Thoughts About Adoption

These are my thoughts and only my thoughts...

There are so many ways to define adoption. Here are a few that I have found and can resonate with.

Oxford Dictionary defines adoption as the action or fact of legally taking another's child and bringing it up as one's own or the fact of being adopted. Wikipedia defines adoption as a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents. And the Child Welfare of Information Gateway.gov defines adoption as the social, emotional, and legal process in which children who will not be raised by their birth parents become full and permanent legal members of another family while maintaining genetic and psychological connections to their birth family. I agree with the last definition as that is what I believe to be true. I was legally adopted by a Caucasian set of parents in the United States but maintained my genetic and psychological connections to my birth country. I say country because I have not met any of my birth family. However, after hearing stories of adoptees meeting especially their birth moms, can see the resemblance in physical features as well as mannerisms.

What do I think of Adoption? I believe adoption is a good thing for the most part if the intent was to make a child’s life better than what they had. Now in my case, knowing the little history I have about myself but knowing what Korea was like back in the early 70s of poverty and trying to become a country again after the Korean War. I think adoption was a good thing. However, after hearing many of my Korean Adoptee peers talk about struggles in their adoption and wondering if adoption was a good thing, I do think so. I too had many struggles in my growing-up adoptive life and still do. But I do wonder what life would have been like in Korea if I hadn’t been adopted. Did you know that Korea sent over 200,000 children after the Korean War to be adopted worldwide? Some say they were just exporting children, others say, people were adopting to “save the children” and yet many adoptive parents didn’t know a lot about interracial adoption and the trauma it brings. I recommend reading the book by Nancy Verrier “The Primal Wound”. It is an eye-opener for adoptive parents. I am leading a book discussion on this book with adoptive parents from the U.S. Adoption Agency that I am from.

While I still believe adoption is a good thing and I am blessed that I am adopted, it doesn’t come without challenges. As I stated earlier, many adoptees (and not all), including me had many childhood struggles and trauma. I will talk about some of them later in my journey. After much therapy and education, I have come to terms that my parents did the best they knew how. This doesn’t excuse some of the behaviors or abuse that I suffered but it does explain that they didn’t have the tools or resources to raise adopted children from other ethnic cultures or plain parenting for that matter. I also believe you can be adopted without the legal aspect too. As I have grown to “make family wherever I go”, people have “adopted” me into their families in the different communities I have experienced.

And I can’t go without saying being “adopted” into God’s family is the most special thing in my life. Galatians 4:4-7 reads ⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. ⁶ And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir through God. And Ephesians 1:5 says ⁵ He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will. God names and claims us as God’s own.

Adoption is a very special thing in my life. I wouldn’t probably be here if I wasn’t adopted from Korea. Who knows? But I take comfort in knowing that adoption granted me lots of privileges. More on that later. So in the end, adoption for me is a good thing. I might not have thought of it as being good growing up, but I do now. Thanks be to God!