A hot topic in the adoption community is “positive adoption language.” As with political correctness, the definition of positive adoption terminology lies in murky waters, with no popular consensus of what is proper. Arguments for why biological mothers should be called “natural mothers,” “birth mothers” or “first mothers” are highly charged with personal preferences based on experience. I have yet to find my own comfort zone with any of these terms.
I am reminded of several conversations that I have had with my fellow adoptee friends regarding some other issues related to language in adoption. Although some people who listen in on adoptees might fault us for being hypersensitive, or for misinterpreting the good intent or humor behind an expression, I think that – as with any discussion of adoption – it’s important to acknowledge adoptees’ viewpoints as valid.
I encourage everyone to consider the many ways in which what one person intends as playful or innocent can impact others quite differently, and sometimes even do harm.
Consider the ways that the concepts of “intent” and “impact” interact with each other in sexual harassment and discrimination law: It is the impact of the behavior, not the intent of the person who carried out the action, that determines whether or not harassment or discimination has occurred. In the civil rights context of racism, victims of racial prejudice would be in a much worse position if the alleged intent of the person in the position of power were allowed to take precedence over the impact of the action.
Similarly, when caught up in celebrating adoption, what is intended as lighthearted and humorous can carry a much different impact and may be perceived quite differently.
Those active in the online adoption community may be familiar with a certain graphic that graces various adoption items available at an online shop. The graphic depicts what, upon first glance, appears to be the kind of ultrasound image that expectant mothers flash to friends and relatives – but this is no typical ultrasound. The blur inside the screen is not a fetus, but a geographical map, labeled “China.”
Neocolonialism at its worst
The China ultrasound is available for purchase on T-shirts and gifts for waiting adoptive parents, and has been making rounds on adoptive parent blogs and Internet discussion groups. I’ve noticed that most adoptive mothers consider it “cute,” “lighthearted” and “fun.”
And why not? As an adoptee, I get that life can’t be all doom, gloom and grief over adoption losses around the clock, and that everyone deserves a reprieve now and then from the neverending carousel of adoption guilt. For parents, building a family is, after all, something to celebrate. For many, becoming a parent is a process filled with joy and rewards – an experience my husband and I look forward to someday sharing.
Why not? Consider the impact.
What is bothersome to me about the T-shirts, cards and other “Gotcha Day delights” that bear this graphic is that:
- A sonogram, which typically shows a developing fetus, instead shows an entire country here. This would suggest to me that the owner of this particular uterus is going to be in for one painful labor and delivery. (”Here it comes! I can see Guangdong province! Congratulations! It’s … an entire post-communist nation!”)
- Adoption is forced into a framework of pregnancy in this image when, in fact, adoption is a choice made instead of pregnancy, or a choice made in cases when pregnancy is not possible.
- Therefore, are we to understand from the image that adoption is to be regarded as something that’s just like pregnancy? “As good as” pregnancy? That the adopted child is “as good as” a birthed child? These ideas point to an insinuation that pregnancy is the standard that adoption strives to live up to – that pregnancy is “the real thing,” and adoption is a substitute. Whether intended or not, the impact places adoptees in the shadow of biological ties, where many of us feel a sense of inadequacy already.
- If it were a domestic adoption instead, would it seem as clever to make up a sonogram image of the United States? Would the joke be apparent? Whereas, because the sonogram displays China, it’s enough to invoke good cheer and a round of cigars.
Especially disturbing is that, pictured upon an ultrasound imaging screen, China is reduced to a baby market. Depicted this way, adopting from China becomes a practice that’s less about the welfare of an individual child and closer to regarding China as a grab bag of available babies.
What other countries would be acceptable to illustrate in this way? South Korea? Ukraine? Guatemala? Ethiopia? Would people be as quick to pick up on the purported humor if it were a lesser known nation? What does this say about the way that those of us living in “receiving” nations see these “source” nations?
What about the Canadians and Europeans who are adopting African-American babies out of the United States? I wonder how many Americans, steeped in post-9/11, flag-waving patriotism, would see the humor in (or even grasp the point of) foreign nationals wearing shirts bearing sonograms of the USA.
Especially when dealing with intercountry adoptions, it’s important to bear in mind the inherent power relationships and the classist, possibly racist overtones that these images and ideas suggest. One culture has become dependent upon intercountry adoption due to social and economic distress. We should work toward identifying and solving the socioeconomic problems that have resulted in this dependency, instead of falling into the kind of complacency that makes it acceptable to make light of that situation.
At any rate, in light of this “expecting China” image, I can’t help but think that the most fitting outcome would be for wearers of the China sonogram shirts to receive referrals containing the photo and writeup of a 72-year-old Chinese man, or the residents of an entire Hubei village. Now that I would like to see.
Going hand-in-hand with the China ultrasound: Recently when I told some fellow adoptees that some waiting adoptive parents refer to their waiting period as “paper pregnancies,” jaws fell open. Eyebrows arched in incredulous surprise. It was a classic moment when intent didn’t line up with impact.
Quite suggestive that a made-up term, intended to be harmless and cute — like the China-stuffed-inside-the-womb image — places the preparation & waiting stage of adoption into the lexicon of pregnancy.
So it’s considered playful and clever for adoptive mothers to be “paper pregnant,” but why aren’t expectant mothers awaiting – I don’t know – “intrauterine referrals”? It’s a ridiculous analogy, to be certain. But only as ridiculous as being “paper pregnant.”
