lies our mother(s) were told

there are great fictions in adoption, particularly in transracial, intercountry adoption. Domestic adoption, as well, is full of lies: our child welfare system is corrupt and ruled by the same racism, classism, ableism, colonialism, xenophobia and misogyny of the international adoption world. but korean adoption is where I live my life, so that is where I shall begin.

lies told to birth mothers:

you have no choice

you have a choice

your child will be better off

your child will be loved

you will be better off 

adoption agencies care about your child

your family will disown you

you cannot raise this child

god wants you to abandon your baby

you will forget

you will survive

you will feel no guilt

you cannot ever tell anyone

this is your fault

lies told to adoptive families:

it's almost as good as having your own

it's better than having your own

these babies have no baggage 

these babies are cuter/smarter/more exotic

if you adopt an Asian baby then you are Asian too

attachment issues? what are you talking about?

racism? isn't that over?

god meant for you to have this child

it's cool/trendy/humanitarian

it will be easy
adoptees feel no different than biological children

your child was anonymously abandoned/some other fiction that makes the child seem more adoptable

you don't need to know anything about race to be a good parent

I feel like these barely scratch the surface.

my parents' home study called them "cold and aloof". the local agency told them not to adopt an older child because they have too many issues and it would be too hard on their family. as an infant, I was deemed to be a clean slate with no issues as long as they fed me korean food once a year and bought me a couple of books. there was a four page typed note given to them by the adoption agency. I've tried to read it but it makes no sense. it's really just lies and excuses. it is handwritten titled "The Final  Answer". as if there was anything "final" or "answer" about what it means to be adopted.

it is a heavy load. this memory i can't recall but that lives in my bones. the feeling discarded, feeling abandoned. being an orphan before i knew what that meant. the fear of being not good enough. the way that everyone I ever met wanted to know why and how I was abandoned. elementary school teachers, friends, their parents, strangers. everyone. they all said I shouldn't feel any different. so when I did, that shame was all my own.

the conflation of racist yellow peril myths about china with korean adoption. make no mistake, these systems are different. the social issues in korea that contribute to child abandonment are different than in China. and china only started adoption in the 80s, korea has been doing it since the 50s. but don't expect white people to know that. I was told that I was lucky because Korea hated girls and I was lucky I didn't get killed by my parents or sold into slavery. I was told that I was lucky a lot.

they call us "chosen children" because never say who does the choosing.

my parents still don't understand racism. my mother thinks that because she has "always been drawn to Asian things" that means she a) isn't racist and b) is qualified to parent an Asian child. neither of these things is true.

more lies.

my father is "colorblind". he is educated and worked for a long time in business. now he writes books about business, teaches classes, gives lectures. he is used to bring the authority figure inside and outside of the home. he argues with me about the validity of my experience while also insisting I am a "white girl".

lies.

as privileged white people my parents have the luxury of dismissing anything they don't agree with by looking down their nose at it. when I sent them to an exhibit of adoptee art at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian American Experience (sidebar: my mother insisted on calling it the "Wing Luck"), they told me after that "it wasn't a very good museum". after many hours of my crying they admitted that actually the exhibit made them feel bad and they just wanted to dismiss it.

that was the last time I ever tried to talk to them about adoption.

it was only as I wrote my first letter to my birth mother that I even thought about what life must have been like for her. it was the first time I though that she must have suffered all these years, not knowing what happened to the child she never knew.

that is one of the many lies we adoptees are told. birth mothers are painted flat and simple. a place, not a person, not a relationship. 

but birth mothers are not machines, we are not blank slates, and adoptive parents are not saviors.

and every day is to reclaim a little bit of truth.