Third Mom

The shoe dropped

2009-11-25T18:15:00.009-05:00

The news wasn't good. I'm OK, still rocky but more angry than terrified. Scared, worried, but not terrified. The buyout will take care of college for the kids; we'll figure the rest of it out, and honestly, maybe this is the kick in the pants I've need to get out of the miserable telecommunications industry. It's a rat hole. Can you hear me now???

Being a little circumspect because The Girl doesn't know - this is why I'm saying nothing on Facebook. The Boy does - he is a brick, honestly, he's completely unfazed, totally confident that something will come up. He told me to look in the food industry, or to get a job at the local elementary school so I could walk to work. Heh.

I stepped away from the Adoptive Parents for Open Records group, and apologize to the entire adoption community for it. The group remains on Facebook, but I'm not administering it anymore. Volunteers are welcome. The Adoptive Parents for Open Records blog is hidden, but waiting for better times and more volunteers. I've still got Korean Focus to worry about, so I hope you understand that if I spend any volunteer time anywhere, it's got to be with KF.

Because I saw this coming, I cleaned out the worst of my stuff before I left the office last week. I spent the first day crying, the second day spiffing up my resume and applying for jobs within the company, and today dreaming about the jobs I could do and still make enough money to keep us afloat. I found two and applied for both with my now-very-spiffy resume. One is program manager for a local university's (and my alma mater's) continuing education Masters in Real Estate program. The other is a program management position for an education and health care think tank. I know that both are likely to come up empty, because that's the way it is. But just seeing a couple of jobs that I'd love to do out there was heartening, and actually got me a little excited about possibilities.

I have to work through the COBRA stuff, that's key. I can go commando and we can set the kids up with the health insurance at their schools, but The Professor cannot be without. Much research to do here. I heard from a friend who was riffed in the summer that there's some connection at my company between taking COBRA and keeping retiree health benefits. I'm gonna be retired a lot longer than I'm going to be unemployed, so I need to get this figured out fast.

As for the miserable little men who are responsible for this blip on my radar screen: fc*k 'em. I have been sending the head jerk kinesthetic wedgy messages all day, and sincerely hope his shorts have been up his rear end all day long. The other is so incredibly pathetic that I wish him well, just far away from me.

I learned an important lesson this week, and will take it with me into the future: When someone loses a job, do not send them an email that says "Oh, I'm so sorry. Best of luck in the future." Keep your fingers off the keyboard and your thoughts to yourself.

Instead, do as my colleague CL did. Pick up the phone. Send contacts. Call back. Listen, to venting and crying. Share ideas. Tell the person to buck up. Remind them that they're strong, and will do what they have to do. For this man's deeply human and incredibly helpful response, I will be eternally grateful. He made all the difference these past couple of days. God bless you, CL!

To every one of you who has stopped by during this wait:

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I have stopped by between crying jags and resume updates, and seeing your messages helped ease the sense of rejection that comes with such an event. Your emails, too, have helped enormously. Special thanks to my faraway Kaaskopp friend (you know who you are) - your emails these past days have been a blessing. More special thanks to LD, whose private messages on Facebook brought me back to reality when fear was taking me to a very ugly place. And to Theresa: thank you very, very much for your support. You are without a doubt one of the strongest people I know.

OK. Now off to take life by the horns and do what I have to do.

Which is get the fixings ready for tomorrow!

A paralyzing wait

2009-11-18T08:52:00.002-05:00

Apologies for being absent here. Things at work are very serious at the moment, and the stress of waiting to know if I'm going to have a job here next year or not has pretty much reduced me to a stressed-out wreck. I won't find a comparable job in this economy at my age (old enough to a parent to most of you), which means that life as my family knows it will be pretty much over.

I'm not the only one by a long shot, so no messages of sympathy are necessary. Just want to explain why I don't have the energy for adoption issues right now.

A generation fights to reform adoption laws

2009-11-11T08:35:00.003-05:00

Must read: A generation fights to reform adoption laws.

I understand this far too well:

They found that in some cases an orphan hojeok (family registry) is produced for a child sent for international adoption, even if the child has a family. Contradictions were also found between the records held by adoptive parents and those kept by the adoption agency.

Which is why we have to think long and hard about this:

The majority of children relinquished for adoption in Korea are the children of unwed mothers. Of the 2,556 adoptions in 2008, international and domestic, 2,170 were the children of unwed mothers. Others were from low-income families or broken homes.

This picture will look different in Ethiopia, China or Russia or whatever placing country you may talk about, including the U.S. (yes, American children are adopted abroad.) Understanding these underlying causes for adoption is absolutely key to avoiding corrupt adoption practices.

Kudos to everyone in Korea who has been working to improve Korean adoption law and practice: Jane Jeong Trenka, TRACK, Reverend Kim Do-Hyun of KoRoot and those who weren't named in the article.

Beyond Culture Camp: New Donaldson Report

2009-11-10T08:23:00.011-05:00

From the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute,
a new report on adult adoptee identity issues:
Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy
Identity Formation in Adoption.

From the study's website:

The principal recommendations of the 112 page study include:

Expand parental preparation and post-placement support for those adopting across race and culture. Such preparation should include educating parents about the
salience of race across the developmental course, instruction about racial identity development and the tasks inherent in such development, and assistance in understanding racial discrimination and how best to arm their children to combat the prejudice and stereotypes they will face. Preparation also should include the understanding that seeking services and supports is a positive part of parenting - i.e., it is a sign of strength, not failure.

Develop empirically based practices and resources to prepare transracially and
transculturally adopted youth to cope with racial bias. This study, as well as previous research, indicates that perceived discrimination is linked with greater psychological distress, lower self-esteem, and more discomfort with one's race/ethnicity. Hence, it is essential to arm transracially adopted youth with ways to cope with discrimination in a manner that does not negatively impact their identity.

Promote laws, policies and practices that facilitate access to information for adopted individuals. For adopted individuals, gaining information about their origins is not just a matter of curiosity, but a matter of gaining the raw materials needed to fill in the missing pieces in their lives and derive an integrated sense of self. Both adoption rofessionals and the larger society need to recognize this basic human need and right, and to facilitate access to needed information for adopted individuals.