Whether adoptive parents realize it or not, or intend it as such or not, outfitting adoption in the trappings of pregnancy sets the biological child up as the invisible benchmark against which adoption and the adoptee are measured.
Although many adoptive parents have insisted that the China sonogram image and “paper pregnancy” are simply two ways to indicate their “waiting parent” status in a society that is fixated on baby bumps, is placing adoption within a context of pregnancy setting a potentially unhealthy tone for adoptive families – and disrespecting birth mothers?
It should go without saying that adoption is different from giving birth. I wonder why we must make adoption into something to be held up alongside the meter stick of “the real thing.” Because pregnancy is the golden ticket — and adoption, well, that’s OK, too? Not only does this set up the adoptee for a hellish marathon foot race to prove oneself worthy of this complimentary “real child” status, it deletes the birth mother from the adoption equation.
In some instances, marginalizing the birth mother can result from a selfish need to assert oneself as the only mother figure. But perhaps more often, it comes from otherwise very sensitive adoptive mothers who feel threatened or hurt that their adoptive children could think that they — and the mother-child bond between them — are not real.
Growing up, I pushed my mom to the limit on several occasions, and I remember times when she would answer back, “I am your real mom.” And that would end the exchange.
I wonder what things might have been like if instead she had said something such as, “Your mother who gave birth to you lives in Korea. Someday if you want to find out more about her, I would like to help you try to do that.” What possibilities might have grown out of that – a simple, honest and respectful statement?
It’s too late for what ifs, but nevertheless, I believe my mom’s response was a very human reaction, full of pain, sweat and love. I honor that my mom is my mom, as she is to my three siblings, and that was her way of asserting her authenticity.
Yet the part that still stings is that, frequently, masked behind that kind of defensive strike is an (unintentional) implication: “I am your one true mom, and thou shalt have no other false moms.” Unintended, or even maybe if intended, the impact is severe. My mom didn’t intend to discount my Korean mother, but by not acknowledging her role in my life, the impact was far-reaching.
In my years as part of the adoption community, I have seen lots of adoptive moms frantically searching for ways to prove this authentic mother-child bond to the world. And why wouldn’t they feel obligated to produce this proof? Mothers of transracially adopted children are subjected to a similar brand of scrutiny that transracial adoptees are subjected to.
“Is she your child?” “Are you his mother?” “Where did you get her?” “How much did he cost?”
In the face of that obsessive, intrusive battery of questions, a part of me can understand why those “I heart adoption/Korea/China/Russia” and “red thread” T-shirts exist, as a preemptive strike to clarify the origins of the adoptive parent/child relationship.
But — and I know I might be beating a dead ladybug here — so many of the other strategies I see chosen (”paper pregnancy,” the China womb, even taking medications to induce lactation for the purposes of adoptive breastfeeding)often seem to hint at an underlying desire to “complete” the bond by simulating or replacing a blood bond. Aspiring to biology, to stand in for the things that the birth mother would have given the child (and in many cases did provide before the adoption). Maybe even to wipe the slate clean and start over at Chapter 1 with an empty page, waiting to be filled up with the spoken and unspoken language of adoption-as-pregnancy, adoption-as-amniotic-fluid, adoption-as-real, adoption-as-good-enough.
As an adoptee, even after birth family reunion, I’d like to theorize that my Chapter 1 was written long before my earliest memories of the crib where I slept in my mom and dad’s bedroom as a baby and toddler. And even with the previously blank spaces in the puzzle of my genetic makeup now largely filled in, it frustrates me to no end that Chapter 1 will never fully be mine to know. Chapter 1 was scribbled out and written over, and I keep flipping back to where the preface should be, but it’s written in a foreign dialect that I do not comprehend.
Obviously, these choices — to authenticate the parent-child bond — are individual choices, and each parent shall do what she believes is appropriate, ethical and, let’s hope, best for each adopted child.
As an adopted person who has inherited two different ancestries from two different women, however, I feel strongly that a prerequisite to adopting must be an understanding, acceptance and willingness to embrace these truths: (1) that an adopted child is born to another woman’s body and genetic legacy, and (2) that raising that child will involve a special commitment to nourishing a manifestation of physiological and emotional DNA that is not one’s own biological offspring.
Nature asserts itself in the nooks and crannies where nurture sometimes cannot reach.
Let’s face it: For many adoptive parents, adoption is plan B – after pregnancy doesn’t happen. After infertility. After having biological kids first. Yet even after committing to adopting, so much is said and acted out that places pregnancy and biological kids in coveted slot #1, and adoption and adopted kids in slot #2.
Adopted kids are not consolation prizes. Adoption is not a substitution. Adopting is not rescuing. Adopting is not charity. Adopting is not rewriting. Adopting is not temporary. Adoption does not reverse losses. Adopting is not just like or as good as giving birth.
As adoptees, we have a unique family history, though much of it is hidden from us. We deserve to learn about our heritage firsthand or through unbiased sources, rather than in a context of “better than”/”worse than.” We deserve to know the truth about our origins, even if it means acknowledging unknowns. We deserve more from our life stories than fake sonogram images and paper births standing in for honest discussion – because even if these things are intended only for the amusement of the adoptive parent, the impact can reach far beyond.
A safe list of “positive adoption language” evades us. I believe instead in the power of honest language — and as we all know, children are often the most honest ones among us.
