What We Don't Know

I had forgotten how busy a small person can keep you. I had thought that I would be able to write more while I was off on leave (due to the arrival of my son), but I soon came to realize that time is not something I have to spare. I had become spoiled by my six year old son's independence.

Today, however, I found myself thinking about what I don't know. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot that I don't know, but that's what makes me human. Fortunately, my thoughts were a little more grounded in the adoption world and didn't take me out to all the other things that I can't possibly know.

I do know basics about our newest arrival. I know basics about his birth parents and I have medical history since he was born. I know that he had a foster mother who loved him and took very good care of him - you can see it in the pictures and the video. I know how many bottles he had every day and if he took naps.

What I don't know speaks volumes. I don't know exactly what his birth mother was thinking when she made the decision to place him up for adoption. I don't know if his foster mother held him when he woke up at night or if she patted him on the back and sang him a song. I don't know about his extended Korean family or if they even know that he is here. I don't know if he has his birth mother's eyes or his birth father's hair.

I realize that I have more information for both of my children than my parents had. For me, they didn't even have my exact birth date. They knew the basics about what had happened since I had been found, but they had no names to think about when they thought about my birth parents or information about their families.

So, I am happy that I have as much as I do, but I also find myself dwelling on what I don't know. Every time my son can't do something, I wonder if it's because no one asked him to do it before or if it's common in his birth parents' family. It's funny, I didn't go here with my first son. Perhaps, with him, I had too many other concerns. This is new for me and interesting.

With both of my boys, I had hoped that they would come home with a letter from their birth mothers (or birth fathers). Our social worker had told us that it is happening more often. I know that contact scares some adoptive parents, but I keep thinking about all of the things that I don't know and I wish I had it.

Korean Adoptee Opera Professional

Sometimes I forget that I’m an adult. Oh, I know I am and I act like one (most days), but I sometimes forget to correctly categorize myself in the adult column. So, when I came across this article about Andrew Gangestad, a Korean adoptee Opera Singer, I was amazed to see that he was my age. For some reason, performers always feel older to me (though pop stars seem to be getting younger).

This article from the Yonhap News Agency is about Gangstead’s first trip back to South Korea and his search for his birth parents.

He believes that it must have been a tough decision for his biological parents to do what they had to do.

"I would also like to show them my accomplishments. I want to let them know what I have done," he said.

I thought that it was pretty great that he had learned a couple of Korean songs for his trip and I wish him luck. I hadn’t realized just how small the chances of locating birth families were until I read this article.

According to government statistics, 13,068 overseas adoptees made efforts to locate their biological families in 2005, but only 316 -- about 2 percent -- were reunited.

However, I suspect that the percentage will change with the more recent Korean adoptees. More and more Korean adoptees seem to be coming with birth family information that make search a little easier.

Family Trees & Korean Adoption

Personally, I’ve never understood the issues surrounding family trees and Korean adoptees. The first time I had to do a project that required me to trace back my family history, I went home and asked my parents for help. It never occurred to me that I should use anything other than my adopted family. I had grown up on the stories that were told at every family gathering – about grandparents, uncles and aunts that I had never met before, but they were mine all the same. Not once did it occur to me that they didn’t belong on my family tree. Intellectually, I see where people are coming from…so I try very hard to think objectively when I’m talking about this topic.

I remember when an adoptive parent was really upset with her son’s teacher for assigning a family tree project. She was very upset because her son had no information (obviously) about his Korean family. My knee jerk reaction was to be pretty upset with the adoptive parent. To me, it felt as if she was implying that her family and her husband’s family weren’t her son’s family because he was adopted. In my mind, once you adopt a child, everything that is yours becomes theirs. It doesn’t matter where someone was born or how they became a part of your family.

After I was able to calm down a little, I realized that this probably wasn’t what the adoptive parent was trying to say. In fact, she would probably be horrified if she knew that’s what I took from it. As an adoptive parent, you have to try to figure out where it is necessary to acknowledge your child’s birth family and where it is not necessary. How much will that matter to your child in the future? I do think that we have to be careful how we approach the situation. If done incorrectly, a child could pick up the same incorrect conclusions that I made and feel as if they are not a part of the family.

When it’s my son’s turn to do a family tree project, I have the names of his birth mother and birth father. If he is okay with it, I think that I will probably have him include them in the tree. Because I was a found child, I don’t have that information even if I had wanted to include my birth parents. I think I probably would have. My sister would have been horrified by the very mention of the idea (thus reminding us that all Korean adoptees are different). We won’t know how my son will feel about the acknowledgement until he’s a little older. I won’t force the issue, but I’m definitely going to lay out the option. But then, that’s all we can really do…