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 home. Unfortunately, it was right about then that it started raining large snowball-size rain drops.

So, instead he switched topics on me. “You and me,” he said, “have brown hair.” I smiled and reminded him that we have black hair. “Yes,” he said, “’cause we’re Korean.”

Then it hit me. Here was what so many adoptive parents have been trying to tell me about. My son put a lot of emphasis on the “we” part of that statement. He liked that he shared something with me that everyone else didn’t. We’re Korean. Daddy isn’t Korean. Gran isn’t Korean. Papa isn’t Korean. While my son is happily sharing this similarity with me, other Korean adoptees do not have that simple connection.

A part of me really can’t understand it when I hear people worrying about this phenomena because it never bothered me as a child. Somehow, I managed to grow up unaware that it should be an issue. I was wondering if it would be beneficial to remember that our Korean adoptees need to see a connection. While my son is seeing the physical connection, I always felt connected to my mother through books. We spent hours and hours reading books (sometimes in the same day).

If you would like to comment, but not on this site, please e-mail me at adoptkoreablog@adoptionmail.com.