|
| Adoption Resources |
|
Advertisers |
|
| Back to Other Countries Home Page
| |
 | Adopting a Daughter from Cambodia
by Jonathan Little |
I must admit to being pleased. As a pessimist by nature, I counted up all the bad things that could go wrong adopting a child from Cambodia. She would have some incurable disease, she would have attachment disorder, she would be in a constant bad mood having been taken from the orphanage where she spent her first year, she would ruin our family dynamics. None of that has happened, and Raleigh has been a constant delight and joy in addition to our sons Quentin and Cole. I was waiting for the data to come in and, a year into it, the results are better than expected.
Speaking of results, what’s also pleasantly surprised me is the reaction I get from other people when I’m out with Raleigh. It’s as if she’s some kind of magic potion that tears down barriers between people. Once when I was with Raleigh at the beach, people I’d never met before were calling hello to me and asking questions about Raleigh from afar as if we were some kind of celebrities. I tried to address each of their questions one at a time as if I were giving a lecture on my daughter. That was the most extreme example, but it often happens in grocery stores where people will routinely ask where she’s from, how she’s doing, and what it’s like adopting. Some parents who have adopted are offended by these personal questions but I’m not. I see it as good-natured curiosity, not some covert attempt to undermine my parental legitimacy. I welcome any questions people have.
I’m also not sure if I understand all of the interest, however. I think part of it comes from the whole subculture of adoption. It’s amazing how many people were adopted out there, or are planning to adopt, or wish they could adopt if they had the money, or are related to someone who is adopting or has adopted. Being Raleigh’s father makes me a kind of honorary member of this subculture that I otherwise wouldn’t have known anything about.
Part of the interest probably comes from how different Raleigh looks. In our Anglo suburb, Raleigh’s Indo-Asian features and sunny personality automatically draw attention to her. Curiosity in her makes me think that perhaps there’s a thirsting for diversity that some people don’t even know they have.
I have the feeling that there’s something else that I haven’t yet put my finger on that makes people curious. There seems to be some kind of underlying sense of warmth and concern from people for an orphan who was lost but who now is found. Everybody wants to know the story, the narrative, behind how she got here, where she came from, how she lived, and how we got her. “Was she well fed at the orphanage?” they tentatively ask. “Was it hard leaving the other kids behind?” they ask, already knowing the answer. People are longing to hear what scriptwriters call the “back story” for her and for the process of adoption. Raleigh is a walking visual cue for a lot of deeply-rooted questions.
Once when my wife and I were watching a television show with an Asian co-star, my wife turned to me and said, “It’s going to be a challenge, I guess, having such an exotic looking girl where we live.” That’s true, and I’m not sure how it will be for Raleigh. It’s kind of exciting and fun for her Anglo parents right now, but what will it be like for her to have people ask her all those questions when she’s older and can respond herself? Will it make her feel resentful and different or pleased and special? How will it make her feel about where we live? Will she long to live in another part of the world or different part of the country, like California, where there are more Asian Americans? Only time will tell before she can tell us what she thinks and feels. This data hasn’t come in yet, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Jonathan Little is a professor of English at Alverno College in Milwaukee, Wisc., and has published several books. He is currently working on a novel about tennis and a critical study of writer Anne Taylor. Last summer he received a grant from the Freeman Foundation to travel to Japan, Korea and China to learn about their cultures. He lives with his family in Oconomowoc, Wisc.
|
Back to Other Countries Home Page |
| |
|
