Speaking about her 11-year old daughter Megan, adoptive mother Peggy Cox said in a recent interview:
“I think she (Megan) knows how much better her life is here than back in China,” Cox said. “She’s a very bright kid.”
I hope Megan is bright enough to understand the glaringly obvious subtext of that statement:
You should be grateful.
We rescued you from that awful other life in China.
And as resistance wrote (with a heavy dose of intentional sarcasm),
Kinda conflicts with that whole bit about making them proud of their culture. Because who would want to live in that third world shithole anyway? Everybody knows life in the United States is better than life anywhere else!
Personally, I’d be very interested to hear why Megan’s mother is so confident that her daughter has a better life in Michigan than in China. Perhaps she has a direct connection to God, and thus knows something that absolutely nobody else knows?
It’s fine to make assumptions, but be clear that they are assumptions rather than stating them as gospel truth. I try to be very upfront and realistic about what I don’t know, and also about what is my opinion rather than fact. Why can’t other people do the same?
What makes it worse is that according to the original article, Peggy Cox is supposedly one of the more “enlightened” adoptive parents:
Cox said she keeps Chinese decorations around the house, encourages them to celebrate Chinese holidays and has them learning to speak Chinese. … [M]ost parents who adopt from other countries do the minimum and Cox is on the upper end of the spectrum…
But you know what? It doesn’t matter how many cultural events you go to, or how many exchange students you host, if you don’t have the enlightened mindset to go along with it.
Sure, exposing your adopted kids to their language and culture may seem like an enlightened thing to do compared to adoptive parents who do absolutely nothing. But even these actions are nothing more than empty Pharisaical gestures if you then give a quote on public record spewing the “better life” crap. Because again, how exactly would you know what it’s “better” than?
I keep hearing how different things are these days compared to when I was growing up, but when I read comments like the one above from Peggy Cox, I have to ask: How different are they really?
Be sure to read the full commentary from resistance, which includes a link to the original article.
28 responses so far ↓
Eli // April 2, 2008 at 2:13 pm |
you said:
I keep hearing how different things are these days compared to when I was growing up, but when I read comments like the one above from Peggy Cox, I have to ask: How different are they really?
What she said (and apparently what she thinks) is/are offensive. A sample size of one won’t tell you a whole lot about this generation of adoptive parents. There are good ones and bad ones, educated ones and uneducated ones, loving and unloving ones, and most who are, at times, somewhere between all of those things.
Jae Ran // April 2, 2008 at 2:35 pm |
I’m sure Sang-Shil, like myself, has heard from more than just this “sample size of one.”
True, there are adoptive parents who “get it” and those who “don’t” but I think what frustrates me (I won’t speak for everyone else) is that we adoptees are told that things are better now and that adoptive parents are more educated about adoption issues now than they were twenty years ago or (god forbid) almost forty years ago when I was adopted from Korea.
However, I speak to adoptive parents ALL THE TIME and trust me, I’d say the majority of them are still pretty ignorant of the issues.
Mary // April 2, 2008 at 7:08 pm |
I am probably on the ignorant side. We probably do the minimum to encourage our son being proud of his culture. He is from Guatemala and I do cook a good deal of Guatemalan food (easy enough as my step-mom happens to also be from there and I learned all of those recipes as a child), we attend events given by the Latin American community in our area, we have some hispanic music. We do not teach him Spanish, hubby and I do not know Spanish (well, just high school Spanish
) and we have only a handful of decorations in the house. We talk about having pride in your origin and in addition to taking him to events for his culture, we attend events that celebrate our culture (we are not “just” American – I am Irish and very proud, hubby is Eastern European). We hope that by introducing him to the culture and modeling pride in where you came from he will embrace it all.
That all being said I do teach him to be proud to be American as well. Does he have a better life here than he would there? I could not possibly tell you. No one will ever know what his life would have been had he not become a part of our family. However, we have a lot of blessings and one of them is living here. That does not mean that he is better off, just that he should be grateful for the things he does have. We should all look to find all of our blessings in life, even when we feel we have been given the short end of the stick.
