Sherry and I were emailing one day. She shared some difficult things she'd been through with her kids. I liked this and asked her permission to share it.

Karin

But it's a thread in our lives now, not the entire fabric, and sometimes it's almost hidden within the warp and weft of our lives. And laughter adds a little sparkle to that fabric as well.
Sherry B

Originally posted 2007-01-10 23:22:43.

No related posts.

Having one child is like having one child. Having two children is like having 3. The two children and the relationship between them. Having three kids is like having 6! The three children and the 3 different relationships between them.

My cousin's wife found this out by experience when she really, really wanted a third child. Everyone told her it wasn't going to be like adding one more. She didn't believe it, until she was parenting three. Then she said, it was exponential.

And my mother used to say, no matter how many children you have, you have one more, meaning my then-non-existent husband.

I'm enjoying having a flock of children around this week. College girl is home for spring break and we have college age kids hanging out here...having a blast...at this exact moment they are in the driveway making masks out of paper mache ostentably to be used for the upcoming Harry Potter book and movie. But who knows what they will use it for. I hear lots of laughter. I think they are masking my littlest girl too. I don't think the older little could bear to have her face stilled (me neither) until it dries.

One girl has lived with us at two different times due to her father's work postings and will stay with us frequently for long periods when college girl is back in town. She is my almost-daughter. I love her like one. One boy has been out of the picture for a couple of years and is now back in it.

I even said growing up that I wanted my home to be the hang-out place for my children, rather than having my kids go hang out at other places. That said, it is not the same as having 3 college kids of my own which I raised to this point plus grown son, plus the littles. It would certainly change the relationship I had with each of my kids and would also afford different relationships between the sibs. And each of those parameters would have an effect on the other.

I would have had to run just to catch up with myself.

I was fortunate in some ways as my first three children were all 9 years apart. I had plenty of one-on-one with each of them. And they had friendships of a sort with each other because there were long stretches of time when the littler was too little to really be a companion to the older. But there was next to no sibling rivalry.

Then along came child # 4 who was only about 2 years younger than child # 3...and the fur began to fly big time. Now they are very close friends, but getting to this point was a journey for me. I thought I was gonna die, LOL.

I see the example of Angelina Jolie who is mothering a brood of children, and either she is in for a rude awakening or she is a far, far better woman than I am. Of course, outside the essential differences of the amount of help each of us has (which is truly incomparable), our ages, the degree of how well known we are (or are not), we are completely alike. Not!

I wish her the best in all ways, including her children, who deserve the best.

Seeing celebs adopting is a little surreal. Didn't many of us think we were born to be royal but somehow we were mixed up at the hospital? I can't imagine living in a fishbowl, never having done it.

But the jury is still out as to what a lifetime will bring. And holding up celebs as a reason to do anything or how to do anything is just not living in the real world.

And when it is held up as something to strive for oneself, well, that just borders on the ridiculous.

And when celebs are discussed or joked about or the subject of skits that filter down to the average parent, their story is seen as our story or our children's stories.

When one person is seen as a collector of children does that make the rest of us collectors? At what point is a person a collector -- more than one country? 5 kids? a dozen kids? 20 kids? 25 kids? at what point is a home really another type of orphanage? is a collector always, by definition, someone who has collected more kids than we have? (In other words, if we were a collector, would we even know it or acknowledge it?) (It is totally impossible to catch up with someone who is a collector of children, they will always outpace you in the number of children they gather.)

I'm glad I'm not a social worker, determining what is reasonable or not.

It might be that the TR internationally adopted child raised with many siblings does better than the singleton for a variety of reasons, even the fact that typical close bonding to parents is not a requirement, something s/he might not be capable of. But it wouldn't be a first choice for me anyway.

I met my match when I had only two close in age. I'm not capable of more.

Paul Harvey used to say: And now the rest of the story.

Many of us are living it. Page 2, indeed.

Karin

Originally posted 2007-03-14 15:52:49.

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...these issues are issues I deal with as an adult adoptee...issues do not stop with childhood/adolescence, no matter what researchers or adoptive parents might think. Because part of opening myself to this list [IAT] is helping adoptive parents to see the ways that adoption shapes/touches/influences even those parts of our lives that seem separate...and to say that the hurt inside of me created first when I was abandoned and continued during my entire life no matter how much I mature... that hurt is part of my identity. For good and for bad. It gives me empathy, it gives me a need to love, and it gives me tenderness...but it also gives me a terrible vulnerability.

