...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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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Karin — I know this piece by Boamseng isn’t current, but I would be interested in speaking with her. In particular, I’m working on a feature for *Brain, Child* magazine about these issues, and I am looking for an adult adoptee’s perspective. I am an adoptive parent of a seven-year-old born in Vietnam. I first came across Boamseng in an Adoption Community of New England (ACONE) newsletter, which excerpted pointers for prospective adoptive parents (“What I Wish My Adoptive Parents Could Know/Have Known”). I have taken her advice to heart ever since.
Hi Martha!
I will forward your note on to Boamseng. If you are not at IAT, you should consider joining. There is a wealth of info there in the files as well as in on-going discussions.