Educate parents, teacher, practitioners, the media and others about the realities of adoption to erase stigmas and stereotypes, minimize adoption-related discrimination, and provide children with more opportunities for positive development. Generations of secrecy, shame and stereotypes about adoption (and those it affects) have taken a toll, as the respondents in this research make clear. Just as discrimination based on color, gender, sexual orientation and religion - all components of people's identity -
are broadly considered to be socially unacceptable, adoption-related discrimination also should be unacceptable. Professionals and parents also need to be better informed about the importance of providing diversity and appropriate role models.

Increase research on the risk and protective factors that shape the adjustment of adoptees, especially those adopted transracially/culturally in the U.S. or abroad. More longitudinal research that combines quantitative and qualitative methods is needed to better understand the process through which children, teens and young adults progress in confronting transracial adoption identity issues. Additional research is also needed on the identity journey experienced by in-race adoptees - and, pointedly, more of the studies of every kind need to include the perspective of adopted individuals themselves.

More about the report in this New York Times article, Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity.

I wish I was in Berlin

2009-11-09T13:34:00.005-05:00

20 Jahre Mauerfall - the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. If ever an event gives me hope for the future, it's this one.

I wish I could have been there then.

And I wish I could be there now.

Signs and wonders

2009-11-05T05:02:00.006-05:00

I read something recently on an adoptive parent's blog that's been keeping the wheels turning this week.

I'm not going to link to the blog in question unless permission is granted (if you figure out who you are, please leave a comment or send an email, and I'll add the link) because my goal in this post isn't to create more discord, it's simply to voice a few more thoughts about the discussion I read there.

The blogger is clearly devoted to her Christian faith, and therefore attracts others of like mind. The post I read linked to several others on the subject of adoption and Christianity, including one of mine. The ensuing comments, whether they agreed or not, were thoughtful and respectful. One of the commenters made the frequently-seen point that Christians are called to adopt because God set a precedent by adopting humanity. It got me thinking about the dangers of looking for signs and affirmations for the things we want to do.

Humanity has always loved signs. My own Catholic faith is loaded with them, which for me is a problem, because logic is my comfort zone. This doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t appreciate the serendipity that sometimes accompanies life’s events. It's all over my kids’ births and adoptions, and to someone who might be seeking it, point to a higher power’s approval of their presence in my family.

First, there’s the peculiar coincidence of their birthdays: they share the same one (don't ask) which happens to be Sikmogil 식목일 – Korea’s Arbor Day. If ever an image can conjure up adoption, it’s that of the tree: roots and branches, transplanted trees, and more. It was hard not to see providence at work here. My children’s roots are in Korea, but couldn’t be nourished there. By moving them here, their branches will thrive and can join our family tree!

Then come the arrivals. There are, as those of you who have adopted from Korea and are Catholic may know, 103 Korean saints, martyred in the 19th century and canonized in 1984. The Boy arrived on the Catholic feast of Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang and Companions. His name is the same as one of the martyrs. What is God telling me here? He must be saying that this child was meant to arrive here, to this country, and join my family and my faith! He iced this cake by selecting another of these saints as his confirmation patron.

The Girl’s arrival also came with a message. She arrived on the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, patron saint of soldiers and promoter of scholarship and learning. Hmmm. What’s God saying with this one? That this child will be a fighter of some sort? Maybe a scholar? If that happens, I’ll know she was meant to be ours! Well, The Girl is certainly a good student and fighter, no question about that! And when it came time for her to choose her confirmation saint, she chose St. Joan of Arc, another soldier saint. See? It's true!

I'd be a liar if I said these signs have no meaning to me. But I'd be a fool if I took them at face value.

Fact is that although a transplanted tree can survive, it should first be helped to thrive where it grows. Fact is, too, that when a tree must be moved, it should only be done with respect for where the roots first grew, for their desire to return, and with a care for those who experience the tree's departure in sadness.

Fact is that identifying a cultural coincidence is meaningless if we as adoptive parents ignore our responsibilities to respect and nurture our kids’ heritage, to protect their birth histories, and to welcome their birth families into ours.

Fact is that raising children out of poverty to be scholars and strong citizens isn't just the purview of adoptive parents - poor parents have the very same right. Helping their families to achieve the means we enjoy should be our primary focus.

When signs affirm something we desperately want to be true, they serve our wants and desires rather than the truth. This feeling is so comforting that some of us try to retrofit life events into them, even when the connections are forced and the messages perverted. I find this particularly sad when the sign is taken from a holy book, and when it excludes other equally-important messages from that same holy book demanding different behavior.

No action is moral if it ignores the bad fruits (think Matthew 7 16) that result from it. This happens in adoption; this good thing that so many promote has led to some appallingly rotten fruit from people who know how to game the system for personal, institutional or governmental profit. Even when an individual adoption is done ethically, if the adopter never gives a backward glance to the families left behind or forward glance to the rights of the adopted, the fruit is just as rotten.

Promoting material and social justice for surrendering parents and equal access to identity for adopted people has to be the starting point for any discussion of adoption. Promoting adoption without equally addressing these, and not just paying them lip service, creates a lie by omission, an untruth. This seems so incredibly clear to me, I honestly don't understand why people don't see it.

Maybe a sign would help.

National Adoption Awareness Month: Cause for celebration?

2009-11-02T08:26:00.009-05:00

It’s National Adoption Awareness Month - as if you haven’t been bombarded from every direction with announcements, events, celebrations, fundraisers and on and on and on. I wonder sometimes if my kids are asked about adoption more in November than other times of the year, but I suppose this is one of those things that we who live much of our lives in the adoption world are more tuned into than the average person. They've never mentioned it, so I suspect they're not even aware it exists.

I'm not interested in all the hype surrounding November's adoption focus - I wish instead that we could use National Adoption Awareness Month to step away from our deeply held points of view to consider the broader picture for awhile. I'd love to have the opportunity to get around a table with people who think just like me and nothing like me to discuss the challenges that face us all. It's really easy to view the entire experience of adoption through a single lens when you spend most of your time looking through it, and to lose sight of the fact that not every experience is the same.