- Young adoptees who ask about their “real parents” deserve real answers. Adoptive moms and dads aren’t the only kind of real moms and dads. Birth parents are real, too. Admitting to this won’t mean that the adopted child will feel any less attached to his or her adoptive parent.
- Our adoptive mothers didn’t physically give birth to us — and entertaining cute language about metaphorical births and pregnancies sets a tone that suggests that the truth about adoption isn’t OK to discuss. Though it might seem humorous initially, the humor has a way of wearing off as the adopted individual comes to realize that his or her origins are the real butt of that joke.
- Children should not be taught that their parents’ love is more authentic if their origins are disguised as births or rebirths. The slate cannot be wiped clean.
- Adoption is tough for parents to explain to children — especially when it comes to addressing the responsibilities and difficult decisions that went into their placements and adoptions. Yet if the parents aren’t willing to tackle those dialogues, then perhaps they should reconsider whether adoption is right for them. There will be even tougher questions than those ahead.
- Adoption is not the same thing as giving birth, and likewise, raising an adopted child will involve a different set of tools at times. Acknowledging the differences, respecting the adoptee’s origins, and treating adoption as its own distinct method of providing a family for a child — rather than dressing it up as a biological bond — is a part of being wholly committed to adoption.
- Preparing to adopt involves accepting that one’s child will not be a product of one’s own gene pool. Suggesting that an adopted child is “as good as” a biological child can convey the idea that the biological bond is the ultimate standard to aspire to, while adoptive families are merely passable with the right dose of optimism.
Intent does not always speak the same language as impact. Please be mindful that something intended as harmless and humorous might really be making adoption out as the punchline.
…and the truth shall set you free.
Thanks Ji-in well said! WOW! and a standing ovation…
I can understand a lot of where you’re coming from. I appreciate the desire to avoid trying to make adoption into something it isn’t (a pregnancy/birth experience).
I can also see, though I somewhat disagree with, the racist undertones that you see in the image; I think many adoptive parents would be ecstatic to have the USA or Arizona on an ultrasound picture, too.
But, mostly, I think that, until you’ve sat in a room with pregnant women passing around their ultrasound pictures, telling birth stories, and completely ignoring the fact that you, too, will soon have a child in your arms, you cannot completely understand that graphic. It is, as I read it, an attempt to assert one’s expectant parent status, to start a conversation with someone else about impending parenthood.
Pregnant women’s bellies make them obvious; people talk to them about babies and parenting (sometimes more than they’d like!). Adoptive parents, on the other hand, are largely invisible and can miss out on that sense of community unless they find ways to make others aware that they will soon be parents. T-shirts like this can be a conversation-starter. I think that’s pretty much the extent of it.
Dear god almighty this is why I love your blog. You speak the truth perfectly and eloquently and with such honesty. Thank you. I too live with a deep conviction that the truth is always preferrable than the alternatives. I do not wish my daughter grew in my belly because then she would not be her. I love her. Not the idea of a bio daughter that she is standing in for. She is not a replacement for a biological daughter. I am not her only mother and I am no more or less real than her birth mother.
DS-L
Thank you, for taking the time to write this with such honesty, tact, and beauty. I found myself reading and then re-reading each paragraph…and soaking it in. I have never understood the sonogram thing, the need to claim the “real” mom role…my older sister was adopted out of foster care, and we have always called her birth mom/dad just that….her mom and dad.
Rambling here..sorry. Just really wanted to say thank you.
Take care.
This is terrific. Thanks.
Ji-in, I love this post, and thank you for saying something about those damn Lonely Planet-esque China “sonograms.” I cringe everytime I see them. Can people not see how seriously offensive they are? As though they are aspiring to save all of China through their “noble act” of adoption? I would love to witness Canadians & Europeans wearing “USA sonogram” clothing. On a related note, I’ve often wondered, if Japan (I’m picking Japan because let’s face it, it’s one of the most economically advanced East Asian countries and the birth rate is falling, so they might really be open to this, never know) began transracially adopting hordes of Caucasian American children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, what would the backlash be?
The only thing where I dissent from your post is when AP’s try to induce lactation. I know some people find it unsavory, and it’s not my particular cup of tea, but I respect that choice if it’s because they’re trying to give the babies the best nutrition they can and to bond with them. I know it borders on creepy, but considering that many cultures have used/still use wet nurses (my Chinese-born grandmother had a wet nurse), I guess I admire people who are willing to try. I do concede though that there are probably some people out there who seek this route to try and replicate the biological mother’s experience, which may not be the best reason.
Thanks, folks, for all your thoughts.
Kendra (re: “I think many adoptive parents would be ecstatic to have the USA or Arizona on an ultrasound picture, too.”): True, you are probably right that APs would be just as happy to be ‘expecting’ domestically, but my point wasn’t what would make APs happy — in part, my point was that there’s a more loaded connotation where China and other adoption ’source nations’ are involved, and to be sensitive to the messages these things can unintentionally send.
Regarding the 2nd part of your comment, Zoe: In another discussion of adoptive breastfeeding with others off-blog, the topic arose of wet nurses and other instances in which women who are already lactating nurse other women’s babies.
To me, wet nurses and ABF are two different topics for two main reasons: (1) The wet nurse is already lactating naturally to begin with, and (2) wet nurses are not taking over as the child’s mother. (Perhaps the roles involved in wet nursing and adoptive mothering overlap and relate to each other, but I still think it’s quite different.)
