Reply to Anyone ever return to their adopted child's birth country?

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Reply to "Anyone ever return to their adopted child's birth country?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]
Anonymous wrote:
I am open to go for a vacation
Not to visit the orphanage or because of the adoption. 15 is a bit young for the kind of scenario you are talking about

Are you trying to erase the fact that your kid's story began there?

This is an important part of her life, which did not begin the day you she was put in your arms.

You should have a strong interest in her birth culture and feel some obligation to make her proud of that.[/quote]

I think that there needs to be a lot more sensitivity around this issue than the "blunt instrument" approach that the international adoption world has traditionally taken.  There are lots of factors at play, including the age of the child at the time of adoption.  One of ours---who was 9 at the time---has no interest in home country---some of it is resentment at the way they were treated at school in the home country as "the orphanage kid"; some is a little bitterness that no extended family stepped up----there are lots of bad memories that they don't want to revisit.  We always celebrated the home culture via food, art, history but did not shove it down their throats as I sometimes felt like we were being pushed to do.  They had ZERO interest in retaining the home language via one of the numerous saturday schools in the DC area, and we did not force it because they were already having to learn English during the week.    As another one got older, they have started to be interesting in possibly re-learning the language and visiting---we are encouraging on this exploration.  I think doing any kind of home country visit with an international adoptee needs to have a therapist "on call" to navigate a lot of really complicated emotions that can come up.    My view as an adoptive parent is that we always needed to roll with the developmental punches and interest (or lack thereof) in the home country without coming to it with any preconceived ideas of the "right" way to approach it.
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