don’t get me wrong, this is not
a hate campaign or a social media attention seeking post. So long gone are my
angst-ridden, multiple ear piercing, wanting to express college days (and looking
back at it, the multiple earrings fashion is just too tacky now, ewww!!).
I am also not a product of a
love affair with a wealthy congressman or aristocratic family that existence had
to be kept, so it is not worthy of a tell-all biography. However, while the
story of my adoption doesn’t belong to those requiring combing histories and
rummaging from long buried registration books, being adopted does not exactly fall to the society's norm. While not socially condemned, the movie and TV
series plots have already made a general impression of adoption synonymous to
unwanted. With this, to an adoptee, the joy of an ordinary day out in pigtails
and sipping Zest-o is robbed off by the children’s teasing and the innocence is crushed by the adult’s harsh repetitive reminder of not belonging to the normal.
Top 8 things, situations and
questions adoptees deal with
1) The
questions like: Who
are my biological parents? How do they look like? Why did they give me away?
Lucky me, I know them from the beginning so I don’t have to ask these questions
and the follow ups. But to those with untold stories of conception and birth
registration, everything else begins with these questions they are dying to
find answers.
2) The
gossipers. Coming from a small town and from family of teachers, my
adoptee’s story was as simple as growing up with hushed adult conversation at
school, market, PTA meetings, funeral or any gathering about my adoption. It
was an on-going competition who can ask in front of my face if I know whose
tummy I came out from and an endless confirmation I am the one. I had to deal
with it until they were too old to remember or died.
3) The endless
teasing growing up
and the branding.
Adopted becomes your family name.
4) Listing your biological parents in the spaces provided. I am not being
ungrateful, but my adoptive parents have long been gone so I put my biological
parents name in my wedding invitation. My reason was simple: it feels crazy
being invited by deceased people (at least to me). I was serious about
it and also felt the urge to honor my other set of parents on that special
moment in my life. My birth has already been registered under my adoptive set
of parents, they were listed as my parents in all my legal documents and they were
the only valid beneficiaries under the Philippine law, so on matters I can
decide on, I want to cross out one of that ‘adoptee’s
what ifs’. In this matter, when
to and when not?
5) There is one or two you loved most or more. That is the truth even if you always answer equally when asked. And you will be asked hundred times growing up and even as an adult. It is already a torture to a child with one set of parents and being asked constantly, imagine if you have two.
5) There is one or two you loved most or more. That is the truth even if you always answer equally when asked. And you will be asked hundred times growing up and even as an adult. It is already a torture to a child with one set of parents and being asked constantly, imagine if you have two.
6) Family health history left blank. I wasn’t
hospitalized too often growing up that the blood type and genes I carried never
bothered me much. If I filled up medical information in the past, I guess I
never paid attention to them as my parents look healthy that time. Abroad, with
legs spread my OB casually asked my family's health history, and I have no answer.
7) Visa processing – as a result of my idleness and wandering while
folding the clothes, I realized how Visa application and processing can be
delayed, denied, expedited or approved according to your blood relation.
#justoneofmyrandomthoughts
8) Security
questions and account verification.
CCA: And just for confirmation Ma’am, can you please
provide me your mother’s maiden name.
Me: Concepcion or Torres? Oh, why can’t you simply
ask my shampoo brand?
