Adoptees deported by the US

Did you know that the US had no law that naturally made US adoptees gain US citizensip – not unil 2001 such a law was established. However it didn’t include adult adoptees, adoptees that was adopted prior to 2001 and those adoptees can sometimes be deported ack to their birth country. IF they commit a legal offense, is inprisoned or found guilty for a minor offense.

At least 3 Korean adoptees have been deported back to Korea, but the US government says that many adoptees have been subjected to deportation back to their birth countries. Apparently US adoptees are generally not aware of that their citizenship still is kept while they are adopted to the US.

Adoptee Search Talk

A somewhat funny video about adoption specifically US adoption with the seeled records.  Intercountry adoption = international adoption does not generally have seeled records but agencies can still prevent adoptees from looking in their files.

Life’s purpose

Many people believe that the purpose of life is to have children, that doesn’t mean that everyone becomes parents. Some may actually not want to have children at all period.

But a majority do, some may be single and some may be infertile or homosexual for one reason or another. If you for some reason can’t become a parent by biology you can apply for adoption or try IVF. But in Sweden it’s more complicated if you’re a gay man or woman that like to have biological children. Apparently one of the requirements for being approved for a sex change is that you accept that you have to a vasectomy or tubal ligation.

With that said it’s still not socially accepted for Swedes to reject the sterilization IF they are serious in wanting a sex change. Thomas Beatie the first pregnant man has by now had 3 children, but he’s still the father and his wife is the mother.

If you want to adopt a child you have to fulfill the general requirements usually age requirement, health requirement and social status. And it’s still easier for single women to adopt while the same can’t be said for men.

Heroism

I scream (blog), you scream, we (adoptees) all scream, well at least many of us do because no one has bothered enough to ask for our opinions when adoption is a process where the adoptee is supposed to be the centre yet it somehow always ends up turning into the adoptive parents and often society and many more seems to imply that as adoptees we should feel grateful.

But hey, I think they are missing some vital points here, first of all adoptees is forced to become their own heroes because no one else will defend them or speak for them. Yes, infertility might be a big trauma trigger, I can only imagine but imagine for a second that you for a second was a supposed orphan, adopted into another country far away. You were to young too get asked about what you thought so people just acted on your benefit, made a decision that seemed most suitable and to be for you’re own good.

So what would be better then ? Growing up in a close and loving family, were wealth would be measured in love not possessions. Or does material wealth trump the wealth and happiness that love produces ?

Maybe

I don’t necessarilly believe that adoptees should get statefounded help I wish it would be possible for adoptees to recieve some kind of state founded help, (yet that doesn’t seem very realistical. )to search for their birth families, however I do wish that it would become easier to iniate a birth family search for those who would like to know their roots.

I also want to say that for me there was no shocking revelation at least not until 24 years ago, (last year), that’s when I realized that my existance was a shock that questioned my birth families values and existance. For them the hard part begun last year and well, I suppose it was the same thing for me since there were a lot of things I didn’t know.

I don’t blame my birth parents, I love them with all my heart , sometimes so hard it hurts… My reunion doesn’t mean my adoptive parents has now been rejected. No of course not, they have shaped me to the person that I am today but my heritage and birth has also had a great impact not only on my life but also on me as a person.

Maybe, my siblings and birth parents are having a much harder them than I, they for the most part didn’t know about me or believed I was dead or maybe that I didn’t even exist to begin with. My birth and adoption has for almost 25 years been tabboo. When I first made myself known they must have struggled, felt angry or sad… So many feelings , some that I may not even know of. My existance was in many ways a threat to my birth families core existance.

Knowing that one of your siblings was deprived from growing up with you… someone you now didn’t know. Did your parents not love you enough ? Could they have decided differently ? Why couldn’t they keep you in the family? Why did they have another child after your birth ? Have they regreted their decision ? Doesn’t our parents love me ?

All I knew at the time was that my parents were poor and a few more things that I’ve been told. For me the hard part begun after my first Korean trip.

