My daughters,
when they were younger, were willing participants in Families
with Children from China events. We looked forward to
celebrating their Chinese birth culture with FCC friends, and
eagerly attended the fun, child-friendly festivities planned by
FCC parents. For Chinese New Year my daughters dressed in
colorful silk Qi Pao dresses and pearl necklaces purchased in
Guangzhou. I wore a matching silk blouse (cheongsam dresses
simply refused to go past my obviously western-sized hips) and
my own set of pearls. We had a wonderful time at our FCC
parties, making Chinese lantern crafts, learning a little
Mandarin, and eating Chinese food.
Did attending an
adoption support group that emphasized Chinese birth culture
make my family culturally competent? Of course not! But through
FCC, my daughters met other adopted children with similar life
circumstances, and I became friends with other adoptive parents.
My children and I slowly developed a support system within our
FCC group. The girls relished the comfort of being the same as
the other kid attendees: no one questioned their family
connection, origin or Asian-ness. I enjoyed (needed?required!)
the ongoing parent-to-parent rapport. Trans-racial,
international adoption-parenting can be a deeply broadening or a
darkly isolating experience. FCC-type organizations offer
adopted children and their adoptive parents an important feeling
of belonging, and a powerful camaraderie based on life
experience and shared insight. Sometimes dismissed as ?culture-lite?,
these groups are invaluable in helping families create
community-- and it is the invisible culture of *adoption* that
support groups validate, celebrate and strengthen. Adoption IS
part of our children?s birth culture?
My daughters,
now 17, 12 and 8, are reaching past early childhood FCC parties
and playgroups, and exploring what growing up Asian really means
within our family and our community. My oldest daughter was born
to me, and it has been interesting to see the effect her
China-born sisters have had over her choice of high school
friends, and on her college decision. She has a world-view, and
an easy lifetime acceptance of cultural and racial diversity.
Her two younger
sisters are moving toward creating their own diverse, cultural
comfort zone among their seventh grade and third grade peers.
Both girls joined a Chinese folk-dance troupe last year at my
urging, and I was secretly amazed at how little I had to push to
get them to participate! It wasn?t really about the dance?I
think my 12 year old especially enjoyed working with the
instructor (a beautiful Chinese woman from Beijing), and she
liked the novel experience of being surrounded by non-adoptive
Asian-American families. She observed the Chinese family
interactions and the teacher?s traditional Chinese mode of
instruction, and we talked about what it might have been like
for my daughter to grow up with her first family in mainland
China.
My 12 year old
also attended the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family
Network (KAAN) conference with me last summer in Boston, where
she had the opportunity to listen and talk to Korean and Chinese
young adult adoptees. These intelligent, accomplished young
women made an impact on my middle-schooler?more than I realized
at the time. My daughter?s occasional comments about the
conference are a reminder to me that my Asian-American girls
need mentors and role-models outside myself?that part two of my
job as a trans-racial adoptive parent involves taking the
initiative and reaching out to friendships among the Asian,
Middle-Eastern and African-American families in my own
community. Race IS part of our children?s birth culture?
I?ve discovered
that celebrating our children?s birth culture isn?t just about
immersion into another country?s past and present. It is
relational, and based on the evolving needs of our children it
can mean reaching out to other adoptees, mentors, heritage camp
counselors, instructors and new friends. Celebrating our
children?s birth culture encompasses difficult day-to-day
discussions on race, and the acknowledgement of the losses and
loving benefits inherent in becoming an adoptive family. And at
the heart of it all, is the family foundation and emotional
network that we parents strive to provide.
In China, the
New Year?s celebration focuses on relatives, and respect is paid
to the spirits of a family?s ancestors:
?The presence
of the ancestors is acknowledged on New Year's Eve with a dinner
arranged for them at the family banquet table. The spirits of
the ancestors, together with the living, celebrate the onset of
the New Year as one great community. The communal feast called
"surrounding the stove" or weilu. It symbolizes family unity and
honors the past and present generations.?
(University
of Victoria,
BC, Canada)
My daughters
have grown out of their silk Qi Pao dresses, and are growing
into multifaceted tweens and teens. But at Chinese New Year I
still celebrate our ?family unity? and the fact that these three
children are in my life. I thank the mixed hotpot of Chinese and
Scandinavian ancestral spirits that somehow, with deep
benevolence and wicked humor, reached out beyond race and place,
beyond all of our different birth cultures, and brought my
children and me together?
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Xin Nian Kuai Le!
Happy New Year!
Copyright 2007, MacLeod, All Rights Reserved
Jean MacLeod is author of At Home in This World: a China
Adoption Story, and co-editor of Adoption Parenting:
Creating a Toolbox, Building Connections and mother of three
daughters, two of whom were adopted from China through
Children?s Hope. From one adoptive parent to another, Jean
shares her wisdom here in the monthly e-news and in the
quarterly Children?s Hope Newsletter.
2008 Children's Hope International.
All rights reserved.