I open up that vulnerability to be of service to others because it is the only way for me to make meaning of this terrible loss, this unresolvable grief.

It is who I am. boamseng at IAT, Korean Adoptee (KAD) with permission

She would be willing to talk with parents who would like to know what she means more concretely. For now, email me and I will forward the messages to her.

Karin

Originally posted 2007-10-14 19:25:42.

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"It is complex, it is challenging and sometimes it can be painful. What I think everyone like me feels is that it's not something you grow out of, it is a lifelong experience and it's vital that people who have been through it talk about their experiences." Perlita Harris, Indian, adopted in Britain

Originally posted 2007-03-02 08:18:58.

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I think it's important that we think about this and discuss it in some way, even those of us with Chinese children or soon-to-have Chinese children. It's not unusual for grown Korean adoptees (KADs) to think of themselves as exports...or at least to think of Korean adoption on the whole as an export, and it won't be unusual for our Chinese children either. It is best we have our eyes and hearts open to the reality at least of the possibility. Our children won't live in a vacuum and they will hear these things and maybe even experience them.

Adoption has many painful aspects for the adoptee. It is not all rosy. Those of us living with Chinese children can attest that many of the same things told to us by KADs are the same things we live with day to day with our children.

There is a bittersweet aspect to it, even in the happiest of lives, and many unanswered questions of the heart for our children, no matter how deeply we love them or they love us.

I felt from the beginning that there might be a relatively small window for Chinese adoptions and wondered how our children would feel to have been born in that window. OTOH, Korean adoptions have gone on for 50 years.

Karin

>The shame of Korea's orphan exportation
>
>
>Cho Jeong Lae, writer and Endowed Professor at Dongguk University
>
>There are more than 200 countries on this earth. Among these, the
>Republic of Korea ranks 12th economically. Every Korean knows this,
>and brags or gets haughty about it. And why not? Are we not a poor
>country that had a per capita income of US$80 in the early sixties
>that has since achieved per capita national income of US$20,000?
>
>It would seem, however, that there are few Koreans who know that this
>country they are so proud of is the world's 4th largest orphan
>exporter. This is because of a social atmosphere in which people ask
>what use there is knowing such things when you're busy enough as it
>is trying to get ahead in life yourself. That, in turn, may be what
>makes being the 4th largest exporter of orphans more shameful than
>standing naked. Foreign media have begun criticizing this cruel
>apathy. "Now that Korea has become an economic powerhouse, it should
>stop sending adoptees overseas," they say.
>
>Ahead of this criticism, in Seoul this summer some 600 overseas
>adoptees attended a conference of the International Korean Adoptee
>Associations (IKAA). Some among them held a protest calling for an
>end to Korea's exportation of adoptees. In their various languages
>they said one thing. "You should be ashamed!"
>
>Something happened to me two years ago. Korea was the guest of honor
>at the 2002 at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and I was one of several
>Korean authors who participated in some of the events. During the
>course of the week we did public readings and newspaper interviews.
>One day I was interviewed by a Swedish literary critic. Somewhere in
>the course of the interview she asked what I thought about the fact
>that Korean adoptees are exported to other countries. I felt like I
>had been hit with a splash of hot water. I worked hard to hide my
>feelings of shame and embarrassment and to give a straight answer. It
>also happened to be something I have always thought a lot about.
>
>The Swede had a follow-up question. "What are you doing as an author
>to solve the problem?" This was how she was openly displaying her
>displeasure with my answer. If felt as miserable as could be, since
>as an author I had done nothing. I admitted that I had done nothing,
>and evaded the question saying I would do anything I could in the
>future. Two years have passed and I've done nothing to stop the
>export of orphans.
>
>The exportation of Korean orphans started immediately after the
>Korean War. More than 3 million people died in a war that lasted just
>three years, during which the country was bombed into a wasteland -
>imagine how many children were orphaned in the process! Those poor
>precious things had to be sent overseas instead of being forced to
>starve. It was a heartrending choice but the right one.
>
>However, it is wrong that this practice has continued through today.
>It should have stopped when we put the postwar poverty behind us and
>began to be able to sustain ourselves again, at about the point where
>we achieved a per capita national income of US$5,000. Or we should
>have ended it for sure when we surpassed the US$10,000 mark. Today we
>boast a per capita national income of US$20,000, but we're still
>sending orphans to other countries.
>
>India has 800 million people and barely earns a per capita income of
>US$1,000, and it sends 320 orphans overseas yearly. Korea has 50
>million people and a per capita income of US$20,000 and yet in one
>year it sends 1,400 orphans overseas. Every Korean government has
>invited international embarrassment because of its carefree
>dereliction of duty, and how firmly have each of us closed our hearts
>while we all obsessed with our individual selves. Thirty years ago
>Japan earned the international nickname "economic animal." What will
>Korea's nickname be?
>
>Posted on : Sep.18,2007 09:46 KST
>
>http://en\
glish.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_opinion/237090.html