Questions arose that I never might get answered, I also realized the dynamic in my adoptive family, that a reunion trip was a threat for the existance of their family, it in many ways also was a conditioned trip, there were a lot of hidden rules which I managed to break from time to time. I saw a new side of my mum and dad, one I would have prefered not to know about.

On a mother’s terms

This entry isn’t about just any mother it’s an entry about my very own mother, but I don’t refer to her as mother. I do call her mum although she at times is nothing like a mum, to be honest she’s acting more like the wicked stepmother from Cinderella…

You see the thing is that I’m adopted so I’m not my mother’s daughter by nature but rather by law. She’s also the one who has raised me, shaped me and made me aware of things with the help of my dear dad. Once I was adopted I did become my legal parents daughter and was even granted their family surname. But I do believe that to this day my mother was blinded by the function that I filled in her life, once I legally became their daughter. My mother seemed to have replaced the thought or feeling of guilt from infertility. You see she now had a proof that she too could be a mother…

Our relationship, between my mother and I has always seemed somewhat twisted. I do believe she loves me but she doesn’t really show it by her actions. You see she seems to only love me on her own terms. When it suits her to love me then she does other times she tries her best to either push my buttons, annoy me or insult me in one way or another. Furthermore I would be inclined to call it the ultimate betrayal although in this case I feel lik my mother wasn’t rreally there from me from the start. She has tried her best to support me as long as it didn’t get too uncomfortable for her or as long as I did my best trying to portray the perfect adoptee and the perfect daughter. Once I didn’t want to play along in the charade any longer it felt like my mother started openly abandon me.

If you want to know how to best insult your adopted child then you could ask my mother because she has done so more than once. APs seems to think that how they view their role in adoption is the only correct version first of all. Secondly some APs seems to think that just because they did their part when adopting a child they are somehow allowed too or almost entitled too take of the gloves, stop the sweet talking and starting talking honestly and truthfully. Because why should you have to pretend or ignore things that are actual truths? Never mind if the adoptees might feel insulted by any remarks that an AP make to their child. The APs are their adoptees parents and adoptees should get used to the truth and secondly an AP seems to believe that it would be impossible for them to hurt their own children. Words can’t hurt as long as they are true, right?

APs only accepts adoptees as long as they stay loyal to their APs once they seem to shift away, get other opinions or just seems to argue for the sake of it then the APs soon might go looking for another adoptee that is still unharmed and hasn’t been destroyed…

I wonder if I’m somehow forced to love my mother even though she uses the most weirdest ways to justify her own role and her own suffering…

Would you still love someone who might have told you that you should have been aborted if it wasn’t for the fact that your first parents were poor at the time before your birth?

I can’t seem too make any sense out of this…

If it wasn’t for poverty and stigma

How is it that (international) adoption still exists today?

I believe that it is able to do so because it is depending on other people’s poverty and stigma. And yes adoption is Western thing.

That’s why families and children are separated. (Although there may be small variations in specific details).

Gratefulness

That’s a word I as an adoptee doesn’t really like (it’s nothing wrong with the word on its own) it’s when its put into a context of something else either linked or related to adoption.

Here’s another example of an entry in my other blog and this entry too titled Pain and greif .

The solution

Are there situations when adoption is to be considered the best if not the only choice ? How come ? How can that be?

Adoption statistics

Records say that Korean adoption begun in 1953 as a result of the Korean War, which in return had created a new problem even seen as a threat by some. Some data says that as many as 200.000 Korean children has been adopted both domestically and internationally. I say adopted since there are cases where the adoptee hasn’t been an orphan…

However the statistics of total number of adoptions shouldn’t be 100 % trusted since domestic adoptions remains something less wellknown still today although certain improvements has been made… In some cases there are no records or little information of a domestic adoption having taken place which makes it a little difficult.

Now in 21th century Korea the biggest problem seems to be found in unmarried Korean women that might risk falling pregnant and as a result being shunned by their respective families. Luckily there are organizations out there that are trying to improve the rights of adoptees, unwed mothers and the birth families…