Another gray area is that the practice of ABF often occurs in cases where the adopted child is well past infancy, and has already been bottle-fed/formula-fed for several months by caregivers or foster mothers. I am *not* saying that adoptive moms have no right to do this — as I stated before, these choices are the individual’s choices — and I have read up on many reasons for and against ABF.
Also, just wanted to point out in general that that I am certainly not contesting a woman’s right to breastfeed, nor am I coming down on all a-moms who choose to do so. In my post, I only meant to point out the other factors that have to do with the way the adopted child benefits or doesn’t benefit from certain choices related to biological motherhood/pregnancy, including ABF.
And regarding ABF specifically, don’t forget to consider that domperidone, the medication used to enhance lactation, is
not currently FDA approved in the US and is not approved in any country for lactation. (See also here and here.) The use of domperidone remains controversial, with anecdotal evidence & compelling arguments on both sides. As long as there is any question, however, I personally wouldn’t be willing to take a risk. Again, it’s certainly a big individual choice, given all the facts.
Right on! So true, so true.
That “born in mommy’s heart” stuff is just so messed up. It’s really all about making the mommy feel better, not the kid. What’s wrong with saying “no, I didn’t give birth to you, your birth mother did. And I love you no matter what.”
As for the ABF, I don’t have a problem with wetnursing, since there’s already natural breastmilk involved, lik eyou said. But that drug-induced stuff? And when baby’s already … no longer a baby? Other women can do whatever they want, but I would not take that chance with MY baby. Oh and if I found out that MY a-mom had tried to force her nipples on me when I was adopted? Um, I don’t even want to imagine that.
Ji-in,
This was a true revelation to me. I have to own up to being guilty of previously finding t-shirts like those ‘cute’ and harmless, and I also have to admit to the other things you bring up, like calling my pre-adoption waiting period my ‘paper pregnancy,’ insisting that I would be the child’s real/true mother, and not thinking enough about my child’s birth mom, who was the one who went through the real/true pregnancy and then had to say goodbye. I even have been researching ABF in preperation for my second adoptive child.
I am grateful to you for your blog because even though it’s hard to read sometimes, it truly does make me sit up and take notice and then take a good, hard look at myself and my motivations and actions. So I thank you for that. Because of the things you bring up, I realize that perhaps ABF is not the right thing for me and my child-to-be. Please keep writing and speaking your truth. It really does reach some of us where it is needed most.
Humbly,
Mary Ellen
Fantastic! This is the line that really, really cut through a lot of the illusion for me: “Though it might seem humorous initially, the humor has a way of wearing off as the adopted individual comes to realize that her/his origins are the real butt of that joke.”
This is so true. So much of the cutesy jokes (I’m thinking of the “Don’t we look alike?” idiocy) and “made in Korea” silliness really is making light of the adoptee’s origins. If adoptive parents could get that, that it’s belittling and insulting to the adoptee’s heritage, I think there would be far less of those tacky kinds of Tshirts and ridiculous jokes being held up as acceptable ways to talk about adoption.
DianaH beat me to it, but I also wanted to immediately leap to my feet and give you a standing O on this one.
Thanks for a wonderful post.
I have to say I’m with Zoe on the induced lactation subject. P2H and I have been down the infertility road (6 pregnancies and only one living child) and we have talked about adopting at various times. Before Noodle was born, I probably wouldn’t have thought about ABF, but now that I’ve been a breastfeeding mom before (having nursed Noodle for 2 years) I would definitely consider it if a)we adopted a young infant and b) I could produce enough milk without domperidone. “B” would be highly likely for me if I started using a good breast pump often and early enough. I was a champion milk-producer.
And yes, the bonding aspect of it would be a factor in it. I know that the bond that I have with Noodle is partly due to the fact that I nursed her. Breastfeeding produces not only a physical bond but a chemical bond as well, with the woman’s body reacting to the proteins and hormones in the baby’s saliva and adjusting the milk accordingly.
First, what does ABF mean?
Secondly, wonderful post. As an adoptive mom to an almost 6 year old born in India, it gives me a lot to think about in regards to the truths I tell my pipsqueak.
Kikilia
Thanks so much for this post.
I’m adopting and get tired of people trying to make me “feel better” about adopting by comparing it to a pregnancy. I also cringe when adoptive parents want to notice how much they look like their children, or vice versa, as if they need the resemblance to prove a familial bond, even when they are of different races, etc. What is that gaze seeking to ignore, I wonder?
Next time I see someone’s real sonogram, maybe I should refer to it almost as good as a referral. Going into labor? Oh, that is almost as good as going to the airport! Ugh.
Wow. Excellent post. I agree with so much of what you said. I especially thank you for your critique of the China sonogram image. My husband and I have always found the image disturbing but have not been able to fully articulate why. Your explanation helps me to clarify my own thoughts.
Addtionally, I am considering breastfeeding my not-yet adopted child, and I am currently researching the various pros and cons. Your point that ABF is problematic in the context of women trying to replicate a biological connection with the child is very good. I hadn’t thought about the issue in that particular context before.
Right on the mark. Thank you.
Now – why is this truth so threatening to some a-parents? I truly am trying to understand that, but so far no luck
Thank you, Ji-in. You’ve expressed many of my own thoughts beautifully. It’s very tough to take those thoughts and translate them into words others can understand.
