Adoptive parents often ask me if I think I’d have been better off left in an orphanage in Vietnam. Of course, I can never answer that question. Believe me, I’ve tried but there just isn’t a definitive answer when reach beyond the boundaries of “dying in an orphanage” as opposed to “flourishing with an adoptive family”. It just doesn’t work like that. When I reach beyond the standard framework, everything becomes reliant on the hypothetical. What if my mother were still alive? What if I’d been adopted by another Vietnamese family? What if I’d fallen into the human trafficking trade? What if my mother had come back for me? The list goes on forever, and there are no answers to any of them.
Though their question is directed at me personally, I sense that some are really seeking to answer the question in a way that’s more personal to them. The hardest thing to say is, “I don’t know,” but that’s the only answer I can give. The reason I brought it up in the first place was to question those who claimed throughout my childhood, to know the answer by informing me of how I was so “lucky”. What did they really know? I was lucky in one sense but what exactly made me so fortunate? What did they see beyond my physical health, seemingly well-adjusted behavior and material gain? They never considered the fact that in order to be so “lucky”; I’d had to lose everything except life and limb. What I had lost meant nothing to them. My heritage, my identity, my birth-family and my connection to all of those had value only to me.
Recently, I managed to get in touch with the other Viet-adoptee I’ve mentioned. I have to confess I’d been wrong about him in many ways and am glad we cleared up some of our misunderstandings. He told me some of his own story which is, in many ways, more tragic than my own. That’s his story to tell when he chooses, but my point is that in light of his story, one could assume that I was indeed better off than him. Given the fact that he went back and found his birth-family, I would disagree. It’s something I may never be able to do given the questionable circumstances of my “adoption”.
The gains only balance the loss depending on how much value one puts upon each. It’s not as simple as “I lost a family/I gained a family”. One cannot cancel out or replace the other. The loss of my birth family will always leave a void. Even if I, by some miracle, found members of my birth family, closing the gap created by time apart and differences in language and culture would be next to impossible. I’m sure I would again enter the scene as the outsider sneaking my way in through the back door.
Underlying that unanswerable “better off” question, some adoptive parents and potential adoptive parents seem to really be asking, “Should I adopt?” I’m not the person to ask. I don’t know the people asking these questions nor do I know their circumstances beyond what they tell me. That’s the kind of question they need to answer within themselves after a hard look at the world around them and into their own hearts.
Sometimes, I feel that adoptees who chose to speak out are asked to carry a burden that is not ours to carry. We are asked to offer answers and solutions to problems that many of us barely understand ourselves. When we don’t have the answers, we are then dismissed as simply wanting to complain. I’m happy to do what I can but no matter how much I might want to, I can’t “fix” the problems. It took me decades just to be able to express what I felt was wrong with my own adoption.
It is my belief that we will never solve our issues by trying to answer the unanswerable. It has to begin with understanding where things have gone wrong and going from there. It’s not that I want to drown in negativism, but as one very sharp KAD once said (paraphrasing), “We must talk until they listen.” That is one of the things that drive me to write because I fear that the minute we stop talking, people will assume that all is well in adoption-land.
For those who presume to know the answer to the unanswerable “better-off” question and choose to use it to justify adoption in general, I would remind them that the “saving” of a child neither ends nor begins with adoption. To view adoption through such a narrow lens presents a danger to the very children people are claiming to save. Such a view may seem to consider all children when in fact; it only affects those “lucky” enough to become adopted. What about those who are never adopted? For those who are, who will hear and help those who struggle with the grief, emptiness, alienation and loss of heritage and birth family? The people who believe they are much better off?
“So you would rather they be left in an orphanage to die?” The unanswerable question often gets twisted and shaped into an argument. The flaw in this is that it is based on the presumption that one knows the answer to a question based on another presumption. Why it works is because it puts the one being questioned under a kind of duress. No one in their right mind would answer “yes”. Let us not forget that the flaw is in the question which makes the answer nothing more than a manipulation.
(*edited for grammatical errors) ugh
This is SO eloquent, moving, powerful and articulate. Thanking you for putting all of this in words. I have really struggled with that “orphanage vs loving family” dichotomy and I KNOW it was lacking and not right in so many ways, and you just articulated it. Thank you.
hmmm, I was going to use the word eloquent too, but i see the above commenter did already…anyway, mashallah this is beautifully written and brings up excellent points.
peace sume
Brava! You’ve hit the nail on the head square on!
