Being adopted, you don't know who you are. As an older person, i feel like I grew up and lived my life without an identity. It transcends race. Only another adopted person can relate to what you are saying. Only another adopted person can truly understand. There is a void that no one can fill. Even when you get married and have children, you have that void. Your husband has his family and you have none. It is a lopsided way of life. People ask you questions, as if they have the right. I grew up feeling separated from the human race. It is a pain that I cannot describe. A darkness no words of encouragement can take away. Your mother didn't want you or couldn't keep you and she walked away or you were taken away, or given away. Being in the womb is not the problem, it is that deep sense of identity, of belonging that is taken from you. What is the hardest thing about being adopted? That sense of identity that has been robbed from you. What makes it bearable, is knowing I am not the only one out there. That is what helps me go through one day to the next. Don't make this an Asian thing, make it a personal thing, because it transcends all races. Not just one group is affected, but many different people. I don't know what I am, so I have no culture and no identity. I cannot even say I am Asian, so you at least know what race you are. That is more than me. Thanks for posting this video.
Being torn from your birth culture I think gets harder the older you get because you realize more and more just how much of an outsider you really are in the eyes of not just the country you were raised in but the country you came from. For me, establishing bonds with other Asians or Koreans has been difficult because the vast majority seem to have such strong ties with their cultures, either from living in Asia or being raised by Asian parents and I've had experiences of being made the butt of a joke or being looked at like I'm a monster by Asian people simply because I'm adopted. It makes me feel very isolated, like you and growing up teh isolation started very early... in very well-meaning ways but ultimately in very ignorant responses. As a child being told by adults "You look just like your (white) mother!" or "You must be so grateful to be here!" You realize as an adopted child that people expect you to be grateful for having the same thing that a biological child has...except no one tells them how grateful they should be for having been born (that kind of sentence to a biological child could be considered emotional abuse). I think, unfortunately, that the idea of adoption is very westernized and it has this nasty aftertaste of white-savior complex. This leads to a lot of people assuming that as an adoptee you were picked out of a dirt hole and placed into a beautiful home with a perfect adoptee life though in reality it's never actually like that. Our biological parents had stories and we have stories even before we switched hands. It's not just bringing a child into your home. We have so much more complexity written into our lives - often from the very first day we're born - and ignoring the burden we bear from the time we were infants is a disservice to the human experience as a whole. As you rightly put, "If my parents died in a fire everyone would say 'Oh I'm so sorry!'" The lack of compassion towards adoptees and their personal losses is unnervingly ignorant in my opinion which is why I'm very happy that you're talking about this! Thank you :)
thank you so much for your detailed comment, I actually have been meaning to make a video on estabilishing bonds between Chinese people and Chinese people in your own country and feeling like an outsider. It is terrible that these perceptions of adoption have neglected the feelings of adoptees and yes the lack of understanding on these issues can be vital in changing perceptions. stay strong!
On the other side of the tear jerking adoption videos that people watch, there is ALWAYS loss, estrangement and a broken family. I was adopted by parents of the same race - and I still feel how you feel. Alienated and lost. Now that I’ve met my birth family, it’s even worse
Naomi, as an American parent of a Chinese adoptee born in 1994, I was moved by your story and by your bravery in discussing your feelings about your adoption experience. Like you, my daughter is now a beautiful and accomplished young woman, and her story is very similar to yours. I feel sure she has experienced many of the feelings you have described, yet she does not seem ready or willing to examine them as you have. When the time is right, I hope to share your videos with her so that she will know that she is not alone in this. Thank you! I wish you all the best in your journey of self-discovery!
I'm adopted from Russia to England and I totally understand and relate to your comments on people only focusing on the good things about adoption and essentially dismissing our sadness/difficulties. I was adopted by a great family but the loss of my homeland is a huge thing for me. I wish more non adopted people were willing to just listen to adoptees, rather than simply wade in with quite often pretty rude opinions on how we feel about our own lives and experiences.
Thank you so much for speaking about your story. It makes me feel a little less alone :) .Whenever I want to talk about adoption/ethnicity insecurities I have, my mom always seems to get defensive. I know she has good intentions, but she just won’t ever understand, or at least, she doesn’t care to try to understand :/
Hi my name is Zhen (pronounced like Jen) I’m currently 13 years old and I was adopted when I was about 11 months old, back when the Chinese culture were only allowed to have a certain amount of children. I was adopted into an all white American family and I love them with all of my heart, but there’s something that always makes me think what if I was in China, and what if I was with my biological parents. Also, I don’t know my parents, I don’t have any information and China is such a big place so the chances of finding them are very slim. It’s really hard to not know anything like I don’t know if they loved me or if they didn’t want me at all. I feel like no one really gets the idea of adoption. People see it as a good thing, I mean it’s is an amazing thing, but the adoptee was taken out of their culture, no matter how many culture class things you go to it’s never the same of really knowing your culture, thank you for making this video
Having lost any contact to your birth parents and to lose connection with your culture are two major losses. Traumatic too say the least. Having two loving adopted parents won’t heal those wounds in my opinion.Grateful for them yes and love them yes but your wounds won’t heal. I know this is just an opinion but I would do whatever I could to learn about my lost culture. Your culture is still over in China your just disconnected from it, even though something that should be natural to you becomes hard having to learn it as an adult. It is the only way to regain what this world has stolen from you.Even if I never completely got my culture back I would try anyway. Spare time just to learn what ever I could.really by doing these videos hopefully helping you heal. Just by listening to you I can tell the loss goes very deep. It is easy for me to give an opinion so if I am wrong I can’t be in your shoes. I can tell your wounds are great though.I wish you well.
