not just in his new country, but in his own home.
At one point, I was talking about this with a friend who also has a son from Korea. I was saying that I thought it would have been better if a family from South Korea had adopted him. She responded in a way that surprised me–she said maybe not.
Because since he is here with us, he will know who he is. There will be no secrets, and he will know his true story. He will have the opportunity to search for his birth family, if he so decides.
If he was adopted in Korea, he would still have his language, his culture, he would not be a minority. But, would he always feel just a little bit different? Would he always have questions that no one would be willing to answer?
Clearly, it would have been best if his original family could have remained intact. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
This past year has left me thinking how these two options are different and each infused with its own kind of loss.
I would be curious to hear any thoughts on what you think of this–is either one better than another or are they both just different kinds of awful?
________________________________________
Elizabeth Wood
Elizabeth is a happily married mama to 2 preschool-aged boys. She and her husband have a 4-year old bio son, Isaac, and her younger son (3.5 year old, Matthew) joined their family as a toddler through international adoption from South Korea’s waiting child program. Being only 6 months apart in age, the boys are virtual twins but couldn’t be more different. They have been a family of four for just over a year. Feel free to visit their family blog, Everyday the Wonderful Happens, where Elizabeth blogs about the boys, their antics, her son’s special needs, her beliefs, adoption, and pretty much anything else that tickles her fancy.
4 Responses to What’s Worse?
Leave a Reply
Hi I posted a comment on Kelly Radenbush’s facebook page…can you view it from there? Maybe she can share it with you.
Janet
Don’t guilt yourself. In a perfect world staying in a childs birth country with their original parents would always be the best thing for them. But that just isn’t always the case or even an option. Don’ think just about the things he has lost not being in his birth country, think of all of the things he has gained by being here… formost, he has YOU, he has a family that loves him. The Family that God created just for him! We may not always understand the Father’s plan for us but it is always perfect.
As a Korean adult adoptee and adoptive parent to a son born in Korea, this is a topic near and dear to my heart. Although I believe that keeping children in their birth culture is oober-important and am psyched that Koreans have come so far in adoption, I must admit I was sad that they may be closed before we could get back to adopt again. I have this pipe dream of going back for a girl. That’s a little off topic.
Anyway, I am hugely saddened to know that there is still quite a stigma associated with adoption. I shouldn’t be so surprised. Everyone has to start somewhere. If we’re honest, they are exactly where Americans were 40 years ago when adoptions were still dirty family secrets and many didn’t find out they were adopted until adulthood.
I hate to think of the children who are growing up in such a web of lies but am praying that God redeems that situation and it’s the start of a much healthier adoption culture in Korea in the future. The selfish part of me wants to say that they’d be better off in America. But really, I think it’s a necessary stage to getting to a place where we’ll be 100% excited for Korea because we can be confident that kids are staying in their birth culture and being celebrated for their beautiful stories.
Unfortunately this is one of those times that living in a fall world sucks all around.
I personally think that some pelope do it as an attempt at connecting with their surrendering mother. I’ve also dangled the idea of emotions developing into our bodies when in womb received from our mothers. Some of our surrendering mothers contemplated adoption throughout our entire development. I’ve always wondered if the emotions of my mother being stressed out could have implanted themselves into my cells during my development in her body somehow. Like an emotional blueprint to the mothers well being at the time of the fetus’s growth may impact a surrender in the childs life years later. Just a theory of course, one of which I have nothing to back it with. Of course some are going to whine about me only saying my opinion and not giving a balanced view as if I’m under some sort of obligation to do so. For those pelope it could also be bad timing, the right thing to do, a selfless act, a noble woman who realized she sucked and couldn’t parent her child so she made a loving adoption plan, soon to be called a crack whore birthmom by the very pelope who called her noble years earlier. Someone who wanted to continue college, maybe they had student loans, dreams? were raped, didn’t want to parent, or all of the other reasons all of us have known and heard before