'via Blog this'
The Korean War Baby has found this website, Adoption Blogs, to be a great source to find out how Adoptive Parents, among others such as adoption professionals, are dealing with the myriad issues pertaining to This Thing of Ours-Adoption.
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With the advent of the internet and before that studies on TV, magazine articles, Psychology reports, etc. many have learned that adoption is not just an easy thing. (They should have talked to parents like mine! They knew all about the issues with me, since I was an angry little boy of five who wondered "where is my mother? Why did she abandon me".I believe that at my age I was not able to understand the reasons that my mother "gave me up". Even as I tried to understand "that she could not take care of me" and gave me up for a "better life", this did not take away the damage. BUT, I had a better chance growing up in the USA than in very prejudiced Korea. In many cases though, it was the case of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Yes, some international adoptees MAY have felt/thought that they wished they were white. NOT ALL, and there are thousands of "successful" adoptions that does not rule out that some desire to "know what happened". Some do not want to know, satisfied with the scant bits of information that they have received.
THAT BEING SAID...I do NOT blame "being adopted for my problems". There are those few in number, who go around blaming their adoption on their "Adopter" parents and family. The old adage "What came first? The Chicken or the Egg?" comes to my mind. The outspoken few seem to claim to speak for "all of the adoptees", but they don't speak for ME. They actually blame the Egg (Adoption to another land) for their very existence, lamenting that they lost family, language, culture and were cruelly taken away from their homeland, ignoring the basic facts that caused them to be "given up for adoption" in the first place.
What comes first? Separation/abandonment OR Adoption? In the majority of cases around the world it is a variety of reasons that cause Separation from mother and child. There is NO ONE reason, is there? ANYONE who uses the word "ALL" is full of crap. Why is it that we cannot use QUALIFIER WORDS such as "some, few, many, a majority, etc" and refrain from using the all inclusive words? The Spectrum of Difference indeed applies to This Thing of Ours-Adoption. Balance in stating our position should be held to, not extreme viewpoints or attacks on 'the other side'.
TO ME, and I am not one gifted with great intelligence just years of making mistakes and trying to learn from them..in MANY cases, women were forced to make decisions to "give up raising their children" for many reasons. The simple fact is that Adoption does not CAUSE the separation. It may provide a solution for a young mother who has few support networks, or a mother who has no SONS, or a child that is born with physical or mental disabilities in a society that rejects such.
Were there cases of out and out kidnapping? Well, duh, yes. Some celebrities of the KAD world claim they were kidnapped but the clarity of WHO is not made clear. In some documented cases it was the family of the mother that kidnapped without her knowledge and sent the child away. In a a great number of cases, mothers were pressured by their own family, friends, government's lack of support, and the general view of Society that being unwed and a mother was not acceptable. What could she do? Let's not forget the married woman who had 'too many female children'. Disabilities led to thousands to be exported thankfully to homes where they just might have a loving home, but in another land.
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| The argument of Causality has been debated for centuries |
The list of reasons and causes goes on and on. YET, throughout the cyberspace of bloggers, activist groups, support groups, etc. we find a common thread that the "EGG (Adoption)" was the cause of the Separation/Loss, the "Chicken", which I believe came first. It is the Whiners Club of KADs who somehow blame their adoptive parents/social workers/government officials, etc. on their sad lives. They lament that IF ONLY we had stayed with our mother...We must go back to the very beginning, the moment of Conception of life when a human egg met a human sperm, eh? Life began, we may argue that it is or isn't a "human" yet but it will once born be a human being, a newborn.
Most societies have moral rules that govern taking care of the child born, not necessarily marriage. In some societies, it is the tribe that takes care of the children and raises them within their small society. Being raised by the biological mother and father is not always the case, is it?
