Essay on Daughter from DaNang

Ann Fessler tells about her personal experiences with adoption during the 1950s and 60s in the beginning of the book. The author writes about herself being adopted and dealing with the difficult reality of finding her birth mother. Within the first couple of pages, Fessler says, “My adoptive mother and father were offered very little information about my biological parents.”(2) and “...after forty years of life as an adoptee I was hearing the other side of the story for the first time.”(3). Fessler explaining her past and her personal experience with adoption is one of her examples that give her ethos. Fessler was never given the chance to meet her birth mother which shows again how the lack of control caused these women's situations to worsen. After having the credibility to tell these girls’ stories, Fessler continued to bring the issue to light.

n 1975 as the Vietnam War was ending, Mai Thi Kim sent her seven- year-old daughter Mai Thi Hiep, later known as Heidi from that war-torn country to the United States in “Operation Babylift”. This operation saved many Vietnamese children’s life and gave them an opportunity to grow up and out of post-war chaos. This happened to Heidi, as she explains in the film “Daughter from Danang”, in which 22 years after she was given up for adoption, decides to go back to Vietnam and meet her biological family. However, the theme of culture shock is explored in depth in Daughter from Danang, as Heidi finds herself adrift in an unfamiliar culture and failing to communicate and the unable to cope with reality. In “Operation Baby Lift,” many of the children weren’t actual orphans–bereaved of both parents and all other relatives. Most children were told, “You have to remember who you are,” by mothers and other family members who relinquished them for adoption into North America.

A healthy or secure attachment develops over time because of a caregiver’s consistent, sensitive care that they have towards a young child. Each time a caregiver interacts in ways that focus fully on the individual child, it furthers connections. When a caregiver attempts to read a baby’s cues and tries to respond to the child’s needs and wishes, the baby learns the caregiver is a source of comfort and security. Children with secure attachments learn that their world is a safe place because the people in it are caring and understanding. They also learn that their ways of communicating result in others responding and understanding them. This reinforces their efforts to continue to express themselves to others. Consistent back-and-forth exchanges that happen over time are one of the ways to build positive relationships. Children with secure attachments feel confident in exploring their environment, which allows them to learn. It’s the accumulation of intimacy during these numerous interactions that turns ordinary tasks into a relationship-based curriculum.

America, the melting pot and opportunities awaiting, is a First World country that has many prosperous opportunities for all, but for the nannies coming to America, they are treated well beneath their worth. For example, Rowena Baustista left her little village in the Philippines to find a job in the domestic area in order to support her family back home. Rowena was one of 800,000 legal workers, followed by boats loads of illegal workers seeking to use their talents for money- many from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Colombia, Brazil, El Salvador, and Peru. Each night and morning she is being watched by four photos, two of the photos are her children that she left behind to be cared for by their elderly grandmother and the other two are of children that she cares for. Rowena’s mother is a school teacher that works from 7am to 9pm, thus not being able to give the children all the attending they need, so she hired help, a local woman, that fills in for the grandmother.

Coming from a small, broken home, Mary always knew she wanted to have a large family of her own. Having an emergency hysterectomy at the age of 27, three children was all that Mary could have, not fulfilling her dream of a great, overbearing family. All of her three girls coming from a previous marriage, adoption was the only option for Mary and her new husband. Now, one mother faces the horrors of; attempted murder, mental disabilities and an agonizing lifetime commitment all because of international adoption.

John Bowlby’s work in attachment has been the foundation when determining the attcahments and bonds that a child and parent may experience (Webb, 2011). According to Bowlby, “attachment” is referring to a lasting, mutual bond of affection that is dependent on an individual or more than one person (Webb, 2011). Establishing a secure attachment during infancy and early childhood is an important task of a parent or a caregiver. Not all parents or caregivers can provide their child with a secure attachment at this important in life due to various reasons. Since parents are the main providers in their child’s development of attachment, their lives and history has a great influence on their children’s lives.

