When I was fourteen years old, some pre-pubescent insult of a highschool boy assured me that it was MY fault my parents put me up for adoption because I was a less than desirable human being. I took a second to gather my thoughts and calmly responded, “Well at least I was chosen. Your poor parents, having no other choice, are stuck with you.” Although these insults tore me apart from the inside out, making light of them was the only way I knew how to protect myself from vulnerability. I didn’t want anyone to know my story because the truth is, it wasn’t a pretty story. While other kids who were adopted waltzed around holding their pretty stories up as if they deserved the Pulitzer Prize for them, I tucked mine away deep into the crevices of my being. Put simply, the first few years of my life were precarious to say the least. The …show more content…
Being so young, I was fearful at first. It was a new place filled with other children and adults I had never met before. I had a hard time trusting the adults because the only ones I had ever known betrayed me, but that quickly changed. Before Child Crisis Arizona, I, as well as countless other children, did not know what it felt like to be cared for or loved by. Thinking about it now, my experience at Child Crisis Arizona brings tears of joy to my eyes. For the first time in my life I felt like I was wanted and I felt like I had a home. The employees and volunteers who worked there were not just staff to me, they were my guardian angels. There are many memories I have from my time at Child Crisis Arizona, like being taken care of when I was sick, having my back rubbed when I couldn’t sleep, and everything in between. Instead of doing the minimum required to get by, they went above and beyond to make sure I felt not only safe, but
Where we come from is a huge issue. Just as scientists debate the origin of man and the universe, adopted children can have questions about their genetic roots. Questions like: “Why do I look like this?”, “Why do I have these health problems?”, and “Why do I have these emotional issues?” go unanswered if biological parents are never known. In a study of adoptive families, parents were asked how they felt years after their open adoptions. One
Transracial adoption is has been a source a controversy for decades. Opponents of transracial adoption worry that the adopted children will struggle with racial identity and that it promotes “cultural genocide”, while those on the opposite spectrum of transracial adoption seem to take a position of being “color-blind” coupled with the idea that “all you need is love.” Transracial adoption is
The nature of childhood, has changed significantly over time. Reference for definitions The word ‘childhood’ can be defined as being ‘the period during which a person is a child’ and is seen as the period between birth and adolesance. Childhood is built up by a range of different aspects for example: development socially, educationally etc. The idea of childhood being in crisis, can relate to a range of different issues i.e. family breakdown, increase in technology, culture/society changes etc. A crisis can be defined as being a time of intense difficulty. Whether childhood is in crisis or not it is extremely important to support a child’s development through childhood. Childhood is made up of three
One year later, a very tragic day happened. I have heard the talk about the word “adoption” and that “there’s too many dogs.” I ran towards Koda and hugged his paw. “What’s the matter?” asked Koda. “Dad, whats adoption?” I asked. “Adoption is a state of someone legally takes someone or something and brings it up as one’s own.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s time for your brothers and sisters to be adopted,” said Koda, “but don’t worry, Kingsay has a home here and so do you.” Then, my owner came and picked up Koda and Koko and took them to the car. “Dad!!” I yelled. “Mom!!” yelled Kingsay. “Kido, don’t worry about me,” said Koda, “just be brave and take care of your brother.” “Kingsay, I will always love you,” said Koko, “take care of yourself
Although it may hurt the adoptive parents to let the child know that he or she isn’t theirs biologically, a child should always know where they come from so that they are able to establish their own identity whether it be the identity of the biological or adoptive parents or even both. If the child knows at an early age that they are adopted, it is likely they will be able to deal with it better once they reach the adolescent age. In “Adoption History: Telling”, Ellen Herman gives the story of how adoption was never disclosed to the child, but not at the sake of the child. Telling has been a chronic dilemma in the history of adoption because it highlights the problem of making adoptive kinship real while also acknowledging its distinctiveness. During the twentieth century, adoption professional maintained a firm consensus that children placed in infancy should be told of their adopted status early in life, but adopted parents did not always agree, and anecdotal evidence suggests that many children were told in adolescence, on the eve of marriage, or even later in life. The reason adoptees were told had less to do with honesty than it did with emotional inoculation against stigma. Parents would be wise to tell children about their adoptions with kindness and love before they learned the truth from unfeeling relatives, nosy neighbors, or cruel
One hundred years ago, if a child was found unwanted or neglected, they were placed in an orphanage. Today, our society has created a foster care system taking children and putting them in better homes until reunited with biological parents or adopted. This system has become so elaborate that it’s not uncommon for the average person to know someone who was in foster care or who was adopted. For this reason, adoption and fostering are terms that have become very commonplace in our society today. However, consider the following four examples, unique each in their own right, and yet all profoundly changed by a simple openness to life.