So what do I really believe about adoption? What's my lens? Well, I believe that if parents aren't given the resources to parent, the adoption of their children by others is an inherently unjust act by governments, agencies and individuals, including me. I believe that the shame and stigma placed on single women in particular must stop. I also believe that secrecy has no place in adoption, and that in this country, our closed birth record laws are deeply unjust.

But as I say this, I have to acknowledge that there are children in every country on the planet whose parents will not parent them, even if sufficient resources are made available. As firmly as I believe women and families should be given the resources to parent their children, I believe children who are truly alone in the world, or whose parents and families refuse the assistance offered, deserve to grow up in families – in their birth countries if at all possible, but when not, in families in other countries. However, those families MUST recognize that they hold their children’s histories, heritage and genetic connections in trust, and must raise them in full knowledge of the identities that belong to them and them alone.

These two points of view conflict sometimes - no, practically all the time. This is probably why the adoption community is so polarized; it's hard to live in the paradox zone all the time. You question everything, and always feel like your point of view is on quicksand. Maybe my advanced age (heh) gives me an advantage; one of the things I've noticed lately is that I say it is what it is a lot - because it really IS what it is. And so it is with adoption: I find good in what dismays, and evil in the best of intentions.

And there is a lot of good work being done – look at what the Korean adoptee communityhas accomplished for themselves and single mothers in Korea! Adoptee organizations like ASK, G.O.A’L. and TRACK, and many hard-working individuals, are changing attitudes and laws in Korea. Other groups like MPAK and Adoptees for Children are doing equally good work on behalf of ethical adoption practices here and in Korea. Adoptive parents, too, are working for change: look at the Korean Unwed Mothers Network founded by Rick Boas, which has added its voice (in a blog, too) to the work being done in Korea by adoptees and unmarried mothers themselves.

There’s little room for differing points of view, though. I was incredibly disappointed to see a member of one group publicly insult someone with another point of view by name in a Facebook communication not long ago; that serves nothing but the ego of the insulter. It makes me wonder, too, if and how kids like mine – not particularly focused on adoption, comfortable in their Korean and Asian identities, and happy in our family – will be welcomed into the broader Korean adoption community. Will their identities and family be questioned with You drank the kool-aid or You’re in the adoption fog? Or will they be respected? It makes me sad to think that this may await them as they develop their own connections in the adoption community.

So am I celebrating National Adoption Awareness Month? Well, no. I celebrate my family every day of the year, so I don’t need November for that. According to the AdoptUSKids 2009 National Adoption Month Toolkit, there are 130,000 children available for adoption right now, which isn’t something to celebrate. Single Korean mothers are fighting an uphill battle to gain public support; heck, unmarried American women are still falling prey to unscrupulous adoption agencies. Religious zeal and skewed notions of charity in adoption have put the rights of poor or unmarried parents at risk. Adoptee birth certificates remain sealed in the majority of states.

No, no celebration here. Instead, I’ll be thinking of my kids’ Korean mothers and fathers, and praying that those I believe are still alive are well. I’ll be giving thanks for the incredible honor of being mom to two of the most amazing individuals on the planet. And I’ll be renewing my commitment to do what I can to promote justice on their behalf.

God adopted us, so adoption is good - right?

2009-10-28T16:58:00.006-04:00

With thanks to osolomama and Mirjam via email for the heads up, I’ve been chewing on this recently. I know many of you have been talking about it, too.

I’m not sure what it is about the kind of religious fervor I see in this post that disturbs me so much. The self-righteousness? The inflexibility? The narrow definition of Christianity (which is often so theologically incorrect as to no longer be in Christ’s ballpark)? The certainty that anyone who disagrees must be Godless, hate-filled and worthy of this much-better-Christian’s prayers?

All of the above and undoubtedly more. I'm a Christian (Catholic, so some may disagree - heh), but I simply don't relate to what I read in this post. My Christianity always taught me that no human being knows everything; that humility is one of the greatest virtues; and that love can’t coexist with force – physical, emotional, verbal, intellectual, or otherwise. I was also taught that many, maybe all, of the things Christ taught are found in other religious traditions, and that if you follow those teachings you in fact follow Him. No wonder a lot of the people I believe most deserve to be called Christians practice other faiths.

The post’s author writes with certainty. There’s no room for other points of view in his world, or on his blog for that matter; most comments are published with his rebuttal included, tit for tat. This blog proselytizes, and adoption (which nowadays is the subject of some of the most ill-reasoned and theologically unsound - but profitable! Think Russell Moore! - preaching these days) gets dragged along for the ride.

Clearly I don't like it. But I don’t like the some of the discussion and comments any better.

Don’t misunderstand: the post was very disturbing. I thought a lot of what I read in the comments, and worse. But there’s no point arguing with someone whose “worldview” (his word) equips him with the authority or pomposity to offer his prayers for everyone who disagrees with him. This individual’s mindset is locked down tightly, so tightly that all we commenters (yes, I commented, so I'm including myself in what I don't like) really did was provide prayer fodder.

In my opinion, the bigger challenge is to extricate adoption practice from the clutches of faith-based agencies that promote such behaviors. I don’t believe all faith-based adoption agencies fall into this category; there are some that are doing good work, and a few that are downright progressive. But the "Christian adoption movement," which some Christians claim has been given God’s approval because he “adopted” us, has become something unto itself. When you read the sites of those who promote it, you find that it no longer has anything to do Christ or Christianity or Christ-like behavior, but instead is all about pounding the point home that because that because there are five references to God's adoption of humanity in the Bible, we should all go out and adopt. Those who do adopt get a kind of theological atta-boy: See we adopted an orphan, and since God adopted us this is a good thing and we’re good people!

Never mind that the orphan wasn’t one, or that the adoption process was shot with injustice, or that the family who lost their child remains mired in poverty or misfortune. We'll pray for them.

Getting our legal system to understand the danger of this kind of adoption, which has given itself the mandate of heaven and set itself above the law, is the real issue in my opinion. We’ll never make this point in one-on-one debates with the people who believe in it. We need to get credible adoption organizations to start making the point at much higher levels. Hopefully the current political climate will make it possible for them to do so.