The reasons for a woman getting pregnant...again there are many. Rape, Incest, Pre-Marital Sex between consenting adults but not yet ready to be responsible for raising a family (HEY, I have two t-shirts for that one, a daughter and son that I "fatherered" but did not know, becoming an absentee father). What did adoption have to do in "Causing" a child to be given up? What resulted was a life was produced, a woman had to make hard choices on what she could/would do. In the Republic of Korea, everyday four thousand pregnant Korean women chose to Abort or Terminate their Unwanted Pregnancy, do they live with guilt? Perhaps some do, others go on with their lives, a few to regret later when Infertility after several abortions may cause them to secretly adopt from another unwed mother. Cycles within cycles, in the wheel of life and death.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch/foundling wheel
"Baby hatches have existed in one form or another for centuries. The system was quite common in medieval times. From 1198 the first foundling wheels (ruota dei trovatelli) were used in Italy; Pope Innocent III decreed that these should be installed in homes for foundlings so that women could leave their child in secret instead of killing them, as this practice was clearly evident in the River Tiber. A foundling wheel was a cylinder set upright in the outside wall of the building, rather like a revolving door. Mothers placed the child in the cylinder, turned it around so that the baby was inside the church, and then rang a bell to alert caretakers. One example which can still be seen today is in the Santo Spirito hospital at the Vatican City; this wheel was installed in medieval times and used until the 19th century."
A blogger recently cites that these devices, that provide a way for a pregnant mother to leave her infant child at a hospital or religious house, do not prevent Infanticide. Well, in almost every country there are many cases of Newborns found dead after being born and discarded. The evidence that babies ARE left in these devices certainly shows me that there are women who just cannot (for reasons we don't know) provide for the child and want to remain anonymous. Rather than leave them where they might suffer death from the elements the Foundling Wheels provide a safe haven. Read more from the website on Infanticide, and you get a clearer picture.
Yes, it would be great if all countries had a social network that supported single motherhood, but that is not the reality yet even in "modern" societies. WHA? Can we expect them to change their Social and Religious structures when even the USA and European countries are still making major adjustments in Women's Rights, Children's Rights, Welfare, etc? Steps should/could be taken to provide a way out, but again there are many, a substantial number of women who just are NOT READY to raise a child. The bio-logical "father" may be scarce, having run the other direction, or denied being the sperm donor. Not all women were subjected to society's and family pressures to give up their child. Some, may I dare say many, just were not ready to be mothers, yet did not take the step to abort the life growing inside them.
Am I cold towards them? NO, I must give them the benefit of doubt, since in my own life, I was one of the players. I had so many Unprotected sexual experiences that produced two children I am aware of, that I finally took the extreme option and had a Vasectomy at the age of 28. From that time on, I could tell every (yes every) woman, "Want to see my scar? I shoot blanks". (Years later, though, I regretted my youthful folly when I had to have needles thrust into the still producing testicles to try to have a 'test-tube baby', without success). At the age of sixty, I will never be a father, I regret.
In the sixties and seventies in the western societies the attitudes towards unwed motherhood was very different. Single mothers were thought to be 'bad women' and the men seemed to be let off the hook. In Korea adoptee activist groups are advocating for the Single Unwed mothers (single mother could also be divorced mothers since the wonderful advent of divorce appeared on the Korean society's scene just in the last dozen years). This year last May, family month, there was a day for Single Motherhood. SLOOOOOOWLY, Korean society is changing.
Back to the Chicken/Egg analogy...Separation/Loss/Abandonment, in Varying degrees felt differently by the age of the child. Almost all happen to Orphans, both real or created by Relinquishment-designated "Single Orphan" for one biological parent signing away their rights or "Double Orphan" when in rare cases BOTH biological parents sign away their rights. You see some disregard the fact that the designation of "Orphan" is recognized by Hague Conventions on Adoption and Children's Rights in these terms. An Orphan is NOT only those who's natural/biological parent/parents have been killed. Children found Abandoned with no living relative coming forward to support them have to be taken care of by the state.