Oddly enough, it’s not just adoptees that must come to terms with the difference in DNA.
STANDING O, STANDING O!
Thank you, Ji-in, thank you. Eloquent, thoughtful, powerful and well-said. Hats off, lots of jumping up and down and yelling and fan adoration going on here.
Love the positive adoption language and this, too: “Nature asserts itself in the nooks and crannies where nurture sometimes cannot reach.”
If I could send you kimchi and mandu and chocolate, I would. Hugs!
For me, I guess the question is for whom does she lactate (apologies to Hemingway). Is ABF for the child or is it for a-mother’s emotional need? I am all for breastfeeding, both for nourishment and bonding – but if it becomes something to fulfill a-mother’s own emotional need and that only, I will raise an eyebrow.
Although I respect the need for being recognized as expectant parents, I don’t respect the China sonogram on a t-shirt route… because it shows insensitivity, general tackiness, and gross exhibitionism. Yes, when I was pregnant, I had no choice but for everyone to know that I am expecting. However, I didn’t wear PN’s picture on my shirts to make sure that all random strangers knew that I was expecting a hapa baby… in fact, most strangers suspected that I was carrying a full blooded Chinese or Japanese baby. I didn’t feel the need to let them know how wrong they were.
Word.
Ji-in,
I can only echo what DS-L said: “You speak the truth perfectly and eloquently and with such honesty.”
I’m right there with you in agreement on every point you analyze in your post.
Thank-you.
Hear hear. As a potential adoptive mother, I thank you for this post.
not to excessively butter your buns or anything, but this post totally rocks.
Wow! And again, Wow!
Thank you for putting into (excellent) words what I could only raise an eyebrow and scrunch my nose over the sonogram.
Your ‘power of honest language’ list should be expanded into a booklet for all adoption agencies and social workers to train/use & distribute to AP’s.
You continue to stun me with how effective a job you do!
– RayU
Excellent blog. It’s so sick to think of some countries (or some groups of people such as single parents) as nothing but the source of babies for adoption customers.
Some adoptive people do actually provide a home for a child who has no family and some people do try to support naive or vulnerable family members in staying together. But adopting usually contributes to unnecessary family separation, with adoption businesses taking advantage of family members who perhaps needed only a little support (moral or otherwise) to obtain “adoptable” infants for customers.
The product of the adoption agency is the illusion of “real parenthood”. “Positive adoption language” is really just a sleight-of-hand trick of the adoption industry, making it seem like the baby buyer will become a “real parent” and the actual family simply cease to exist.
I have to say that I agree with pretty much everything you say. And I must also confess that I’ve been guilty of being the person you describe to an extent. I haven’t purchased the items you’ve described, but didn’t see your point of view until you gave it. I appreciate that.
There is one thing I’d like to offer another viewpoint on and that is some of the vocabulary. I do not consider myself pregnant in any way, but I do consider myself in-waiting for my child. I think for many people terms like this came about from trying to explain the adoption process to others by relating one to the other. I’ve heard it described, and have done so myself, as comparing the “paperchase” to trying to get pregnant and that wait as being “paper pregnant” because you’re in the stage of knowing you will be united with a child and waiting. Simplistic? Yes. Insensitive? Maybe. But I don’t think it was meant to offend. I know that as I’ve become aware, my thoughts have changed. As we know better, we do better. (Though I’ve loved ladybugs since childhood and won’t give them up.
))
Magi — Yes, I agree that none of these things are probably meant to offend. However, we *should* all know by now that good intentions alone don’t cut it. Adoption language — spoken and unspoken — is often designed to be sensitive to/for the adoptive parents, or to reward or comfort the adoptive parents, but doesn’t take into account the ramifications it has on the way the adoptee sees herself or himself, and the ways that it erases the birth parents from the picture. So much of the adoption language is crafted to talk everyone into embracing the adoptive family unit as the ONLY family unit, and is afraid to start at and go forth from square 1: the actual pregnancy/birth.
Somebody up there in the comments asked what ABF meant. If you haven’t already figured that one out, ABF stands for adoptive breastfeeding. After much research and agonizing, I have decided against ABF for my child. It’s not worth the risks just to replicate what basically is (whatever you wanna call it) a biological mother-infant bond. I’d even go farther and say that breastfeeding is a ‘perk’ a bio mom gets to enjoy, and that’s part of the acceptance of adoption, accepting and commiting to taking alternate routes to parenting an adopted child.
A good (well, good on some days) friend of mine chose ABF for her child, and as much as I try to be supportive of her choices, I was kind of turned off by her explanation as to why she chose ABF. For her, the need to synthesize a physical, bio-like bond with her child was her #1 reason. Nutritionally? Her baby was ELEVEN months old when she came to her and had been on bottle formula already. Is it any surprise that the child resisted ABF? I actually felt bad for the kid.
Not to mention the risks of pumping all that semi-illegally obtained domperidon into the body when the jury is still out on its safety and uses.
Anyway, loved everything you wrote in this post. It’s all very true, and needs to be heard.
There is a really great post somwhere on the blog world, and I apologize for not giving credit where credit is due, but basically it breaks it down to the idea of intent and impact.
These kinds of ideas, concepts and promotional items that express the idea of “paper pregnancy” and China in utero are surely not meant with any intent to offend.
