I Was Googling Today…

This documentary was broadcast on BBC International last Friday. I found it today on google and thought it was worth sharing. I was pleased to see the article calls out Holt International for creating a system of “mail order” babies.

“I was abandoned in a public market in the beginning of winter”, claims one Korean adoptee.

Every year, around 1,000 South Korean children are given up for adoption in Western countries. The overseas adoption programme began in the 1950s as the impoverished government’s answer to the masses of mixed-race orphans from the Korean War.

All told, around 200,000 Korean children have been adopted overseas over the past 60 years. About 300 of them have since returned to live in Korea – and many are now involved in trying to change the adoption laws.

In this programme, BBC journalist Ellen Otzen meets Jane Trenka and Suki Leith, both of whom were adopted by American families, to explore the impact foreign adoption has had on them.

Successive governments have pledged to end the practice of trans-national adoption. South Korea is now one of the world’s most developed countries, and has one of the lowest birth rates globally, so why are Korean children still being sent away?

Today, 89% of Korean children sent overseas for adoption are born to unwed mothers, who say they are approached by private adoption agencies during their pregnancies and urged to give their children up for adoption.

One of the major players, Holt International Adoption Agency, has often been criticized by Korean adoptees for disregarding the rights of unwed mothers and setting up a system that made Korean “mail-order babies” possible.

Agency head, Molly Holt, argues that the organisation’s main goal is simply to give “unwanted” Korean babies “a permanent, loving family.”

The adoptees say it is time the Korean government makes laws that promote family preservation instead of international adoption.”

You can listen to the documentary here. Please share your thoughts with me!

On Grief

I think we should be allowed to grieve.

When I was “in the fog” so to speak, I never thought of it that way. I would have said “Grieve?? I’m so grateful I’m adopted, what is there to be sad about?” But it makes sense to grieve. Think about it. As an infant you pretty much lost the only people you ever knew. If you’re an international adoptee, you also lose the only place you ever knew, the only language you ever heard, and more than likely you lose people around you who look like you.

All in one day.

All in one day you lose your entire extended family, your identity, your culture, genealogy, familiarity. All in one day you lose so many things that other people take for granted. In any other situation, people would rightfully expect you to be devastated. They would not demand you forget about the past, move on from your old family to a new one. They would not tell you to be grateful or chastise you for missing your family. They would tell you to grieve. They would hold you as you cried. They’d bring casseroles and let you wallow for a while.

Why is it different just because I was a baby when I lost my whole life?

I really think we should be allowed to grieve.

Back Again (ish)

I’m back again. Sorry to have been gone yet again. I seem to be hanging out more on my other blog and worrying about my wedding and saving up to buy a house. It’s nice sometimes to try and be a “civilian” and not think about things so much.

I never did mail any money to my adoption agency after I got the money back from my apartment complex the way I said I was going to here. I ended up using it on Christmas presents and pushing the file to the back of my mind.

Yes, I am ashamed about it. And I know I can’t talk about missing my first mom or being angry about things having to be this way if I’m not actively trying to change things for myself. Maybe that’s another reason I’ve been gone.

That and it can be totally emotionally draining to think about the loss and what it really means to me.

So as of today I have forty dollars sitting in a jar in my bedroom closet. I keep tossing loose change and any single dollar bills in there. I have to do it this time. I HAVE to. I owe it to myself. And even if I don’t deserve my natural family, my future kids deserve to know their medical history. My future husband deserves to know if my medical history says I might keel over from some genetic anamoly in three years.

So NMama, if somehow you have awesome English skill and are reading this now, I’m sorry. I still feel like I don’t deserve you and that you still won’t want me.  And some part of me really feels like YOU should find ME since it’s YOUR fault we’re apart.

love,

your darling daughter