ambivalence

So I haven’t felt much like writing about adoption issues lately.  Even though I’m always thinking about them.  The fact of my adoption is never really that far from the surface.  It is there in my relationship with my mother, with my daughters. It is always there, even when it seems not to be.  Even when I go through long periods of not writing about it, or consciously considering it.  It was there last month when I  travelled five and a half hours by plane to go to my grandmother’s funeral.   As my mother’s siblings and their children, my mother, brother and I gathered around my aunt’s kitchen, it was hard not to notice I am the only one who physically stands out.  (Sesame Street’s “One of these things is not like the other thing” comes to mind.)  It is rare for all of my mother’s family to be together in one room: we are scattered across the country. The last time we were all together was my grandmother’s 80th birthday nearly ten years ago.  It is natural enough to check everyone out, see how they look, how they’ve changed, grown up.  One of my cousins stated the obvious:  “My god, it is so easy to see who belongs to what family unit here; each one looks the so much alike.  And then there’s you and A.”  My older brother is also adopted.  The funny thing is, he actually looks like he could be biologically related to my mother’s family.  He has similar colouring, height, body type.  In any case, I am comfortable around this side of my family; I like them, they are good people, funny people.  But at times like those, I sometimes look around the room and think: who are these people?

I was close to my grandmother when I was a little child. She lived with us for a few years. I was her first granddaughter and she spent a lot of time caring for me, indulging me, holding me.  When she lived with us, her room was the third floor attic. I would climb up those stairs early in the morning and crawl in bed with her.  She called me her baby.  I saw little of my grandmother in recent years and her health was poor; we did not talk much in the last several years of her life.  But I took my daughters to visit her and she cherished their photos and all the information she could remember about them.  When she died, I thought quite a bit about my father.  I thought another person who loved me is gone from the world.

Last week when I was driving my daughter to preschool, she announced after an unusual quiet: “Grandma’s white, she didn’t give birth to you, did she? Another woman gave birth to you. She was white too.”  And the conversation went something like this:

“That’s right.”

“But Grandma raised you. She’s your mum.”

“Yes.”

“You’re mixed race. I’m mixed race too.  We’re black and white. We’re brown.  Daddy’s the only one that’s white in our family.”

“Umm hmm.”

“Do you know the woman that gave birth to you? Do you remember her?”

“I don’t know her. I wish I did.”

“Where is she?  You should look for her.”

“I have looked for her. I’ve looked very hard, but I can’t find her.”

“Do you miss her?”

“I don’t know her, but I miss her very much. I’d really like to know who she is.”

“Me too.  I think she’s looking for you.”

“I don’t think she is.  I don’t think she wants to be found.”

“Aww……  [more silence]  You’ll never give me away will you?”

“No! You girls are the most important thing to me in the world. I would never do that.”

“No, because you love us, you’re our mum.”

John Raible

Please visit John Raible’s excellent blog, especially to read his series of Mock Interviews with himself where he describes his experiences as a transracial adoptee growing up in what he calls “Whitesville” and his personal and political transformation by living in racially and culturally diverse communities.

Mock Interview, Part 1

Mock Interview, Part 2

Mock Interview, Part 3

Mock Interview, Part 4

Great reading!

Darryl McDaniels is an adoptee

Thanks Ungrateful Little Bastard for letting me know that Darryl McDaniels (yes, DMC of Run DMC!) is adopted.  You can watch the documentary, Adoption Journey, about his search for and reunion with his birth mother, on his website.  I don’t get VH1 and I rarely watch tv so I am always finding out about these things rather late.  But better late than never.   I loved Run DMC way back in the day (I think I was in grade 8, yikes) and I am really pleased to see that DMC has become an advocate for adoptee rights, like access to birth records.

DMC made a song with Sarah McLachlan, an adoptee and Canadian, called Just Like Me.  The quality of this You Tube video isn’t great, but I love the song, so here it is:

Check out his website for a better version.

Also see a song by singer and adoptee Zara Phillips called “I’m Legit” that features DMC.

mother daughter

communication

I realized after talking on the phone the other day with a fellow black transracial adoptee that I have great difficulty articulating how I feel and what I think about adoption issues and my specific adoption experiences.  It is relatively easy to sit here at the computer and tap out some thoughts and easy enough to write in my journal, but very hard to actually say the words and thoughts out loud.  I think it is because I have talked about them – person to person – so little.  I have tried to explain my feelings about adoption to some friends and family but I leave out a lot and I’m never sure just how much I can/will reveal about my true feelings.  How honest can I be?  How much can I admit about myself publicly? Do I put myself at risk of ridicule or rejection if I speak honestly? I am so used to holding back, keeping it in, considering other peoples’ feelings and reactions, it is really hard to get out my feelings even when I want to and when it feels safe.  It is easier to write them out after the fact.  So I do that in my journal.  But I often think it would be nice to be honest with others – with myself – all the time.   The fact is, I worry a lot about what other people think.  I tell myself I don’t care, but I do.   I told my mother I was writing an adoption based blog because I didn’t want to keep secrets, considering my whole life is a secret, or have to hide things from her.  I don’t think she reads it anyway, but in case any family member should find themselves here, there are limits to what I will/can write.