Very nice post….. This question gets posed to us so many times. I was on a panel speaking to adoptive parents a few months ago, and there was a parent in the crowd that really tried to nail one of my fellow panelists into a corner, asking the “orphanage or adoption” question. The rest of us rose to the adoptee’s defense, because she was getting flustered. You’re so right about how it’s a manipulative question that forces an answer based on presumptions…
I believe the word eloquent is perfect. Although no answers to the question we are so often asked can be found I felt a great deal of comfort and peace in what you wrote. Thank You.
Beautifully stated (my unique way of saying eloquent!)
The gains only balance the loss depending on how much value one puts upon each. It’s not so simple as “I lost a family/I gained a family”. One cannot cancel out or replace the other. The loss of my birth family will always leave a void.
I see my daughter in constant flux over this trade off, something she didn’t choose for herself. When she meets South Asian parents with children and South Asian children whose parents did not relinquish them, she says they “got to keep their families”. Just yesterday, she was questioned by a South Asian girl in the Indian grocery about her “American mom” and she was temporarily stunned. I did what I could to help smooth it over (a blog post yet to be written).
She doesn’t love us any less when she yearns for her family of origin, and wishes her existence weren’t so confusing to herself and others but she definitely feels the loss and wonders why her family didn’t “get to” keep her. For awhile she thought that a move to America was literally about escape and survival and splitting of families. I didn’t know that she had that misimpression until she met intact, apparently prosperous Indian families and let me know that their presence in America was at odds with what she thought to be true.
Underlying that unanswerable “better off” question, some adoptive parents and potential adoptive parents seem to really be asking, “Should I adopt?” I’m not the person to ask.
And you don’t have any responsibility whatsoever to answer. Now you have a post that you can link people to if they pester you! but I think it’s a really angry and defensive question. I think they want you to say you are terribly terribly grateful and so sorry to have made them uncomfortable by questioning your destiny. I wish they would all stop taking everything so personally. Asking a cookie cutter question like that is a dismissal of your reality and a disservice to our individual kids’ truths.
One of the wisest things I heard in my pre-adoption training was that every child’s story is different, every adoption is different, no two stories alike. It took a long time to start seeing how true that was. It doesn’t help that there is a myth perpetuated by agencies and orphanages that there is only one birthmother in India, young, single, anonymous and too scared to give her name–often somehow not even present during the relinquishment. She sure is producing a lot of kids for Americans!
So well said, Sume. I think I’ll print your post and distribute it as a flier the next time I am on an adult adoptee panel. Or fold it into a paper airplane so that when an adoptive parent asks this unfair line of questioning, I can *poink* them in the face with it.
I absolutely think that people who pose this question to you are really asking you to try to tell them how their own kids will feel someday. I know I have the fear that my kid(s) will say to me someday “what the hell did you do that for?” If someone could assure me I had done the right thing that would alleviate my worry. Of course I know in my heart that no one can know the answer to this question.
Telling you that you were “lucky” to be adopted is pure b@lls. How do they know that your aparents didn’t beat you silly? How do they know how you would have fared in your country of origin? How dare they step in and offer you their unsolicited opinion about the events of your life. I’ve had people (with the best of intentions, so far as I can tell) state how “lucky” they think my daughter is. It still really paralyzes me. I usually just manage to say how lucky I feel. I know in my heart that once my daughter is old enough to understand, I have to be able to step in and defend her. I’m still trying to figure out how to keep my cool and do that.
Sume, When I got to the part of your post where you mention complaining, I immediately thought, “Go ahead!” Really, people can moan and groan about a tooth ache. Why shouldn’t TRAs get to vent about losses of such a huge magnitude? Torn from everyone and everything that smells, feels, tastes, looks and sounds familiar… Being expected to conform in a new family, neighborhood, school, community… Where do APs get off expecting TRAs to tell us nicely and politely the answers that we have scripted in our fantasies. I agree that your post is eloquent. Nevertheless, I long for the day when APs strive to listen to TRAs no matter what tone you chose to use to communicate with us. I, for one, will not take your silence for consent.
Ji-in, I predict that you will need to print and pre-fold a lot of paper airplanes. APs aren’t the brightest bulbs in the package. (Takes one to know one.)
Thanks everyone.
Just going around blogosphere recently, I saw similar spins of the same question/argument and just had to say something. This kind of question and the assumptions behind it use to get me bent ALL out of shape but I never could express exactly why. Like so many others, I knew something was wrong with it but couldn’t say what. It’s taken me a long time to be able to express exactly what was bothering me. Reading the thoughts of other adoptees has helped tremendously which is one of the great things about sharing.
