After writing my last post about medical history, I started thinking about a more general topic. Thinking about my frustration when I fill out medical history information led me to remember my frustration in other situations. As Korean adoptees and the parents of adoptees, we are really living in a world that is designed for someone else…we live in a world designed for biological children and the parents of biological children. It’s frustrating.

School projects tended to revolve around families. My philosophy has always been that my family through my adoption are my family. When it comes to projects like family trees, biographies of family members, etc… it never occurred to me to consider my Korean family. However, projects like these bring up a lot of questions and often the teachers aren’t ready for them. Curriculum is generally geared towards biological families.

When I got married, I was looking for my father/daughter dance song and all of the traditional songs talked about things that weren’t applicable to me. It is a good thing that I am not always a fan of traditional or it would have been a very frustrating experience.

I remember when we first started the adoption process. I logged onto all the baby websites for diapers, formulas, magazines, general baby information and signed up. One of the first questions that they all asked was “When is your delivery date?” and I had no way of answering. Prior to our referral, I had to guess and then all the information that I received was off by several months because I could never figure out how to go back in and change it to the correct date.

What I’ve learned is that I have to be creative. I have to be prepared. I have to be adaptable. I have to be prepared to speak out and point out where things can be changed.

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