My point is that while this woman was grossly mistaken in the way she spoke about her child and the things her child should feel, there are still good things about being American. I feel grateful to be an American and even though the circumstances of how my son became American may not have been ideal I hope he will one day be grateful as well. I hope that all came out right.
junemoon // April 2, 2008 at 7:44 pm |
Sang-Shil ~ Being a member of the First Generation of Korean Adoptees, having been adopted in 1958, I too often hear how a-parents are much more enlightened and proactive etc etc when it comes to transnational adoptions. I have to say that I am skeptical of this growth spurt or awakening for the most part. No doubt there are the occasional a-parents who have really done the personal work required to understand their own racial identity development and to help their adopted child navigate a world that continues to operate (often) on racist and divisive levels. Sadly, I do think that those types of a-parents are rare even in the year 2008.
Thank you for yet another authentic post and addressing a timely (still) topic. junemoon
Eli // April 2, 2008 at 9:44 pm |
I wonder if it would be interesting for you to read the materials given to pre adoptive parents from agencies. I mean, I totally get that not all parents are going to take in what they read (assuming they read it), and many parents won’t do more than is required, but a lot of adoptive parents I know have gone above and beyond trying to do their best and be different.
And also, not all agencies are the same. Some do a great job with educating parents (and really fostering a sense of the importance of what needs to be learned)…some make parents accountable. Some agencies provide support before, during, and after adoption so that families can stay on the right track. Other agencies…not so much. I think with all the variation in agency support/education, and with all the variation in parent intentions, you’re going to create a VERY wide bell curve of adoptive parent attitudes/behaviors.
Just as an example, our homestudy agency gave us a very large binder with this (partial) list of articles included: [This was one of two intro binders of articles and chapters given to us before the several hours of one-on-one homestudy interviews, before the other books we were told to read, and before the 10 hours of classes required from our local adoption resources non-profit. I'm not listing it out to be braggy...just to give an example of part of the prep that some agencies require these days.]
Resources:
Medical resource list
Specialized resources
Resources for Adoptive Parents (publications, online groups, support groups, books, etc.)
Preparing and Coping:
Adoption agencies and how they work for you
The Adoptive parent preparation system
Are you ready to adopt?
Comparison of Domestic and Intercountry adoption
Questions of Intercountry adoption
Preparing for a child from abroad
The parenting challenge
General information for parents
How to make the wait for your child easier to bear
Adujustment, grief, loss, and separation
Enhancing attachment
“Older child” does not mean/equal attachment disorder
Magical mystical bonding
adjustments by child
Practical hints to help with adjustment of adopted foreign-born children
Bonding and attachment part I
Bonding and attachment part II
Bonding and attachment Part III
Adoption through a Child’s eyes
Why didn’t they keep me?
Telling who what
Unsolicited Comments
Article on others’ reactions by Libby Theune
Parenting the child who waited
Health:
Immunizations for Families going abroad
Scabies
Mongolian Spots
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome fact sheet
FAS
What are the characteristics of FAS?
Hepatitis B: No guarantee
Is there life after Hep B diagnosis?
And Open letter to pediatricians
TB testing and the BCG
Medical testing recommendations
Helpful medical items to take for your child
Medical evaluations of international adoptees
Post arrival screening
International adoption: New kids, new challenges
Kids aren’t perfect, even if they were born as “healty infants”
The family doctor
Medical concerns for International adoptees
Helping Adopted kids get health coverage
Cultural:
Guidelines for behavior while visiting another culture
The racial factor
The multiple roles of the home country
Cultural differences in non-verbal communication
Questions for parents considering foreign adoptions
raising children of color
when your child is of a different race
“you’re ugly and stupid!”
understanding abandonment in Latin America
Culture shock and other stresses in interountry adoption
Adoped child: children need help facing negative images
choosing a name for your foreign-born child
international special needs
Misc:
What shall we do with this kid?
Working with sibs-to-be
Institutionalized children
what do our daughters need to know?
why isn’t this going better?
Observation checklist: assessing attachment
Assessing growth and progress–what to do next
The “gotcha” day
Instant family?
