Sorry, I would share these bon bons I am eating, but unfortunately I am neck deep in bullshit right here and can’t get up.
Seriously, I was letting it go, really I was, but then you had to go and call me sophisticated and said I have an air of superority.. Damn, sophisticated? I was shooting for sarcastic.
Before I go on, I know there are a lot of new readers here. Readers who are very very interested in the fact that we found our daughter’s birth family in China. I write about that. I spill my fucking guts here about how HARD it has been. And it is. It is really really hard. But if you want rainbows and butterflies, this blog is not for you. First of all, I am and have always been sarcastic and snarky.
Do you see that Kind Blog badge over there on my sidebar? No? It is because I don’t give a rat’s ass if you think I am a big old meanie.
This is the story of the most important thing I have ever done in my entire life: Giving our daughter access to the family she was ripped away from. Sharing our daughter with a family who lost their much-loved child. Embracing total strangers from another culture and making them a part of our family.
I am telling our story here because I know we are at the beginning of a long, long line of adoptive parents and Chinese adoptees who are going to be walking this same path. Our story is important and I sacrifice our privacy because people need to know that searching and reunion is no red-thread, rainbows and butterflies fairy tale.
I read all this adoptive parent bullshit and it makes me cringe. Should we light a candle to honor our daughter’s birthfamily on her birthday? How should we honor our child’s birthmother on Mother’s Day? Reading “I love you like Crazy Cakes” and idealizing this fantasy birth mother conveniently on the other side of the planet.
Honor my ass.
I have spent the last few days reading excuse after excuse about why people don’t want to search.
You can’t search because you have to fucking wash your kids’ socks? Please. Let me be there when you explain that to you adult child. I would love to show them the statlog of how many times you have clicked on my blog in the past 24 hours.
And how much time do you think searching took me? I think I averaged about one hour a MONTH total calling our translator, composing emails to our contacts, collecting documents. I spent some extra time googling stuff because I enjoy it and I am good at it, but I still do that now to help out other people who are searching. But the actual in the trenches searching, the time it took was negligible. The most dedicated searching adoptive mom I know is a single working mom with two (soon to be three) kids. If anyone doesn’t have time, SHE doesn’t have time.
The people who say they would search but can’t afford it? You can’t google? You can’t trade some english practice with a chinese speaker for some translation assistance? You can’t cut back on one soccer league season or a few dinners out to pay for a searcher? You found $20,000 to pay for an adoption when it was YOUR priority.
The way adoptive parents “listen to adult adoptees” when it suits their own agenda? Well, HERE is an adult adoptee who is calling these aparents on the shenanigans I have been reading for the next few days. Who is quoting her? And HERE is a comment from an adult adoptee (SangShil) saying she would trade the choice to search for any information about her birth family that could have been found when the trail was fresh.
I have seen adoptive parents break out in HIVES when I told them I was searching. I know families in reunion whose children’s friends’ adoptive parent will no longer let them play together because they don’t want their kids to know finding Chinese birth families are possible. You get squicky about searching and you think you can shelter your kids from the fact that it is possible? Well, you are fooling yourselves.
We are out here. We are coming to your FCC, your adoption playgroups, your kid’s classroom. Our kids will have pictures of their birth families on their 1st grade family trees. Your kids and my kids will go to Chinese heritage camp together. When you tell them you can’t search for their birth families in China, they will know you are lying. When you tell them you are too busy? They will know you really just didn’t want to be bothered.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some good reasons not to search. Reasons like “I don’t want to” or ” I am not ready” or “I can’t commit to maintaining a relationship on my child’s behalf.” And I swear to you, I DON’T WANT YOU TO SEARCH because I don’t answer to YOUR kids. I answer to MINE.
But giving these bullshit excuses? You denigrate the SACRED RESPONSIBILITY we have as adoptive parents to put our children’s best interests in front of our own convenience and desires. You insult the intelligence of adoptees who will see through these excuses and have to pretend they believe it was all about them. You dishonor the love both my daughter’s families have for her to struggle on this journey together.
Because you don’t have enough TIME? What the fuck ever.



