There’s so much loss as an adoptee that a lot of people don’t realize! Thanks for sharing! I’m also a Chinese adoptee and actually just recently started my channel!
thank you for your video. I am coming from the other side as i am a grandmother of a baby boy who was given up for adoption because my daughter could not provide the life she wanted for her child. I feel the great loss of my first grandchild and yet i can't really talk about it either because people don't understand or get it. You are right people should just listen but I have been told to "fake til you make it." I can understand that you are greiving a loss and my heart goes out to you.
many thanks for your support :) and sharing your story, it seems that not being able to talk about things comes from both sides! Hope you can find an accepting outlet with which to talk about these things
I don't know why, but up until now I have never bothered to check for vlogs or content from other adoptees. For some reason or another, I had deep down accepted no one would be similar or understand what I felt or went through... still going through at present, I suppose. Adoption is such a unique story and mix of things, I didn't think I'd find someone I could relate to in this aspect. An Asian adopted into a European family, I don't know anyone like that personally... it feels nice to see you talk about it, to know it's not just me being dramatic, but that everyone has these types of questions, bottled up feelings and so forth. In a way... it feels a little like looking at "my people". I have never known my biological parents, no photos no stories, nothing so to me, people that can understand my position and are a little closer to my type of story... they might be "my people" in a way. Since I can't say I fit in with other cultural communities all the time because of the way I look and the way I was brougth up... on the other hand, we also have the luck that makes us a joker card that can fit in anywhere, innit? Anyways, it feels nice to have people understand. It feels nice to not always stand alone with things. Cheers to you, thank you for the content!!
Hey, thanks so much for your comment. I get what you mean, adoption is a whole mix of complex emotions and yeh, I feel you on the 'no history and background' it is an odd feeling when a lot of society is based on your family history and where you come from. It is difficult to know where you fit in all the categories since there never seems to feel like one that fits, but you're not alone with this and neither is anyone else :) stay strong and let yourself know that your feelings on this are valid and probably how most people would feel in the same situation.
I thinking about adopting in the future and I have no problem with adopting a child of a different race and from a different culture/country but I don’t want my child to feel as a lot of adoptee’s like you feel. I feel like that could damage any bond me and the adopted child might have and cause unnecessary emotional pain in my adopted child. So I feel now it would be better to adopt a child who is white too. Would you agree with that? Do you think it’s better that I don’t adopt Asian etc children? Does it effect the bond between adoptive parents and adopted children? I’d love to know because if I can adopt I don’t want to have the wrong opinion and information. Thanks for posting these videos and being so honest, open and eloquent. It really helps me to be more informed and understand what it is like for adoptees. I hope one day you are able to reconnect with your culture, language, country and heritage you really deserve it!
