From Guest BloggerTamera Slack, birth mother and adoptee, click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers.
Don’t refer to our children as “gifts”
Gifts are something you “create or buy” with the intention to give away. Birth Mothers don’t intentionally get pregnant to give children away as “gifts.” Rather, you were given the “gift” of the experience of parenting and entrusted with the honor of caring for, and keeping safe, another mother’s child. A gift passes ownership of “the thing” from the giver to the receiver. Children are not “things” to be owned, but rather unique individuals who like all people have ties and connections to family which cannot be severed or transferred, no matter who claims them as their own. Most Birth Mothers would agree that they “gave up” their right to parent, but do not feel they should have to “give up” their right to know their children, even if that was what we were told we had to do.
Instead you might say, “I am so thankful for the opportunity to experience parenting and raising a child.”
Do not say “you made the right choice.”
You do not know for sure if a Birth Mother actually felt like she had a choice. Often due to circumstances and the social influences surrounding her, she doesn’t feel she had much of a choice at all. A Birth Mother may have been harassed, threatened or isolated to get her to relinquish, or she may have felt there was no support system to help her. A child is best left with their original mother whenever possible, therefore relinquishing a child is not considered the “right choice,” but “a choice.” Since we do not have the ability to know what might have been, no one will ever know if the “right choice,” for mother or child, was truly made or not.
Instead you might say, “That must have been a really hard thing to do. If you ever need to talk about what happened, I am here for you.”
Don’t say “you, or the child, was better off.”
Again, whenever possible, a child is best left with the mother that created them and with whom they share a biological bond. Their connection to the world begins with their biological mother. We can all agree that every child deserves a safe and loving home, and when this cannot happen within a child’s family of origin, we must provide it for them some other way. However age, economy and marital status are not automatic reasons for a child to be “better off in another family,” or for a mother not to be able to keep her baby. In fact age, economy and martial status are all variables that can and are changed with time, whereas a biological tie cannot be replaced or substituted.
Instead you might say, “I wonder what your life would have been like had you not had this experience” and then JUST LISTEN.
Don’t say “it’s a good thing you have an open adoption”
Open adoptions are not the cure all for the grief and pain that comes with relinquishing a child. Although we can agree that “open” is a much better than “closed,” it is still painful for a mother and child to be separated and open adoptions come with a different set of challenges altogether.
Instead you might say, “I bet it is still hard to not be able to parent your child yourself.”
Don’t respond with, “maybe your child does not want to have a relationship with you.”
Often, the only thing a Birth Mother has is “hope.” It may be the only way we get through each day of our lives after relinquishing our children. It is especially hard to hold on to “hope” when reunions are rocky or stagnant. Our biggest fear is that our children will not want to have a relationship with us, or be so hurt by what has happened that they don’t feel they can. Nothing positive can come from reminding us that this might be the outcome.
Instead you might help us hold onto “hope” by saying, ”I’m sure he/she will come around.”
Don’t remind us “that it may take time” to reconnect with our children.
For most of us, we are all too familiar with the “time” it takes to connect with our children. Those with a closed adoption have most likely had to wait 18 years to even attempt contact with their child. Others may have taken even more “time” to find the emotional energy to attempt this reconnection. When we finally do find that strength it takes every fiber of our being to make that journey. We apologize to all those who feel we seem to be “too pushy,” but when you finally have a chance to be with your baby, patience is a pretty tough thing to practice. Imagine for a moment if you had not been able to talk to, see or touch your own child for 18 years and then tell us if you would be willing to “take more time.” We are intimately aware of the “time” it takes. . .there is not need to remind us.
Instead you might say, “It must be really hard to wait for your child.”
Don’t shut down grief or pain, or say you “know how we feel.”
Relinquishment of a child is an incredibly unique and painful experience. Trying to soothe a Birth Mother by using comparisons to other loses in life will not console, but rather widen the gap and isolation. We know you can’t know what relinquishing a child is like, unless you yourself have gone through this exact experience. The grief, sadness and anger that accompanies it is normal and needs to be let out. We know no one wants to hear the true pain of this experience and that is why we are often left to deal with it alone. Be able to sit, listen and comfort without trying to “fix it,” make comparisons, or shut it down. It is truly a gift when a Birth Mother feels safe enough to begin to tell her story. If you are who she picks to tell it to, you have a unique opportunity to help with her healing by simply listening and giving her love.
Instead you might say, “I have no idea how hard losing a child to adoption must be. If you want to talk I am here to listen.”
Don’t say “at least you didn’t choose abortion,” or “at least your child’s alive.”
