This week
I’m featuring a three part series by my friend and fellow Lost Daughters
sister, Mila Konomos. It’s my joy to introduce her to you today, particularly
those who may not know her, yet. She’s someone whose poignant posts and caring heart compelled me from the get go. Her posts on the subject of
adoption are among the most widely circulated in the adoption community, and
for good reason. She always leaves the reader with so much to think about!
Before you
read her three part interview this week I invite you to take a look at her
reunion video. It's six minutes and thirty-three seconds of fascinating
footage, which never fails to bring me to tears.
Deanna: Mila, although I've known you for a while as part of Lost Daughters,
this is the first I'm introducing you here at Adoptee Restoration. Could you begin by giving us
your adoptee story in a nutshell. (I know, I know, that's hard!)
Mila: It’s a pretty typical Korean adoptee story in some ways. I
was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1975. Adopted by a White American couple as
an infant. Began searching for my Korean family in 2002. Found them in 2009. My
American parents are less than supportive but more than indifferent to my
reunion. As far as being an adult adoptee, I live a good but complicated life
in which I feel relentlessly divided. If folks want more details they can go to
my retired blog, Yoon’s Blur or to Lost Daughters.
Deanna: I believe that you have a Christian background. Is this so?
Mila: Yes, I do have a Christian background. But I’d call my
relationship with modern Christianity “complicated,” to say the least.
I grew up in a very loosely Episcopalian home. Translation:
We went to church on Easter and Christmas and said “grace” before meals.
There was a period in high school that I got very religious.
But then went through a time in college that I began to doubt and question it
all. Pretty typical stuff for an American college student. I got really into
Nietzsche for a while and Taoism. And then in my mid-20’s started to return to
the Bible and Jesus.
But all of this took place before I emerged from the
“adoption fog.”
As I have begun to emerge from the adoption fog, my
relationship with Christianity has become increasingly complicated and
strained--primarily due to the dominant adoption narrative within modern
Christianity and its resistance to consider adoptees’ and original parents’
insights and perspectives that challenge the dominant narrative.
I guess I’d call myself a closet Christian, in some ways,
not because I am ashamed of my relationship with God and Jesus, but because I
am ashamed of what is often called “Christianity” in modern America. It’s
completely disturbing and so far off from what the Bible and Jesus taught that
it would be laughable if it wasn’t so heinous and disgusting at times.
I often simply refer to modern American Christianity as
“Churchianity.” I believe that the Christianity practiced in America is nowhere
near what Jesus intended. I don’t even like to call myself a Christian or even
like to associate myself with Christianity because in its current form and
practice it is a gross perversion of what Jesus taught and lived, which was
ultimately, love. In my experiences, Churchianity has often been anything but
love.
I share all of this because it is incredibly relevant to my
adoption journey. The way Christianity/Churchianity is practiced in America has
profoundly affected my experience as an adoptee for better and for
worse--unfortunately, when it comes to my adoption experience, primarily for
the worse. My experience with adoptive parents who call themselves “Christians”
has generally been negative--I often feel patronized and marginalized.
I have also felt very stifled by the church and other
Christians as a result of my views on adoption. I was literally stifled one
time at a church-sponsored adoption event at which I was asked to speak. When
they read over what I had prepared to share, I was asked to omit the parts in
which I had planned to share about my struggles and difficulties as an adopted
person. At the time, I was still in the adoption fog, and so I obliged. But I
never forgot that instance, and it was at that point that I started to realize
that Christians wanted to hear only one kind of narrative from adoptees.
Although I continued to be invited to speak at church-sponsored events, I had
internalized that I needed to share only the “happy side” of my adoption story.
 |
| Mila & her family - 2015 |
Eventually, however, as I started to emerge from the
adoption fog and take ownership of my own story and journey, I was asked less
and less to share at these events until eventually I was not asked any more.
Even recently, I expressed a desire to share at an upcoming church-sponsored
event but was declined.
