Prompt Day 13.
Have you encountered misleading information about the adoption industry or about living as an adopted person, either in print, or on social media, or at church, or in a class? Talk about the importance of educating others on the reality of adoption. Debunk the fallacies you’ve heard by referencing documented facts and/or pointing to sources where one can learn the truth about adoption. What do you think is the biggest misconception about adoption?
1. If we take Korea as an example, Korea's adoption industry is experienced, trustwhorthy and safe. -Of course Korean (agencies) are experienced they have had over 60 years to practice. What started as a will to help to save Korean orphans is no longer needed.
I realize one person cannot demand that all unnecessary adoptions end. I wish APs and the industry wouldn't support adoptions from countries that hasn't signed the Hague convention. Consider what the lack of it would mean.
I suspect that it's likely my adoption never would have happened if Korea wouldn't insist on not signing the Hague convention. My birth parents did not want to give me up for adoption. My birth father went back to the agency to get me back and tried to dissolve my adoption. I was most likely given up for adoption too soon after my birth something which the Hague Convention doesn't allow.
Korea's society has changed and these days most women that places their children for adoption do so for other reasons. There are quite a few single mothers in Korea today. Society doesn't support that kind of life style unfortunately. Many single mothers wants to keep their children but not many are able to do. If you are unwed (Korean) woman you are encouraged not to concieve children out of wedlock. If you do, unfortunately society will not be kind to you.
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| Kim Braden as Anne Shirley, motherless and fatherless |
I realize one person cannot demand that all unnecessary adoptions end. I wish APs and the industry wouldn't support adoptions from countries that hasn't signed the Hague convention. Consider what the lack of it would mean.
I suspect that it's likely my adoption never would have happened if Korea wouldn't insist on not signing the Hague convention. My birth parents did not want to give me up for adoption. My birth father went back to the agency to get me back and tried to dissolve my adoption. I was most likely given up for adoption too soon after my birth something which the Hague Convention doesn't allow.
Korea's society has changed and these days most women that places their children for adoption do so for other reasons. There are quite a few single mothers in Korea today. Society doesn't support that kind of life style unfortunately. Many single mothers wants to keep their children but not many are able to do. If you are unwed (Korean) woman you are encouraged not to concieve children out of wedlock. If you do, unfortunately society will not be kind to you.
Just using myself and my adopted brother as an example I was born in the late 90's and my birth family was poor and forced to give me up.
My adopted brother born a few years later had an unmarried birthmother. Which was the reason she was unable to keep him even if she may have wanted too.
2. If you're an adoptee chances are your documents may label you an orphan. Officially in their papers but there is a chance that there are another version too. Orphans and infants are in higher demand than an older child with known birth parents.Why can´t society begin to say fatherless or motherless if someone really isn't an orphan.
.If you ask me I would wish that the term orphan was expanded further. Into real or actual orphan, paper orphan and legal orphan. Preferably use motherless or fatherless instead of orphan whenever that applies.I really don't like that word, (to me it means an orphan is a child without any living parents.) In an English thesaurus the word orphan can also refer to a child that has known birth parents that are unable or unwilling to raise them due to poverty.
I was never an orphan my papers weren't forged. But the meaning of the word orphan also means that your parents may be poor and unable to raise you.
3. Adoption never solves a problem, it creates a new one.
Adoption is a trauma for the adoptee and the birthmother.Posttraumatic stress disorder is not uncommon.
I think it's ignorant to think that adoption is the last solution. Why can't society begin to understand that nobody should be forced to give their own flesh and blood to a stranger. Instead of adoption offer economic aid and help the birth mother to keep her child.
Yes adoption is a trauma. A newborn child shouldn't be separated from the one person that's supposed to protect them. The age a child is involuntary separated from its birthparents and culture is not insignificant.
Not all APs should be able to adopt or even become parents. There are abusive and unsuitable APs around. How can you say that an adoptee in that case has a better life!? I personally don't like that term I insist on saying different not better.
My adopted brother born a few years later had an unmarried birthmother. Which was the reason she was unable to keep him even if she may have wanted too.
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| Oliver Twist, motherless with unknown father source |
.If you ask me I would wish that the term orphan was expanded further. Into real or actual orphan, paper orphan and legal orphan. Preferably use motherless or fatherless instead of orphan whenever that applies.I really don't like that word, (to me it means an orphan is a child without any living parents.) In an English thesaurus the word orphan can also refer to a child that has known birth parents that are unable or unwilling to raise them due to poverty.
I was never an orphan my papers weren't forged. But the meaning of the word orphan also means that your parents may be poor and unable to raise you.
3. Adoption never solves a problem, it creates a new one.
Adoption is a trauma for the adoptee and the birthmother.Posttraumatic stress disorder is not uncommon.
