I have written about my thoughts on learning Korean culture in several posts and I am reacting to a response that I received from a reader. Everyone had been pushing and pushing about the importance of teaching her child about the Korean culture and she had started to really worry. There she was with a brand new baby and she had to start planning a Korean culture syllabus for her six month old.
I’m in the same boat now. When my son arrived home from Korea, I had my hands full learning to be a new mother – culture wasn’t even on my radar screen. I had diaper rashes, gas bubbles, bottles and midnight feedings. Truthfully, even now I’m a little distracted. We’re dealing with “terrible twos” and (gasp!) “potty training.” So, let’s be realistic. If your child comes as a baby, when do you really have to start worrying about culture? The answer is that it probably depends on your child.
How much culture is my son really going to absorb right now? Not much. I try to make sure we have books with Asian pictures, but he’s too young to understand adoption and he’s too young to appreciate my commentary on the Korean flag…he’s busy. I’m busy learning to be a mother and he’s busy learning to be a little boy.
I expect that in the next couple of years, things will be different. He will be three years old (going on four or forty) and full of much more complex questions. But now, I’m content with letting him develop his language skills – listening to him babble about cars and planes and trains. I like to watch how excited he is when he figures out how to put the coin in his “piggy” bank and stand on one foot.
It will be different for parents who are adopting older children. I don’t envy you. Not only do you have to learn to be a parent to an adopted child, but you also have to help them hold onto their culture – foods, music, language… You don’t have a grace period, a chance to just develop the parent/child relationship without extra complications. However, I can see how working to help your child hold onto their culture might create a lasting bond that can’t be duplicated by teaching culture from the ground up.
As parents of Korean adoptees, we have decided to take on a very complicated role. We have all the normal trials and tribulations of parenthood with the additional complication of adoption issues that have a tendency to pop up when you are least expecting them. Personally, I am concentrating on being a parent right now, but I am preparing myself to shift into another role (to help my son find the cultural identity that best suits him).
Here are links to some of my previous blogs on Korean culture:
did-i-turn-my-back-on-my-culture
finding-korean-culture-in-your-community
teaching-your-child-about-korean-culture
If you would like to comment, but not on this site, please feel free to e-mail me adoptkoreablog@adoptionmail.com
It is hard to know when to start when you adopt an infant. But I think if you talk about it from the beginning it won’t be such a mystery to our kids. Just little things, not long discussions.
We brought home some special things from Korea for Jack: his Korean name written in Korean, a picture with games children played long ago in Korea, and millions of pictures. He is fascinated with the poster of his name, I know it’s because of the contrast between the large black characters and white background, but when he points to it, it gives us an opportunity to say, “That says Lee Seung Joon, your Korean name. And over there it says Jack, your American name.”
To me this will make the transition from learning to be a parent to helping my child find his cultural identity a lot easier.