Originally posted 2007-09-21 12:24:33.

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There are many hard truths of adoption, all of which our children own. After all, it is their story. And age appropriately we share with them so they have the knowledge they need to take into the world with them.

And some things may turn out to be unexpectedly difficult or hard for our children that we need to learn to wrap our heads around in order to walk the path with them.

Tonight, on the way to dinner, out of the blue, our 11 yo asked if we knew any information about where she was found. We have talked about this before, but tonight she was ready to listen at another level. I don't know what sparked the question. She had spent time with a friend today, but she did not say they talked about anything. Perhaps it was just seeing someone in their birth family.

I remember the first time I used the word 'abandon' or 'abandonment' with my children. It was a hard word to get out of my mouth, but after a while, it becomes easier, just as it was easy to think in my thoughts.

I can't count the number of times people have said to me things like: they don't like girls in China -- they abandon or kill their girls in China.

And I have asked them if they have ever been in China. (No.) The truth is something far different.

My girls have also had it said to them in school.

What good would it do them not to know the real facts or for me to gloss over them? They will grow up, and then they will know that I was not trustworthy.

The word appears on their paperwork.

We don't know who did what, when or why. I believe God was there over all, leading us to each other. I do not believe God caused it. There are some things in life that are not easy to understand or may never be understood here. But we process it as best we can, looking through a glass darkly. Life is complicated and complex, not simplistic.

I have heard adult adoptees counsel not to say an adoption plan was made. After all, it wasn't, not in the sense we use the phrase in the West. How can one equate abandonment with an adoption plan? (In some countries you do know the birth parents' names, that is different.) I don't even think the concept exists in China. It has only been recently than any kind of supposed push toward domestic adoption is taking place. And, so far as I know, these are not known to the person adoptions.

I have always told my girls the truth as we know it. I want them to come to me, knowing I will always tell them the truth vs. needing to ask someone else. (This goes for other things too like facts of life.)

And even though we talk about these truths often, there are moments when it is more meaningful to them, as far as their level of understanding.

So tonight we talked (again) about some of the known facts of Chinese adoption, as well as the gray areas where we do not have information, and we talked of the difference in culture.

One child has no information re place of abandonment. It was not required by our government at that time. The other does. But in our small group of adoptive families that went to the SWI that we adopted from, four families (two each) had identical finding information, which seems unlikely. The truth is not forthcoming.

What I considered cultural (a grandmother taking a child and forcing abandonment on the mother and/or father) is clearly kidnapping in our culture. (Yes! she said.) (And she said she could never do that. She'd feel too badly to cause so much hurt.) (And I said something like but remember we are raised to think differently.)

And I said, it's very hard to admit we did something we wished we might not have, that caused us pain, expected or unexpected. I said, what if I had abandoned a child, and they found me and asked me later, what might I possibly say. (She said, you might say it was the grandmother.) (And I said, and in our case, my mother is dead, so you couldn't ask her. So it might be hard in this life to ever know the real truth.)

And then we were at dinner...and there will be more moments to talk and share and process.

Karin

Originally posted 2007-07-28 17:13:40.

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For AP's--Join online groups like Adoption_Agency_Research and learn and
participate.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Adoption_Agency_Research/ (The Adoption Agency Research Group was formed to help prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) in their research and selection of an international adoption agency. If you have already completed an adoption, please share your experience with us! This group is for CONSUMERS ONLY -- EMPLOYEES OR AFFILIATES OF ADOPTION AGENCIES are NOT WELCOME in this Group!)

--Contribute whatever you can according to your own experiences.

