When a Family Member Opposes Adoption

I just recently received a following message from a couple in the process of adoption.


"Hello, My wife and I are Korean-Americans (both of us were born in the US to Korean immigrant parents) and we are in the process of adopting a child from Korea. Although initially both of my parents expressed their support of our decision to adopt, my mother has recently confessed her displeasure and discomfort with our decision. I was wondering if you had any helpful information or websites written in Korean that I could send her so she can learn about the beauty of adoption and possibly hear some testimonials from Korean adoptees living in the US. I believe she is so caught up in the stigma in Korean culture around adoption that she will miss out on the opportunity to love and embrace her grandson. Please let me know when you have a chance. Thank you, H.XXX"


I replied back to H as follows:


"Please go ahead and don't look back. Do not be swayed by your mother. You and your wife are the ones that will raise the child. You do not even need to ask for their permission. Now why do I say this?

Do we ask our parents whether we can have children or not before going to bed? They come whether we planned or not, and certainly didn't get permission from our parents to have them.

So adoption is like that. We need to treat it as another method that God allows us to have children.  Some are born by wombs, some are born by hearts.

Having one's children have never been someone else's decision, but yours only to make. So don't look back but push on.

So happy for you."

I also followed up with another message:

Another note,

"There have been several cases I know where the grandparents had lots of reservations, and when the children came home they wouldn't even glance a look.

But later on, they slowly warmed up to the children, they would use an excuse just to come and see the children.

We humans are so limited with our own understanding as to what is good for us.

It is quite normal to fear the unknowns.

When the situation is thrust upon us (as in your case to your parents), they (your parents) will accept the child and would later go crazy.

I've seen this happen time and time again.

For example, a grandfather in Korea would not even take a glance at a newly adopted child and even refused to put the child under their family registry.

But gradually his heart melted and later became the child's biggest advocate.

I'm sure it will happen to your parents as well.

Best wishes."

Status of the Slow EPs in Korea

I haven't written my blog in a while, and I apologize for making all of you wait so long regarding why the EP process has slowed down so much in Korea.  A few families have written to me wanting to know what's going on as they anxiously wait for their children to come home.

 

So far the Korean government branch of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) has not requested the agencies to submit a certain number of EPs that they normally accept from the agencies around February of a new year.  But it's already the end of March and no request from MOHW was given to the agencies to submit a new batch of EP applications.

 

Just this wee, one or two agencies went ahead and submitted the EP applications to MOHW regardless.  From what I hear, the MOHW recently underwent a new staff rotation program, and all the staff members have been replaced except for one, thus creating some learning curve for the new members, thus the slow EP process.

 

However, there have been some EPs cleared this year, but these are the ones that were submitted for application on last November 2016. But for 2017 there has not been any EP batches submitted until this week.

 

So it's going to be a slow process for the time being, but expect the staff members to learn the ropes soon.  I think another reason may be that the whole country has been so absorbed for months by the impeachment of the President Park, and much of the country did not move with their normal activities because of the national emergency.

 

Stay tuned.