For those of you who, like me, see and treasure the parallels between Christianity and Buddhism, two books I like:

Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers
Living Buddha, Living Christ

More thoughts about FACE legislation

2009-10-27T07:58:00.011-04:00

A commenter on my post yesterday about FACE legislation sparked these thoughts, which I should have included in that post in the first place.

Before I share my reasons for opposing this legislation, I recommend that everyone go out and read all of the following:

US Department of State: Child Citizenship Act of 2000
EACH's supporting point of view
Ethica's opposing point of view
Holt's opposing point of view
S. 1359 (introduced by Senators Landrieu and Inhofe)
H.R. 3110 (introduced by Representatives Watson and Boozman)

I want you to see this from a couple of different angles, including the language in the legislation, before I share my problems with it. They start with deficiencies in the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA 2000,) which grants citizenship to intercountry adoptees upon arrival in the US. There's a loophole in this law that excludes adoptees 18 and over which has led to adoptee deportations, as well as the death of at least one, Joao Herbert.

The fact that this loophole still exists almost ten years and numerous deportations later demonstrates a failure on the part of lawmakers to understand the adoption experience. I can think of few things that take place at the hands of our legal system as unjust as deporting someone who was brought here by Americans, raised here, whose life and family is here, and who may know absolutely nothing of the language and culture of the birth country.

FACE does nothing to correct this serious flaw. It would simply eliminate the visa process and make citizenship retroactive to birth upon finalization of an adoption. If it is to pass, there will be no overturning of adoptee deportations, no retroactive granting of citizenship to adult adoptees. ith child trafficking a real and present danger in intercountry adoption, this makes no sense.

EACH, one of the major supporters of the legislation, gives reasons like reducing adoption fees, speeding up the process and making it possible for transnational adoptees to run for president. These first two focus primarily on adoptive parent needs, but the last one really puzzles me, because it honestly seems a little silly in light of the adoptee deportations that have already taken place and are pending. It's certainly not an adoptee citizenship battle I would have picked, not here and now.

Would I like to see my children be able to run for President one day if they so choose? Of course, if that's what they want to do. But I know a whole lot of other people I'd like to see be able to do that, too - my friend Mark Keam, who is running for delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates, springs immediately to mind, and I bet you all know plenty of others. You may find yourself excluded from seeking this high office, for that matter.

I don't want to set my Korean-born children apart from Mark and others in their Korean American community. I want to redress the failures of the CCA 2000, and address the bigger picture of immigration reform, and immigrant rights and responsibilities. For this reason, I see FACE as counterproductive to the broader discussion, and believe it would set a dangerous precedent.

Holt raises important concerns having to do with respect for adoptee history, with which I agree:

By conferring citizenship retroactive to birth, FACE creates a legal fiction and diminishes adoptees' birth history
Current immigration procedures requires the preservation of child history and records by the Central Authority. Adoption information and records are regularly lost or misplaced by families requiring adoptees to seek their birth and adoption history. That information is preserved for them, but FACE would eliminate the preservation of this critical information.

In case you weren't aware of it, the Central Authority for intercountry adoption to the US is the Department of State. Take them out of the adoption process by eliminating the immigrant visa, and the risks are clear.

I'm also having difficulty understanding FACE would speed up the granting of citizenship. The CCA of 2000 grants citizenship upon arrival, which in my case pre-dates finalization (FACE's citizenship milestone) by over six months. The difference is that FACE would make the attachment of citizenship retroactive to the child's birth. If ensuring that intercountry adoptees obtain citizenship speedily is the goal, FACE is unnecessary. I think the real driver has nothing to do with this, though. I think it has to do with adoptive parent desire to make their internationally-adopted children look just like birth children in the eyes of immigration law.

Only they're not.

Please write your legislators today and urge them to oppose this legislation. When you do, remind them to plug the CCA 2000 age loophole, to overturn the adoptee deportations that have already taken place, and to grant immediate citizenship to all intercountry adoptees who were excluded by the CCA 2000.

But don't forget: Fixing the CCA of 2000 is only a part of the work we need to do to reform and improve our country's immigration laws. It's a starting point that's of particular importance to adoptive parents, but can't be where our involvement ends.

Holt Action Alert: Oppose FACE Legislation

2009-10-26T16:47:00.005-04:00

Back in July, I passed on some important information from Ethica about pending legislation that will affect intercountry adoption. Holt International has begun an action alert to encourage those who oppose this legislation to make our opinions known by encouraging our legislators to oppose the proposed bill.

If you, too, are concerned about the negative impacts of FACE legislation on the adoption process, as well as its potential negative consequences for adoptees, please visit the Holt action alert page now. In addition to a clear explanation of Holt's concerns with this legislation, you will find a suggested letter that can be emailed to your legislators from the action alert page.

Join Ethica, Holt and many others and register your opposition to FACE legislation today.

Edited 10-20-09 to add: Some of you may not be comfortable using an adoption agency website to contact your legislators. You can find your representatives and senators directly on the House and Senate websites, too. It doesn't matter how you voice your concerns - it matters that you do.

And please spread the word!!

Limbaugh "lynched?" Absolutely not.

2009-10-21T15:16:00.007-04:00

There's a post today on the SPLC Hatewatch blog, Sympathy from the Far Right for Limbaugh on His NFL Rebuff, that you should take a look at.

It referrences an article by Selwyn Duke on the John Birch Society website (heck, no, I'm not linking) on Rush Limbaugh's efforts to buy the St. Louis Rams. In it, Duke mentions several times that Limbaugh was being "lynched," high-tech and otherwise, and ends the article with the well-known quote attributed to Ben Franklin "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

I'm sure he thought his wordsmithing was quite clever. I think it's appalling.

First, consider the definition of the word lynch:

Pronunciation: \ˈlinch\
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: lynch
law
Date: 1836
to put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal sanction

Consider, too, the statistics:

An estimated 4,743 people – nearly 73 percent of them black – were lynched between 1882 and 1968, according to the Archives at Tuskegee Institute.