However, they do, to some adoptees. And that’s where we may need to look at the impact of these items.
So many adoptive parents or waiting a-parents get very defensive when adoptees call them out for these kinds of things – the “red thread” stories and the ladybugs, etc. Because it wasn’t their intent to offend, and they are just excited and want to share.
But, if while insisting that there is no intent to offend, you are silencing or invalidating the impact to adoptees, then that is where the adoptees begin to recognize that it’s more about the a-parents needs than the adoptees.
This is a wonderful post. Parents–adoptive or bio–have to let children make their own way through their own issues at some point, and we have such an obligation with adopted children to let them have their own space to work out their identities and personal/cultural relationships. I have no idea what questions or feelings my daughter will have for or about her birth parents (or first parents, or parents–I use all those terms in part as a way of explicitly showing her that they are all available to her. She gets to decide how to call them.) But I want to prepare her so that whatever her questions are, she can get them answered. Some of those answers she can get from me, others she’ll need to get on her own. You’re so right.
Ji-in you are my HERO! seriously…you can put into words what I think and feel in my heart but can’t say half as eloquently or articulately. I LOVE YOU! ^_________^
Thank you, very very insightful.
As a birth mom, I have to agree that the idea of paper pregnancies, and trying to compare adopting to pregnancy is distasteful to me. It seems to me to merely be another way to devalue the mother who did give birth. The shirt? I feel similarly about it – I think it is tasteless, and not funny. Adoptive moms breast feeding….hmmm, I am not fond of that idea either.
Adopting is different and should be honored for its differences, not attempt to make it “as good as”.
Great post – wonderful writing! Thanks for a great read.
Brilliant. Incisive. Should be printed on brightly colored paper and added to the information packet given by adoption agencies to every prospective adoptive family.
Thank you so much for putting it all in words and sharing with us.
I love both my bio daughter and a-son. There are some weird similarities between pregnancy and adoption, but I have never once tried to hide the truth of either from my children.
As both a b-mom and a-mom, I felt some emotional similarities while pregs and adopting. So what? Does it hurt to have similarities? Both of my kids know where they came from and they both know how much I love them.
I’ve never seen those t-shirts and hate the term “Gotcha Day.” I’m just a mom, not a walking advertisement or PSA.
I didn’t state my thoughts well. I do understand harmful things can be done with the best of intentions. I was in no way trying to condone them. I was just trying to explain how when I was first exposed to them, I didn’t see the harm. I didn’t even think beyond the surface of them. I thought most were kind of silly, but more like they just weren’t my style than for any other reason. It wasn’t until I started educating myself on the process that I realized how they could be perceived. There are a lot of I’s in this statement, but it’s because I can only speak for myself in this process. As I continue to read and learn, I am thinking about how things will appear to my child 10, 15, 20 years from now. I hope this is going to make me a better parent, teacher, and human.
I think I was just trying to say that I’m glad you wrote this post. You have a wonderful way with words. It’s posts like this written by you and others that is helping me to learn. It will also help other people leave behind the distasteful vocabulary and images and the misappropriated legends.
I’m getting it, and so are others. Don’t lose hope.
Couldn’t agree more. Thank you for stating so eloquently what so many of us are thinking and can’t adequately express. Wishing I had your gift for words.
Great post, I agree with everything you put into words. I just discovered it today and plan to visit frequently to learn and hopefully find some answers to some of the questions that arise every time I read or hear something from a KAA who is not fond of international adoptions.
However, I do wonder about what seems to be an underlying — (annoyance/anger/frustration/etc.) insert the correct word, with APs. Yes, I am an “AP” to two young children recently adopted from Korea for whom I want to provide a loving, happy, safe and culturally diverse home. I openly embrace any avenue and resource which will educate and assist me in my quest to provide what my two children need in their life.
The drug-induced breast feeding concerns me for the health and safety of the children. It also creeps me out as I have always thought that it was an attempt to replicate the biological parent factor and have thought that one day we will read of “birth re-inactments” conducted by “APs”. I agree, a wet nurse is something totally different and very valuable in most cases. (I had never heard of “paper pregnancy”, but OK, I am not totally surprised, but definitely put off.)
I do not understand the reference to adopted children being “as good as” being a bad thing. Maybe I just need to go back and re-read some of you post.
It is refreshing to read information that is strait forward and not PC, while not being rude or intentionally offensive.
Thank you!
Re: Belen’s comment about AP birth re-enactments …
Some of my (brilliant) TRA friends brought up the parts of “The Handmaid’s Tale” (essential reading by the always-excellent Margaret Atwood) where the wives act out labor & delivery simultaneously while the handmaids give birth to the babies. Creepy, for sure, but I would venture to guess that for some APs, this type of re-enactment is not so far off from what some are currently doing. I would not be shocked if this kind of adoption rebirth ritual is just around the corner.
(changing to Sara_2 because at least one other Sara seems to read the same things I do)
If you Google rebirthing attachment adoption
you will find that “rebirthing” is already a technique practiced in the adoption community though fortunately not much accepted.
Good God, what horrid T-shirts and other assorted crap. You know, CafePress pretty much IS America – it allows anyone with a cheesy idea to merchandise the hell out of it. : )
Brilliant post.
What an amazing post. I am now an official fan.
I plan on trying to ABF, but I won’t have to relactate because I’m lactating now. I won’t use questionable drugs and I didn’t with my twins when my supply dwindled. When fenugreek didn’t work, I gave them formula.