I think it's ignorant to think that adoption is the last solution. Why can't society begin to understand that nobody should be forced to give their own flesh and blood to a stranger. Instead of adoption offer economic aid and help the birth mother to keep her child.
Yes adoption is a trauma. A newborn child shouldn't be separated from the one person that's supposed to protect them. The age a child is involuntary separated from its birthparents and culture is not insignificant.
Not all APs should be able to adopt or even become parents. There are abusive and unsuitable APs around. How can you say that an adoptee in that case has a better life!? I personally don't like that term I insist on saying different not better.
That's how I can say adoption can create a problem.
5. Transracial adoptees does never gain their APs ethnicity don't do yourself and your adoptee the disservice of thinking you somehow are entitled to remove or replace your adopted child's culture. If your adoptee had an original name at least let them keep it until they are old enough to make their own decision. Having a name from your APs culture is one thing - I personally understand it but I don't support it. Don't add to the stigmatization by insisting your adopted child should learn the same mother tongue. Give them the opportunity to learn both and later decide on their own.
It's naive and ignorant to think an adoption is equal to a birth when it really isn't- at least not for the child in question. An adopted child always has a past it doesn't matter if they were adopted as infants, toddlers or young children. Somewhere is the child's birth parents, the place where they were born and would have been raised.
6. Transracial adoptees may very well be raised in different cultures and societies. Don't think it's alright to pretend your adopted child or children's other tongue is the same as yours. That's just ignorant and adoptees always have a past. An adoptees native tongue can never change without being forcefully removed.
"Why should my adopted children have to learn a foreign language, now!? They certainly have no need to learn it. When on earth should they use it?"
For a transracial adoptee a potential language barrier is likely. In case of reunion and birth family searches then if if ever there would be a need for it. In some European countries it's possible for adoptees to learn their native tongue. Some argue that the law shouldn't be abused by adoptees since the law was constructed to support and encourage first, second and third generation immigrants to keep their mother tongue. Statistically adoptees are first generation immigrants culturally and socially they may not be.
For a transracial adoptee a potential language barrier is likely. In case of reunion and birth family searches then if if ever there would be a need for it. In some European countries it's possible for adoptees to learn their native tongue. Some argue that the law shouldn't be abused by adoptees since the law was constructed to support and encourage first, second and third generation immigrants to keep their mother tongue. Statistically adoptees are first generation immigrants culturally and socially they may not be.
7. Adoption directly affects more than just the birth mother and father. If there are siblings and grandparents they are very much affected too. Regardless of reunion or not. The children of an adoptee will also be affected. How could they not ? The same with possible nieces, nephews and spouses.
8. A (transracial) adoptee belongs to two families. The APs and their birth family. According to statistics a (transracial) adoptee will always be a first generation immigrant. The children of an adoptee will be second generation immigrants. Grandchildren third generation immigrants.
9. It's possible for a (transracial) adoptee to be discriminated because of their name. Speaking of myself I grew up with a Swedish surname and a Swedish personal name. People assumed I was a native Swede - as long as they didn't meet me face to face. People have accused me of not being a Swedish citizen,I have been asked to show ID and have been greeted in English.
Statistically I am a first generation immigrant- meaning that my supposed future children is likely to be second generation immigrants. My grandchildren would be third generation immigrants and their children fourth generation immigrants and possibly even a fifth generation too.
I wish prospective APs would consider how that would affect a transracial adoptee.
10. Asian people are not almost White. Asia is another ethnicity and race with their own culture. No, being Asian doesn't mean we all understand each other. China, Japan and Korea are three diffrent countries that shares a similar history (but as for the languages a Korean doesn't understand a Japanese or a Chinese. So please.
Some say that there is no racism against Asians... but they couldn't be more wrong. Prejudices, stereotypes and labeling exist in every culture. It's not just African Americans that unfortuantely encounter daily or regular racism. Xenophobia is born where ignorance exist.
Some say that there is no racism against Asians... but they couldn't be more wrong. Prejudices, stereotypes and labeling exist in every culture. It's not just African Americans that unfortuantely encounter daily or regular racism. Xenophobia is born where ignorance exist.
11. Just because APs may or may not choose to add a another or several siblings into their family. It doesn't mean those children will get along. An adopted family is just like any other family - sometimes even fullblood siblings and relatives rarely get along.
12. Being an adult adoptee means that the simplest things remind me of the fact that I'm adopted. Even if I happen to have reuntied with my entire birth family. I still have to tell my GP that I'm adopted, school assignments like do your family tree was never fun to me.
"I suppose you can do your adoptive parents family tree instead."
Or take something as simple as your birth certificate. Because you are an adoptee you are not entitled to know whose name stands on your birth certificate. Transracial adoptees does not always know who their birth parents are for different reasons.
Those were some of the most common myths I encountered over my life. Now I want to hear what yours would be? I am certain there are several more out there there most be. Feel free to share your own.
