While doing research for a power point presentation for my Korean students in honor of Asian Pacific American month, I got side-tracked on Korean history and then I ran into images of Korean orphans and then I typed in Korean orphan and came across this:

A Korean orphan recalls a lifetime of abuse spanning two cultures

Elizabeth Kim compellingly details her tragic life from the time she watched her mother get murdered in an `honor killing’ to the continual abuse that followed. Told in a lively and readable way, this sad narrative doesn’t mince words when detailing the sorrows that followed her from Korea to the US, but she also manages to never completely lose touch with hope

By Bradley Winterton  /  SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR , Taipei Times feature  read more

Recently on an adoptive parent’s blog which sometimes takes my posts here and guest blogs them, I got the usual (yawn) response that oh that’s a horrible sad story and so atypical – anything to discount that they could possibly resemble my parents in ANY way.  When there’s not been ONE adoptive parent I’ve ever met that didn’t resemble my parents in SOME way, and in a uniquely adoptive parent way.  And I’d call it awareness.  Hyper awareness that they are trying to make something natural out of something that isn’t natural.

This is not to say all adoption is wrong – I’m just saying that I haven’t met an adoptive parent to date that isn’t over-compensating in some way.

But anyway, back to this find.  I have been somewhat frustrated that people don’t quite understand that what happened to me was deeply harmful but that it was not so terrible.   I did what I had to do.  I sometimes didn’t handle it gracefully.  I often made the wrong choices.  But I think I came out pretty well, all things considering.  And I don’t hate my parents.  I mostly feel sorry for them.  And yeah, damnit, I miss and love my mom.    But to all those people who think my story is exceptional – umm, you don’t talk to adoptees as much as I do.  I’d say 50% of the adoptees I’ve spoken to have felt their adoptions were pathological in many ways and many of them feel they were emotionally abusive if not full-on abusive.  And for all those people who think my story is the worse-case scenario, there are always others who had it much worse than me.  And I have spoken with several of them.  From the Korean adoptee who was given to a CULT that encouraged all their members to adopt from Korea to be abused in all kinds of twisted ways where obviously not enough background check was done, to adoptees who were physically abused and used as farm laborers, to adoptees who, like the girl in this story went from domestic abuse in their home countries to abuse in beautiful land.  I mean – these are real people that I’ve talked to.    Who DON’T talk to adoptive parents.  And who don’t blog about their lives.  They exist.  We exist.  And we live among you, even if YOU’ve never met one or talked to one personally.  I mean, even the “well-adjusted” adoptees don’t really want to talk to their parents about adoption.

And if you’re the kind of adoptive parent that dismisses everything critical, then why would any adoptee, much less your adoptee, want to talk to you about a problem?   ???