Sarah, there always has to be at least one among the AP’s, right? Yay for all of you for rallying around her and fighting back! It’s unbelievable how common this way of thinking is. I guess some more pro-action on our part is needed. People keep using it because it often works. Like with a lot of other things, our strongest defense against it is knowing how to break it down and disarm it. That’s my two-cent anyway.
Sue, yeah really. Love and longing for birth culture and family shouldn’t be a threat to adoptive parents. It’s not like the two are inter-changeable. To flip it around, one could think of it this way. Should “birth children” be perceived as a threat to children who have been adopted? Of course not.
Amazing how easy it is to forget exactly how much diversity there is within the adoption sphere. Then again, perpetuating the stereotypical birth-mom-in-trouble make it’s easier perpetuate the illusion that adoption is an all-win situation.
Don’t get me started on adoption agencies.
Haha Ji-in, you think it would work? You can count me in for the folding and poinking!
Mollie, yeah with some, we’re definitely going to need a few of these.
Sume, I’m coming late to this post but wow, you’ve really captured so well how many of us feel about the grand dame of all questions. I’ve been trying to post about this for months because someone several months ago asked – but I just haven’t been able to put my thoughts about it together. And now I don’t have to because you’ve done it so well. Thanks, for taking the time to put together this very thoughtful analysis of the “orphanage” v. “adoption” question. I loved this post.
Thank you for this. I can’t stand when people say my daughter is “lucky” to be adopted because she was in foster care. There is not one thing lucky about it. She’s not lucky that she doesn’t get to be raised by her family of orgin. She’s not lucky that her choices were foster care or adoption.
This was a great post.
Honest and true. Thank you.
I just read a piece by a domestic adoptee, which deals with a similar topic, and in the comments section she also mentions international adoptions, in much the same vein as what you have said here. Link:
http://double-goer.blogspot.com/2006/11/allowing-adoptee-grief.html
I am having a hard time putting this into words. I think pitting orphanage
against adoption is just another way to try to justify actions taken.
It is a means of skirting other issues, such as class and privilege.
The most disturbing aspect of this question is the way that it frames adopted children as poor little charity cases. I just hate that. My aha moment for this was the day that one of my kids looked at a poster made for a charity to help impoverished children and asked,”Is that me?”. I began to realize that if she saw herself in that way, then others did too.
This especially stinks because I know that it was ME who needed to be
a parent, but instead, the justification for my actions is placed on
my children. Just not fair. Hope this makes sense.
Thanks for your comments.
Harlowmonkey, I hope you still write that post! The more of our voices out there on the matter, the better.
I too love this post. Wow, it feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to sit down and read blogs. What a great first post to read! I’ve missed our connectedness and hope that I have more time to engage in dialogue with you and others.
I’m with TTR – I’m gonna plink somebody in the eye with this one! nah…. I’ll just make a link to it! thanks so much for saying this. Its so hard to articulate this arguement!
Thank you for posting this. It was a lot of food for thought. Thank you also for not wording it harshly against adoptive parents. We are all searching for answers in life. Adoptive parents are searching for answers too, and unfortunately, in cases like ours, Chinese American adoptees are not old enough yet to express how they feel about their situation, so your words are so needed and welcomed by at least this adoptive parent. I read your post aloud to my husband, and he agreed that your words can only help those of us that want to make life better for our own children.
As parents, it is our job to help guide our children on their path of wholeness and well being. I feel it is both my duty and an honor to do these things.
I hope that some day our daughter will have the words to empower herself as well as you have. It’s such a simple message, but such a powerful one at the same time.
too good. I want to eat your words.
I don’t have any personal connection to adoption, so it’s not a topic I’ve given a great deal of thought. Thanks so much for illuminating this facet of the issue for me and many others. This post really was a pleasure to read. I wish you luck as you work your way through all these issues.
Wouldn’t it wonderful if there was more empathy out there?
Thanks again for your comments.
Thanks Soon-young, you have been sorely missed but I know how it goes. I barely have time to read and end up skimming a lot before getting sucked away. Thank goodness for the net or I’d have lost touch with everyone entirely.
Scott, yes it would! I was wondering where I’d saw your blog name before then remembered it was on VA to VN. You’re still in Vietnam, right? I’ll have to check out your blog.
Hi Sume–I just wanted to say thank you for this post–I know it wasn’t really meant for me, but it helped me to understand why on my own site, almost a month after the original post was put up about adoption, I’m still getting people coming to it. I got the same thing–one person asked me point blank, would you rather these children die in the streets or be adopted by a loving home? The question really irritated me–but I didn’t know why–i think it all boils down to what you said–and then also the way that the question backs you into a corner–you *know* what the people who ask that question are looking for…a reaffirmation of what great people they are. only evil slime would rather a children died in the streets.