Sophie Berry hi i’m a chinese adoptee and i happen to have a white mom haha but i definitely think you should go for it. there are so many children around the world that are in desperate need of a home and if you think you can offer one then don’t let any racial boundaries stop you (unless you want to adopt a white kid which is completely fine). but if you do plan on having an interracial family i think it’s best if you do a lot of research first. i’m still pretty young and in my teens so i’m not sure if this is just a teenage angst phase i’m going through but i used to reject my chinese heritage a lot about a year ago. i think it’s important if you adopt that you research your future child’s culture and subtlety integrate it into their lives. as i said i only recently started to embrace the ethnicity and i regret not doing so sooner. now i feel even more isolated knowing that i’m not seen as a true american or a true chinese. i wish i could claim my own culture without feeling somewhat guilty about it. i’ve been wanting to learn more about my culture and all but it sorta feels weird learning about it at an older age. so my advice is to start your potential future child off early. also don’t make the culture 100% traditional incorporate some modern aspects as well. it’s actually kpop that got me to feel better about being asian (because of the lack of asian representation in the west) but anything like that or maybe even anime could help. i personally grew up w anime and it’s actually really fun stuff just not the weird ones tho. sorry i was all over the place ahah but best of luck to you
Hi Sophie, wow this is a tricky question. I’ll be honest I’ve not got the “ right” answer here, I can only go from what I think and feel. Personally, i do believe that it is a really tricky situation. In an ideal world every child would be brought up with their own loving parents etc. However this is not the ideal world and sometimes have to make the best of a bad situation. I believe that it’s probably better for a child to go to anloving Home ; rather than stay in an orphanage, or be moved around a lot etc. And a loving family is a loving family etc.. that being said, ideally I think it would help a lot of identity problems for a child if their family is more of a reflection of their own identity etc.. That being said, it’s not to say that once you have a child there’s nothing you can do. There’s always information, communities to connect to, food and culture to try and embrace the child with. I think it does pose a different challenge than say domestic adoption; where the kid is just adopted by someone of the same race in the same country And ofc transracial Adoption comes along with its own problems. However, not to say that it wouldn’t be “ right” for you to adopt an asian kid. There are plenty of kids out there in need of loving homes and if you can provide that. Then hey why not? :) I think the main thing is just to be aware of the differences with adopting a kid domestically, and adopting a kid transracially and the different challenges , and hey everyone is afraid of getting it wrong 😂hope this helps; I might even make a video on this :)
hey there :) couldn't agree more with what you said! I totally felt exactly the same as you there, it is hard to reconcile with this stuff and like you said you end up feeling 'inbetween' however like you said it's just important to be aware of these things , I hope you manage to find your own balence with these things, as I know exactly what you mean by 'isolated' it feels really odd doing it all first time as an adult and not having any guidance etc, and woo kpop is awesome ^^
I've been told I'm half mexican, that i was born to a white mother and mexican father but every time i bring up finding them my adoptive dad makes a ton of excuses as to why i shouldn't find them. Sometimes i feel like they're hiding something.
You're right, the circumstances that result in a child having to be adopted are always tragic. You have undergone a trauma, all adopted children have. I am the mother of three wonderful adopted children. I made a point of learning as much as I could regarding how they would view the world as an adopted child. How they would feel about being adopted. I do my best to love and support them through their experiences and self realization as they mature. They're all different. At least one of my children keeps telling me that it's no big deal and he has no interest in his biological heritage, etc. (He's about the same age as you, and is a different race than the rest of us as well.) Is he in denial? Who knows? But I'll be sharing your link with my older children. I think of you as a "wounded healer." Good luck with coming to grips with your emotions. And I'm certain many people will feel better to learn that they're not selfish, or crazy, or "unevolved" because they're having trouble coming to grips with their adoption. Even though they love their adoptive family.
Great vid Naomi! Honesty is important. Have u ever considered spending a year in Chinese immersion or something after uni ? Just an idea to kinda bridge that cultural void ur feeling but anyway loved the video :)
Thanks Brendan :) yeah I have thought about that a lot, I would really like to got to China and all and explore more about Shanghai, but obviously now I'm viewing it all with western eyes etc. I guess it's more about the fact that I didn't have to opportunity to have this stuff growing up, so although I can do it all now obviously it can't replace that fact that I could 't be raised Chinese with Chinese values and although there are things to keep the connection alive, it isn't necessarily the same as growing up with these things in your own family. However yeh i'd deffo like to get more in touch with my culture, however that will be in the future.
Not an adoptee but fascinated with the topic. I'm a cbc. look forward to more of your videos as you take us through your journey of personal exploration and discovery.
hi Naomi, by the time you're older. I think maybe you will less care what others think about you. I'm not adopted but I always perceived myself as misfit. I'm Chinese born Indonesia, even Asian country have same problem well faces different ethnicity.
I don't really have a problem with my culture because ever since 2nd grade to now I've been in Chinese immersion. The hard parts for me is when I need to talk about it no one can they just say not think about it or something. Another part is school when we have to do projects on our family heritage or talk about ourselves. I know a few people who are adopted but we don't see each other as much as we use to.
ah that's so cool that you went to immersion since 2nd grade! Yes I understand it is hard to talk about it and yes a few people have been saying about the not knowing thing. I completely left that part out, might do another video on it in the future :)
I'm an adoptive mom to a daughter from China, thanks for the video! I've been researching the effects of trauma in adoption & you are absolutely right. The abandonment/loss of birth mother is life threatening in a baby's mind- the definition of the cause of trauma. Resiliency has a genetic component, plus the circumstances in orphanages or foster care all play a part in how an individual will be affected. Adopted individuals are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Knowledge is power, and most people don't reaoknouch about adoption! Keep sharing your experiences!
Sorry you haven't a family in China, I don't think the situation of abandon children in China is very good and in fact you will be ostracized in their society ,I think that you are the children of a newcomer mother in town and a townsman. Chinese society is more tough that european society .Sorry if you had a bad childhood .Godspeed .
