Traveling Back to a Child's Birth Country
BY marguerite paolino
As a
little girl from Korea growing up in a white family, Cassie Norton is familiar
with hurtful comments like "Why does your face look flat?" and "How can you breathe through your nose?" And her mother believes these experiences affected her daughter's self-image from the start. |
It wasn't until the Nortons' first visit to Korea, in 2005, that Cassie, then 6, truly began to understand her own beauty. Surrounded by Koreans, Cassie was able to relax in a way that her mother had never seen before. Most people who saw the family assumed the children belonged to the Korean woman who was traveling with them - and Cassie, in her subtle way, encouraged the assumption.
"Cassie held my friend's hand and didn't talk, so no one would notice she spoke English," Jacey Norton said, adding that she didn't take her daughter's behavior as a rejection. "She wanted to be in a place where she wasn't different. She wanted to blend, in a place where she's supposed to blend. I cannot even verbalize how much it changed her. We came back, and she was like, 'I am pretty.' "
Drucilla Jane Roberts and Nick Semine with daughters Simret, 10, and Simenesh, 8, in Lalibela, Ethiopia. Ready
or Not?
As international adoption has become more common, increasingly families are traveling back to the countries of their children's birth and their trips can be as individual as the families themselves. While there are many homeland tour packages available, families can also make their own travel arrangements.
Some families travel multiple times, exploring different areas of the country or visiting with birth parents or relatives. Others spend years saving for a single visit, often trying to time it with their child's desire and readiness to make the trip.
For American children, who were adopted from another country, a trip to their homeland can be their greatest wish, their greatest fear - or both at the same time.
"People told me, 'You have to be prepared for your kids to think you're bringing them there and leaving them there,'" said Norton, adding that both of her children were adopted as babies. "I said, 'Yeah, right.' Davis [then 8] had really wanted to go back for a long time. But as we were [getting ready to go], he said 'Mommy, does our phone number work in Korea?' "
Jacey, Davis, and Cassie Norton at the Insadong shopping area, with a friend. She assured him that it did and asked why he was interested.
"He said, 'So I can call you when you leave me there,' " Norton said, still sounding a bit surprised. "And my daughter actually said, 'You're not going to leave me there.' She said those words. Children that age don't have the maturity to understand that it's a family trip."
Realizing that potential for confusion, Drucilla Jane Roberts and her husband Nick Semine, of Millis, emphasized repeatedly that their family's 2006 visit to their two daughters' native Ethiopia was a vacation - one that they will repeat every other year or so. Neither child verbalized concern about being left in Africa, but despite encouragement from their parents, Simret, now 10, and Simenesh, now 8, refused to see their birth relatives or visit their orphanage. They have a grandmother, aunts, and uncles in Ethiopia, who were unable to care for them when their birth mother died. Roberts and Semine adopted them three-and-a-half years ago.
"They wanted to be close to us, but they wanted to go see things," Roberts said.
When Semine visited Debre Damo, a mountaintop monastery that allowed only men to climb up the rope to the top, his wife and daughters stayed below, attracting the attention of the children who lived in the local village.
"The children surrounded them. I could see in their eyes that they were thinking that could have been them," Roberts said, adding that Simret and Simenesh were uncomfortable at first. "But within a half hour they were playing soccer with them.
"It's important for kids to have new memories of their birth country. They got a sense of what they come from with new eyes, not with the sadness of the past."
A Far-Away Reunion
When Melissa Lamb, 22, was younger, she often wished to visit the country she left at age 21 months. She knew she had a birth mother and brother in Ecuador, and she thought about them a lot. Now, she says that trip she and her mother Martha made last year came at the perfect time.
"I'm really glad I waited until I was older," she said. "I was excited. I was nervous. When I got off the plane for the first time, I said to my mom, 'Do you smell that?'"
She wasn't sure what it was, but it was a scent that had lodged itself deep in her memory. "It was so cool," she said.
"It's a pretty major emotional experience," said Needham resident Martha Lamb, a caseworker for the Alliance for Children and a psychologist at Wheaton College. She also has two sons, now 27 and 28, who were adopted from El Salvador. She recommends parents and children discuss their expectations before the trip and consider possible outcomes. "As a parent, I felt a little like an observer."
Even with a translator, Melissa found language to be a barrier in communicating with her birth family.
"There are a lot of the things I would have loved to have said to my birth family and my birth mother privately," she said. She didn't feel comfortable speaking all of her thoughts through the translator. "I really, really recommend knowing more of the language."