But as you pointed out–there are so many other choices, so many other options. As an ally–I will remember your words the next time somebody tries to corner the conversation like that.
Thank you.
Hey, Sume-
The classic question Voltaire was raising in Candide:
Is this indeed, “the best of all possible worlds?”
As always, we must beware of romanticizing the past.
But we must not demonize it either, out of convenience.
Speculation is always: Only speculation.
We’ve only guesses that things would have worked out
terribly if ‘otherwise’.
But not proof. Certainly there’s a pattern, but who’s to
say that pattern would have applied to us or anyone else?
And who’s to say our absence hasn’t had a disastrous
effect on someone else’s life. But perhaps it’s also just
as well we weren’t there.
It’s true that there’s a definite trend for our potentials
to have been severely truncated, but I find it odious to
assume anything, especially if it’s merely as part of a
process to assuage your own conscience.
Of course, as most people know, I’m also in a stage where
I strongly question the merits of any decision. I’m starting
to believe that we do what we do.
Period.
If it makes us feel that such a thing is ‘good’ that we can
sleep better at night, then fine, hold onto your rationalization.
But I find that position increasingly less tenable for myself.
Save a child from an orphanage, sure, you might raise a doctor.
Or you might raise a psychopathic serial killer.
Donate to the American Cancer Society, you might help
find a cure for cancer that saves a priest long enough to
make a difference in someone’s life. Whose children
become fanatics or intolerant bigots. Or else you might
help find a treatment that saves the life of a young child,
as well as the life of a wife-beater.
Take the bad with the good.
Write a book and you might inspire a young farmer to
keep hope. Or to go all Mark David Chapman or John
Hinckley. You might influence the next Martin Luther King, Jr.
Or the next Stalin.
Still, despite all this, we can’t not act.
Inaction after a time becomes the same as action.
We have to decide, or decisions get made for us.
They say that all ‘evil’ needs to succeed is for people to do
nothing. Sadly, ‘good’ needs a helping hand. No one seems
to believe ‘good’ is going to emerge through inaction.
I try to do things that will have less forseeable destructive
consequences on the world, but I won’t presume that I’m
ever doing the absolute ‘correct’ thing to do. Just a better
decision among worse ones I could have made.
And I’m throwing this all onto this comment simply because
when I get the question ‘would you have rather’ the fact is,
I DO have a large sense from having been reunited with my
birth family that I’ve gotten as good a life as I could get, but
that’s just my bias based on my own short-sighted sense of
my experience. It’s foolish to say it would have been better
or worse. It would merely have been different.
But this is a great thread.
BFP, it’s always a pleasure to hear from you. You’re doing some great work over at WOC. I had to go back an take a look at the comments since I’d missed some of them. I saw where someone asked you the adoption vs. die in the street question and was lmao at your answer. The question was totally beside the point. It is an easy way though to skirt complex issues like race, economics, colonialism, politics and privilege.
Hi Bryan, well articulated as usual.
“Of course, as most people know, I’m also in a stage where
I strongly question the merits of any decision. I’m starting
to believe that we do what we do.”
After taking a look around, I’ve been quickly coming to the same conclusion, at least for the present. In regards to affects on the future, what is the “right” decision and who can really answer that question from the present? I could also start an entirely new conversation on how self-interest can underlie a decision and too easily be justified as making the right decision. But that gets into guessing people’s motives which I don’t like to do.
“It’s foolish to say it would have been better
or worse. It would merely have been different.”
That is one of the points I’m trying to get across here and how pointless using it as an argument is.
Anyway, your comment reminded me of the butterfly effect (the concept, not the movie though that was interesting, too).
Really brilliant. I love this post.
Thank you for a very insightful post. I will never ask or answer that question again. I do not have the knowledge or the experience – so “I don’t know” is perfect. Thank you again.
Alyson
Sume, I keep coming back to your post. Tonight, I’m just sitting and marveling at your conclusion: “Let us not forget that the flaw is in the question which makes the answer nothing more than a manipulation.” Habitual ways of thinking and perceiving the world break open to allow newness to penetrate when I sit quietly and listen. Thank you, thank you.
Thanks for this post, I am here to learn about what has been lost and how best to give it value in our lives.
Thanks so much for speaking about this — I think I will print up copies for my family members and friends who look at me blankly when I mention that “lucky” is a poorly chosen word to describe our future kids.
e
I am constantly baffled by the community’s lack of understanding about adoption and its issues and about the missing empathy and sensitivity for all those involved, from the adoptee to the birth parents and even the adoptive parents.
Thank you for expressing so briliantly what many need to hear.