This foundation theory developed by John Bowlby, focuses on the form, quality, and strength of human attachments made in early life and their effect on development and pro-social behaviors (Tuner, 2011, p. 30). Bowlby’s attachment theory diverged from Freudian theory in many important ways, none more so than his emphasis on the importance of actual experience to human development. In Bowlby’s view, the quality of interactions between infant and caregiver(s), beginning at birth, motivated specifically by the child’s needs for safety and protection, are central to lifespan development (Turner, 2011, p. 31). Bowlby’s main interest was the formation, beginning in infancy, of the behaviors that collectively compose the attachment behavioral system.

There is a critical period during infancy known as attachment, the emotional and physiological closeness between an infant and their caregiver, which facilitates the maturation of the brain systems. Such brain systems are involved in self-regulatory abilities like attention, behavioral and emotions management, etc. When an infant is unable to control these abilities then they will depend on attentive adults (caregivers), to help regulate their needs. Researchers, Schore & Schore (2008), explicates the expansion of John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory (1969). Ordinarily, Bowlby's Theory, suggests that as the infant develops cognitively, the extent of attachment will shift with the caregiver’s attentiveness to the child’s needs. The expansion of Bowlby’s

Although secure attachment during infancy is the foundation for continued healthy positive development during the lifespan, it is important to understand that other factors can have a significant effect on development later in life (i.e. illness, loss, and trauma). However, research has shown the importance of consistent care giving that is responsive and nurturing and the caregivers’ ability to effectively accommodate more difficult temperament characteristics ,as well as other factors, influence the development of healthy attachment{{64 Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian 2003}}. Research has also shown that infancy and early childhood is the period of development where scaffolding begins and continues (Vygotsky, 1978; Zhao & Orey,1999).

Aldrich and Isomaki begin their article by formally declaring that they are taking a psychological stance on the matter: “We provide a loosely psychoanalytic frame of study for our students, focusing on the mother-daughter relation and the

In contradiction to the behavioral theory that stated that a child’s attachment to his/her mother was a set of learned behaviors centered around who fed the child, J. Bowlby introduced the attachment theory (McLeod, 2009). According to Bowlby, an infant’s attachment to his/her primary caregiver will be the secure protective base from which s/he will explore his/her world (Lee, 2003). He believed that children are born biologically ready to form attachments in order to survive. Their behaviors elicit responses from caregivers, not to solely get food, but care. He observed that when separated from the mother,

Danielle’s life is miserable as she lives in the same house as her stepmother and stepsisters. Because she is the different one in the family, she is treated as a servant and is forced to do chores around the house. On top of this, Danielle’s heartless stepmother and stepsisters are in constant competition with her, and will do anything just to feel better than her. Thus, Danielle is persistently being oppressed and put down by them, which is in no way satisfying her need for a caring family and motherly advice. Danielle’s expectations for a loving mother and family are often not fulfilled by her stepsisters and stepmother as a result of their cruel treatment due to their need to compete with her.

In the area of humanness, Heidi may not be ordinary, but can still be considered an everywoman for her generation. She is looking for fulfillment, a universal desire shared by women of all generations trying to balance personal dreams with societal expectations. The illusion of who she longs to be is overshadowed by her need to laugh off the heartaches and mask her true identity. She attempts to cover the duller elements of her personality and never turns to a higher power for assistance, as is characteristic of a dark comic protagonist. Her speech in Act II referenced above shows signs of a dark comic protagonist who "clears his throats and scratches her nose" (Styan, The Dark 275). She will never emerge as a hero, or as Guthke 's tenet suggests, be able to clear her pain-stricken conscience (162). She attempts to do so by adopting a baby, however, but it is clear to the spectator that the question of happiness will remain unanswered for Heidi:

It is of great importance to form secure attachments in childhood with a caregiver. For example, having high-quality attachment relationships in childhood are precursors for healthy emotional development, physical health, mental health (Ranson & Urichuk, 2008). Insecure children are at a greater risk for later behaviour problems, emotional dysregulation, psychopathology, and lower cognitive performance. In addition, families living in high psychosocial risk experience greater challenges in the caregiver-child relationship. For example, research has shown that maltreatment and socioeconomic disadvantage can lead to disorganized attachment relationships in which there is no systematic approach to using others as a secure base and there is fear

Bowlby’s attachment theory, as well as Erikson’s psychosocial theory, indicates that a child’s overall development is dependent on the care that they receive from their caregiver, more specifically their mother. Meeting the needs of the child and providing a