First of all, you don’t know if the woman you are talking to may have had an abortion in addition to relinquishing a child. Abortion is an equally hard and painful choice, discussions of which often lead to arguments of personal, religious and political beliefs rather than offering comfort. Additionally, many of us with closed adoptions have no idea if our relinquished children are alive or not. This is another fear and anxiety we live with until we are able to find out the truth. We don’t know if their adoption experience was a good one, and whether or not they were raised in a loving home, or if instead they were abused and neglected as sometimes happens. It is obvious that we chose life for our relinquished children, so no need to point it out.
Instead you might say, “It must have been really hard to carry a baby full term and then not be able to parent.”
Please, please, please don’t say “everything happens for a reason.”
I have a personal disdain for this statement, but know that there are some Birth Mothers and even Adoptees who find comfort in it. However, since I am writing this particular piece I am going to take liberty and state why I, and other Birth Mothers may not find this statement helpful.
None of us like to feel out of control of situations that occur through life, especially uncomfortable or sad ones. Also, if you are a religious or spiritual person, you may in fact have the belief that things are in being directed by some greater power. Either way, we have a tendency to try and make “sense” of things by throwing out this comment. This statement is made for the death of a loved one, to the loss of a job, or the adoption of a child and everything in between. I will tell you the reason I lost my son, because I was shamed and felt no support by the people who supposedly cared the most for me. They made a mistake, as many people do with this “situation.” This “mistake” has caused great pain in my life, my child’s life and the lives of many other Birth Mothers who were faced with my same circumstances. Adoption occurs for many reasons, whether it is by “choice,” or “circumstance.” Suggesting there was some “divine plan or fate” that caused the loss is not comforting or healing for the people that were separated. We live in an imperfect world, and sometimes bad and sad things happen. I find greater comfort in knowing that life is sometimes unfair, then feeling that I and my child were in some way “used” to fulfill some “greater plan.” Until you know whether or not the statement above is comforting to the Birth Mother you are speaking with, it is probably best you just not say it.
Instead you might say, “I am so sorry that you suffered this loss in your life.”
I smell her all the time. I smell her breath, I smell her hair, and the top of her head. Smell is such a powerful sense, and I love my daughter’s scent. Through scent I am drawn to her, and her to me, it is instinctual and innate. My daughter is of me, and her scent is a marker of this.
At birth, mothers and babies are hardwired to find each other’s scent appealing. This shared attraction is a natural aid to attachment. Scent is also an identifier. Studies have shown that after just ten minutes to an hour with their new babies, mothers are able to recognize their scent with 90% accuracy. After an hour the percentage rises to 98%. Babies are also able to identify their mothers based solely on scent.
It doesn’t surprise me that scientists have found that this bond between mothers and children may last well past infancy and into adulthood. Many adoptee friends of mine, who have reunited, talk about feeling viscerally attracted to their birth mothers, regardless of whether they felt emotionally hesitant or conflicted about meeting. They wanted to touch their mother’s hair, her face, but most of all, they wanted to hug her so they could breathe in her scent.
I was adopted at the age of two and a half. I was not adopted along with a sibling. I have not reunited with anyone in my birth family. Most of my life I’ve felt as though I was suspended in time and space. Not knowing a single blood relative is an unnatural state of being and can make you crazy. You feel disconnected and lost. When I scent my daughter, it literally grounds me and I become anchored to this world. When I scent my daughter, my soul quiets. On a primordial level, I claim our bond to each other. Through scent, I recognize her as my own, my family, and my blood.
Yes, it’s true. Our very own Shelise Gieseke knows how to polka. I’ve known her for three years now, and I never knew that about her. I learned it from this interview she gave to blogger Kevin Ost-Vollmers who blogs at Land of Gazillion Adoptees. Check it out! She talks about her passion for adoption education and support, and the importance of being a part of a community of adoptees. I cant wait until the next time I see her, you can bet that i’ll be asking for a polka demonstration!
From Guest BloggerAmee Finiganclick here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers.
I remember the exact times and places in which I first felt as though I was “different.” No, it wasn’t the times in which my parents and I had the “talk” about my adoption. One day in elementary school, I was walking up the steep hill from the school bus to my house and my neighbor shouted oh so casually, “See ya later, brownie!” Or the time I broke up with the first boy I ever dated, he tried seeking revenge by slamming me over instant message, capitalizing his every angry word, “SLANT EYED BITCH!” I even remember close friends joking about my physical appearance, blatantly saying, “I can’t tell when you’re angry and squinting your eyes, or not.” Another one of my ex-boyfriends in high school had the audacity to pull the skin away from the corners of his eyes, a completely racist thing to do.
