Yesterday, I visited my grandparents for our annual (adult) easter egg hunt. I found out my grandpa, who had a heart attack about 18 years ago is due for a heart catheterization next week.
My grandpa is an old school small-farm farmer who worked for himself most of his life. He also served as a township trustee for his small rural community for a number of years. Because of that public service, he is entitled to buy the same health insurance as state employees at the same price. This means his surgery is affordable for my grandparents and prolonging his life won’t make them lose their home or farm.
Thank you Taxpayers!
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In other news, here are some links I have found interesting in the past week or two:
The Triviality of Emotions in Chinese Culture – I am still trying to figure out what this means for my relationship with L’s family.
Interesting article about the lives of Chinese students in America. Mr. A’s dad went to college in the same tiny farm town my parents grew up in. I can not imagine how isolated he was then. The nearest Chinese restaurant was 25 miles away back then.
What happens when or if those Chinese students go back home?
I know Dooce already linked this one, so 99% of the free world has seen it, but I am going to link it again anyway. Things are changing everywhere, even the places we think it might be most unlikely.
You all may not have noticed, but I gave myself a nice little blog break there. In part, this is because I feel guilty because I still haven’t answered all the questions I requested…way back in OCTOBER.
The questions I have left are complicated, so I haven’t been eager to answer them. But if I am going to blog, it looks like I am going to have to suck it up and do it already (probably like I have been a few at a time).
Stillplayswithbarbies asks several questions all at once, so I am breaking them up:
I would like to read more about Taiwan and family dynamics in Taiwanese families. I have a daughter adopted from Taiwan, and while I am interested in everything you have to say, I am especially interested in anything about Taiwan.
Mr. A’s family is not a typical Taiwanese family. I suspect that the dynamics of his family are much more informed by mental illness and the immigrant experience (which can make even non-crazy people dysfunctional). It was interesting to see Mr. A’s relatives in Taiwan and find normal and sane. They had normal jobs/businesses and seemed much more like regular American families than like Mr. A’s family. I suspect if they had stayed in Taiwan, Mr. A’s family would still have been dysfunctional but they would have been less dysfunctional because the kids would have had some extended family support they lacked in the US. To sum it up, I can’t help you. If you want to talk about the dynamics of a family riddled with mental illness, then I would be more helpful.
As for Taiwan itself, we decided it was the Midwest of Asia. Not so sexy, not so flashy, not cutting edge, but people there were industrious and nice. It seemed like a pretty pleasant place to be, but everyone thought somewhere else might be more interesting. This is how I always felt about Ohio, so I could relate. I also found it less easy to get around without being able to read Chinese (less written english) but the spoken english of the average college graduate seemed very proficient. We also thought it was much more Chinese than China. There seemed to be much less focus on luxury/flashiness, much more traditional Chinese culture, etc. Like China without the trauma of communism and 40 years of intense, government-imposed poverty and crazy.
This answer is not so helpful, I know.
A specific question I have is about birthparent search in Taiwan. We have names and addresses. It is an open adoption in the sense that all identifying info on both sides is in all the court documents. Our daughter is three years old. When/how should we make contact?
If it were me, I would do it by letter. I would update her on your daughter’s development and lay out your reasons for wanting contact. I would also outline how I would like that contact to look (letters? timeline? etc.). Learn from my mistakes and go with less contact at the beginning. You can always add more, but it much harder to do less later. I would also assume she has been told it is healthiest if she just forgets about the baby and moves on. The letter may be intercepted by her parents or spouse or something, so I wouldn’t assume a lack of response meant she was choosing to not have contact. I would also make a webpage with photos of your daughter (updated from time to time) so you can put a statcounter on it to see if anyone is looking. That way, even if they don’t respond, you know if someone is interested.
A more generic related question: L’s birthfamily is intact and mature. What are your thoughts on approaching other types of birthfamilies such as mature single mom, teenage mom living at home with her parents, divorced parents, etc.? How to gauge if they would be receptive to contact, or if waiting a few years is better? I am thinking that making contact too early may scare them off forever, perhaps? Would love to hear your thoughts.
I always try to think what I would want if I was the birth mother. If my child were out in the world without me, I would want to know she is ok asap. It seems almost cruel to me to withhold that information. I would also be afraid that they would move or something and you would lose the ability to contact them later.
What I am hearing in your post is that you are concerned about the wellbeing of the birthmom, which is great. And you also want the best possibility of successful contact. I don’t think waiting will necessarily ensure that. Every birth mom is going to be different so you won’t know until you reach out to her. There is no patented best practices in international open adoption. You are just going to have to feel your way through it. It is hard. Also, I suspect reaching out is not going to get easier of you wait a longer time.
I am not actually dead, nor have I fallen off the face of the earth. I have just been very very busy.
In lieu of a post, today you get links that I found interesting. This includes one that answers one of my long-neglected questions about finding searchers in Ethiopia (which I know nothing at all about).
- The Art of Gift Giving in China We recently received a gift from L’s birth family that was very similar to the gift we gave them when we met in China. I am guessing this is due to the reciprocity issue detailed in that article.
- Open adoptions from Ethiopia. There are also searchers there who will track down children’s information and/or families. More info on that here. (And holy cow, that sounds like a lot of money!)
Sorry it is taking me a billion years to get through all the questions you all sent me waaaaaay back when. The good news is the ones I have answered so far have really helped me work through some of the open adoption related angst I was feeling. The bad news is, I am kind of burned out from all the over processing. I will get to them, though. I just might have to answer a few a week interspersed with other stuff until I get done.A few more:Sky asks: As a stay at home mum, I sometimes feel like I am wasting my talents. Do you ever feel that or other mummy guilt?I don’t think I really have any work-related talents, unless you consider the ability to look busy while really surfing the internet to be a talent. That was what I most excelled at in most of my previous jobs.