But I don’t get what is wrong with ABF. What is wrong with trying to attach to your baby? I would never try to convince myself that ABF is an attempt to “replicate” the biological ties” because I wouldn’t be fooling anyone, including myself. I mean, come on. My SIL has given her milk to my baby before. It’s FOOD. I do think babies deserve to be breastfed (even adopted babies) if it is possible without endangering your relationship (if baby hates it) or your health (questionable drugs). Breastfeeding is good nutrition *even for 1 year olds*, and it sure makes night feeding easier!
As for me, I don’t care whether my friends support it or not. A lot of things about breastfeeding don’t seem to be understood by a lot of people.
Thanks yet again for honesty, eloquence (damn, you’re awesome at putting your thoughts into words!), and hitting the nail on the head.
I’m an a-parent and have long taken the very unpopular view (unpopoular among a-parents) that much of the extreme bonding “activities” (ABF, Holding Therapy, etc.) that a-parents do ar NOT so much for the child, but are to make the parent feel better about never having resolved the loss they feel by not having had a bio child.
Thanks for making me feel normal.
Well said Ji-in!
I dislike the term “paper pregnancy” as well but after having gone through the adoption process once, I know that it comes with huge hormonal and emotional upheavals just like in a pregnancy or having PMS for months at a time!!! (Fortunately not the morning sickness part!) But that is where we need NEW words instead of comparing it to a pregnancy – on some of my adoption groups we called them the BWDs – Bad Waiting Days…when emotions ran high…
Very nice post. I remember the first time I saw a friend wearing one of those baby-in-china t-shirts. She and her husband had submitted an application to China and she had the kind of shirt with the country and the arrow. I found it, well creepy, as though there was some baby factory in China and she was going there to pick-up a child. I watched her explain the t-shirt to a child [8-9 year old] and saw this totally confused look pass over the child’s face.
I have to say the “real” mother issue is awfully hard. One problem I find is that I need to arm my kid with something to say to other kids who question the validity of our relationship. The words the other kids have used are “real mother” and “real father”–any explanation that doesn’t immediate invalidate the questioner is just too hard for a 6-7-8 year old. At home we do talk about birth parents and the possibility/or not of finding them–we try to balence things. But when it comes down to playground level, I am the “real” mama because I brush hair, make breakfast, bandage wounds, enforce rules, revoke priviledges etc.
I think what bothers me the most when it comes to international adoption are the adoptive parents who say \”We did not want to do domestic because we did not want to have to deal with birth parents.\” As if a baby adopted from another country somehow does not have birth parents, no genetic history, you get a clean slate. I guess what they really mean is they do not want to be suckered into an open adoption, where they have to constantly deal with the needy birth parents shadowing their every move (I think that is their perception anyways). Or perhaps they feel they would always have to prove themselves worthy, in the eyes of the birth family, of parenting the child. Either way, I believe there are issues there that do not belong in an adoption.
Reality is that adopted children should always have a link available to their genetic AND cultural history, and adoptive parents are always going to need thick skin.
I’ve always found that China-ultrasound picture repulsive, for the reasons everyone lists above. I do appreciate what you say in this post, and that you are so willing to share your perspective. That said, I am really tired of trying to dance around words and terms, trying to make everyone happy from those who don’t understand adoption to those who are adopting. I can’t do it. I’ll never succeed, and neither will anyone else. While a lot of this adoption double and triple-speak makes me squirm, and I do try to be sensitive and careful, I don’t think policing my every utterence will make me a better parent, adoptive or otherwise.
Ji-in,
Just saw your post today. Very well said. The China sonogram is horrible and offensive and personally the idea of simulating a rebirth through forcing breast-feeding etc. is strange.
I guess the issue I am struggling with is that as a now waiting AP since the slowdown – we the parents “get it” and have been working to understand this issue for two years now – but I am just now starting to tell people outside the family about the adoption – wanted to wait until we had a referral, but since that has been put on hold.. I just get these “that’s great” big smiles, but then they ask “aren’t you going to try again” even some family members do this – it is so discouraging and I am concerned that they will see the child as a consolation prize – that scares me terribly as we definitely do not feel this way.
This was POWERFUL and I hope a million people read it.
“As an adoptee, even after birth family reunion, I’d like to theorize that my chapter 1 was written long before my earliest memories of the crib where I slept in my mom and dad’s bedroom as a baby and toddler. And even with the previously blank spaces in the puzzle of my genetic makeup now largely filled in, it frustrates me to no end that chapter 1 will never fully be mine to know. Chapter 1 was scribbled out and written over, and I keep flipping back to where the preface should be, but it’s written in a foreign dialect that I do not comprehend.”
These are perhaps the most powerful and moving words I’ve ever read. I know that someday, when my daughters are older they will struggle with the same frustration. I’m going to save your post and re-read it to myself regularly. Its so hard when you love a child not to want to protect her from pain and confusion or to try to salve the pain that can’t be prevented. Please be patient with us, we are learning.
Just expanding a little bit on something in comment 51 –
Ji-in, I really hope you find some way to publish your blog, whether in book form or CD. I feel that I am doing something illicit by saving pages here and there which after all are *yours*, and also that the effort can’t help but be incomplete. But by the time my little 2-year old is trying to sort out her thoughts, probably this blog will have changed and be irrecoverable. I’m grateful to you now, as an a-parent. But just as I want my daughter some day to explore her background fully herself (with the tool hopefully of fluency in the language), I’d love for her to have this as a resource to help her sort out her thoughts about other aspects of her life.