How to make the trip easier for you and your child
The importance of post placement reports
Asian growth chart
One child, many hearts: preparing for international openness
gay and lesbian adoptions
not on intercountry adoptions
adoption fees–where do they go?
adoption costs, re-adoption, child citizenship act
Eli // April 2, 2008 at 10:02 pm |
Jae Ran, you wrote:
True, there are adoptive parents who “get it” and those who “don’t” but I think what frustrates me (I won’t speak for everyone else) is that we adoptees are told that things are better now and that adoptive parents are more educated about adoption issues now than they were twenty years ago or (god forbid) almost forty years ago when I was adopted from Korea.
However, I speak to adoptive parents ALL THE TIME and trust me, I’d say the majority of them are still pretty ignorant of the issues.
—
It sounds like you have a ton more experience with adoptive parents than I do, and over a much broader expanse of time. I believe your experiene, and it makes me sad.
I guess I’m a newbie to it all (only a few years in the adoptive parenting world), and I tend to be pretty picky about the adoptive parents and adoptive parenting chat groups I join. So to me, in my circle, it seems like *many* parents really are trying to incorporate the changes suggested by previous generations of adoptees, and really are trying to learn from past mistakes.
I hope I didn’t come off as prickly in that first post… but when I read adoptive parents saying awful things like the ones Sang-Shil posted, it makes me kind of ill to have “adoptive parents” in general painted with that brush. If we’re all held accountable for the most offensive of the adoptive parents out there, then of course the answer to “how different are they really” is going to be “not so different at all.”
To me, the image of the bell curve seems true to what I’ve read of the past and experienced in this generation. In the 50s and 60s, I think the attitudes of most adoptive parents could be summed up under a pretty narrow bell curve…with a few outliers on the really great and really, really crappy sides of the curve. Now, though, it seems like that same scale of crappy-to-great attitudes is still there, but adoptive parents are WAY more scattered on the scale. It’s a wide bell curve…more like a big hill rather than a narrow peak. It’s not that we’ve eliminated the adoptive parents on the lower end of the “crappy” scale, but that as a group we’ve spread out and and our inching our that large, lumbering curve toward the more positive end of the scale.
I hope that’s true, at least. I’ll be interested to hear the opinions of our daughter’s generation of adoptees…I hope we’re doing better.
briko158 // April 3, 2008 at 10:25 am |
As an adoptee myself I feel rather comfortable saying that I have no clue whether life in Korea would have been better or worse than my current life here in the states. However I am sure that at this point in my life with what I have come to know here , that I would certainly have liked to give life in Korea a go.
The racism, the alienation, the lack of identity, the depression. All of which I believe stems from being in a place where I don’t look the same as everyone else, I don’t connect with any one group of people, I feel more and more isolated from friends and family with everyday that goes on. These are all characteristics inherent to the “better” more privileged life here in America.
Would I feel this way had I lived a “worse” life in Korea. I suppose I can’t say for sure. But I do know that I feel terrible living here and having to deal with the “better life” that has been given to me. “better”, really? these AP’s are really having a laugh aren’t they.
Mei-Ling // April 4, 2008 at 9:23 am |
I don’t think they quite understand.
As I’ve just went and rambled about it on my own blog, I think what sums it up is:
It’s not so much that they’re trying, they shouldn’t be held accountable for that. But they can never *give* us our birth country – all they can do is imitate.
I think that’s one of the biggest issues that can never quite be resolved in transracial adoption.
Sang-Shil // April 4, 2008 at 9:31 am |
Mary,
First of all, I don’t think that you’re on the ignorant side; I really don’t — and not just because you’ve been reading here for so long!
Also, I honestly do think that I understand what you’re saying in terms of all of us, adopted or not, appreciating what we have. I struggle with this because by nature (or nurture?) I am not exactly a positive, grateful, optimistic kind of gal, but I do think that we all have many blessings, and many things to be thankful for. I might not always see them at first, but I certainly admit that they are indeed there. And to be honest, I wish I saw them more readily.
