I have noticed that many adoptive parents (notably of internationally adopted kids) have issues of guilt when it comes to their child’s birth culture. Well, perhaps guilt isn’t the best word choice, but there is definitely a lot of thinking going on about removing a child from their birth culture and not being able to completely and authentically replicate it. I too have had these thoughts and my feelings change depending on my mood, but I have mostly reserved myself to doing the best I can to instill a pride and knowledge of Vietnamese culture in Ella, even though it won’t be “as good as” growing up in Viet Nam.

The only way she could completely understand Viet Nam would be for her to have remained and grown up there. If she had grown up there she would have only known her baby center until she aged out and had to fend for herself and would never have known the love and affection of a doting family. When weighing the two issues, I feel that the family far outweighs the culture. Now, that’s not to say that culture is not important, because it absolutely is and we will do our best to ensure that Ella understands and appreciates where she is from, because her dad and I certainly do.

We need to remind ourselves to look at the whole (and much bigger) picture. Yes, it is true that we removed her from her culture. There are times that my heart aches that she will never get to know the land she was born in and we now love. But then I realize that her culture will never be forgotten and it will be celebrated. It will be celebrated right along with her new American ways, which are going to be what she considers normal. It all boils down to the fact that we’ve just got to do the best that we can.

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Culture, Heritage and Stereotypes