Who We Are: Adoptive Parents in the Korean American Community

Adoptive parents in the Korean community are easy to pick out. We're the tall, dorky white folks who look on with undisguised adoration at our children while they lisp out "San Toki, Toki-ya" at Korean School. The ones who go to school committee meetings and operate a virtual taxi service during the week going to music and dance lessons, soccer games, confirmation classes or whatever the activity is, getting involved to make sure our kids do the things they need to do. The ones who stay up late helping kids with their homework or typing a last minute report on the computer. The ones who throw the big embarrassing family parties for our kids' high school graduations. The ones who cry the most at their weddings.

I am not suggesting that adoptive parents love their kids more than non-adoptive parents. The problems and frustrations of child rearing are the same for us as for other parents, and sometimes they are greater. And we have our down times like other parents, when wish our kids would just get out of our faces, when we escape and have time alone because we just can't take it any more.

But I do think that, as a group, we tend to be more energetic and more enthusiastic about our kids just because, for most of us, parenthood is a major life achievement that has come at a great emotional cost. None of us just fell into the role of parenthood; none did it because it was expected of us. We had to choose it, and then we had to persevere in order to achieve it. Those memories of grieving and waiting for parenthood dog us for a lifetime, but that's good. Because they bless us with a unique perspective, one that could not be achieved any other way. I read a letter to the editor recently in a women's publication where the writer, a woman, said she was interested in hearing people's insights on experiences of infertility. She wrote that her experience with infertility was also a spiritual journey where she realized that babies are not toys or property or trophies, gifts from God. If she gets a good response to her request for stories, I am sure she will discover that hers is a very common revelation among those of us with experience of infertility. Most adoptive parents have experienced this depth of feeling that shocks us with a sudden spiritual insight. I have never experienced a grief so deep as the moment when I realized I might never have a family. And I never experienced a moment of healing so complete as when my daughter was first placed in my arms. Three busy children later, these two moments are still vividly with me. And I know they always will be.

This is not to suggest that all adoptive parents have an experience of infertility in their past, but many do. Probably, the only thing one can confidently generalize about adoptive parents is that they have chosen parenthood with great deliberation. And of adoptive parents of Korean-born children, one could also say that they have chosen to link their family with the Korean community with great deliberation as well

So where does that leave us as members of the Korean community? I believe that this insight adoptive parents have about the value of one's children is not a difference from the greater Korean community, but a similarity. My experience in the Korean community, both among Korean Americans and Korean nationals, has shown me that the importance of the family and the value of children is intrinsic to its cultural belief system. In fact, the value attached to families and to children has created a dichotomy of values in Korea; a system where every family member is valued and cared for, but where those not born into a family have no place in the society.

Still, the belief in the value of each person has won out over the perception that international adoption could create embarrassment. Despite this threat of national shame, the network of international adoptions, over the past thirty or more years, with several countries, has continued.

It has continued despite the negative attention focussed on adoption during the '88 Olympics, and despite several political movements to stamp it out. It has continued, over the objections of some leaders, I believe, because of a strong cultural belief in the responsibility of the society for its children, and the belief that all children should grow up in loving families. This is a quality of Korean society that I greatly identify with, respect, and admire.

But love isn't everything. As adoptive parents of children who are racially and culturally different from ourselves, we are painfully aware that there are many things we cannot provide. We can't tell them our experience growing up Korean American, and adopted. We can't teach them the culture and the language of their birth country (although some of us have chosen to learn it along with them). We can't provide them with the richness of a Korean upbringing.

So, we turn to the Korean American community. In it, we find like-minded adults who also want the best for their kids. We find elders who can teach the language, sing the songs, play the games, and prepare the food. We find Korean American parents who also want this cultural piece of upbringing for their kids and we discover we can collaborate with them in providing it. We find older adoptee peers who can relate their experience of growing up Korean and adopted.

In many ways we adoptive parents feel like a people outside a culture, looking in. But because we want to somehow provide this cultural facet for our kids, we are willing to be researchers and icebreakers on their behalf. And we benefit too, because we can learn from a culture that cherishes its children as we do, and we can observe strong family values that we can put into practice in our own homes.

Parenting across cultures is an experience all parents in the Korean American community have in common, and it's not an easy task for any of us. And adoptive parents are by no means perfect parents, a fact we readilly admit. But we have achieved parenthood over great adversity. And that gives us something to share with the community -- the drive to do it as well as we can, and the memories that constantly remind us that it's well worth the cost.

© Martha Vickery, managing editor, Korean Quarterly