It is unfortunate that the term “grateful” (and others of its ilk) have become so loaded in recent years when it comes to adoption, particularly when they are said to/about adoptees. One result of this is whenever I hear or read the term “grateful” in the context of adoption my mind immediately goes on alert, because it is often (though not always) used in ways that are, quite frankly, offensive. Again, I don’t think that you’re using the term in the way or sense that is anathema to so many adult adoptees. I think — and please correct me if I’m wrong — that you’re simply talking about adoptees being grateful for the same things that non-adoptees should be grateful for: the good things that they have in life, whatever those things might be.
You mentioned that one of these good things includes living in America. Although I’m hesitant to use the word “grateful,” for the most part I do like being an American and living in America. But I also think this is largely because this is the only life I have ever known, and (except for the first six months of my life) it is the only place I have ever lived. I am reminded of the term “cultural relativism” from my introductory anthropology class in college, and wonder if what I value and appreciate about America is determined by the fact that I grew up steeped in American culture and all things American.
In my experience, simply growing up here and going to American schools will do a pretty good job of teaching someone to be grateful and proud to be an American — it’s the other cultures that are frequently overlooked and require more work in order to be made visible.
Mary // April 4, 2008 at 10:13 am |
Yes, I am saying that adoptees and non-adoptees should take the time to remember all of the things that we have and we should be grateful for them.
I admit that I am currently on a very patriotic kick as one of my younger cousins has just joined our armed services. I am grateful that he can choose that and is not forced as in some countries. I am grateful for our freedom of religion, speech, etc. I am very proud that my cousin has chosen to serve. I am proud of him and proud for him. I am not in any way suggesting that this means that life is better here than Korea (for you) or Guatemala (for my son) or anywhere else. I am saying that there is truly a lot to be grateful for here and I want my son to recognize that. Again, I say that I am feeling very patriotic with my cousin’s recent enrollment. If we had had this conversation a few months ago I may not have been as “proud to be an American”
So, if I seem over the top, please forgive me, I am in a stage.
Thanks. I really love reading here. Somethings are hard as a parent to read, but I think that just makes them more important.
Sang-Shil // April 4, 2008 at 3:58 pm |
To anyone still reading this far, I just wanted to emphasize something that Tim touched on in his comment: The experience of living in America and being “American” is frequently very different for people of color than for white people.
This is not to say that racial and ethnic minorities are any less “American,” or less patriotic, or have any less reason to be proud of living here. It’s just that we will always be interacting with a white majority and dealing with the inherent and systematic disadvantages to not being white that surround us — see Peggy McIntosh’s essay on unpacking the invisible knapsack if you’re not sure what these are.
For me, the things that Tim mentions (feelings of depression, alienation, loss of identity, etc.) are inextricably linked with what it means to be an American — right alongside all of the freedoms and opportunities.
KTMH // April 4, 2008 at 11:46 pm |
I think this is where I’d like to add to the list of resources for adoptive parents (and adoptees, for that matter…hell, anyone who can read should check out this book): “White Like Me…Reflections on Race from a privileged son” by Tim Wise
I think it gives a great perspective from the majority race about how to become an ally to people of color.
Because no amount of immersion in our birth culture/heritage, pre-adoption education and support groups for adoptive parents/adoptees can change the fact that we are RACIAL MINORITIES in this country and will be treated as such.
I think it might be hard for parents to realize that no matter how loving and supportive of a home you give a child–even if you think that race isn’t “an issue” under your roof–once the child leaves the safety of your home/community, they are a minority in the eyes of others.
Eli // April 6, 2008 at 10:45 pm |
Quote:
I think it might be hard for parents to realize that no matter how loving and supportive of a home you give a child–even if you think that race isn’t “an issue” under your roof–once the child leaves the safety of your home/community, they are a minority in the eyes of others.
As parents preparing to adopt (in our experience at least), there have been a few points that have been absolutely drilled into us. Over. and. over. again. This is one of them. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if our social worker wrote it down on a board, walked up to us, and started pounding us on the heads with it (in a kind and loving, but insistent, way of course).
