Part 1

It’s funny. When I was little people were always throwing around the “abandoned” term when they were talking about me. It was before “politically correct” became a buzz phrase and everyone was making lists of positive adoption words. To me, abandoned was a term that described how I came to be adopted and I didn’t actually ever feel that I was abandoned.

That sounds a little funny, but I think that it speaks volumes about how I came to feel... more

Jan at the Adoption Search blog asked me why I thought some adoptees search and why others don’t. I can tell you why I haven’t searched.

I have always wondered what my birth parents were like before me and what happened to them after me. I have wondered if I have siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. However, I have always been the most comfortable with them as a fleeting thought. I don’t feel like I’m incomplete. They are a part of me...a part of who I am today.

I’ve... more

My family has been enjoying the warm days – two days with 80 degree weather in March. Of course, I am also well aware of the fact that I live in the mid-west and in the mid-west it could snow tomorrow. I saw a rainbow today on the way home from work. I love rainbows (and though I realize that you can see them all year), I associate rainbows with Spring.

Anyhow, I picked up my son from daycare and we were talking about his day. He was very excited to tell me that they had gone outside to play again and he wanted to take a walk when we got... more

Someone asked me why I liked being adopted. It’s a good question, but I really hate this question because I don’t have an answer. On my other blog, I wrote a post about “The Other Side.” The other side, for me, is the group of Korean adoptees who are adamantly against Korean adoption. My position is simple and I’ve said it before. I would rather that Korean children be adopted in Korea, but until that is possible, I have nothing against Korean children being adopted outside the country. Obviously, I don’t have an issue or I wouldn’t have adopted my... more

When I was little I had a little green button that I liked to wear on St. Patrick’s Day. It said “Kiss Me I’m Irish.” It served a couple of purposes. First, it kept people from pinching me because I wasn’t wearing green. Second, it really baffled people. They would read the button, look at me and most people wouldn’t even ask the question.

Here’s the truth. Growing up, it never occurred to me that my mother’s Irish heritage wasn’t mine because I was adopted. I’ve written about that before. It’s why I can sing a couple of Irish pub songs and dance a few steps of the Irish jig (though badly).

Several years ago, a local business owner called me and said that he wanted... more

One of the things that I think parents of Korean adoptees have to be is diligent. We have to constantly watch the people around us to make sure that they aren’t making assumptions about our children that will hurt them or affect the way they are treated. So many people see a Korean adoptee and start making assumptions based on their visual analysis. They don’t look any deeper.

When I was in seventh grade, I was not doing very well in English class, which was confusing my parents. Up until that point, English was always one of my favorite subjects... more

I have often wondered why people automatically assume that I’m Japanese. (Actually, Japanese and Chinese are pretty interchangeable.) It’s not that I don’t think I look Japanese, it’s more that I wonder why they would try to guess what race I am. The same person who asks me that question is not likely to walk up to a Caucasian woman and ask if she’s French. Why is it proper etiquette to ask me if I’m Japanese?

Truthfully, I generally consider the phenomena to be an annoyance. It doesn’t bother me a lot, but I know that it bothers... more

Okay, I apologize for missing yesterday. I intended to write, but my husband has strep throat again (4th time since October) and my parents are here from Ohio. In addition, the painter was here to finish painting our house. It’s almost ten o’clock and I am well aware that day light savings is going to cause me to wake up before my brain wants me too.

I took my parents to Trader Joe’s today. They had never been and wanted to see what it’s like. My husband and I love Trader Joe’s. You... more

My son is finally starting to retain some of the information that we’ve been telling him since he was a baby. Some of it is by rote. He repeats over and over again – I am Korean. Mommy is Korean. Aunt C is Korean. Daddy is not Korean. Sometimes, he throws in that C (his plane-mate) is Korean. We have her picture on our refrigerator from Christmas. We know that the concept hasn’t really set in yet because he also insisted last week-end that his very blond little friend A was Korean too.

On of the things that we want our son to... more

I wrote that we attended a Korean new year party that the local Korean community hosts for families touched by Korean adoption. One thing I’ve noticed about these get-togethers is that most of the children are young. Most families seem to disappear by the time their oldest child hits their pre-teens.

I expect that the biggest reason is that it is much harder to get the pre-teen child to go to these events. They have other more pressing issues to worry about. What I don’t understand is why the parents stop coming too. Do they loose interest... more