--The best way to continue to support bad agency practice is to keep your mouth shut about the corruption, fraud, and bad adoption practices that you yourself experienced. The best way to support better agency practice is to SHARE YOUR BAD EXPERIENCES with others. Silence is the best friend of corruption, fraud, and bad adoption practice.

--Membership in groups like AAR is useful not just in terms of learning about agencies, but in learning about the realities of current adoption practice.

--Note the lacks and loopholes in adoption law and enforcement as you see how real life adoption practice plays out in the lives of real people.

--Note who the especially problematic actors are and how they freely they appear, disappear, and then reappear in one agency and then another.

--Note also how ineffective the laws, enforcement, and oversight are as you watch the very, very few agencies and actors who are finally disciplined by government or voluntary bodies simply show up in another jurisdiction or another agency reincarnation to continue freely to do whatever they do.

--Note also the lack of real recourse that adoptive parents have with agencies. What would make this situation better?

--Now imagine this lack of laws, lack of enforcement, and lack of recourse and power multiplied a hundredfold in the case of impoverished first families dealing with corrupt sending country operatives and governments. What would make this situation better?

Originally posted 2007-03-05 20:50:22.

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I came across this quote after I was thinking about what dreams the older women might have held or what the younger women expected from life. I loved the idea of nourishing and protecting our dreams, nursing them through bad days.

Not every dream comes to fruition effortlessly. Some take a good deal of patience and perseverance to bring to life.

Are you holding onto a dream, perhaps in the face of naysayers? One thing for me, was waiting on our first adoption from China. It took a lot, and a lot of time, before it came to pass. But that didn't mean it wasn't going to happen.

Karin

All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let our dreams die, but others nourish and protect them, nurse them through bad days till they bring them to sunshine and light, which always come to those who sincerely believe that their dreams will come true. Woodrow Wilson

Originally posted 2007-08-30 16:37:01.

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If you are interesting in knowing more possibilities of what Korean birthmothers feel and discuss among themselves, go to this site.

I think many of the thoughts expressed could also be expressed by birth mothers from other countries.

Karin

Originally posted 2007-05-21 18:50:02.

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Desiree and her husband found through much trial and tribualation that their daughters, adopted at older ages from India, were telling the truth about their first family, despite all that was told them to the contrary. Their daughters have been reunited with their first family in India. Desiree and her husband have not rested in their labors to make this more known to others. That is why I consider them heroes, though I doubt they would call themselves heroes. You can read more about their story at her blog, by clicking on her name below.

Karin

Child Laundering As Exploitation: Applying Anti-Trafficking Norms to Intercountry Adoption Under the Coming Hague Regime David M. Smolin, Cumberland Law School, Samford University

Abstract
Child laundering occurs when children are illicitly obtained by fraud, force, or funds, and then processed through false paperwork into "orphans" and then adoptees. Child laundering thus involves illegally obtaining children by abduction or purchase for purposes of adoption. My prior work has documented and analyzed the widespread existence of child laundering in the intercountry adoption system. This article argues that child laundering is a form of exploitation, and hence qualifies as a form of human trafficking. Once child laundering is understood as an exploitative form of child trafficking, legal and ethical norms currently applied to human trafficking become applicable. Thus, the Hague Convention on
Intercountry Adoption should be implemented according to its intent as an anti-trafficking Convention.
-----------------------

This is my husband David's latest adoption-related law review article. It can be found at:

This latest article is a follow-up to another article from last year entitled:

Child Laundering: How the Intercountry Adoption System Legitimizes and Incentivizes the Practices of Buying, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Stealing Children

(you can access this article and his others on adoption at )

The irksome question that my husband would constantly get at the end of conversations about the issue with colleagues and others was:

Is child laundering--obtaining children for intercountry adoption by abduction or purchase--really exploitative or harmful to anyone? Aren't the children better off anyway?

This leads to the legal issue as whether child laundering should be viewed ethically and legally as a form of child trafficking. Right now it is NOT always viewed that way--child trafficking is ONLY trafficking only when it is for sex or labor or slavery.

Buying, selling, and stealing for children adoption is outside of some child trafficking definitions.

The article uses analysis and narratives to explore the impact of child laundering on first families and children.

My husband's current article represents the answer to these questions. It uses analysis and narrative explore the impact of child laundering on first families and children and to establish that trafficking for adoption IS harmful to these families and their children.

Desiree

Originally posted 2007-03-09 12:29:10.

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