I’m not saying our training has been perfect or ideal, or that this social worker and agency have all the past 50 years of kinks worked out. I’m sure we’re missing some very vital pieces of understanding that only experience and luck will ever help us understand. But please be assured, this point is being drilled into at least some percentage of adoptive parents. It really is.
We were told to read (among others) “Yellow,” “Leaving Deep Water,” and the article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Are there other books you would suggest along the line of “White Like Me…”? I’ve read the others, but haven’t started in on “Yellow” yet.
Sang-Shil // April 7, 2008 at 7:56 am |
Eli,
I’m glad that you feel that you are so well-prepared for your journey of parenting an internationally adopted child.
If only all prospective/adoptive parents were so informed.
atlasien // April 7, 2008 at 9:24 am |
I agree with a lot of the criticisms about this article.
However, I want to add this note to the discussion: I hate to be pessimistic, but I’ve always thought the the idea of “preparing children for racism” is way overemphasized in the transracial adoption community.
Parents of color have a hard enough time doing this. I’ve seen plenty of kids who weren’t adopted have terrible, crushing psychological problems as a result of growing up in a hostile racist environment.
The one really concrete thing white adoptive parents can do to make things even a little bit easier — MOVE TO A LESS HOSTILE PLACE — isn’t discussed as much as it should be.
I’m not saying that parents shouldn’t even try. I just think that their effect on their children is often not as profound as they would like to think. Children often learn more outside the family than they do within.
Also, I’m not trying to speak for Asian TRAs here, just speaking for Asian-Americans… I’ve noticed a lot of us tend to agree that the white adoptive parent focus on “maintaining a connection to the home country” is often done at the expense of something much more important… creating a connection to other Asian-Americans. In other words, why try to teach kids to be Chinese, when they’re really going to grow up to be Chinese-Americans? It’s kind of insulting… as if there’s something wrong with regular Asian-Americans and they don’t need or want their kids associating with us.
Jae Ran // April 7, 2008 at 2:32 pm |
I agree that I am surprised at just how much homework you’ve been required, Eli. That is certainly not the norm, in my experience.
Eli // April 7, 2008 at 6:59 pm |
The state we lived in passed a law (last year I think?) that requires adoptive parents undergo at least 10 or 12 hours of training (each) prior to adopting. We’re required to take classes through a local adoption resource group (a non-profit). I wasn’t all that hopeful about the courses…when I think “state requirement” I don’t exactly think of the best resources and the best use of our time. I totally expected the classes to to be an exercise in hoop jumping.
Thanksfully it’s been completely different than I expected. We’ve done a 2-hour class on the losses of adoption (focusing mainly on the losses felt by first parents and adoptees, and specifically the losses felt by adoptees at different stages of childhood/adolescent development). Last week we started a five-week series on transracial and interracial adoptive families. This NGO has done an excellent job of finding qualfied speakers and seminar leaders, including a lot of participants who are part of the triad. I’m so glad to have signed up at this place!
In the end, though, a lot of the homework/prep credit has to go to our two adoption agencies (one for our homestudy, one for placement). They both seem to take a “let’s whip this family into shape” kind of attitude, and they’ve (especially our homestudy agency) been very proactive in encouraging us to take up certain viewpoints on adoption, being a transracial family, and attachment.
I know it’s not the norm, what this agency (and our state?) are doing, but I hope it becomes the norm over time.
atlasien~ thanks for making the points about living in a more diverse community and also about the importance of being a part of Asian-American cultures/communities. Those considerations are weighing heavily in recent conversations my husband and I have been having. We want the good schools of the ‘burbs, but the diversity of our city. We’re trying to find a compromise…someplace in/near the city but with highly diverse communities and good schools.
Sang-shil~ Thanks. Like I said, though, I’m a newbie. I think I may be feeling overconfident about how much I truly know or understand. Give me a few more years of parenting and I’ll probably find I’m completely unprepared.
While I’m commenting, I just want to thank you again for this blog. I’ve been reading for a while, never intending to do more than lurk. Sorry I’ve been so wordy recently…I just thought it might be encouraging to hear that some adoptive parents really are asked to do a lot, change a lot, and learn a lot.