I also tend to assume people don’t really want to hear the specifics of my life… that they are too boring to tell.  So I don’t always say much.  And although I think I am friendly, I’m shy and reserved by nature.  So it takes time for me to get to know people and for them to get to know me.  I think I sometimes get written off as aloof, quiet, boring; despite this blog, which I decided to do semi-anonymously, I’m private (really!) and afraid of people.  I put myself out there, but tentatively.

I want this blog to be more than just my little therapy bubble and self-indulgent ramblings.  But I can’t seem to help myself.  I know how much I like to hear and read about other adoptees – particularly transracial adoptees – and how they feel and think about love, loss, family, relationships and identity…. so I figure it doesn’t hurt.  Listening to another black adoptee talk about her experiences felt good.  Really great actually.  Our experiences weren’t all the same of course, though there were some interesting similarities.  Most importantly, I heard her say she has never, ever felt like she belonged anywhere and that rejections from the black community/individuals are what have hurt the most.  I totally relate to that, and hearing that makes me feel less of an oddity.  I have spent a lot of my past life trying to fit in, and also a lot of time on my own not bothering to try to connect with anyone.  These days I try to accept all the different parts of me and not apologize – too much – for them.  It is a work in progress.

searchin’ again

So I decided to hire a PI to search for my birth family again.   It was a big decision, because it is expensive.  But if I get any answers, it will be worth it.  And what will I do with any information I receive?  Will they find anything? I have to wait and see, wait and see, wait and see…

The “non-identifying information” I have, that the PI has to work with, is pretty scant, very vague.  In fact, some of it may not even be true. If this PI firm finds my birth mother’s identity, I’ll do a little – no wait – a BIG dance.  And if not, well, at least I will be able to say I tried.  I’m determined to try everything.  I’m 36, not getting any younger, not getting any closer to knowing my biological roots.  And the older I get, the more it bothers me that I don’t know WHO I come from.

My next step may be to start lobbying the government to change the adoption disclosure laws.  I’m building up my courage for that.  So, for now, I wait…

Souvenirs From Asia

Here is a short film I’d like to see:

Souvenirs from Asia (completed 2007)

“Cross-cultural adoption is put under the microscope as a rebellious Korean teen stirs up comedic hell for her adoptive mother and younger sister.” (Dir: Joyce Wong, Prod: S. Brent Martin, 16mm,11mins, English, Canada)

The film won the “Outstanding Canadian Short Award” at the Reelworld Film Festival and is currently touring festival circuit. Upcoming Screening June 13th 2008 7pm at Cumberland Cinemas Worldwide Shorts Film Festival.

Trailer, synopsis, press kit is avaliable here. Joyce Wong’s website

A Different Kind of Love

Kim Myung-Sook of Fabriquée en Corée posted this article from The Sydney Morning Herald on whether parental love for adopted children is the same as love for biological children.  I’m not sure how I feel about this.  I’ve never doubted my parents love, but sometimes I think there are limits to how close I can be or have been with my adoptive parents.  Perhaps that is more a function of personality or understanding rather than love.  Is it possible to distinguish?  Every child/person is different and we love them differently. But are there qualitative and quantitative differences to love based on biology? I have two biological children and, as an adoptee, that has been very important for me, to have a biological, physical connection to others.  I’ve been considering adoption myself and I wonder, would there be a difference?  I believe, I hope, that my love for an adopted child would be just as strong, just as deep, just as  fierce.  I would certainly do everything in my power to make all of my children feel “equally” loved.  I suspect this is a controversial and probably taboo subject for many adoptive families. What do you think?

Click here to read the article.

Adoptee fantasy

I just listened to part of a documentary called Love Interrupted: Lost and Found on CBC radio.  It is a true story, but also the ultimate adoptee fantasy.  It made me bawl.

The documentary tells the story of a teenage couple who love each other, become engaged when they are 16 but keep it to themselves so as not to alarm their parents.  When the girl becomes pregnant her parents put heavy pressure on her to give the baby up for adoption.  They tell her they will not support her if she keeps the baby.  The young couple want to keep the baby boy and almost do, but in the end succumb to the pressure.  When they leave from signing the adoption papers, after seeing their son together, holding him together, they go home and never see each other again.  Both never forget each other though, and are never able to close the door on the love they had for each other.  They marry, have children, divorce.  The father tries searching for his son without success.  He eventually finds the mother’s email address and writes to her.  Eventually she responds and phones him.  They talk for 4 hours and decide to search for their son together. She had never tried searching for her son on her own because she is convinced he hates her for giving him up.  The mother and father meet and their love for each other is still strong.  They find their son easily; he is pleased to meet them.  They marry with all their extended family present and have a second baby together!  The adopted son names his baby sister, is thrilled to have a biological sibling and calls her his best friend.  Incredible – one of those too good to be true stories, yet real.  A real tear jerker.