Adoption, both within the country (which the KWB prefers IF possible), and through International, Transcultural, InterCountry, etc is therefore a NECESSARY way of providing a home. It does not guarantee a perfect 'forever home', as some pro-adoption groups purport, NAY, adoption comes with all of life's hazards, yes, ALL of the risks that natural families have PLUS the additional issues. As my own sister aptly put it "Life is a Crap Shoot". One could wind up having to deal with many problems, adoption may, just though give one a chance they would not have had in their own family or country.
Certainly, let's push for Family Preservation...but what to do when the young mother simply cannot bare to face raising a child by herself? Should motherhood be "forced" on her? Of course not. Each case has its own facts and nuances, as in the case of social welfare and children. Children are taken from their mothers because of dangerous lifestyles such as drugs, abuse, incest, rape from boyfriends, etc.
There is NO ALL in these issues of life, each is separate yet similar perhaps. So let's stop the WHINING and PINING that a few do "I ARE ADOPTED that is why I am all messed up". SOME in fact were kidnapped by their own family and given away without the consent of the mother! BUT NOT ALL. To claim that Adoption somehow caused "all" to be separated from mothers is Wrong. Plain and simply not true in even a great majority of Korean adoptions, InCountry or InterCountry/International.
We who were adopted both secretly, or openly, it is YOU and I who must face our issues, DEAL with the facts but be ready to accept that we may never know "the truth" for certain. Our Adoption Identity is a combination of our ethnicity, culture we were born in and the one we were raised in. Each of us are individuals and face our lives in our own ways. May each of you, dear readers, find your own path to a balanced self-image. Be ready for a rollercoaster ride, read many different viewpoints, keep a forgiving attitude ready, find your own balance, don't take 'sides'. Learn from many, then find your own place. Good luck.
The Korean War Baby- Still working it through.
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I agree that qualifiers should be used rather than blanketing something or someone and all of adoption in discourse. A qualifier would have been suitable here because it's not entirely true. There are indeed *many* instances where adoption has caused the loss and separation of mothers and children.
As an adoptee and feminist, I have long been concerned with the U.S. obsession of "righting" the "illicit" childbearing of impoverished and/or unwed mothers by adoption--something that came about after careful marketing and the creation of a supply and demand system in the domestic industry in the United States. In the 1970's, for every one "unwed mother" who might give her baby up for adoption, there were ten prospective adoptive couples waiting to adopt (that ratio has since skyrocketed astronomically) with few facilitators and institutions at the time disagreeing that an adoption wasn't the only option. This system stacked against vulnerable, young, women did in fact cause them to lose their babies to adoption. The need for adoptions to happen as, second to marriage, the only way for a woman to "redeem" unwed childbearing drove the losses of over one million women. These are losses the blossoming industry at the time absolutely caused.
The over one-million U.S. women, and who knows how many worldwide, victimized by this system should not be dismissed. Their children were also victims. How can we dismiss them or tell them how to feel about it all either?
I know you've heard the voices of these mothers. What they say is true. My mother was treated very much like this in the 1980's. The second she walked into the agency, the decision was already made for her. Adoption was the agency's #1 priority and so many absolutely repugnant things happened to her, I, and my adoptive parents, just so adoption was the end that justified the agencies means.
Not every person, mother, family, or adoptee shares that experience. But we cannot dismiss them. I don't want my mother dismissed because her loss to adoption--because of adoption--isn't nice to think about because that's not fair. She was one of those women people use as examples of those who don't want their babies, she was raped. She loved me. She wanted me. I don't "pine" that I wasn't kept. I "pine" because of her horrific experiences--because she's a human being, and my mother, and no one should have to be treated that way.
I don't blame my adoption, adoptive parents, adoptive parents as a whole, adoption workers, original parents, or anyone else for any problem that I've ever had. But I do expect adoption to be accountable for the reprehensible amount of losses it, in itself, causes to orphans, foster children, youth adoptees, adult adoptees, original families, and adoptive families. I'm gladly a "whiner" for the cause of accountability ;-)
KOREAN WAR BABY REPLIES ON LATER POST (INCLUDING AMANDA'S COMMENTS)