Blog 2
My Family Life...the early years
I am currently 51 years old. I was born in South Australia in 1967 and adopted into an Australian family at 11 days of age. My adoptive parents were given no information about me, neither medical or cultural. My real 'identity' was erased and I was given a new name, a new family, and a new identity.
I was raised in a Christian family with 3 siblings, who were also adopted. Many people over the years have asked me what it feels like to be adopted. I'm not really sure how to answer that question as it is fraught with complexities that are difficult to explain, as well as the fact that I don't have anything to compare it to...it is all I know. Whilst my appreciation for what my parents have done for me over the years is certainly paramount, I have always felt that I was betraying them in wanting to know who I was and where I was from. This feeling of betrayal has never left me despite knowing how much they love me. I know that all they want for me is to be happy. When I refer to my parents throughout this journey, I am referring to the people who raised me and loved me. Whilst not my biological parents, they are both my 'true' parents in the real sense of what a parent is. They have loved me unconditionally, given me everything I needed to thrive and have supported me throughout all my life. That is a true parent.
Being adopted was 'normal' for for me. As a child, whilst I don't remember any specific conversations with my parents about my adoption, I always felt that they believed I was where I belonged and that they loved me as they would their own. In saying that, I now believe that as a child I was broken. I was broken before they even met me. Even though I obviously don't remember it, being taken away from my mother at birth has obviously had long lasting affects, some of which I only discovered as an adult. In saying that, my interactions with my biological mother as an adult did it's fair share of damage too. It's a strange thing that we as a society believe that it's acceptable to take a child from it's mother at birth and that there will be no long term affects as a result, yet research shows that to take puppies away from their mother before 6-8 weeks of age would be totally detrimental to their ability to thrive and is considered to be cruel. Yet, as humans, particularly in the era I was born, this was common practice. As a result, the issues around loss, rejection and abandonment have played a huge part in my life. The void that is left is never filled. No matter how much my parents loved me, these feelings have never left me. Looking back on my childhood, it is like I was a 'leaky' bucket with lots of holes in it and no matter how much love was poured in to it, it was never full.
One of the issues which amplified the sense that I didn't belong was the fact that I looked different. Different from my brothers and sister, and different from my peers at school and church. And I didn't know why I was different. I have dark hair and dark skin, well, olive really, but it became much darker in summer. I have memories from an early age of being teased because of it and to not have any concrete reasons why I looked different in the face of such hateful and racist taunts really left me in a vulnerable position in a very uncertain and sometimes hostile world. I was called anything from a 'boong', 'nigger' and 'halfcast' and at such a young age I didn't even know what these words meant, but I knew from the venom with which they were delivered that they were not good. Did that mean that I was not good? This is a difficult concept to process and I'm afraid that for a child it felt impossible to not take these labels on board and almost hate myself in the process. I didn't have any knowledge of my 'people' to fall back on. I didn't know that I came from an incredible culture of warriors and that I should have been proud of who I was.
I just didn't know.
My Family Life...the early years
I am currently 51 years old. I was born in South Australia in 1967 and adopted into an Australian family at 11 days of age. My adoptive parents were given no information about me, neither medical or cultural. My real 'identity' was erased and I was given a new name, a new family, and a new identity.
I was raised in a Christian family with 3 siblings, who were also adopted. Many people over the years have asked me what it feels like to be adopted. I'm not really sure how to answer that question as it is fraught with complexities that are difficult to explain, as well as the fact that I don't have anything to compare it to...it is all I know. Whilst my appreciation for what my parents have done for me over the years is certainly paramount, I have always felt that I was betraying them in wanting to know who I was and where I was from. This feeling of betrayal has never left me despite knowing how much they love me. I know that all they want for me is to be happy. When I refer to my parents throughout this journey, I am referring to the people who raised me and loved me. Whilst not my biological parents, they are both my 'true' parents in the real sense of what a parent is. They have loved me unconditionally, given me everything I needed to thrive and have supported me throughout all my life. That is a true parent.
Being adopted was 'normal' for for me. As a child, whilst I don't remember any specific conversations with my parents about my adoption, I always felt that they believed I was where I belonged and that they loved me as they would their own. In saying that, I now believe that as a child I was broken. I was broken before they even met me. Even though I obviously don't remember it, being taken away from my mother at birth has obviously had long lasting affects, some of which I only discovered as an adult. In saying that, my interactions with my biological mother as an adult did it's fair share of damage too. It's a strange thing that we as a society believe that it's acceptable to take a child from it's mother at birth and that there will be no long term affects as a result, yet research shows that to take puppies away from their mother before 6-8 weeks of age would be totally detrimental to their ability to thrive and is considered to be cruel. Yet, as humans, particularly in the era I was born, this was common practice. As a result, the issues around loss, rejection and abandonment have played a huge part in my life. The void that is left is never filled. No matter how much my parents loved me, these feelings have never left me. Looking back on my childhood, it is like I was a 'leaky' bucket with lots of holes in it and no matter how much love was poured in to it, it was never full.
One of the issues which amplified the sense that I didn't belong was the fact that I looked different. Different from my brothers and sister, and different from my peers at school and church. And I didn't know why I was different. I have dark hair and dark skin, well, olive really, but it became much darker in summer. I have memories from an early age of being teased because of it and to not have any concrete reasons why I looked different in the face of such hateful and racist taunts really left me in a vulnerable position in a very uncertain and sometimes hostile world. I was called anything from a 'boong', 'nigger' and 'halfcast' and at such a young age I didn't even know what these words meant, but I knew from the venom with which they were delivered that they were not good. Did that mean that I was not good? This is a difficult concept to process and I'm afraid that for a child it felt impossible to not take these labels on board and almost hate myself in the process. I didn't have any knowledge of my 'people' to fall back on. I didn't know that I came from an incredible culture of warriors and that I should have been proud of who I was.
I just didn't know.
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