In today’s world adoption is becoming more and more popular and problems with rights are continually popping up. As problems arise, court cases arise and that makes a very hard struggle for the child. No matter the age of the child they know something is different and they have to live through the complications. “If they were abandoned, for whatever reason, their little bodies, hearts, and brains know it, even if they’re too young to articulate it. Even babies loving carried and then placed into the arms of their new parents shortly after birth know that something has changed—that the voices and bodies now surrounding them are different than those they have known for nine months” (Little, Joleigh). Adoption is a wonderful opportunity for abandoned
After we talked for an hour or two, I had to leave so they could pick who they wanted to adopt. It felt like an eternity passed. I waited and waited to hear who they picked. When dinner rolled around, I was so nervous and scared that I wasn’t going to be picked. As I walked to the dinner hall, Shannon was throwing tissues and calling me a crybaby. When I walked into the room full of little girls I finally had
Life here at the orphanage has become a routine, and requires almost no thought, which is good because sometimes my thoughts get all jumbled up inside. I wake up every day and go straight to the bathroom I share with the 14 other girls in my room. Although dirty and ancient, it still works. As I wash my face I stand on the stool in front of the sink, showing almost my complete small stature in the mirror. I am stocky for my age, my nose is more flat than round, and although I am a happy teen, my mouth is permanently downturned. I stare at my eyes, while most kids here have a hollow, disinterested look in their eyes, mine sparkle because I know there is more for me in this life and it is coming. My eyes are a deep blue with spots on the iris which is how the doctors first discovered I had Down Syndrome when I was born. From then on my parents only looked at me with disgust or just as a pile of possible medical bills. That’s why I haven’t been adopted, the medical bills. I know that’s why because I overheard Sister Mary and Sister Angelica whisperings about it once. I hopped down from the stool feeling slightly disoriented due to my severe eye problems. I followed my fellow sisters down the hall to breakfast. I sat in my assigned seat and ate my oatmeal that the sisters served to us daily. The oatmeal tasted like chopped up grainy wood, but why complain? I
What surprised me the most but also concerned me about the HBO documentary, Children in Crisis, were the factual statements that would show up on the plain black screen. To name a few, only 10% of parents seek help for their obese children and only 5 states make physical education mandatory in school systems. The way I see it is these facts are surprising but also concerning because it appears we are not doing enough to change this epidemic. As I learned in Nutrition 280 as well as the video clip eating healthy and exercise go hand and hand. In order to address these facts, I believe caregivers, cafeteria workers, school administrators, congress, physicians and so on should be looking out for the best interest of the child population. This
Above all they must know that they are not the only ones, in 2016 there were 56,642 children adopted in the United States alone. For some adoption is a taboo subject, not only parents who have adopted children should educate their children. All those lost stories should not remain a secret. All children should understand that adoption is not something anyone should have to be apologized to for. Listen to this story now, it might help you understand the mindset of these children who have lost their past.
When I was in the third grade I had a friend named Taylor; we were like sisters. We did everything together. Our mothers kept us together. But one day she told me they were moving. I didn’t believe her because she was always joking around. When I asked her mother about it, she told me that it was true. Me being a kid, I asked her if I could come with them. She laughed and said, ¨I don’t think your mother would let you leave.¨ She told me that they were moving to New York. I knew it was far, but I did not know how far exactly. So I said okay and went back to play. Taylor told me that she was going to be coming down every summer to be with her grandparents. So I wasn’t as sad. I went home and told my mom that I had lost my sister. She just looked at me. She had already talked to Taylor’s mom and agreed that I could go to New York for winter break. That made me happy. I went to school a few weeks later thinking I was going to see my sister, but I didn’t. She was getting ready to leave. My mother took me over
At the age of six I was officially adopted by the Henry family. My name was changed, my history was left behind. Not only was my history left behind, however, so where my siblings. My parents were not able to adopt us all, causing all of to have to split up. This is one of the most traumatic moments in my life. I still remember being pried from my little brother’s arms, one of the most traumatic events in my life. I would have to say I was going through Identity versus role confusion at this time. Being adopted, for a long time, meant to me that I did not belong. I did not know who my brothers and sisters were. I also didn’t know my mother and father, which caused an emotional hit on me. This caused me to feel like I didn’t have an identity. I was confused and was unsure of how to deal with the stress that was being thrown at me.
For years, I convinced myself that the story of my life began when I arrived in America at eleven months old. I tumbled through the clichéd white-picket-fence childhood, never realizing how impossible it was to completely discard the first year of my infancy. While I had always known about being adopted from China, I did not fully comprehend the weight of this detail until my late teenage years.
I ounce read a story of a man who was adopted as a child. He told of how his smart-cheeky mother handled a very sensitive situation. As a small child he came home one day from school crying. “The other kids are teasing me, they told me I belong in the lost-and-found.” His adopting mother brushed away his tears and gave his this advice: “Go tell the other children that their parents had to take what they got, but I could hand-pick you from thousands of other children.” Sometimes it feels like it is