The Heart and Seoul of Adoption

Last night my student asked why we had homestay children when both my husband and I work. "You don't need the money, right?" he asked plainly. "It's true, we don't." I smiled at him. "We are homestay parents because we like children!" 

He looked at me like I had three heads. "Well why don't you just get pregnant and have more Noahs?"

I stopped for a second. I could have said a number of things. I could have said we liked older kids (which is true) or that we wanted the invaluable experience of sharing our home with children from other countries (which is also true).

Instead, I hit my little 11 year old homestay son with the truth. "Well, Noah is adopted, and adopting children can sometimes take a long time. We wanted Noah to have other kids in the house now." I had to explain what the term adoption meant, but once he understood, he got awfully quiet.

For once, my overly chatty pre-teen had nothing to say. He took a moment to digest the news, and I awaited his response, wondering what unfiltered comment would come flying from his mouth. (One of my favourite things about the kid is that he tells you EXACTLY what he's thinking!)

He was quiet for several moments before commenting "Wow, thank you for telling me your secret! I promise, I won't tell Noah!"

Now it was my turn to be stunned into silence. This young man hails from the largest metropolitan city in Korea. I don't know why I expected his thoughts about adoption to be like ours here in the west. I naively figured the whole world was embracing ideas of openness and shared information.... and I had to shake my head and remind myself that this was, after all, a little boy from the other side of the globe.

He was brave enough to come here and stay with us, this strange family, and listen as we explained our way of life. The least I could do was explain how wonderful adoption was in our family, and how it was no secret, and wasn't that wonderful?

I added to his shock. I logged onto the computer and showed off pictures of Noah and his big brother. That threw him for a loop - but I could see the wheels of acceptance and understanding turning as he translated the information (not just from English to Korean, but also from secrecy to openness) in his mind and heart.

It was a pretty powerful conversation. One I had to laugh about at the end. My homestay son looked at me with a very stern eye and said "You're not going to adopt ME, I hope!"

No, my dear, we're not. But we're glad you're part of our family for now.