Honest
to
goodness
not looking for a debate but simply answers
questions
that I have been wondering.
- Why is this so hush hush in the Chinese adoptive community? Understanding the potential legal ramifications for these birth families and handling the information with extreme care is one thing......having to say the words "birth parent search" under your breath whilst saying the secret code word, turning around 3 times and spitting over your shoulder in order to even discuss the topic seems to be another.....
- Apart from blasting your child's birth parents names irresponsibly across social media (should you be successful) why is there such a shroud of secrecy that befalls this topic?
- For those in the "No. I'm not going to search and don't plan on it." camp can I ask why?
- For those in the "Yep. Doing it now, or planning on doing it at some point" camp can I ask why?
Just curious.
Thank you for any feedback.
More on this from my view later.
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Our boys are from Uganda and we have tried to do birth parent searches. Unfortunately, we haven't had any success. I wish we had those answers for our kids. It devastates me that we don't know anything about where or when they were born, why they were left, their early childhood, anything. Three big empty gap years of nothing.
ReplyDeleteI have 2 daughters from China. They are now 11 and 12 years old. From the time we got them we have had open honest dialogue about their birth parents. My husband and I have committed to doing whatever searching our kids decide, when they decide. We go to China pretty much every year for holidays (hubby is Chinese) so it's an available option for them any time. We also visit their birth city if they want. Some years they choose to, other years they don't. I expect that at some time in the future, perhaps when they are 18-20ish they will want to undertake a search and my husband and I will do everything in our power to help them, up to and including spending a lot of time in China to search in earnest.
ReplyDeleteI would never make a decision for any other family, but for us this feels like the best possible legacy we can give to our kids. As a family, this is what feels right for us.
I struggle with this decision. My girls are from China and don't want to know more about their birth families at this point. We talk about it alot and I will let them decide. I am ready to start the search if they change their minds. I have told them the information may be hard to get at no matter when. We have also talked about the gene searching stuff and they have decided they want to try that. So, I am saving for that and waiting for a sale... but I believe it is their decision and have decided to not search until they say ok. I realize that may mean we may lose out on some information because of the rapid changes in China but I also don't want them to think I went behind their back. But I waffle on that all the time and stress about if I should search anyway. Its a tough one for us for sure.
ReplyDeleteI am leaving it up to my daughter to decide. She is 12 years old and we adopted her from China when she was 5. She remembers China and what she had and up until this point, she has never once expressed any interest in China, verbalizes not wanting to go back and does not like celebrating Chinese New Year. I have tried to encourage her to embrace her birth country but to be honest, I wasn't the little girl without parents for her first 5 years. I do not know what that felt like. If and when she changes her mind, I certainly would help her find her birth parents. I have no fears of doing this. I feel our children will either love us and bond with us or they will grow up and move on.
ReplyDeleteI have four children that were adopted from China. We do not have in depth, lengthy conversations about birth parents, China, being adopted, etc. We do have in depth, lengthy conversations about family, life, loving each other, honoring God, praying to God, careers, vacations, and many other things that are in our day to day life. That is not to say that we don't have conversations every once in a while about China, going back to China, why they were adopted, etc. We do plan to go back to China some day, and I think all four will want to go. If any one of them, or all of them, ever expressed a desire to search for birth parents, I would move heaven and earth to help them, but for now, they are just living life. I think each child in any family will have different feelings about the subject of birth parents, and just my opinion, but much of how they handle it and feel about it will be due to the way the adoptive parents have handled it. I have never put the birth parents up on a pedestal, I do not tell my children how much they were loved by their birth parents, but I do tell them that I can only imagine how the birth parents must have felt, but truly, I have no idea at all and I will not give the birth parents a voice when I am clueless to the truth. All my very humble opinion, and probably not a popular one at that :-). I was sure you would get tons of comments on this subject! I do always find it interesting to hear what others have to say about the subject, and sometimes I do find myself seeing things in a different light.
ReplyDelete