If you are an adoptee, the fantasy doesn’t get any better than that: biological parents who always wanted to keep you, never got over leaving you, who loved each other and always wanted to be together, and when they find you instantly fill in all the gaps in your life, including producing a biological sibling.

Sigh.

The reality for most adoptees is radically different.  In my case, I’ve got a birth mother who knows I’ve been searching for her for years but refused to tell me anything about her and refused any contact.  She slammed shut all the doors to connecting with any of my biological family.  And yet, when I hear reunion stories, even ones less glamourous than the above, I still long and hope.  For any little crumb of knowledge of my beginning.

transracial adoptees and marriage

I’ve been silent for awhile… many sleepless nights and draining days with little children.  I love them intensely and they completely exhaust me.  And I’ve been mesmerized – along with the rest of the world – by the Obamas. Barack, Michelle, Sasha, Malia.  I just finished reading Dreams From My Father.  It was engaging and surprisingly caused me some anxiety.  Much of the book deals with Obama’s need to belong, and the shaping of his identity as a biracial black man.  I related to some of his early experiences: his deep love for the white family that raised him, in spite of some unsettling comments and emotions from his white mother and grandparents over race; his longing for acceptance by blacks and for belonging within a black community; his painful rejection of a black girl when he was a high school student in a predominantly white school.  He also deals with the question – asked by himself and others – of whether he is ‘black enough’.  Raised by his white mother and grandparents, Barack had to figure out his identity as a black man more or less on his own.  How did he do this?  Well, for one thing, his drive and determination, his intense self-examination at a young age are extraordinary.   Obama, of course, is the ultimate success story of a mixed race person coming to terms with the disparate elements of his racial and cultural heritage.   And he made some important choices:  he was a community organizer in a black community; he joined a black church; he married a black woman with deep roots in a black community.  Many people have commented on Obama’s choice of wife.  Would he have the same credibility with blacks if he had married a white woman or even a light-skinned black woman? It doesn’t seem likely.

All of this makes me question my own choices in life.  Why have I not tried harder to fit into various black communities? Would it help me to join a black church (even though I am not very religious)?  Would my longing for some black family have gone away if I’d married a black man? Should I have married a black man? Would that have re/solved my anxieties over belonging, of being a cultural orphan?  Or is even thinking that just an excuse for what I haven’t done personally to resolve these issues?  Was I being naive or in denial when I married a white man?

I should say now that I love my husband dearly and I am not saying I want to leave him – I don’t!  He knows I question everything and doubt myself.  He accepts me and my insecurities and that is one of the things I love about him – that he just accepts me.  Even when I do things that would seem to push him away.   I suppose it is the child in me testing and testing.  But I can’t deny that I have these thoughts from time to time.  When I am feeling calm and clear, I think that no, marrying a black man would not have resolved my longing for birth family, particularly knowledge of my own black ancestors.  Perhaps it would have made me less self-conscious, but I don’t see how I will ever get around, over, through, not knowing where I come from.  When I read about Obama’s trip to Kenya to meet all of his Kenyan relatives for the first time, I felt pangs of envy.  Although Obama grew up without his African father present, he certainly knew his identity and where he came from and had the ability to seek out and get to know his extended family, something he did as a young man.  In fact, getting to know his father’s family, visiting his home in Kenya, seemed to be a turning point in Obama’s life.  He was filling in all those gaps, gathering all those lost pieces.  It grounded him and gave him confidence.  I think he was able to embrace his black and white heritage in a more rounded way.  I want those missing pieces.  I want to know if I have half-siblings, if I look like anybody else in the world, if my birth mother’s family was really Danish, if the blacks in my birth father’s family had been slaves in the Maritimes or migrated here from somewhere else.

Having children is the closest thing to knowing my biological parents I think: I can see myself reflected in my kids, at least partially.  My children – like me – are mixed race and in that way we are alike.  I suspect my birth father was mixed race, perhaps even raised by a white mother.  But since all of our relatives are white, I have to work harder to make sure that we get enough contact and connection with black people and culture.  I do my best, but is it enough?  If I had married a black man would I be worried about this?  Perhaps not.

I often go back to read Harlow’s Monkey on “Being Married to Harlow’s Monkey” – a piece that eloquently summarizes some of the difficulties transracial adoptees have in marriage and why it can be difficult to be married to them (something my husband knows well)!