Then, read about lynching in America. Look at the photographs. Imagine that you're a victim. Or the mother, father, wife or child of a victim. Imagine living with the fear of lynching in your life.

Imagine, too, that you're one of the murderers who often find smiling out of these pictures. Imagine you were the little girl at Robin Stacy's murder, looking so directly into the camera. Imagine you were her mother or father, allowing your daughter - maybe even forcing her to come - to such a horrific event.

Words have power. Those who use them to further political points of view understand this; Selwyn Duke understands this. When he sat down to write his article, there were many ways in which he could have made his point, but he chose this particular word, this particular image. He chose them because, as a white man, he could. He, and other white journalists, could use the word lynch casually, dismissing the horror of its history, and pretending instead that it fairly described the verbal criticism a rich white man experienced at the hands of detractors.

This is white privilege at work.

Love isn't enough

2009-10-20T13:29:00.009-04:00

Love conquers all.

If you're an adoptive parent, you've probably heard or read these words before. Heck, maybe you've even said them yourself, or believed it at one time or another in your adoption journey.

I'll be honest: way back at the beginning, I believed it, too. But I learned quickly that saying the words and hoping they were true weren't enough to fulfill my responsibilities to my children. I learned that along with that love, you have to act: respect and nurture your child's connection to his or her culture and community, and work actively to end racism. I've written my thoughts about this before - here, here, here, here, and probably a few more places, too.

I've also written from time to time at Anti-Racist Parent, one of the best places on the internet for parents raising children of color to come together and discuss the issues facing them. If you're also an ARP fan, you may know already that there are, to steal ARP's own phrase, changes afoot.

Anti-Racist Parent is now Love Isn't Enough: On Raising a Family in a Colorstruck World, where many new topics will now be discussed:

We talk about race, mostly, but we also want to talk about education and self-esteem and childcare and religion and gender bias and homophobia and the things all parents, regardless of race, worry about…and how all that stuff intersects with race.

Bookmark Love Isn't Enough, and stay tuned for new discussions and more changes.

Vote for Dawn and support Ethica!

2009-10-18T17:09:00.003-04:00

Seriously busy at work and home - there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but while it's still a speck in the distance, please do me a favor:

Go over to the Bump and vote for Dawn - This Woman's Work. She's got a commanding lead, and we want to keep it that way, because if she wins the contest will donate her winnings - $1000! - to Ethica.

Dawn, you are a heck of a class act!!

Korean Mothers in the New York Times

2009-10-09T08:40:00.002-04:00

I'm falling down on the blogging job again - forgive me please! As it turns out, having both kids at school does NOT mean that life instantly becomes a day at the beach. Actually, the one who got a day at the beach is The Girl, who was told us with great glee last Sunday how she a couple of friends took at $.25 bus to the beach for an afternoon the day before. She should have told me about how hard she was working on chemistry before she told me about the beach, because I would have been a lot more likely to sympathize then.

Projects are coming out of the woodwork, not to mention the fact that The Boy came home for a long weekend last weekend and kept us hopping with fixing clothes, shopping, and cooking lessons. We made bulgogi, which he wanted to demonstrate to a bunch of friends. The only problem is that he's not sure if he can get the right kind of meat where he is, so we have to work on that. Maybe this will give The Professor and I good reason to go down more often: We can call our visits bulgogi runs.

I suppose being really busy is better than being bored stupid and crying all the time because the kids are gone, but I'm a little surprised that I don't have more time to do stuff like write now that they're off. It also makes me realize how much wasn't getting done around here when I was writing a lot more. No wonder the place is a wreck.

Anyhow, my real reason for posting today:

Be sure to read this article in the New York Times about the ongoing struggle of single Korean mothers to stand up to Korean societal stigma. Two of my favorite people are quotes: Jane Jeong Trenka of TRACK: Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea, and Rick Boas of KUMSN: Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network.

The Korean government's illogical approach to increasing the birthrate in Korea, a subject of great national interest at the moment, is summed up clearly here:

For years, the South Korean government has worked to reduce overseas adoptions, which peaked at 8,837 in 1985. To increase adoptions at home, it provides subsidies and extra health care benefits for families that adopt, and it designated May 11 as Adoption Day.

It also spends billions of dollars a year to try to reverse the declining birthrate, subsidizing fertility treatments for married couples, for example.

“But we don’t see a campaign for unmarried mothers to raise our own children,” said Lee Mee-kyong, a 33-year-old unwed mother. “Once you become an unwed mom, you’re branded as immoral and a failure. People treat you as if you had committed a crime. You fall to the bottom rung of society.”

What is done to women the world over who commit this "crime" of bearing children while unmarried unites each and every one of us. It doesn't matter if we share the experience or not, or if we are connected to adoption in any way, or what our personal opinions are about the morality of having children outside of marriage. What matters it that once a woman is pregnant, she deserves the exact same emotional and material support that a married woman would receive. This is a woman's issue, and I hope all women will unite behind it.

Liberals, evil people & the politics of open records

2009-09-30T09:47:00.014-04:00

I wasn’t going to tell you about this, because I know you’re sick of how I complain about the forums. But I was reading a really good post at O Solo Mama this morning that talks about the issue of international adoption search where she mentions her forum escapades, so I feel empowered.

Yeah, I got thumped again. Not saying when or where, because I only went there to read an post that came up in a google search. The post had to do with adoptive parent involvement in adoption reform, and I made a couple of points about the fact that APs should be involved in the effort to open birth records.

A guy responded to my comment with one entitled something like "liberals vs evil people" that basically said that adoptive parents who get involved in issues like open records are a) being PC, b) must have kids with no problems, or c) put their kids second.

Whoa, partner! Let’s talk about that.

It was pretty amazing to hear someone suggest that exercising one’s civil responsibility to be socially engaged was just being "PC." It is not. We ALL should be doing this, on all kinds of issues, and can if we try. Our life responsibilities may take precedence, but it takes very little time to become educated about an issue and to support it when the opportunity arises.

