Love and loyalty makes a family - not genetics

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I’ll never forget the day my mum phoned me after picking up my GCSE results. My sister Emilie and I were staying with our dad Trevor in Ireland for the summer holidays - my parents having separated - and we’d been nervously waiting for Mum’s call.

She was crying and for a moment I was terrified they were tears of disappointment. But I needn’t have worried. ‘I’m so proud of you!’ She sobbed whilst she read out my grades.

Whilst they were by no means a solid string of As (there were a few though), they were a very special achievement for me, a person who started life in a Cambodian orphanage. Now at 24, I’ve gone to university and I’m privileged to be able to pursue my passion for writing as a full-time career.

OUR FAMILY

Both my sister and I are transracial adoptees - our parents are a different ethnicity, and we were both adopted outside of the UK. As an adopted child, I’ve never been treated differently by my family. It’s usually strangers who are keen to call them my ‘adoptive family’.

People want to impose difference because they don’t understand that, not only do our family’s different skin colours and heritage not define our lives, they barely even register as something we think about.

Like most kids, my sister and I stropped through our teenage years, whingeing at everything from long, boring parents’ evenings to not being allowed to stay out late. But we learned important life lessons, grew up surrounded by love, were encouraged by our parents who believed in our dreams, and supported us through tough times.

And yet, over the years, I’ve had well-intentioned but ignorant questions from people about my adoption. The two most common ones being: ‘What’s it like being adopted?’ and ‘Don’t you want to find your real family?’

I was adopted at 18 months old so I don’t have memories of what my life was like before. The fact that my parents aren’t biologically related or the same ethnicity as me has never altered their devotion, care and support for me. They are my real family.

Adoption isn’t an inferior alternative to having biological children. Families are formed through love, not just genes, which is why I’ve always been perplexed by the amount of value placed on a person’s ability to procreate, or the genetic links between parents and children.

For some people, having children ‘naturally’ isn’t an option, and this can be profoundly distressing. To look down on them for creating a family in a different way or distinguish their family as second rate because of biology is incredibly cruel.

Hearing individuals talk about adopted children as some kind of ‘back-up’ for when all other options have failed is incredibly hurtful: ‘you can always adopt.’ This attitude around adopted children not being a ‘first choice’ makes them seem lesser. This is untrue. I have never felt lesser by my loving parents.

PAINFUL TRUTHS

Even worse, in my opinion, is when adopted children are ‘returned,’ so to speak. I was horrified by the actions of Myka and James Stauffer, two US YouTubers (with a following of 1.9 million) who revealed in May 2020 that they had ‘re-homed’ the son they’d adopted three years earlier from China due to his ‘complex medical needs’ and autism.

The Stauffers allegedly felt they were unable to give him an appropriate level of care and so this year, the couple made the decision to give him to another family.

The controversy reignited the debate around international adoptions, which serves in some instances as a front for child trafficking and abuse.

Unfortunately, when it comes to international and transracial adoptees - especially ones with medical and behavioural complications - there are many cases of children being re-homed, sent back to their home country or even killed. Since 1996, there have been 19 deaths of Russian children adopted by American families.

Some transracial adoptees have experienced racism at the hands of their family or have been denied access to their cultural heritage. Myka Stauffer on the other hand allegedly received just one day’s worth of video training before she adopted Huxley, which to me seems a grossly inadequate level of preparation when making the life-changing decision to adopt a vulnerable child.

No doubt Myka and her family have experienced deep pain and regret at how things have unfolded. But ultimately, too many international adoptees are failed, even if the intended parents have the most loving and open-hearted intentions. The system needs to change, but to do so we must confront uncomfortable truths.

Our journey

My sister Emilie was just a week old when we adopted her. I remember the day remarkably clearly, given I was only three. I was at a café with my mum, sipping hot chocolate, when all of a sudden she told me we needed to hurry because my sister Emilie was coming home.

Whenever I drink hot chocolate I always think of that moment. She was such a tiny baby who cried so incessantly that I remember asking my parents to send her back.

As a child, Emilie struggled to understand herself and others around her. We didn’t have the full picture until, aged 15, she was assessed by specialists in London who diagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome.

Asperger’s Syndrome presents differently in girls and looking back, it must have been so hard and lonely for my sister to cope with her undiagnosed condition when we all thought she was just a rebellious young girl who didn’t want to listen. But our parents gave Emilie unconditional love and support. There was never any doubt she would remain with our family.

And yet, Emilie is still coming to terms with the scars of her very early childhood. ‘Even after 20 years, I get upset that my biological mother gave me up,’ she says. ‘I’ve never felt good enough. But adoption is a beautiful thing. I wouldn’t be who I am, where I am or have my family without it.’ 

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

When I arrived at the orphanage, it was without an identity, as my original name wasn’t known. I owe my name ‘Dani’ to a friend of the same name (only, spelt ‘Dany’) who was adopted from the same orphanage as me in 1991.

It was her mother, Julia, who told my parents about me - a newly-arrived baby orphan. My parents decided to name me after Dany, to remember our bond. We’re still in contact to this day.

Dany is an extraordinary woman who has overcome many challenges and faces each day with a smile.

Dany has Kabuki Syndrome, a rare multi-system disorder which has varying degrees of severity. She has a defibrillator implant fitted, as last year she suffered a cardiac arrest.

Despite this, Dany works two days a week as a food and beverage assistant at her local Hilton Hotel, and in 2019 she was shortlisted for Best Student Placement at the Annual UK Institute of Hospitality Awards, which she describes as ‘an honour’.

‘I’m deaf in one ear and have a hearing aid,’ says Dany. ‘I also have speech and language difficulties and sometimes I don’t speak very clearly, so people who don’t know me can’t understand. This can be frustrating.’

Huxley’s story saddened both Dany and her mum Julia, who worked in Cambodia for 12 years for UNICEF and UNHCR. Julia always knew Dany’s health condition was serious, but she was determined to pour her heart into creating a better life for Dany.  

Julia says: ‘From the moment I knew we could adopt Dany, I put every fibre of my being into doing the best I could to give her the best opportunity in life. I would never have given up on Dany.

‘When her father and I signed those adoption papers, it was a lifetime commitment to a vulnerable little person who had no say in what happened to her. That commitment is a responsibility that I will honour for as long as I live.’

Julia’s words resonate with me deeply because her daughter - just like both me and my sister - have as much worth to our parents as any biological children to theirs. There is no doubt that things were tough when Emilie was a teenager, but never once did our parents debate giving her to another family because her behaviour was difficult to manage.

Sadly, some families like the Stauffers make the decision that they no longer want their adoptive children. For those parents, I have a simple but important message: adopted children are not objects to be thrown away. We are human beings.

• Coram provides some excellent resources and support services for adopted children and young adults. You can learn more here.

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