But probably the most hurtful of all, was the moment as I was waiting at a crosswalk near Hawaii Pacific University, I could hear two drug-addicts, the lowest of lives, laughing and pointing, their long, dirty fingernails seeming to reach out and pierce my skin. They were making horrible comments under their breath and they made sure it was just loud enough for me to hear. They were commenting on the shape of my eyes. They were making fun of the fact that I was born without double lids. It made me livid and worst of all, it began to worry me just how much the opinions of these two strangers really mattered to me. The anger started to set in and I finally realized, I am different because I am adopted. Feelings came flooding through me, like a tsunami, and at twenty I was finally facing my worst fear, dealing with residual identity issues from my adoption.
It didn’t help that when I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t stand the person staring back at me. At times I wouldn’t even turn the lights on, I didn’t want to confront myself. I refused to accept myself, because in my mind, in the small town just outside of Portland, Oregon where I grew up, I was surrounded by Caucasians, ultimately leading me to believe I looked like one on the outside. If mirrors didn’t exist I wouldn’t know any better. I was sheltered from different races and diversity. My self-image was distorted, and my identity was torn between being born Korean, and growing up an all-American girl.
Feeling this type of confusion, I believe, affected my personality as a young child. I turned inward, shying away from people because I couldn’t deal with the fact that I was different and didn’t know who I was or where I came from. Who made me this way? It made me feel unbelievably uncomfortable and almost ashamed to realize I looked Korean on the outside, and on the inside I felt lost and extremely awkward.
At times I felt as though strangers I met were judging me, expecting to meet an authentic Korean girl, who spoke and knew the culture, but ultimately were awfully disappointed and let down to know I wasn’t that girl. It used to amaze me, the comments people would make when they first found out I was Korean or was adopted. They would ask me to, “Say something in Korean!” or, when I would tell them about my adoption, explaining I crossed the US border when I was only four months old, they would ask ignorantly, “Are you from North Korea or South? What was it like?” The ridiculous questions about my adoptive parents bothered me the most. “Do you like your foster parents?” These types of outrageous questions shut me off to the world; I realized keeping the adoption to myself was better than speaking about it openly, because I was beginning to realize that no one truly understood me and how I felt. Later, I came to understand that this was a method I used to shut people out; if I don’t get close to anybody, nobody gets hurt.
Inside of me I have always known that I am special, and my unbelievably supportive, incredible adoptive family never made me feel as if I was anything less than their own. I will admit, at times it wasn’t easy for me to cope with my own insecurities as all adoptive children have. I don’t remember a specific memory caught in time, when I first realized I was not my “Mother’s daughter.” I only remember the times after I found out; at completely sporadic moments I would feel sick to my stomach, and I felt like I had lost something I never had, almost like finding out all your childhood heroes, the Easter bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus, never existed. With this knowledge that my Mother, the one who I had come to know as “Mommy,” did not have anything to do with my conception, I withdrew and became angry. If I am not yours, who’s am I?
The confusion surrounding being a Korean daughter of an Irish father and a German mother was not easy for me to swallow. I almost felt as though I was in The Body Snatchers. Later in life I realized the reason I felt so much confusion as a young child and adolescent was because I had not come to terms with my adoption. I have suffered through a lot of denial and depression but during the past four years I have finally come out the other side and am no longer suppressing feelings of loss for my biological parents.
I know who I am now and I have begun to accept not only what I look like on the outside, but also the person I am on the inside. While as an adopted child I believe my issues are heightened, it doesn’t mean that as an adopted child I cannot find peace. By permitting myself to be sad and angry and letting go of the things I cannot control I have learned to love all of me.
Who am I? Now I look at myself in the mirror under florescent lights and am proud of all the things that make me who I am. I am proud of my Korean side and my American side. I am proud of my single-lidded eyes, my American accent, my tan skin, my hot temper, my satisfaction with all things spicy, and the fact that at times, I seem to mimic a Valley Girl to a tee.
I attended Adoption Mosaic’s first ever Reunion Panel this past weekend. The panel was split into two portions. In the morning we heard from adoptees who were in the early stages of their reunion journey. The afternoon was reserved for adoptees and their birth parents who had been reunited for ten years or more.
It was a profound experience listening to their stories, and I learned so much about the emotional investment and process that is involved in beginning, and sustaining a reunion for over 20 years. One of the things that most impressed me was seeing these families who had been in reunion for so long, and how they had all reached normalcy in their concept of family and kinship.
Reunion has two very different subjective connotations. On one hand it’s seen as a connection of separated (birth) families. On another hand it can be seen as destroying the connections of existing (adoptive) families. My question is why are these concepts mutually exclusive?
Adoptive families, more so than the mainstream population, know that families are not only made, they are created. Kinship systems are defined by blood, but they are also defined by love (and, well, laws). If adoptive families are more able to use out-of-the-box-thinking when it comes to the concept of family, isnt it then just a small step further to conceive of a greater family system that includes not only the adoptive family, but the birth family as well?
