[wicked persona] C’mon, lavenderlemon, have you ever met a " Fuji Kitakyusho " before?? 
[/ wicked persona]
This thread is becoming something important to me. The things that are being shared are making me think very hard about what I live and how I parent, and making me grateful that I can listen to viewpoints that have nothing in common with my own.
The Punkyova, I too struggled with the issues you raise. In South Korea, at least 15 years ago, there was absolutely zero infrastructure to support a single mother. Shunned by family and culture, it was anathema. I truly felt that I was doing the right thing both for my own need to be a father, and for a child that would have lived in an orphanage. Or, to be honest since the adoption process in South Korea dates back to the end of the Korean War, the child would have been adopted by another American of Australian family. Still… there is the struggle.
The discussions that are most painful are the ones involving trips back to South Korea. We had one last year with the kids. Basically, we started to have them think about what the real dynamic would be of trying to find their birth mothers. We reminded them of how alien THEY feel when talking to a Korean woman who cannot communicate with them but for a few basic words. They have made it clear that they feel a weird mix of American and Korean and sometimes more one than the other. (I suspect that will not change until they are adults and they have found their place in the world ). I told them that they’d be facing a woman who could not talk to them most likely. ( yeah, I know. English is taught in the schools. But that’s a sop, because I have been to South Korea twice and unless it was someone who truly had learned and worked English, nobody could communicate with me, even if they badly wanted to ) I told the kids that the upset of meeting a stranger who they knew was their birth mom might be very painful for them, but if they wanted to try to do it during their college years, I would support them in that goal.
Not before that. There was a speaker a few years ago at the Korean Culture camp they attent. A korean adoptee, who had been taken to South Korea by her parents during high school, to find her birth mother. She made it clear that she- and many of her fellows who had shared their stories- was not emotionally capable of dealing with it at age 15. She begged those of us who were inclined to allow our children to seek their birth mothers to try to have them wait until they were well into college age. The maturity matters. I am inclined to agree.
I don’t feel threatened by the idea that they want to meet their birth mother. Then again, that’s easy for me to say. Their birth fathers disappeared, and so I likely wouldn’t feel a visceral threat where my wife might. But still… I have to step back and respect what they are going to go through for the rest of their lives. Loving them and supporting them unconditionally has to include helping them on that path, if they so chose it. Otherwise, it’d be terribly self-serving and selfish to try to prevent that search. Wouldn’t make me much of a father to deny them their true background and history. These are pretty strong personal feelings here, and I’m comfortable sharing them but please, don’t anyone feel I’m trying to impress those feelings upon anyone else. Everybody finds their own way .
Idlewild, I am glad you posted what you did. A few years ago, my daughter was sniffling and crying after I’d kissed her goodnight. I went back in and sat down and asked what was wrong. She said, " I wonder if I have any brothers ". I laughed ( unfortunately… ) and said yeah, he’s right next door and being too darned loud. She burst into tears afresh and said, " No, ** I mean other brothers** ". Duh, Cartoonidad. She and her brother had apparently been talking a lot that day about unknown siblings. She was mourning the loss of brothers and sisters she will likely never know. As I’m holding her, her brother walks in, already crying. It was one of those nights. I thanked her for saying it to me, for telling me what was so hard to say ( she was afraid of hurting my feelings ). I let them know that I’d always rather know these things, than not.
They will likely never know about siblings. That’s sad, but the reality. The South Korean government does not make such searches easy.