I also get really frustrated with the idea that you can carve up adoption and only associate with the bits that suit you. No prospective adoptive parent should approach the adoption of a child with the attitude that they can shield themselves from parts of it as will. When we adopt, whether it be a child from within our community or from a country far away, we accept responsibility for all the issues that make up adoption today. We may try to be selective, and some of us even succeed – but at the end of the day, every adoptive parent is responsible for all of adoption, whether it touches them directly or not.

Example: I may not be an expert in attachment disorder, nor may my children have experienced this particular challenge. But I have an obligation to understand how attachment disorder weaves into adoption, and how this affects others in the adoption community. When the opportunity arises for me to use that knowledge and to direct people to the experts, I should do that. It’s part of the package.

Same with open records. Perhaps, if you’ve adopted an older child from care, you have the child’s birth information and maybe even a relationship with his or her first family. It could be easy for you to dismiss efforts to change closed records laws as unimportant. But you shouldn’t. By remaining silent on this issue, you send as strong a message as those who are working hard in the trenches, and that holds the entire effort back.

Now let’s talk about that "liberals vs evil people.” My thumper seemed to be saying that working for open birth records for adopted people was a liberal activity, and it was pretty clear he wasn’t paying me a compliment.

But think about this for a moment. We typically define conservatives as individuals who believe the government should stay out of the lives of individuals as possible, right? Now think about what happens when birth records are sealed. I'm pretty sure you can call it government intervention. Go a little further and try to think of a way in which the government intervenes in a person’s life on a more personal or fundamental level. Bet you can’t think of one, and anyway if think you do I’ll argue with you.

A person’s birth identity is about as personal as it gets. Conservatives should be all over the open records issue, and should be SCREAMING for closed records laws to be overturned.

(Wait, sorry – forgot about the disproven-a-gazillion-times-over notion that opening adoptee birth records leads to more abortions. Never mind.)

All kidding aside: Open records is an issue all adoptive parents should understand and should support.

If you believe in truth and transparency in adoption, open records is your issue.
If you believe in keeping government out of our personal business, open records is your issue.
If you believe in the right of individuals to manage their own relationships, open records is your issue.
But most of all, if you have adopted a child, open records is your issue. Because it’s simply the right thing to do for your child.

Evelyn at 3 AM, Peri at 2 PM

2009-09-29T14:12:00.007-04:00

Adoption must be in the air. I woke up at 3 in the morning yesterday, absolutely wide awake, felt great, but of course wasn't really going to get out of bed and go to work yet. So I just lay there, and for whatever reason, the first thought that flew into my head after I realized I was awake was Evelyn Bennett. I'm sure it was because of what was on my mind yesterday evening, the thoughts I shared about my kids' mothers and how easy it is for me to push them from my mind whenever it's convenient.

Interestingly, while catching up on another fave this afternoon, I found this: Bring Peri Home, a blog about Carla Moquin's efforts to be reunited with her daughter Peri. Carla's blog led me to her website, also called Bring Peri Home, which shares the entire story. That story will curl your hair, and make you sick, too.

It's a story of fraud, the kind in which prospective adoptive parents make promises they later don't keep. This example is particularly egregious, as you'll see when you read Carla's website. Just as I've wondered what the couple hiding Evelyn Bennett could be thinking as they keep her from her mother, I wonder how Peri's adoptive parents (the adoption has been finalized) reconcile their actions. I don't see how anyone possibly could in this case, as the fraud appears to be so calculated and so well planned.

Please read Carla's blog and website, and offer her your support. And of course, please spread the word.

Something I wish I'd understood about adoption

2009-09-28T16:34:00.019-04:00

I've been trying to catch up on about a month's worth of posts, which is pretty much impossible. In the process, I found a blog carnival at Grown in My Heart from a week ago Thursday that you should check out, although I think pretty much the entire adoption blogger community has already found it and posted. If you are with me in the .05% who haven't yet jumped in, go on over and then write your thoughts. Don't forget to link the carnival here, where you can also find links to the 50+ posts that have been added. All good stuff, I might add, every one has an insight we all should listen to.

The topic: What No One Told Me about Adoption.

I'm sure the reflective mood I'm in following The Girl's departure for college is the reason this topic is hitting so close to home. I haven't wanted to write about what I've been feeling; I said yesterday that I wanted to experience it privately, which is true. But private from whom? I've been resisting thinking and writing about that, because the answer bothers me.

I really haven't wanted to share my feelings because, for once in my parenting life, I wanted them to belong to me and my husband alone. In spite of everything I've written here about truth and transparency in adoption, I wanted The Girl all to myself.

I didn't spare a thought for her mother all weekend. I didn't think about the good-bye she was missing, or the hundreds of other hellos and good-byes she's missed throughout the years. The fact that she might have been wondering where The Girl would be going to school didn't cross my mind. I wanted this experience for me and me alone, and those feelings were powerful.

Adoption allows us to create our own truths. It makes it possible for what we know in our heads to be un-true to become real. The fortunate realize the lunacy of this and create families that include everyone in the adoptee's life, no matter the challenge of finding family members and maintaining relationships with them. Some reject reality outright and fabricate worlds that exclude even the mention of their children's parents and families.

Then there are people like me. I accept and respect and welcome the presence of my children's parents in their lives and ours; I wish we had been able to open our adoptions, in spite of the challenges I know that would have brought. But the fact that these men and women have only existed in our imaginations has led to a powerful alternate reality that we've been able to control at will. Out of sight, out of mind, out of reality, whenever we want.

Our daughter's mother may be aware of the fact that American colleges start classes in the fall, and she could very well be wondering where her daughter is going to school. Every milestone we've passed is one she may have lived through in her own imagination, though without the celebration. Yet as much as I understand this and have wanted to know this woman, I really didn't want her around as I watched my daughter take her place at college. I wanted that experience all to myself.

It was too easy. I simply didn't think about her, so she didn't exist. I could blame all kinds of influences for thinking this way, but really it comes down to me. I can conjure up a new truth whenever I need it, and last weekend I needed one that only included The Girl, The Professor and me. I made it happen with ease. But now, with life returning to our new normal, I'd like to bring our daughter's mother back again and wish her into our family. How convenient - for me - to have that kind of control over her. But not right.