Mei-Ling // April 9, 2008 at 9:43 am |
[In other words, why try to teach kids to be Chinese, when they’re really going to grow up to be Chinese-Americans?]
But sometimes that doesn’t even work, as Chinese-American immigrants have grown up *with* their Chinese parents and so many of them have managed to sustain the language and culture at home. :\
Even those Chinese-Americans who were NOT born in Asia still have their Chinese parents with them, so that already puts them at an advantage that adoptees just don’t have.
TRAs tend to identity more with other TRAs than Korean/Chinese-Americans.
Just thought I should put my two cents in again.
KTMH // April 9, 2008 at 7:37 pm |
Responding to atlasien and chiming in with Mei-Ling, I’d have to say that trying to cultivate a connection with other Asian Americans in specific isn’t as easy as one might think. Like Mei-Ling points out, Asian Americans and Asian adoptees have quite different experiences–adoptees experience the complete alienation of culture (whether native or “americanized”) whereas Asian Americans probably have a different type of experience with “native” Asian culture. (though I wouldn’t know firsthand, seeing as I’m adopted…and I would never try to assume what type of experiences Asian Americans have)
I don’t think it has ANYTHING to do with parents (or Asian adoptees, for that matter…) thinking that non adopted Asian-Americans aren’t aren’t good enough to associate with or learn from. For me, it has to do with comfort level.
Personally, I’ve felt quite uncomfortable with the 2nd generation Korean Americans that I used to attend college with. I always felt like there was this ridiculous “authenticity” game going on-like a weird tug of war between adoptees and 2nd gens about whose struggle for cultural identity was more painful. It probably had volumes more to do with me personally and the struggles of being adopted Korean than it ever had to do with the 2nd gens themselves.
So, from my experience, I honestly think that it has NOTHING to do with thinking Asian Americans aren’t “good enough” to learn from, it has to do with my own insecurities as an Asian adoptee trying to cultivate & nurture a newfound Asian-American adoptee identity and where being in a situation with people who have grown up with this culture (however Americanized it might be) is still very difficult for me.
At any rate, I guess that’s my food for thought.
s-y // April 9, 2008 at 9:19 pm |
Sang-shil,
This is a great post and all the subsequent comments are adding to the ongoing conversation about which is better – to be adopted to another country or stay in country of origin, unadopted. I have to add that I hope someday the “do-gooders” out there can help promote families staying together whenever possible, anywhere in the world. We continue to live in a world where it’s “normal” for oppressed communities everywhere to see family members sent away for adoption to lesser oppressed places. Obviously we don’t live in an ideal world, but a change in mentality of supporting issues such as women’s rights and helping communities around the world become more economically sustainable would decrease the amount of children and parents being split up.
atlasien // April 10, 2008 at 9:17 am |
Thanks for your responses… I’ll try to clarify my position a bit.
I understand that TRAs identify more with TRAs… they’ve been through an experience that non-adopted people can’t fully understand.
However, I believe Asian TRAs 100% ARE Asian-Americans. I think any Asian-American who says they aren’t is a regressive idiot. Asian-Americans can be pretty vicious against each other — twinkies versus FOBs, gender wars and all that — but I am so against saying “you’re not a real Asian-American because you’re multiracial, or because your adoptive parents aren’t Asian”. If we have visible Asian descent and grew up in America, then we’re Asian-American, period paragraph end.
I’m not saying that TRAs think that “regular” Asian-Americans aren’t good enough… I’m saying that that’s an attitude I’ve seen from some white adoptive parents. From being around the blogosphere I’ve noticed that white adoptive parents of black children tend to be more attuned to the fact that they should be looking towards African-Americans… And I have seen Asian-American adoptive parents try to helpfully educate white adoptive parents of Asian children, and give up because almost no one really wants to hear what they’re saying.
I don’t think it’s easy at all to cultivate relationships to other Asian-Americans. We’re a fractious and touchy bunch of people. But if people increase their comfort level at a young age it’s a lot easier. Although I don’t want to presume to speak for TRAs as adoptees, I do feel a strong urge to speak up for them as Asian-Americans who should be given the best environment to grow up proud of being Asian-American.
