In my early twenties, when I was thin and lovely and drunken and even more useless than I am now, I used to have these little go-to jokes. One joke in particular would be initiated when I acted humorously nasty towards a friend, and they would mutter “Bastard” with a grin. I would always reply, “I’m an abandoned bastard, actually. Get it right.” Sometimes this would cause the friend to ask what I meant, and I would tell them. Some laughed, some felt horrible because I would tell the details with a downtrodden expression to mess with them further.
I am adopted. And no, people don’t use the term bastard as they once did, but it doesn’t make it any less true of me. My mother was probably 16 when she had me, and she was not married. She then gave me up to an adoption agency. Technically, I am an abandoned bastard child. Again, no one other than myself has referred to me by this phrase, but at the same time, I have always felt that it is the most faithful description of my origins, and it is part of what defines me today.
My adopted parents were not monsters. Did I feel loved? No. Was I beaten? Weren’t we all hit in the 70s and 80s? I’m not sure when I was told that I was adopted, but I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know. I’ve also always been an insomniac. I can remember being very little before kindergarten, and my parents would be out for the night, and my older brother and sister would be in bed, but I would be watching outside the window wondering if my parents would come back. For that matter, how did I know my brother and sister hadn’t snuck out and run off with them? I would sneak into my sister’s room and verify that she was there asleep. Then back to the window to watch for their return, and when I would see them heading for the front door, I would slide into bed and pretend to be asleep.
Later in life, this feeling of imminent abandonment would intensify. My parents adopted two more children, this time from Korea. And not long after, they became foster parents to two more boys from Korea. No one ever said the word foster, nor was the situation ever explained. And so when my brothers Jim and John were taken away, I started stashing little keepsakes in my socks so that when it was my turn to be turned out, I could take some things with me. (One of the foster kids forgot his socks and came back inside to get them, and so my idea that my socks would go with me was implanted in my head.) The idea I was saddled with was that I was abandoned once, and so it could and probably would happen again.
I was a shy child, and am a shy adult. Being a shy adult means I have trouble networking and meeting people. Being a shy child meant that I kept these thoughts and emotions hidden. My parents probably had no idea how I was feeling and never had a chance to address the situation.
I was a weird child. I read a lot. I created stories in my head or read fantasy books and then disappeared into the woods for hours and days to reenact these stories. I would go off to shoot hoops on the other side of the neighborhood and stay there for the entire day. When I would return, no one would be in the house. My parents and two sisters and two brothers went out to eat, and I knew how to make a sandwich. I was probably in 2nd grade at the time. I lived inside my head.
The stories I created for myself varied from pure fantasy where I lived in Middle Earth and was, in fact, an elf or I was the lost child of some alien race from beyond the galaxy, to the sort of fantasy based in reality where Sting was my real father, and he was going to come any day now and claim me. In my stories, as an elf or an alien, I would never find my birth parents, or I would find only one. My parents were kings and queens, outcast, and fallen on hard times. And the same with Sting; for some reason, I could never create a fantasy where I knew both of my parents.
In my early twenties, I contacted the adoption agency that handled me and eventually got in touch with my birth mother. We emailed back and forth, sent some pictures, even called a few times. It was awkward. In the beginning, it was new and exciting, and the fact that we had nothing and too much to talk about didn’t get in the way. Later on, it became apparent that we had nothing in common, and a difference between us got in the way. She wrote something judgemental about me, I corrected her less polished terms, and she decided to never speak to me again. Abandoned again.
Meanwhile, once I reached adulthood (have I reached it?), my adopted parents were not at all understanding of the thing I had become. Several times I was kicked out of the family. Sometimes I was tossed out because I was a bit of a wandering freak and loser. More often though, I was told to go away and stay away simply because there was zero understanding or tolerance for anything different or divergent.
I was nothing like my birth mother. Politically, socially, emotionally, we were different species. And I was nothing like my adopted parents. However, it’s challenging to keep fantasizing that Sting is your father or that you come from a different planet when you’re responsible for feeding yourself and paying the rent. It’s difficult to dream of exotic origins when you bring two boys of your own into the world and have to find a way always to make them feel loved and always make sure they know they will always belong in your family.
Around the time my birth mother abandoned me for the second time, my adopted parents and I also parted ways in a more severe fashion. I was in South Korea at the time, working as a teacher at a college, and so I was also in a state of being alienated from my own country. I began to think that being an abandoned bastard was a good thing. I am the first of my family. My wife and I were at the top of a brand new family tree. We would let nothing from the past define who we are and who we could and would become.
I have learned a lot from the situation of my birth and my adopted parents. Not all lessons are positive, but even the negative experiences can be transformed into good practices. I do not beat my kids. Both of my boys hear “I love you” and “I believe in you” every day. They know that they belong. I have also learned the art of looking forward and leaving the past behind.
Of course, I’ve also uploaded my DNA to Ancestry and Promethease. So who knows? Maybe I will one day learn about my father. He’s still out there. Although I am reasonably sure he is not an elf, an alien, or even Sting. But there’s still a little room for fantasizing.
This is not a post against adoption. I am happy to be alive, and I very well could have been a different statistic. I also think kids should know if they are adopted or not. It simply did not work out well for me. Adopted or otherwise, all kids need to know they are loved and that they belong and that they are wanted. I did not feel this way growing up, but my wife and children certainly make me feel that way now.
