His gut reaction had nothing to do with me BEING adopted, but rather, how I BECAME an adoptee.→
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At one family gathering this past summer, Carrie and I were sitting on the dock of the lake, enjoying the sun. We heard kids’ voices rapidly approaching, and soon enough, Carrie’s young niece and nephew, Lily and Ben scampered up next to us. They engaged us in playful ribbing and conversation.
I cannot recall how the conversation led to this, but at one point, Lily whispered something almost apologetically into my wife’s ear. As Lily was whispering, Carrie glanced at me with a knowing look, broke into a smile, then mock-whispered to her niece, “It’s OKAY. You can ask that!”
Read More
New York Adoptees Fight for Access to Birth Certificates→
/Maureen Sheridan’s search for her biological mother began in the late 1990s, after she had a precancerous mole removed and her doctor suggested she look into her medical history. That research led her to the New York Public Library, where in 2001, sifting through a vast trove of vital records, Ms. Sheridan discovered the name she had been given at birth: Beth Lyons.
Read MoreBrave
/From the Blog AdoptionEchoes: http://adoptionechoes.com/2013/10/07/brave/
his post will take a bit to read…please be patient
“Show me how big your brave is…” – Sara Bareilles
In recent weeks, the adoption community has been tackling some tough questions – the validity of the adoptive family unit, the rights of birth (first) parents, the role of government in the way we Americans declare family and of course, the role of adopted people as the agents for change. You can spend hours on the internet reading articles about what happened to Baby Veronica, the supreme court case and ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act). I stand firm only one thing. We, the observers, know only a small percentage of the story. I am left more with curious questions. I am curious about Veronica’s birthmother and how she came to her decisions. I am curious how Veronica’s (adoptive) parents will explain away her birthfather and all he did to parent her. I am even more curious how the initial promise of an open adoption will now be put into place and enacted. Who is really doing anything for Veronica? For many, if not most, of the adoptee community, the transfer was a sad day. For some of us, we wondered aloud…notwithstanding the time, the signature, the legal relinquishment, Veronica has a family who wants to parent her. Veronica was not taken from her family of origin due to abuse or neglect. She has birthfamily who wants to raise her as their own. Is the decree on a piece of paper versus the decree of a parent who is biologically related sacrosanct? I wonder how Veronica will make sense of her story when she googles her name later on in life. I don’t have an answer, but for any of us who have worked through a contested adoption, the lines become awfully blurry. When people say that every child belongs in a family, I can’t help but get an uneasy feeling that we are never talking about the same definition of family.
Read MorePut a label on it→
/From the Blog AdoptionEchoes: http://adoptionechoes.com/2013/12/25/put-a-label-on-it/
When I was 16 I was talking in name brands. I didn’t know it then, but I am acknowledging it now, I think it is in my DNA to do so. My Korean DNA. At 16 I was an awkward, very skinny, very gangly albeit graceful ugly duckling. I hid in baggy clothes too busy trying to hide the violated, teased, mislabeled shell of a body but I was thinking brands and styles that I had no name for. For the longest time, I thought it was a remnant of my issues with class and arrogantly belittled the notion of succumbing to pop culture and being a slave to fashion. I think I need to reconsider.
I had one Korean friend in high school who always wore the latest trends and was comfortable in black in a way I wished. It took going to college and meeting more Korean American kids to realize that there was a dress code I was longing for and by sophomore year, I was fully immersed in the black code of dress. My long black hair and pale skin and gangly parts were beginning to make sense.
Read MoreHow I met my Mother - Questions & Answers in Taiwan, 2013→
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Before traveling to Taiwan last year, I knew only a few things about my birth mother Susie (her American name). She was born in 1950 and grew up in Tainan in the southwest of Taiwan. In the 1970s, she immigrated to Las Vegas, and she worked briefly as a card dealer at a casino. While visiting Taipei in 1980, she met an engineer on a British ship who would become my birth father. She gave birth to me in Las Vegas on April 9, 1981, and a few weeks later, she put me up for adoption.
Read MoreIs Adoption Traumatic?→
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To some people, this is old news (“The Primal Wound” came out in 1993.) To some, it’s a startlingly new concept. I’d argue, though, that “adoption as trauma” exists on a spectrum, as does trauma itself: some people recover well and easily, some people are forever wounded, and most are somewhere between.
A mainstream view is that adoption is a happy event: a child needing a family gets one. How, then, is adoption a trauma? That sounds so negative and scary, especially to an adoptive parent, and to an adoptee.
Read MoreAdoption Is...
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In a few words or less finish the sentence
Adoption is...
