Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the narratives we tell about ourselves and the communities we are a part of and how these shape reality and how we understand our role in this world. I am on a journey towards reunification with my birth parents and in this space fraught with tension, anxiety, and fear, I have been thinking about the term “relinquish” a lot. In my file, it says my birth parents “relinquished” their rights and I was then adopted nine months later. They relinquished their right to hold me when I got injured as a child, make medical and legal decisions on my behalf. All of this they “relinquished” their rights to; and in doing so my parents gained their rights through adoption. But lately, as I have entered more fully into adulthood and made decisions for myself, based on my hopes and dreams, I have come to realize the importance of adoptive parents also “relinquishing” their rights to their adoptees.
Adoptive parents, what would it look like to relinquish your rights back to your children? What would it look like to come alongside their dreams whether those dreams fit the expectation you have for them or not?
Something prevalent in adoption; especially transracial adoption is the infantilization of adoptees. Maybe it’s unexamined prejudices and racist narratives adoptive parents have told themselves but I am finding more and more adoptees struggling to articulate for themselves their hopes and dreams apart from their adoptive parents. They are the same; until they aren’t. I have had many conversations with adoptees who want to switch their career paths, come out as LGBTQ+, search for their birth families, learn more about their birth culture, but are afraid to out of fear of alienating their adoptive parents whom they feel “indebted’’ to. So much so, that adoptees are no longer living their life informed by their hopes and dreams but entirely controlled by their adoptive parents who feel as if they have the “right” to project and control adoptees’ lives.
This is wrong because adoption is just as much of our story as it is our adoptive parents. And many of us grow out of the rose-colored lenses we have been given surrounding our adoption narratives as we grow older; allowing ourselves to ask more critical questions that lead us to gray spaces as we sit and decide for ourselves who we are apart from our adoptive parents.
I think this is a natural part of aging but there is another layer added because of adoption. Adoptive parents feel as if they have a “right” to their adoptees and some of them truly think they know what is best for adoptees; even if the adoptee is an adult. This is one example of infantilization. Part of growing with your adoptee is trusting that we know the steps and paths to take that are authentic to who we are. Being an adoptive parent means at times releasing the power back to your adoptee that you gained as an adoptive parent and stepping into a support role and off center stage.
By no means am I suggesting you leave your adoptee to flounder about in the world but instead allow them the opportunity to vocalize their dreams and help them reach for them.
Even if you’ve dreamed up a life for your adoptee, realize at some point your adoptee might start to go down a different path even they did not see coming. Rather than interjecting or projecting fears onto them that can feel stifling, consider seriously what is more important to you. Them feeling like they can trust you enough to talk to you or them shutting you out of their processing major life decisions because it is too much of an emotional burden? This scenario is applicable to all the examples I mentioned above: coming out as LGBTQ+, searching for their birth families, and switching career paths etc.
I don’t pretend this is easy for any party involved. I am on my journey of walking alongside my adoptive parents as I firmly share my hopes and dreams for my life that look very different from what we decided together my life would look like. I have had to allow them space to mourn dreams they had that will never be but also give myself space and permission to dream new dreams that are authentic to who I am and what I want to do in this world. I went into undergrad majoring in Liberal Studies because from the time I was in third grade I had declared my plans to be an elementary school teacher. I did not deviate from those career goals until my sophomore year of college when I felt called vocationally to be a pastor. Due to a number of reasons, this major life decision resulted in me switching my major to Biblical Studies and has prepared me to enter a field and profession that I love.
But not before I entered into therapy for 3 months because of the anxiety and fear that I had in disclosing to my parents my new dream. Something that most college students do at least three times, I had so much fear in doing just once, all because I was afraid to disrupt my parents’ dream for my life and the narratives we had constructed together. I felt as if I was responsible for how my parents reacted and that their support determined my worth as a human being. Until I realized this, with or without their support I am worth it. I am worthy of living a life that brings me joy and fulfillment. A simple truth but one that took forever to realize. I have come to realize this: the stories we construct with the words that we speak create reality; for better or worse. Adoptive parents, may they lead to life for your adult adoptees.
And now a message to any adoptee struggling to navigate hard conversations with adoptive parents.
Dear Beloved,
You can exist apart from your adoptive parents. This is your right as a human being full of dreams dear one. You are not indebted to your adoptive parents and your life is your own to paint as boldly and daringly as you please. Try not to let the sunset on the dreams that you are nurturing. But instead, kindle and nurture the flame inside of you; the one that is calling you to more than you could ever ask, hope, or imagine. Because let me tell you; on the other side it is breathtaking. Joy is possible and it is so worth it. So take the job opportunity, apply to that college, move across the country, because YOU are so worth it. Chart the course that leads into unmarked territory and taps into your limitless potential and untouched dreams. Because you have one life to live. Who are you living it for?
In solidarity, Sarah
WRITTEN BY SARAH WILLIAMS:
WRITTEN BY SARAH WILLIAMS: Sarah (she/her/hers) is a Korean American transracial adoptee who believes in the power of our words both written and spoken. She writes for the sake of other adoptees who will come after her and in attempts to participate in adoption reform and advocacy that is adoptee centered. She is a bicoastal seminarian; a CA girl living on the East Coast; getting her Master’s of Divinity degree with dreams of being a pastor one day. Connect with her both on Instagram and TikTok @anadopteetalksback