Everything I wish I'd known about adoption comes down to truth. I've always thought of the telling of truth as the accurate delivery of information; it's certainly part of the equation, but not all of it. Truth also exists in our desire to make our children's parents real to them, which takes more heart than head. In spite of the very real desire I have for my kids to know their parents, I learned with The Girl's departure just how easy it is for me to push their parents away, and claim the kids for myself. My head may have understood that all along, but clearly, my heart had its own agenda.

Accepting the quiet

2009-09-27T17:04:00.008-04:00

It's been awhile. Please forgive me. To be honest, the milestone The Professor and I just lived through is one I've dreaded for many years, and I needed to live through it privately.

It was both exhiliarating and incredibly sad to watch The Girl take the reins of her new campus life. Her confidence is inspiring, and allowed us to return home assured that she'll be just fine. With each report, it's clearer and clearer that she was really ready for this.

Our trip was great fun. We moved The Girl into her dorm on the afternoon of our arrival, and it went very quickly. We shopped that evening for all the stuff we couldn't bring with us (which begs the question, "How the heck will we get it back here next summer??"), giving us the following day to explore and hang out. The Girl was booked on day 3, so we took off for a visit with a friend who lives a few hours away, returning the following day for a short visit before our departure.

I had been dreading that good-bye for months. It was harder than I'd thought, but in a different way than I anticipated. I had expected a lot of tears and emotion, but there was actually little of that. Instead, there was a kind of quiet sadness that has stayed with me all week. We had a couple of hours to kill before our flight, and ended up driving aimlessly around the city. I kept hoping she'd call to tell us she'd forgotten something, could we bring it to her? But no, there was no call.

I know that that's as it should be. It's time for us to release the reins and let her go, just as we did her brother. He, however, is a short drive away; matter of fact, we'll be seeing him in a week or so, to bring down a couple of things he didn't bring when he moved into his townhouse in August. It's very comforting to know that if I wake up any morning and want to see him, all it will take is a couple of hours in the car to make that happen.

But The Girl's on the other side of the country. Trips home will be few and far between; the current plan is that she won't be home until December. That makes this harder - that and the fact that she's the youngest.

You know what was interesting about all of this? How far from adoption this particular experience has been. There are a million connections to adoption I could be making, and probably will be making soon, but they simply weren't there while we lived it.

For these few days, I was just another mom watching her baby take important steps toward adulthood. The Girl took them in great strides, with one quick look over her shoulder to smile a last good-bye.

We watched until the little figure we've loved all these years walked into the distance and out of our view. As she faded at last into a tiny speck in the crowd, what I felt most of all was emptiness.

Which makes sense, of course. She had taken my heart with her.

Remembering Stanley L. Temple

2009-09-11T08:51:00.005-04:00

I first posted this on September 11, 2006 as part of the 2996 Project. Today, my thoughts are again with the victims, the survivors and their families and friends.

Here is what I know of you:
Stanley L. Temple
77
New
York, NY
United States
World Trade Center
In all the memorial sites and the newspaper articles, there are no memorials to you. No family members and friends write of your life, no obituaries mark your birth and
passing, your work, or those you left behind. Where the click of other names leads to smiling photographs and poignant tributes, broken links follow your name, or the simple words of school children and respectful condolences of strangers.
Like this, from Sindy:

I seen that no one has wrote u and it made me feel so bad. I hope that u are in a better place now. And I hope that ur family are recovering as best as they can. May God bless u and ur family.
Or this, from Kasy Jo:

iam so sorry you were a victim hope your family doing well. iam sure you werea great person. and iam sorrythat happend to you and your family.

god be with you always
Or this, from Kaitlyn:

Dear family of Stanley L. Temple, At my church today we prayed for your family and read your husband/dad's name to each other and thought about every person that lost their life's on this very terrifing day. With much love, kaitlyn:)
Nothing more. You are a mystery.

But there are some things I think I can know just from your name and age. You were born in the twenties, a child of the Great Depression, one of the Greatest Generation. It is likely you served your country in World War II or Korea, as you would have been a teenager at the start of the first war, a young man at the finish of the second. Perhaps you loved a wife and raised a family in New York when the wars were over, and watched your children grow to adulthood through the turbulence of the 60s and 70s. Having lived to 77, you certainly worked, perhaps at your heart's vocation, perhaps just to pay the bills. And you had dreams. I know you had dreams.

As I write this I like to think that your last day was spent in the tower viewing the city from the observation deck, enjoying the peace of retirement in a favorite place. I like to think that somewhere in New York your family and friends think of you now, sad that you are gone, but filled with memories of a long life well lived.

I remember you. Our country remembers you. And although the details of your life are a mystery, we mourn your loss as deeply as if you were our father, or brother, or son.

On September 13, 2006, an anonymous comment appeared on the original post:

I did not know Stanley personally, but worked as an employee of the City of New York to assist his family in obtaining a death certificate in the wake of the Trade Center disaster. Stanley worked shining shoes for the employees of Cantor Fitzgerald. He was not on their payroll, but his presence and employment was verified by enough surviving employees of Cantor Fitzgerald that his family was, after some wait, able to obtain a death certificate without the three-year wait usually required in case of a missing person. I don't know if his sister will see this tribute, but it's lovely to know it's out there. Thank you.

And then, on September 11, 2007, I found this remembrance on another tribute site:

I came across this page in remembrance of the 9/11 tragedy, and saw that no family members had left no response. I'm really hurt to see that that has happen because I know you have family in New York and Virginia. I tried many times but to no avail to find out what happen to you. Even today I cant get the respond needed. I only hope your loves did the right thing. For now I truly know that you are at peace with your loveing wife Margret for I personally will truely miss and be hurt at the phone conversation we had about not visiting you more often when she passed.

In loving remembrance
Your Godson
Harry

Don't Misses 9-9-09

2009-09-09T11:49:00.003-04:00

Couldn't pass the opportunity to blog on this auspicious date. At least I hope it's auspicious.

I'm totally disconnected from my online life - just too much happening in real life at the moment, notably final preparation for bringing The Girl out to college next week. Between the unbearable thought of an empty nest, the torture of the unending paperwork, and a few other emotional speed bumps (mostly related to my recent age milestone and the realization that my baby is joining her big brother and flying the coop), I just don't have the energy to write. All it would be is whining. Maybe I'll whine a little over at the other blog, but not here.

