Expectations of gratitude…

“Hi there, how are you?”  “I’m good, thanks, how are you all doing?” ” Not bad, busy with work and the kids”… Does this sound fairly typical to you when you meet up with an acquaintance you haven’t seen for a while?  Polite chit-chat that seems to be a ritual of putting on a good face that says nothing to see here, carry on…

I think we all do it…

We don’t want to probe deeper unless we actually want to hear how they are really doing (and few do), the surface level banter makes us believe we are connected, we understand how they are feeling.  What you are feeling inside, whether it is physical, or spiritual exhaustion, or pain, isn’t something we are comfortable hearing in our daily life.  We don’t want to know someone is crying on the inside, lonely, hurting, feeling, as if, no one else cares.  We aren’t comfortable with grief, pain, sorrow.  We associate it with being weak, lack of desire to overcome, will to continue on.  I think it is rooted in self-preservation.  If we see it around us, then it means we too, are vulnerable.  We too, might not be strong.  We might actually not be okay.  Living with our head in the sand to the pain of others, makes our world seem secure.

It’s also, the easy way out…

One of reasons I continue to read the on-line adoption community, is watching this play out in conversations and waiting for the day when the spinning of the positive by some, the pushback by others saying wait a minute, there’s a lot of pain happening all around while you spreading your message of it’s so beautiful, finally stops.  I’m waiting for the day when the adoption community as a collective, finds the understanding, and the ability to accept that both good and bad feelings can exist in a person adopted.  One can have the best of the best and still have pain…but I think in adoption that is further complicated, and by extension put on the adoptee, by what happened first, the domino effect for lack of a better word.

Whether a parent always wanted to adopt, felt called to adopt, or grappled with infertility (regardless if a fairly easy transition to adoption, or one that caused deep pain and time).  They pinned their hopes, dreams and expectations of parenthood, on the children they would adopt*.  The children would fulfill them, make their dreams of parenthood come true in raising happy children in an environment where they thrived.  With adoption, perhaps because it is different, or harder, it seems that in order for that dream to come true, the adoptees, their children, and by extension, children of other adoptive parents, now adults, must show how grateful, and happy, they are in every aspect of life and their adoption.  There must not be any woe.

And of course, life has a way of throwing curve balls and adoption is no exception.  I sit back, and most often, silently watch the interactions of what happens when those feelings, clash with other adoptive parents expectations of all will be fine (or must be fine) in my perfect world of being a parent to an adopted child.  This past week was no exception.

Land of Gazillion Adoptees Facebook post here quoting part of a blog post by a Korean Adoptee (follow the link and read the blog post).  That post, created with words that wove and painted a picture was hauntingly beautiful in describing how she felt.  I was in awe that anyone could paint a picture with mere words.  While the subject was hard, the words made her feelings jump off the page and become real to me, a bystander.  I started to read the comments on the FB page, and of course there would be an adoptive parent chiming in.  “Are there no Happy Korean Adoptees?  Did all of us adoptive parents do such a bad job?”  To me this clearly explains the clash, the invisible reality that to some adoptive parents – adoptees as a whole, must only be grateful to have been rescued, and adopted, by people who took the “unwanted” babies into their homes, and raised them, as if, they were their own.  There can be no downside to being adopted, because that would mean they failed as parents, despite having mouthed platitudes of understanding there may (or will) be, things to be worked through for the adoptee.

No one ever needs to tell an adoptee they need to be grateful they were adopted and given a home.  The way they are spoken too, the requirements of only positive, the angst that even a post about being angry that her homeland didn’t give a damn about their “orphans”, brought that point home as clear as could be.  Adoptees must be grateful they were adopted.  No other feeling can exist, that is the payment expected by some in the adoption community (on-line and in real life)…only gratitude and thankfulness is acceptable…step up, pay your dues…

So adoptive parents, next time you hear an adoptee state that they are tired of being told to be grateful, and you righteously cringe, and say you would never say that, you don’t expect it; please re-examine your reactions to adoptee posts, does any mention of feeling sad, being mad, make you angry, do you share it and talk about it in a meaningful manner of understanding?  Do you read the posts that are hard for you to hear?  Or, do you only hold up adoptees who say they are thankful for being adopted and never felt out-of-place?  If yes, you may indeed be saying it, over, and over again, all without saying the actual words.  Nothing in this life is all beautiful, or all sad, life is a series of good and bad, and when adoptees are only allowed to speak the good to be heard by you – you are shouting to all of them – You must only be grateful you were adopted, your parents rescued you, where would you be if you hadn’t been adopted.  You aren’t allowed to feel anything except gratitude…

*Yes, I know the same exists in biological parenting but adoption is different and I’m talking about adoption…