Furthermore, for the several years that I blogged at my
retired blog, Yoon’s Blur, some of the most hurtful and invalidating comments
and emails were written by “Christians.” Quite honestly, non-Christians
generally respond to my thoughts and perspectives with so much more kindness,
sincerity, and openness than most Christians.
To be frank, I dread discussing adoption with the majority
of church-goers and Christians. They are my least favorite people to talk with
about adoption. There is so much presumption and expectation and pressure for
me to think and feel a particular way about adoption that it’s almost
oppressive.
There is so much pride and sanctimony surrounding adoption
that if you dare to challenge what I call, “The Gratitude Gospel of Adoption,”
Christians automatically label you as one of “those adoptees” who is [fill in
the blank with any of the following: angry, bitter, ungrateful, unstable,
etc.]. I continue to have personal experiences with this kind of response and
treatment--extremely judgmental and very often void of the love that I believe
Jesus exemplified.
Hence, unfortunately, as an adoptee I have come to feel
completely alienated from other Christians. The more that my adoption experience
continues to evolve, the more my aversion to Churchianity deepens. I often feel
like I’m some kind of heretic when in the company of Christians not only
because of my views on adoption but also my views on controversial issues
within the church like guns and the military, immigration, etc. The things I
believe (based on the Bible that I understand) are like heresy to American
Christians today.
Even still, there are Christians whom I respect and
appreciate (such as yourself, Deanna) for their openness and consideration
toward adult adoptees and our original parents. But they truly are the
exception rather than the norm. I have hope that their numbers will increase,
but we still have a long way to go.
I might sound like I have a persecution or victim complex. I
don’t think I do, but I certainly could be wrong. Rather, I don’t feel
persecuted or victimized per se but I do feel marginalized and dismissed within
the Church when it comes to my adoption views. But because I consider myself a
follower of Jesus I am trying to work through it all and trying to let love
win.
Anyway, sorry to drone on. But this is such a significant
part of my adoption story and continues to complicate my journey and cause me a
lot of turmoil.
Deanna: You aren't droning. And, I understand. What do you feel the biggest misunderstandings or myths are
about Christianity and adoption?
Mila: Oh geez. Where do I start?! Haha. The whole thing is
wrong--that is, modern adoption is completely wrong in almost every way,
especially as taught and practiced within Churchianity. I guess in short, the
biggest misunderstandings include but are not limited to: modern adoption is
the highest, most selfless form of God’s love, that it is in the Bible, that it
is a kind of divine mandate, that it is part of Jesus’ message, that adoption
is a way to “convert” underlings to Christ.
There is almost no biblical basis for modern adoption
practices. Christians today have grossly misconstrued the Bible. As you have
written about it, Deanna (Adoption: It’s in the Bible!), and as I have (Moses the Adoptee?), folks take the stories and teachings of the Bible completely out
of context to support of a practice of adoption that Jesus and God never
intended.
Human adoption is not our duty as Christians! Human adoption
is not part of the gospel. And Human adoption is most certainly NOT the highest
form of Jesus’ love. It is not our biblical right or divine mandate.
When the Bible says to take care of orphans and widows, to
care for the oppressed and poor, I can state with confidence that today’s
adoption practices are not at all what the authors of those teachings meant. To
paraphrase a fellow Korean adoptee, “I firmly believe that helping another
country does not mean helping oneself to its children.” And an adoptive parent
once commented, “"If Christians wish to focus on adopting as a way to give
back then they need to adopt the entire family - not just the child - no
Christian should be purposely severing the biological link that God
created...God told them to care for all humanity...not just the little ones..."
(There is an excellent and very thorough paper written by David Smolin that addresses the misinterpretation and misuse of Scriptures
regarding adoption.)
Deanna: Thank you, Mila. As usual you give us a plethora of things to think about! We look forward to part 2.
Deanna: Thank you, Mila. As usual you give us a plethora of things to think about! We look forward to part 2.
