Part 1 - Introduction

Part 2 - Disappointment & Failure

Part 3 - Anxiety

Guilt

Last year, I wrote a post about guilt and I was thinking that guilt would be a perfect emotion for this series. Up until this point, I’ve been covering emotion mostly from the standpoint of the adoptive parent. Guilt is in easy one to examine from all sides. Guilt seems to be an emotion that permeates through all parts of the adoption process.

Link: Guilt May 2006

Guilt pops up when we least expect it. Today, I was feeling very guilty. My son woke up this morning and he told us that his stomach hurt and he didn’t want to go to school. He’s three years old now and he’s already tried to scam us a couple of times with that ploy. He felt a little warm, but I attributed it to the fact that he was wearing pajamas with feet (which he normally doesn’t) and I sent him off to daycare. The guilt set in when I got an early afternoon call that he had a fever of 101 and we needed to come get him. My husband picked him and by the time I got home he was running in circles around the couch playing tag with the cat. Still, a part of me felt guilty for letting him go to school. I’m the mother. Shouldn’t I know when it’s a ploy and when it’s real?

A lot of parents seem to feel that way. Shouldn’t they know everything that is running through their child’s head? Shouldn’t they have anticipated that their child would have a hard time when they realized that they looked different from the rest of the family? Shouldn’t they have known that their child would feel out of place at their school? Why can’t they anticipate what their child will need or how their child will react?

I’ve read posts from adoptees who feel guilty that they are interested in going to Korea. They feel disloyal to their parents and they feel guilty that they are interested in finding their biological families.

There is a comment on my other post from a birth mother who talks about the guilt from her side of the story. “It took a long time for me not to feel guilty about parenting, much less about adoption. I am a birthparent, with a great email relationship with my surrendered daughter, and the adoptive mother of a Korean adoptee, and the mother of 2 sons, homegrown.”

A little less guilt and a lot more communication could help work things out. If you would like to comment, but not on this site, e-mail me at adoptkoreablog@adoptionmail.com.