It happened.
This past Tuesday, in the car on the 25 minute car ride on the way to the OB, I asked my husband the question.
“What would your response be if our daughter came home and told you that someone called her a Chink?”
Yeah, I know. Way to open a can of worms in a time and space that is not conducive to the issue at hand.
So as no surprise, my husband’s answer fell short of my expectations, and to be honest, no matter what he said, I don’t think I would have been fully satisfied with his answer.
The truth is, I still don’t know what answer he could give that would make me feel 100% okay because although he is incredibly supportive and sympathetic, he personally, has never had an experience that enables him to be empathetic.
I brooded and stewed through our appointment, and it wasn’t until two days later that we circled back to my question. By this point, I had tied myself up in knots and the waterworks had been overflowing sporadically throughout the day.
It’s not that we had never talked about Jewish or Korean influences in regards to raising our daughter. We had been talking about them for months, years even. We already discussed whether or not we would want our daughter to be raised going to temple and having a bat mitzvah (my husband had his bar mitzvah but has not attended services as an adult). We covered making sure that she knows about the cultural aspects of being Jewish, and the fact that we need to make more of an effort to observe Jewish holidays. We know that we will keep cooking Korean dishes and make latkes for Hanukkah while also putting up a Christmas tree and leaving cookies for Santa.
But we hadn’t ever talked about this.
We hadn’t tackled my fears regarding the fact that our daughter is likely going to look Asian enough to experience racism or micro-aggressions at least once in her life, or that she could bear witness to harassment towards me. We hadn’t brought up the chances of my husband being asked if he was actually her father when out in public with her alone. We hadn’t discussed the reality that due to my being an adoptee and the area in which we live, our daughter will grow up largely as I did–in close proximity to whiteness and devoid of any immersion in an Asian community.
And so, we talked. We are still talking and will continue to talk because the minute we peel back one layer, another one is right there waiting.
I know that my adoption has made me even more sensitive to some aspects of these conversations. There are things I wonder and worry about that perhaps deviate from the more routine parenting conundrums.
For example:
Reconnecting with my Korean heritage has been tremendously healing and important to me, and I want our daughter to grow up knowing that it is part of her heritage as well. However, sometimes I worry that it will come across as inauthentic or the pinnacle of imposter syndrome because it is not the culture I grew up in.
Do we make more of an effort to give her opportunities to learn about and embrace her Korean side than I had? Do we send her to Korean heritage summer camp? Sign her (and even me and my husband) up for Korean language classes? Do we throw a Doljanchi instead of a traditional “American” first birthday despite the fact that I never had one and that all the guests in attendance would be white and know nothing about it? Is it okay that I want to do these things for her? Is doing these things weird? Is not doing them going to make her feel disconnected as she grows older?
What does my husband say if/when our daughter is ever called an Asian slur? He has never personally been called an Anti-Semetic slur or experienced Anti-Semetism, and he fully admits that this would be a situation where I would be more-equipped to take the lead.
However, I’m still working on what I would say! I grew up either A) not talking about it to anyone when those moments happened, B) reporting it to someone and having nothing happen, or C) reporting it to someone and having decidedly wrong things happen. I never had the opportunity to share pain like that with someone who could truly empathize, and while I am thankful that our daughter will have that opportunity with me, I worry I am the only one and that I will fall short.
How do I not let residual trauma and feelings from my own experiences affect her?
How do I not project or impose my own feelings onto her? What happens if/when she isn’t naturally bothered by certain things or situations that were deeply triggering for me? Will/Can my responses and actions cause her to then become upset about things unnecessarily?
How do I explain my being adopted to her? When do I explain it? Is she going to wonder why she and I look similar but completely different from the rest of our family? Is she ever going to resent me for being the reason for her Asian features?
My mother in-law has a wise saying, “don’t borrow tomorrow’s worry.” I know on some level that in asking these questions and allowing these musings to occupy space in my head, that I am precisely borrowing tomorrow’s worry. I know that I do not need to have all of the answers right now, and perhaps I never will.
However, I also know that many of these questions are relevant and pressing today. AAPI hate is running rampant right now. Tackling some of these tough conversations as a couple should be happening now and not left to lay dormant until the heat of a moment.
I suppose all of this is to say that being a parent is hard. You always want to do right by your child and do what’s best for them. And while it is natural to have questions because every parent has personal baggage they must unpack and bring to the table, the suitcases of parents who are adoptees (as well as parents of biracial children) is often something no one talks about.
If the past week has shown us anything, it’s that not talking gets us nowhere. And so, consider this my attempt at starting a conversation.
Becoming Boulder 
I’ll start this with a ❤
As a straight, white (raised Christian) male, I thank you so much for sharing as much as you are. I’m always saddened to admit that TRULY understanding the concepts of racism and xenophobia has only begun for me in the last few years of my life. Reading personal thought processes and experiences like your own is one of many resources I’m trying to connect with and learn from to become someone who can understand and empathize to the fullest extent given my own background and heritage. My profession as a therapist has taught me empathy and vague concepts of cultural competency, but it never prepared me for the internal work I really needed and still need to do on myself to support and stand up for marginalized communities.
As I read about not being 100% satisfied with your husbands answer it brought me back to a conversation I had with one of my fellow therapist about racism she has experienced in therapy and on the outside. When I thought about how I would stand up and defend her or anyone, my answer was also notably insufficient, not because of what I wanted to do, but because of what I knew I had long practiced and was capable of. I am someone who has always shied away from conflict as a survival mechanism and doing anything that threatens that (conflict) scares me. I need to work through that fear to stand up. I don’t have near enough knowledge to speak as eloquently and educationally to those committing acts of hatred to stand up. I need and I intend on getting there by reading, having as many conversations I can and refusing to stop learning.
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Thank you so much for your open and honest comments! I applaud your self-awareness and willingness to do the work. I think, largely, that is all that we can ask of one another–that we never stop self-examining and learning. There will always be instances in which we all fall short or don’t quite have all the right words, but it’s the continual effort and growth that help move the needle in the right direction!
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Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and feelings so vulnerably. The fact that you are giving so much consideration to these kinds of questions is evidence that you will be a great mother.
I know this is not the same thing, but I hope it’s encouraging. When my husband and I were teachers, I experienced a lot of unfair treatment because I was a woman and I had to put up with a lot of disrespectful behavior and comments from students and parents. Even though my husband isn’t a woman and had never really experienced much disrespect in his own life, I still found that he was incredibly supportive and empathetic. He was also a great advocate for me and a model to the students and others of how women should be treated, which I’m sure some of them learned from even if we never heard them say it.
It sounds like you have a wonderful husband who is trying to do the same. If/when the time comes (because the world really sucks sometimes and even though your child shouldn’t have to grow up in a world where there is racism, they likely will), I think you two will figure out a great way to approach all of these really tough tough questions and most of all, just love on that little person. Love covers a multitude of sins, both our own and those of others, I think. You got this mama!
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Thank you so much for your kind words, support, and sharing! You are right that love is paramount and can be so healing ❤
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