I am really worried about a lot of the feelings and thoughts these adult Korean adoptees have. It makes me sad and very worried that I will have an angry adult child. I really feel badly for the adoptive parents of some of these adoptees. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I read something like that. Actually I think I would feel like a failure.

I was adopted and while I do wonder and ‘miss’ my biological family, I love my life. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my family. I just don’t understand the mentality of some people. Of course I am more of a glass half full type of person.

Anyway, I want to make sure that my child grows up in the best possible environment.

Sometimes I say something like “I can understand that you are upset, and we can talk about that after you’ve calmed down a little bit. First you have to get yourself under control”.

There have been times that she tried to pull up something from weeks ago to talk about when she was in trouble. To try to convince me she was still upset about that, and this is why she did whatever she did that she shouldn’t have done. That doesn’t work for me, and we do not talk about that at the time. I may say “yes, that was very sad/scary/upsetting, but that was two weeks ago and has nothing to do with why you chose to squirt all of the lotion out of the bottle onto the dog.”

She mostly now has gotten the hang of using her words when something is bothering her. She tells me when she is mad or angry or scared or sad. If I don’t think she should be as sad about something as she is then instead of invalidating her feelings I just ask questions: “why is this making you this sad? I’m sorry I don’t understand, but if you can help me understand why this is making you so sad then maybe I can help you figure out how to not be so sad.”

And sometimes the situation ties in with something else that she has attached together in her little head and once she explains it I “get” why she is so upset about it. Often times I just explain how the two aren’t related and then everything is okay, but if I didn’t ask then I’d never know that she was putting two unrelated things into the same category and coming to some conclusion that was indeed very upsetting.

There have been a few times it would have been so easy to just tell her she was silly for crying about that. And I’m so glad I asked why it was so upsetting instead of saying what my parents would have said to me.

Neither. Of course we listen to our children - lovingly and attentively. We listen to everything and anything our children have to say - regardless of the topic.

But “lovemygirls” hit the nail on the head with the expression “admiring the problem”. I am going to write that one down.

And to reiterate what I’ve already said, we do tell our children “coulda been worse”, and make no apologies for doing so. The fact of the matter is, lots of things are worse than being abandoned and subsequently adopted by white people and removed from one’s birth country.

The children in “this” family are going to have that fact pointed out to them - they can then choose to do what they will with that fact - but far be it from me to simply allow them to believe every “feeling” they ever have about it is good, or beneficial to their overall life.

Lots of times I don’t “feel” like getting up each day, putting one foot in front of the other, and doing what is necessary. Too bad. I get up and do it anyway.

Other times I “feel” like lamenting my childhood, my losses, my sorrows. But I don’t permit myself to. Why? And waste today? Tomorrow? The rest of my life?

We are in control of our thoughts. We do not have to be a “victim” of our circumstances. Nor do our children - and that’s what this one family is endeavouring to teach their children here in our little corner of Canada.

My brother committed suicide 9 years ago. He spent his entire adult life dwelling on our childhood, the wrongs perpetrated against us (and there were many). His “feelings” consumed him. And he’d had years of people listening to him, “validating” his feelings…from family members, to psychologists, to psychiatrists. In the end, he simply chose to remain a victim - and give in to his “feelings”.

His legacy? He left his daughter, his beautiful, wonderful daughter - a victim. A victim of what could be construed as the ultimate abandonment. A victim of having a father who, according to her own words, “did not love me enough to live for me”. And prior to that, a victim of her own mother who’d abandoned her 5 years prior - when she was 13.

So, did those terrible things occur? Yep, they did. And there’s no changing any of it.

Now she has a choice. A choice to spend her life thinking about how wronged she was, how selfish her parents were, or a choice to look at her circumstances and say “coulda been worse”. And it could have been. There’s almost always a worse-case scenario. Few things are as bad as they could have been. And that’s what I tell her. What I will tell her until the day I die - if need be. And when I tell her “It could have been worse”, I wrap my arms around her and tell her, “And it was bad enough”.

And as someone else has already said, we will all parent differently. I do not in any way find fault with another parent for the choices they make with their children, even if they heartily disagree with what I do. We are not cookie-cutter people. We are individuals - shaped and shaded by our own life experiences. And our children will benefit from what we bring to them - one way or the other.

I just love the expression - admiring the problem - such a great way of characterizing so much of what I see in daily life (unfortunately including my actions some days). Think I will name it what it is next time I see or do it.

This has been a wonderful discussion. I have read some of the “abductees” blogs and have been incredibly disheartened by them. Some of them terrify me. This discussion has really helped me with this issue. APC has usually ripped people apart for wanting to know why these adoptees feel the way they do.