Instead of writing, I've had the energy to clean. It's really strange, actually, kind of like the intersection of a desire to start fresh and one that wants to turn the clock back (although I didn't give in to the overwhelming urge to watch old videos of this kids over the long holiday weekend). I spent all day Thursday thinking it was 2007 - seriously, couldn't figure out why a 6-year contract that started last month wasn't expiring in 2013. That has alternated with a desire to clean house. I started in the garage, then our bedroom, and ended yesterday by shredding three trash-bag-fulls of old paper.

The only recent blog reading I've done recently brought me to an interesting Newsweek article on September 5: See Baby Discriminate. It's about a 2006 University of Texas study into whether or not multicultural videos had an effect on children's racial attitudes. The results are fascinating, as are many of the reactions to the article. A blog search of researcher Birgitte Vittrup's name will give you lots of reading to do on the subject.

While you're thinking about the development of racial attitudes during childhood, be sure to follow the series on race and education that's on this month at Anti-Racist Parent - topics so far include:

Teaching not preaching by Jennifer of Mixed Race America
Back to (home) school by Dawn Friedman
From “Chinese eyes” to Asian American by yours truly, and based on an experience I had when my son was in kindergarten

Check ARP throughout the month for more.

Terminating an adoption

2009-08-27T10:02:00.012-04:00

An article in yesterday's New York Times Motherlode blog has been chewing at me since I read it. Go read it and come back.

I’ve turned it over in my head from as many angles that have occurred to me, and can still not come to a conclusive decision about how I feel about this. These are just a few of things that have gone through my head about the story:

Is it just me, or did Anita Tedaldi seem overly focused on her feelings about attachment, and less so about her son’s? I cannot imagine what it must be like to experience a disrupted adoption, so I apologize if this statement sounds judgmental, as it's not meant to be.
Although she said she’d prepared herself for the attachment issues that would certainly accompany the adoption of an older child, why was she so surprised when they came to be?
Why would the agency have placed D with a family in which one parent was so often away? Anita herself mentions that she was prepared for the fact that D and her husband might not attach.
Am I wrong in wondering why an agency would have elected to place D in this particular family situation, where one parent traveled for long periods of time? I’m not suggesting that a traditional two-parent home was the only solution, rather that whatever parents were in the picture needed to be totally committed to this little boy. I get the feeling from the article that the husband wasn’t. I think, too, that relationships are strained at the best of times by long deployments, which is another reason I’m scratching my head at why this particular couple was deemed to be the best adoptive parents for this particular child.
Did she give herself and her son enough time to make the decision to terminate the adoption?
What was the husband’s role? The comments Anita makes about his absence and the impact of the adoption on their relationship makes me wonder if she didn’t make the decision to adopt more on her own than jointly with her husband. Something doesn’t sit right about that.
Anita was in close contact with her social worker, Jennifer. It seems to me, though, that Jennifer didn’t seem to offer much guidance (unless Anita just didn’t write about that), but instead found another family quickly for D. There could be a reason for this; I have no subject knowledge of attachment issues.
There's a part of me that believes that this adoption was terminated too quickly. Another part of me thinks (maybe it's wishful thinking) that D will do better with Samantha, a psychologist, and her family. I just don't know.

Of course, the one who has suffered the most and is discussed the least in this article is D. This little boy had clearly suffered trauma before he was placed with Anita, and now he has a second separation and rejection in his life. It makes me incredibly sad, especially since, in my non-professional opinion, greater care in identifying an appropriate adoptive family in the first place may have avoided.

So sad, no matter which way you look at it.

Edited 8-28-09 to add: With thanks to Malinda, something to get you scratching your head even more: an article written in January 2008 by Anita Tedaldi, the author of the NYT post I reference here, entitled We Can't Trade In Our Children or Husbands.

Don't Misses 8-24-09

2009-08-24T13:06:00.002-04:00

Since the summer heat and breakneck pace of my life at the moment have rendered me pretty much speechless on the subject of adoption, the very least I can do for you all is share the things that have crossed my path recently.

Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network

It's exciting to announce that the Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network founded by Dr. Richard Boas has launched its website. The organization, which provides assistance to Korean women seeking to parent their children and information to the world about their experience, has been working toward a public presence since its inception. Please bookmark it and share the news. Kudos and congratulations to the entire staff of KUMSN, and to the women who have bravely come forward to share their stories and support others.

Fugitive Visions: An Adoptee's Return to Korea

I've clearly been asleep at the wheel for awhile, because it somehow had slipped past me that Jane Jeong Trenka was working on a new book. Fortunately, I got the word as soon as it was released, and received my copy last week. This book is very different from Jane's memoir The Language of Blood and Outsiders Within, the collection of essays on transracial and international adoption on which Jane collaborated. This book is personal, but in a more compelling, intriguing way. I've just begun, but am hooked.

Link to Alison Larkin's interview on Strategy Room

2009-08-20T10:28:00.003-04:00

Hey, everyone, I haven't fallen off the earth - just a lot going on with the kids.

In case you didn't see it yesterday, click here to see the interview Alison Larkin gave on Fox Strategy Room yesterday. It was really good, so spread it far and wide! I love the way Uma Pemmaraju asked to keep in touch with Alison at the end of the interview (I hope that part is in this video) - it's good to have allies in the media!

Thanks for giving the interview, Alison, you were great!

Hiatus for a little longer

2009-08-10T07:48:00.006-04:00

There's a reason for my hiatus: The paperwork to make The Girl's college experience possible is overwhelming, and The Boy has been getting ready to move into his new townhouse. Today's the day; we're packed and will be leaving shortly.

Back soon, I hope.

Welcome home, Euna and Laura!

2009-08-05T10:24:00.002-04:00

This video brings tears to my eyes. Of course the politicians are debating the wisdom of Bill's visit, along with all the diplomatic implications, but as a mom I can tell you that I'm glad someone was willing to bring Euna Lee and Laura Ling home.

Welcome home, Euna and Laura!!