The translator videotaped the reunion between Melissa and her birth family - and she is grateful for that.
"I watch it every now and then, and it brings it all back," she said. "I remember how it felt. I remember it so perfectly. I love hearing their voices on tape."
She's sure she would remember it even without the video: "The memory is burnt in my head forever."
Getting To Know the Country
Viola Morse, an adoption professional and mother of two children adopted from Ecuador, agreed it is helpful to record reunion moments and subsequent visits with birth families.
"When it's happening, you get so caught up in the emotion of it," she said.
She also suggests making a first trip to the child's birth country, if possible, before a second trip to meet the birth family.
"Meeting the birth family brings up so much emotional turmoil on the trip," she said. "It helps to have already been to the country. Then, you have a familiarity you otherwise wouldn't have."
Morse knows her children may never have the experience, though. They have little information about their birth families and, at 19 and 21 years old, say they are not interested in looking for them.
Yet, Morse believes her children have benefited from their repeat trips to Ecuador and all they have experienced there. They visited the hospitals where both children were born and the orphanage where Morse's daughter stayed. They became close with one of the children's foster families and traveled all together. On their second trip, they worked in the orphanage for a week and then stayed in a resort in the rainforest.
Morse believes it's important to include some more mundane activities during a homeland tour. Their trips to Ecuador have included stops at the mall, Pizza Hut, and a disco bowl alley. As an ardent soccer fan, Morse's son found a game between Argentina and Ecuador to be an "amazing experience."
"Sightseeing can get very tiresome for kids - and for adults as well," she said. "You have to be creative to figure out what would work for you."
Having a chance to see what contemporary life is like in their birth country can be empowering for adoptees, regardless of age. Although a culture camp can be a valuable resource, Jacey Norton believes it can't replace the experience of visiting the country.
"They're not experiencing it; they're not smelling the smells; they're not being frustrated by it," Norton said, adding that her son's new interest in Korean hip hop has helped him connect with Korean- Americans at home. "When you go to Korea, people are not walking down the street doing fan dances. You have to go to the folk villages to see that - just like you have to go to Sturbridge Village to see that here."
Marguerite Paolino is a Massachusetts-based
freelance writer. An award-winning writer, she reports frequently on adoption
issues.
Before You Decide To Go
Traveling to your child's birth country can be a long, involved, expensive, and emotional event. Martha Lamb, a caseworker for the Alliance for Children and a psychologist at Wheaton College, and Viola Morse, another adoption professional, suggest families consider the following before embarking on the planning process:
Considerations Before The Trip
Age of child or children; Finances (Will this be the only trip?
Will there will be funds for multiple trips?; Make-up of travel group (Child alone? Family? Youth group? Church group? Multiple families?);
Political climate in birth country;
Specific places to visit (sightseeing; town/hospital where child was born; orphanage where child lived, etc.);
Expectations of both children and parents;
Knowledge of language (consider taking a course, or borrowing or renting language tapes or CDs);
Knowledge of local customs;
Consider including familiar activities in your itinerary (i.e. shopping in a mall; attend a soccer game; go bowling); and
Decide where you want to stay.
Meeting Birth Parents Or Relatives
Be sure it's the child's wish, and not
just your own;
Make sure the child is mature enough
to deal with the circumstances;
Talk about expectations and all
possibilities ahead of time;
Think about and write down questions you want to ask ahead of time;
Consider hiring a translator to accompany you, if you don't speak the language fluently;
Bring an album of
photos to leave behind;
Be prepared for a rush of emotions
from all the parties present; and
Consider bringing some modest gifts.
After The Trip
Keep talking about and processing your
child's experience, and your own;
Consider how and whether you want to share this experience with others;
Ask what expectations those involved have for continuing communications with the birth family.
-- Marguerite Paolino
Resources for Planning a Trip
While some families choose to make their own travel arrangements, there are many reputable companies offering birth country tours. The Adoption Community of New of England (ACONE) suggests that families find out whether travelers are accompanied by an adoption social worker. Agencies offer different itineraries for trips, with some of the variation dependent on the particular country's adoption rules and cultural traditions.
While there are many reputable organizations offering homeland tours, ACONE recommends these two:
Holt International Children's Services, Eugene, Oregon. www.holtinternational.org 541- 687-2202
The Ties Program, New Richmond, Wisconsin, www.adoptivefamilytravel.com