In summary, I don’t believe in hierarchies of authenticity. If I did, I’d be pretty low on the hierarchy. I think it’s a game that separates people instead of bringing them together.
atlasien // April 10, 2008 at 10:04 am |
Another side note that I wanted to add that might be interesting: comparatively, Chinese-Americans have much higher rates of cultural transmission than Japanese-Americans. I really don’t know about Korean-Americans but I suspect they might fall somewhere between the two extremes.
Japanese-Americans tend to lose their language right away in the second generation… and this holds true for other non-English Japanese diaspora countries like Brazil and Peru. Chinese-Americans often (but not always) can keep it to the third or even fourth.
I don’t think any group is better than the other group for having kept more/less or adapted more/less.
Karen // April 11, 2008 at 1:05 pm |
Good stuff! Very interesting! My only comment to add, maybe an obvious statement but true nevertheless, is that growing up in the USA is deffinately not BETTER than growing up in other countries, it is just DIFFERENT. Sure there are some ¨benefits¨ like easy access to commodities and creature comforts (among other things) but there are lots of ¨benefits¨ gained from living in other countries as well! I am an American but don´t live in the USA and while I surely acknowledge, appreciate and enjoy the benefits that I have as an American, I also think I am ¨better-off¨ living here in South America. I admit that I might feel differently if I didn´t have the CHOICE to live in either place but my point is that growing up in your birth country, wherever than may be, would surely have given you certain benefits that you lost out on by being brought to the USA. It´s important for adoptees AND AP´s to understand and believe that or else we will impart only the half-truth of living in the USA as being the ¨better¨ option.
Consider the Kid // April 11, 2008 at 3:20 pm |
One of the weird things I’ve experienced is having a Chinese-American adoptive mother to a daughter from China (is this making sense?) say almost word-for-word what Cox said at the end of the article about wanting “to take them back to China so they have an idea of what their life would be like if they were still there.” Her daughter is about 11 years old now, and I was baffled when she said this because, again, she’s from China. I didn’t know how to respond. I mean, what do you say to that? “Umm, I know you’re originally from China, and maybe life was hard and it sucked while you lived there, but listen to me, the white adoption specialist, when I say visiting your child’s birth land is not about teaching your child a lesson of gratuity..”? I somehow think that wouldn’t go over very well.
Sang-Shil // April 11, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
Karen – thank you for emphasizing the point that different does not mean better — something that I certainly agree with and wish that I had spelled out more clearly in my original post.
CTK – Hmmm…. that definitely is an interesting exchange. As I’m sure you’ve observed, when comparisons are (unfairly) made between growing up in birth vs. adoptive countries, frequently the assumption is that life in the birth country would involve either an orphanage or child prostitution or begging on the streets. I wonder if this Chinese-American AP was making a similar assumption.
I think this also speaks to some of the intersectionality between race/culture issues and class issues, because let’s face it, no matter what a person’s racial or ethnic background is, there is usually a great deal of privilege involved in choosing to be an adoptive parent. (Not necessarily in the circumstances that lead many people to choose adoption, but in the decision to adopt itself.)
You’re right that your reaction probably wouldn’t have gone over well, but in my opinion it’s still one that she needs to hear.
Discomfort Zones « Land of the Not-So-Calm // April 13, 2008 at 4:26 am |
[...] 13, 2008 · No Comments When I was reading through the comments on the post titled “Better Than What?”, I noticed that the idea of comfort zones and comfort levels came up a few times, both explicitly [...]
Important blog finds for AP’s & PAP’s « Madre of Angelica // April 30, 2008 at 11:19 pm |
[...] Monkey I came across this article “Adopting the Culture” with some great critiques by Land of the Not So Calm and Resist Racism…MUST READS if you read the article. Oh how I use to love those rose colored [...]
My Favorite Posts « Land of the Not-So-Calm // February 23, 2009 at 11:55 am |
[...] Better Than What? — Again, kind of an old post about an even older argument, but not a week goes by where I [...]