Not to say that any of this is simple. Connecting different families, in the case of reunion or in the case of open adoptions that occur on the outset of adoption, can be complicated, emotional and even messy. But honestly, aren’t most families, in general, complicated, emotional and messy?
I am so grateful to have been able to see first-hand, on the Reunion Panel, adoptive and birth families who are making it work, and who even love and appreciate each other. I left hopeful and inspired.
We blend our families through marriage all the time. We don’t always love or understand “the in-laws” but we don’t question their right to be considered a part of our family. Shouldn’t it be the same for birth families?
Here is another blogger’s take on the Reunion Panel
After a seven year search, Korean adoptee Melissa Konomos found and reunited with her birth mother. Thank you Melissa and Jeanne Modderman for sharing this beautiful video with us and our readers.
Here is the second installment of the Transracial Adoptees Speak video series created from clips of Adoption Mosaic’s Transracial Adoptee panel. In this video Shelise, Micah, and LaCrisha (all raised by white families) talk about their experiences building their racial identities.
Every once in a while you read an article or a blog post that just hits you where you live. I read this post from Outlandish Remarks: A Queer Korean Adoptee Talks Back weeks ago, and it has stayed with me, and stayed and stayed. It’s an intense post. The feelings it surfaced in me were feelings of reunion, not with my people, but with my country. I have not reunited with my birth family. I probably never will. Not because the odds of finding them are not in my favor, but because, for many reasons, it is unlikely I will ever begin a search.
I have, however, reunited with my country, Korea. And ever since, I have continued a love/hate and complicated relationship with it. I have completely personified this country. It is the mother who gave birth to me. It is the earth where my roots grasp deep underground. It is the mother who “put me up” for adoption, and the home that rejects me still.
Years ago, after college, I took a little trip to Korea with a friend. I went blind, meaning that I gave little thought to the significance of where I was going, what I was doing. All of my processing took place in the thick of the journey that was intended to last one month, but ended up lasting three years. Still more of my processing took place several years later when I was fortunate enough to own a business that took me to Asia twice a year and I was able to stop in Korea for a few days each time. I am processing still.
It was a bitter pill to swallow when I first learned the majority of children who were adopted from Korea years after the Korean war, were not adopted out because of poverty, but, rather, because the vast majority of them were children of unwed mothers. I am furious at Korea for being a country where unwed mothers and their children are ostracized so thoroughly, socially and economically, that adoption seems the only alternative. It is real. I have lived there and I have seen first-hand the level of institutional and social prejudice that stepping out of bounds can incur.
I feel Korea in my cells, in my bones. It is my birthright. And it is my home just as much as this country I live in is. I miss it. The tangible, and even more so, the abstract. The curve of the pipe tile roofs, the pop music blaring from a cosmetic store, the recorded voice in a subway car. More than anything, I miss the smell.
Every once in a while I give in to my longing and I consider moving back. I think of the logistics and measure the possibilities. But every time the same thing stops me. Now, in a different place in life, I have a daughter, and I am not married to her father. I am an unwed mother. I know my daughter would never be accepted. It makes me absolutely crazy that the very thing that most likely expelled me from Korea in the first place, is the same exact thing that keeps me from going back.
Somehow this makes my losses all the more complete, and all the more real. I have reunited with my country, and it doesn’t want me back.
***
Organizations that are working to change the circumstances of unwed mothers in Korea:
From Guest Blogger Shelise Gieseke. Click here>> for more information on Adoption Mosaic Bloggers.
This past summer marks the end of a truly great resource to the adoption community. The much beloved blog Harlow’s Monkey has been retired. Harlow’s Monkey offered a frank, honest and open point of view on adoption. HM brought a mix of professional and personal experience, as well as a large dose of passion to the table. She fearlessly challenged the status quo and she championed for the kids; always for the kids.
Harlow’s Monkey personally helped this adult adoptee find stability, clarity, and courage amid the emotional storm that is adoption. Harlow’s Monkey was the portal to a community that reflected me and my struggles. The HM blog was one of the first places where I finally felt like there was a place I fit into and a cause worth fighting for. It quickly became the first resource I cited to others exploring the adoption experiences.
Thank you Harlow’s Monkey for inspiring your readers to keep challenging, supporting and championing those of us silenced, forgotten or ignored by the adoption process. Your voice will always be a guiding light, a much-needed critical voice and an inspiration. We will miss you.
Every quarter Adoption Mosaic honors another amazing volunteer. Join us as Executive Director Astrid Dabbeni talks to Karmen about her volunteer experience.
The goal of the Adoption Mosaic blog is to create a safe space where adoption community members can voice their experience, dialogue about issues, and learn from one another.
We recognize that our diverse community won't always agree, but feel that disagreements can be vocalized in a respectful manner. In order to ensure our blog remains a safe space for both bloggers and commenters to communicate freely, we ask that commenters follow this simple rule.
