I'm talking about my experience now, on my own terms, on my own time, in my house
alone, and that doesn't mean that I'm ready to talk about it whenever you want
me to. Also, remember that all adoptees are different and these are just my
thoughts. Hey guys, welcome back to my channel and today we're gonna be talking
about a topic that I've been putting off for a while and that is, "What it's really
like to be adopted". And I've been putting off making a video about this topic for
a while because my thoughts on adoption and being adopted are always changing,
but I think I've come to a point where I'm comfortable talking about it, and
I've decided to put those thoughts into a numbered list - so strap in. So number
one - What is it really like being adopted? Well for me, it's completely normal.
It's always been a part of my life. I don't feel any differently in my family
than someone who was born into their family and not giving up. It's actually
the "well-meaning" strangers that make me feel odd and shitty, not my adoptive
family. It's comments like, "What was the orphanage like?" or "You're so lucky" that
makes me feel uncomfortable. And like I said, not my family. So one question
that I get asked a lot is if I ever want to meet my birth parents and everyone
loves giving their two cents. I remember I had a friend when I was a kid who said
"If I were you I'd want to punch them" - them being my birth parents - and I was
like really taken aback by that. I never thought of my birth parents as evil,
malicious, or selfish. I never thought that I was abandoned purposefully. And I
think that's a strong coping mechanism my brain came up with, but also like as
an adult I could never blame someone for not wanting to have children. And as for
meeting them, I used to really want to get that closure, but as an adult I'm
honestly terrified of that prospect. And that's not only because they might
not want to meet me, but because I can only imagine that situation is just
painful and awkward. They don't know me and I don't know them
and we'd probably wouldn't be able to communicate without a translator and
that's not something I want to put myself through. In addition, I like to
think of my birth parents as benevolent people. I think that's only natural,
especially living in America where there's so much racism. I like to think
about what my life would have been like if I hadn't been given up, however that's
also a part of my adoption that will always haunt me. So number three - feeling
haunted. Adoption is not something that you grow out of or can ever just simply
"get over". I recently watched a documentary about Native American
children who were forcibly put up for adoption by white missionaries and
they're like 60 years old now and that stuff still haunts them. So trust me, I
get it. I always wonder what my life would have been like if I had stayed in
China and grown up with my birth parents and that's something that you can never
really cope with. And it's sad and there's no way around that. So number
four - guilt. So along with feeling haunted there's
also a bit of survivor's guilt that comes with being adopted - especially
during the 90s as a girl from China. I was mostly like I was most likely given
up because of the one-child policy and that means that there were thousands of
other children that were forcibly aborted, left on the street to die,
killed after being born, etc. And that makes me wonder as an adult "why me" and
the answers are all pretty obvious. No visible birth defects, no mental birth
defects, light skin, normal looking, the list goes on. And no one really talks
about the thousands of children that died or just were never adopted
because of the way that they were born and because they didn't fit into the
white savior fantasy. And adoption or being adopted also makes you feel guilty
for not being grateful or enjoying your life enough or being happy with your
adopted family and that sucks because sometimes
you just want to be normal, but that kind of hinders you from ever feeling that
way. Number five - Not all adoptees or
adoptions are the same, but there are a lot of tropes when it comes to adoption
in media that we're so used to seeing that really reduce the adoptees and our
experiences. Just to list a few there's the unhappy orphan who is raised by evil
guardians but then gets whisked away on some magical adventure and into some
great wealth, there's the celebrity baby that's
adopted and "saved" from a "third world country", and there's the orphaned hero
who creates a new found family out of unlikely friends. There are a lot of
different orphan stories out there, but none ever really tell the full picture.
Not all adopted children are taken in by wealthy families or even loving homes.
Some adoptees are adopted into religious cults, trafficked, abused, etc, but you
never hear those stories because they're not happy. We see adoption as the parents
sacrificing so much, taking in a stranger, when in reality they're the lucky ones.
But also the ones with all the power, as in any parent child dynamic, however
they're seen more as saviors in society's eyes rather than just parents.
Number six - though the parents are "lucky ones" that also kind of hinders
stories told from the adoptee's point of view. A lot of times adoptive stories or
adoption stories are centered around the parent or parents and I find that
incredibly annoying. When an adoptee does speak out they're seen as not being
grateful rather than just having an opinion. So it's important to listen to
the adoptees in your life because so many times their voices and their
opinions are overlooked. Number seven - it's hard to talk about racism when
you're adopted into an interracial family. A lot of the times, the white
families don't do any research when they when they're adopting a black or brown
kid and you end up doing most of the teaching.
And yeah it's really sucky not to have someone really relate to your
racial experience. And lastly, number eight - don't ask adoptees these questions
"Do you remember the orphanage?" "Do you ever think about what it'd be like if you
were never adopted?" "Do you hate your birth parents?" because that's not only
annoying, but forcing someone to relive their trauma for your own entertainment.
I'm talking about my experience now, on my own terms,
on my own time, in my house alone, and that doesn't mean that I'm ready to talk
about it whenever you want me to. Whether it be at school, at work, or the grocery
store, wherever. Also remember that all adoptees are different and these are
just my thoughts. Alright, so that's it for my rant about adoption. I hope you
learned something. I hope you start treating the adoptees in your life with
more respect because there's more of us out there and than you'd think. And
remember if you liked the video please give it a thumbs up, leave a comment down
below, share it with someone, subscribe, become a Patron. Thank you so
much for watching and I'll see you in the next one bye :)