Not sure if you or any of your regulars have seen this over at the CHSFS discussion forum (http://websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/chsfsforums/vpost?id=1329561) but here’s some sad evidence that there are still some a-parents out there who don’t get it, and maybe never will. Sad, I think, that they seem to have no regard for what the adult adoptees and other a-parents have said here. Also shameful that they buy into the whole “angry” versus “happy” thing too based on their own fear of the truth. I sincerely feel bad for their kids. I guess it is more convenient for them to just leave their blinders on and see only what they want to see for their own comfort. Just know that at least the a-parents who have taken the time to read and comment here are representative (I hope!) of a more progressive trend in adoptive parenting.
With appreciation,
Jo
Your list of suggestions at the end of this entry are powerful. As a soon to be adoptive mother, I have saved these is my stockpile of notes and believe in there honesty. But why do I feel like The Enemy here? Maybe I should have chosen to live child-free so that the only hurt would be mine and my husbands, and not the innocents. What a painful complicated world this is. . .
I agree with your view on the “china t-shirt” … it does seem innapropriate. I am a mom who is in the process of adopting internationally, AND I have bio. children. I am able to have more bio. children, but have chosen adoption to complete my family. Thank you for your views on international adoption… they were presented respectfully and have made me thing about may issues and topics that I will no doubt encounter over the next few decades!
Ryan
There’s an adoptive father named Michael out there reading who sent me a couple of comments. Unfortunately, those comments somehow made their way into my blog spam, and before I realized it, I deleted them. Sorry, Michael!
I was able to recover one of your comments, Michael, from the depths of my blog mail, however, and wanted to reply to a few of your thoughts.
For those of you who find the China sonogram to be unoffensive, I would point out that several people in this very comment thread have stated that they find it: offensive, insensitive, disturbing, sick, creepy, repulsive, horrible, offensive (again), etc. I would have to agree with all of those adjectives, and I’m not even from China. I think it comes down to what Harlow’s Monkey aptly stated in comment #29. There’s a gap between “intent” and “impact” that we all need to be aware of here.
Like I said, I fully acknolwedge that parenthood/impending parenthood is a joy to behold. I myself have the idea of my future child in my heart, soul, spirit, or what have you.
But being “born” there?
I think, especially in adoptions, people should be acutely sensitive to the connotations that words like this have. Most intercountry adoptees know very little about their births and early infancy. For some of us, this is a great loss that cannot be recovered. In much of the adoption literature I have read, I see a theme repeated, in adopted children asking their adoptive parents, “Was I ever a baby?” or “Did I grow in someone’s belly?”
This is what I emphasize as the priority: to be sensitive to adoptees’ perceptions and feelings and questions about their origins. When adopted children ask their parents, “Who is my real mother?” they are generally asking in innocence, out of human curiosity about their origins — just like when adoptive parents are quick to reply that they are the child’s “real parents,” they are reacting with the intent of reassuring or reinforcing their very real human presence and role in their children’s lives.
Most young adoptees, however, don’t yet have the vocabulary to correct themselves before they ask these questions. Adoptive parents have the power to make the choice: reinforce the confusing language, or be as honest as possible (and refrain from resorting to potentially confusing hyperbole).
So giving the adoptee a well-meaning reply about being “born in mommy’s heart” … again, I would insist that this unfairly erases the birth mother’s role (i.e., the adoptee’s true origins) and therefore widens the adoptee’s disconnect from his/her rightful history.
For the most part, this is true for me, too. All four of my parents were/are quite real as well. (I’m almost 100% certain that I haven’t imagined any of them!) Although instead of crediting my adoptive parents for giving me the rest of my life, I’d like to think that I already had a life and would have kept on having a life no matter what. My adoptive parents gave me many opportunities that have helped make the rest of my life what it is.
Ji-in,
I’m a sometime lurker coming out of my hole. I just had to, on this post; it’s outstanding. Thank you for so clearly, eloquently expressing what so many of us feel. These things make me squirm, too.
Thank you.
Nicole
Sigh. I’m going to start calling you “Killer” because you slay me. You are one of the best writers I have ever read. Please find some way of making your blog permanent so when my little ones are old enough to read it, it’s there for them. OK? I think they are going to need you.
I’m an adoptive mom to two kids from Korea. I love them so much I can’t stand it. Like any parent, I want nothing more for them than for their lives to be blissfull, free of pain and loss. But I can’t do that and it’s wrong to even try because it would be denying the truth. As painful as it is to remind myself of that, it’s a reminding that I desperately need. Thank you for your honesty. It moves me beyond words. And that doesn’t happen too often!
Astute, insightful, intelligent post!
And, as a birth mom and parent, I agree about the sonogram photo. If it weren’t offensive on so many levels, I’d have laughed even harder at your comment about delivering an entire post-communist nation. Ouch!
Thank you so very much for writing this – I am an adoptive mom of two daughters from China and really appreciate reading your perspective here. I always refer to our daughters’ birthmothers (and birthfathers) as just that, and would never tell them that their birthmothers aren’t their “real” mothers. All mothers (and fathers) are real, as you’ve written, it’s unhealthy to project our insecurities on our children.
Laurie in Denver