Adoption: Problematic System(s)

Although I feel that I have very justifiable reasons to be an angry transracial adoptee, let me start with a clear statement - I am not angry. 

What I am is a transracial adoptee. I am not afraid to say that I am very disappointed in the adoption system, both internationally and domestically no matter what country one calls their own. 

Despite having been adopted domestically, in the US, three times - that’s right: once through an international adoption from my birth country of South Korea, then two more times before the age of eight within the state of Oregon - I am overall content with my life and upbringing. Luckily, the third time was a charm for me; and my final adoptive family are truly angels in human form. 

Please note, I do not call them saviors. Also note, I do not say nor do I feel that I am “grateful”. Nor, should I be required to say or feel so. Instead, I am content. I am whole. I am adopted and I am an adoptee - plain and simple. With that said, let me unabashedly state with what I am disappointed.

I am in disbelief about a system that in essence traffics children for the financial gain of a country or countries. I am shocked about a system that does not ensure the citizenship of the children they have displaced from another country. I am appalled by a system that permits the buyers of a human being to return or “give up” a child as if they have purchased a defective product rather than a live person with feelings and a psyche that will forever be affected by their selfish act(s). I am disgusted about a system that does not hold individuals accountable for the disruption they cause because their idealistic view of how adoption should be may not go as dreamed. I am even more sickened by a system that allows these victims of relinquishment to be lost into a cycle where abuse and further trauma occurs without tracking, follow-up, or care.

There are a million and one excuses from the creators, workers, and users of the system to justify how and why such atrocities occur. Unfortunately, none of them offer to recompense the sufferer. 

It is no wonder then that there are so many angry adoptees - transracial or not. 

Part of the problem is that adoption has always been presented from one perspective - generally that of the Caucasian family. Take, for example, Torry Hansen who sent a seven-year-old Russian boy on a plane back to Russia with a note saying she didn’t want him anymore. Or, the Stauffers who placed their son from China in another home once they found out he is autistic. 

While the positive point of these two cases is that at least the children were not left in the home to potentially experience abuse, it in no way serves to justify the fact that these people in essence “bought” children and then “returned” them when they realized their “purchases” weren’t perfect. Would they give up their biological children if the same issues are found in them? I think not. In fact, the whole of society would, and should, find that disbelieving, shocking, appalling, disgusting and sickening.

With the perfect storm of age, numbers, and platforms brewing, more and more adoptees, especially transracial ones, are speaking up and out against the system. It is not that we are necessarily ungrateful or walk around being angry about our situations. It is that we are expected to be so or not acknowledged to feel so, respectively. It is that the system is problematic yet the victims of the system are speaking out only to be silenced or ignored. It is that despite the oppressors' belief that we have been provided with better lives than if we had been left in our home countries or foster homes or even orphanages, no one is a fortune teller and there is no infallible proof that life is better being adopted. This is especially so when the system treats children like objects to be bought, sold, and returned or traded in.

We should all be looking at the adoption/foster systems. We should be always keeping the innocent child’s best interest at the center of every decision made on their behalf. Children are not objects. Children are not pets. If you would not treat a child that comes from your own gene pool a certain way then why on earth would it be OK to treat an adopted child that way given that they have already been taken away from their roots and biological connections, plus in the case of transracial adoptees, their heritage and culture?

Many adoptees are afraid to speak out against the system or people that they have been told ‘saved’ them from an unknown horrifying future. Instead of providing protection and support to the victim:  of expectation to be grateful, of loss at being uprooted and displaced from their own , of trauma through unsanctioned removal from the maternal bond, constantly faced with oppression and microaggressions, the system victim blames.

It was stated that it was the child’s fault through his bad behavior that his adoptive mother decided it was a justifiable reason to put him on a plane with a note pinned to him like a box that is emotionlessly stamped in big red letters “RETURN TO SENDER”.

It was posted on social media that it was the child’s fault that he developed autism making his adoptive parents feel it acceptable to rehome him like a pet that was cute enough for them to benefit financially from until it wasn’t anymore. 

Why should the adoptees be afraid to stand up for themselves? Why should the adoptees be made to feel as if they are wronging those who treat them so poorly?

Would we say the same to victims of domestic abuse or sex crimes? Aren’t we taught not to victim blame and shame? Why, then again, does the system deem it acceptable and reasonable to do it to adoptees?

Clearly, there is a problem with the system(s). Clearly, there is a problem with society. Clearly, there is a problem.

So, I am not afraid to talk about the problem. Because if I, and other adoptees like me, don’t talk about it, then how can we ever hope to take steps to fix it? We do not have to do it with anger, but we can justifiably be unbelieving, shocked, appalled, disgusted and sickened.