Oh, and I also have a serious talent for remembering the appearance, layout and sale history of every single house that has sold in my neighborhood in the past four years. I love houses so much I have even considered becoming a realtor one day, but it wouldn’t be until the kids are much older or maybe even off to college.
My primary work-related guilt involves the fact that I hate cleaning the house. I have a nagging belief that since I am here all day, I should do more cleaning and upkeep but I just don’t like to do it. Maybe next year when L goes to kindergarten, I will do a better job cleaning the house. Or maybe I will get a part-time job so someone else will clean it.
S’s Mom asks
do you use the term “hapa”? I think it would feel strange saying it. Likewise my relative is black/Asian and I would feel strange saying Blasian to her. I just say biracial or multiracial.
have been introducing the idea of “hapa” to M. I made her watch a hapa organization video on youtube last month. She was kind of uninterested, but you know, she is eight. She is very comfortable with the idea that she is “Chinese and white” or “Asian and American” (her words, not mine).
While there are more half or part Asians around than there used to be (especially where we live in the Midwest), M is still a pretty small minority. She has a friend at school who is also half-Chinese and I have heard them talking about what exactly “half chinese” means before. Clearly, it means something to her. .
M is going to live a life where she passes as white most of the time. She is well-aware that Chinese people do not see her as Chinese, but our family considers her to be Chinese/Taiwanese (or maybe Asian/ Asian American). She knows that Chinese people don’t see her as much Chinese at all. Her father’s Asian identity is very important to him. That the kids have an Asian identity is important to him. While that racial identity is important in our family, culturally we are not very Chinese/Taiwanese. Culturally, we are mostly American with a little Chinese around the edges.
M’s experience as a mixed-race person is unique in our family. Every other person in our near extended family is either white or Asian (though she does have some cousins who are Taiwanese/Korean American which is its own mix). I don’t know yet what that will be like for her. I am sure at times it will be difficult, but I am confident that in the end M will be able to figure it all out.
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I like the idea of “hapa” because there has been so much hapa activism lately ( here, here, here, and here for example). I like the idea of M knowing how to find people who have shared her experience of being mixed race Asian if she wants to. I like the idea of one word that can encompass a bit of her experience rather than the unwieldy ”third generation Chinese American and white, raised in the Midwest, doesn’t speak much Chinese, etc.” .
We also talk generally about mixed-race people, too, but introducing M to the idea ”hapa” is more specific. I don’t know how she will identify as she gets older, maybe she will think of herself as hapa, or mixed race or maybe just white. It isn’t up to me. I just put the ideas out there and see what sticks. Also, I don’t generally say she is hapa to other people because I assume they won’t know what it means.
(This post is the continuation of This One. You might want to read that first for this series to make sense. I know they don’t seem related yet, but imagine them as chapters of a single story. I know this isn’t great for the blog format, but bear with me.)
Since we met L’s family, figuring out how to “do” open adoption has been a rollercoaster. I suppose I should have anticipated it, but searching was such an experience of emotional whiplash (hope/dispair/fear) and success so unlikely, I didn’t ever think through what would happen if we found them. Even if I had thought it through, there is no way I would have expected the intensity of emotions it would bring up for me. (And I am writing about my experience. I know has also been very intense for the rest of the family too.)
When we met L’s family, I think all of us were completely overwhelmed. Seeing L’s family’s love for L was like a kick in the emotional gut. Not that we didn’t hope they would love her (we did), but seeing them have the opportunity to be with her for one day then to know we were ripping her out of their arms again…well, I can’t tell you how nightmarish that was. Their pain at losing her once and then walking away again was palpable. As a mother, I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest just watching it happen.
But what could we do? The best we could offer was promises to keep in touch, to try to figure out how to connect our family for L, to visit as often as we can. I meant those things. I still do.
When L’s family left and we got to Hong Kong, it was like I was walking around after a bomb had gone off. The rest of the world was the same beautiful place it was before, but I was shell-shocked and confused.
On one hand, I was so ecstatic. We had the answers we were hoping for! We had found them! They loved her! We got to meet their other kids too! They were lovely and kind! They wanted to know us! They understood this was important for L!
On the other hand, how could we take her away from her parents who love her? How could we possibly give her the tools (chinese language and cultural understanding) and the time to really know them? How could we go back to our normal lives now that everything was different?
I felt like I was being pulled apart.
Mr. A and I started having very serious discussions about moving to Asia. This was while we were still on the trip. Once we got home, we continued to go back and forth about it. It didn’t help that we were dealing with culture shock in both places. Mr. A was unmoored by losing his last job (election) and trying to figure out how things worked at the new one. I couldn’t figure out how the hell we could possibly build a relationship with L’s family through translators and living so very far away. Everything felt so very, very hard.
It was a rough six months.
Slowly, slowly, we acclimated to our lives back home. We were completely on the fence about what to do. One week, I would campaign for one choice, the next I would be solidly on the other side. We talked and talked about what was best for us, what was best for the girls, what was best for L. It doesn’t help that Mr. A would have to give up his entire career trajectory and commit to something entirely new…forever. Maybe we would not ever be able to come back here to our lives and everything we know. We would lose our home, closeness to our families, our culture. We would walk away from it all.
And believe me, I get the irony that this is exactly what we put L through when we adopted her. I know this.
In the end,we decided we just can’t go right now.
I don’t know if that means never or just right now…but it probably means never.
To be continued….here.
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