Paul's Heart

Life As A Dad, And A Survivor

Archive for the category “Adoption”

07 Jun 2014

Post #300


I am never going to produce a major blockbuster movie like “300”. Nor will I ever have an opportunity to hit 300 homeruns. In fact the closest I have ever come to achieving 300 of anything would have been a perfect game in bowling back in my late 20’s. I threw strikes in the first nine frames, and then tapped a ten-pin, spared it, then completed the game with another strike in the 11th frame.

With my blog, I am finally achieving a 300, my 300th post on “Paul’s Heart.” My posts are at over 8000 views and the comments of support and appreciation are numerous. This is a big deal for me, but pales in comparison into the week ahead that I am going to have.

Next weekend, Father’s Day weekend, I will be memorializing my father who passed away three weeks ago. After discussing it with my siblings, we felt it was an appropriate tribute to our father. Just as many who have gone through such a personal loss, I am sure that you can understand the struggle to deal with “the first Father’s Day without my father.”

At the same time, it is Father’s Day weekend, something that I have always looked forward to since before I adopted my daughters. Besides the emotional toll of my father’s memorial to deal with, this will be the first Father’s Day for me with just my daughters. Due to the recent custody agreement I made with their mother, and my father’s passing, I have not been able to see them in a long time, the longest time apart.

I speak to my daughters every day, and on a couple of occasions I have been able to see my daughters courtesy of Facetime. I will get to spend the entire weekend with them, and I have a lot of activities planned with them. But next weekend will not be just about me. Every day I have thought about the hurt and confusion that my daughters must have. Which is why I will pull out all the stops to show them next weekend that the divorce does not change who their mother is, or who their father is. It is important to me to make sure that my children do not blame themselves for the divorce, that the divorce was an issue between just their mother and I.

The girls get to do a lot of fun things with their mother, and next weekend, I cannot wait to spend time with them.

My story is not unique, as there are probably thousands of other dads who have a similar story heading into next weekend. My parents divorced when I was young. So I have the perspective from both child and parent.

Next weekend is not about quantity, but rather the quality of the time that I get with my daughters.

Posted in Adoption, Animals, Bullying, Cancer, Education, Family and Friends, Food, Inspired By..., Politics, Recreation, Side Effects, The Heart, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
06 Jun 2014
3 Comments

You Didn’t Just Say That


Back when I decided to adopt my daughters, part of the process involved being educated in how to deal with becoming an interracial family. My daughters were going to be Chinese, and with the exception of having my eyes, clearly they were going to look different than me.

That difference is almost certain to bring out comments from people who do not understand just how potentially hurtful their words can be. You can call it ignorance, perhaps even bigotry. I would just call the comments and questions unnecessary. After all, no one ever asks a family with biological children “so where is your child from?” or of the siblings, “are they siblings?”

But that is exactly what happens, and I cannot vouch for when the children are adopted by the same ethnic parents, but when the family is going to be mixed ethnicity, white/African American/Chinese/Latino, for some reason, people need to know.

So it is not unusual for me to hear at least a half a dozen times when I am in public with my daughters, I will hear, “Are they sisters?” to which I always reply “yes.” Because they are. That is all they need to know. My daughters know that they have different birth mothers and fathers, but have the same adoptive mother and father. Another question that I usually give a smartass response to is, “where are they from?” I can give only a smartass answer because when you see my daughters you can see that they are Asian. But I give the answer, “from Lansdale.” But then that gets followed up with, “no, I mean what country are they from?” which my reply the United States. No, I do not have to play this game, but I have grown tired of it after all these years. Their mother and I, while knowing that are daughters were adopted from China, simply look at our daughters as just that, our daughters. We recognize and celebrate their Chinese heritage regularly. But to us, our daughters are no different than if they were our birth children.

But the worst possible comment that I heard actually came from a co-worker, a comment that while I knew the person was capable of saying bigoted or self-righteous comments, all in the name of Christianity, I never saw this comment coming.

The conversation started in the breakroom during my lunch period. My co-worker said to me, “you know, I don’t really approve of what you are doing,” making reference to the adoption of my first daughter (I never gave him a chance to make another comment like you will see in a few moments). I looked at him, knowing his personality, that his opinion was going to be in the line of “being unable to have kids, maybe I was not meant to have kids as God had planned”, his God, not mine. I have heard this said be some before. And perhaps I could have accepted his comment without any reaction from me if that had been his comment. But for whatever reason, I allowed the conversation to continue like I was trying to educate the ignoramus.

“Why, what do you mean?” I asked like I needed his approval.

“Well, I just don’t think it’s right. We send all of work over to China. We sell nothing but Chinese made products here. And you are bringing the Chinese here making it worse.”

It is not often to make me speechless, but this asshole did it. I stood up, pushed my chair in and walked away. I never entertained any other personal conversation with him ever again. I never, ever thought I would hear that comment from him. I understand the rhetoric by uneducated people who feel the blame for all the ills on our economic relationship with China, but the children of China are not. My daughters are US citizens and when of age will pay taxes unlike many US corporations. But when I heard that comment come from him, I could recall that I never once heard him complain about that last fact, only that I was bringing the Chinese to the country, under the guise of creating a family for me, to take over the US economy.

There are many other stupid things that I have heard, and many families I know who have heard worse.

When you see me with my daughters, if you feel the need to offer a comment, and though I am biased, I do expect to hear how beautiful they are, but I do not want to be asked where they are from or if they are sisters. Trust me, I like to talk. And if I feel it is appropriate, I will bring up that fact.

Posted in Adoption, Education, Family and Friends
12 Apr 2014
2 Comments

A History Lesson That Pays Off


There is an expression that explains the importance of having had to learn history while in school, that it was important to learn history so as to prevent it from being repeated. And while the saying is probably intended for major events in national and world activities, it can apply to our private lives as well.

But just as learning from history to prevent bad things from being repeated, history can help us as a teaching tool to learn what has worked, was memorable, and definitely repeatable.

Today was one of those lessons that was worth repeating. This particular weekend is a dream weekend for me as a father. I get to spend the entire weekend with my daughters from the time I left work on Friday through tomorrow night. And I am taking full advantage of that time, which does not come often enough these days.

My daughters are at a very fun stage now in their lives, very active, very curious, and unfortunately for me as their father, very adventurous. But now instead of just trips to the movies or Chuck E. Cheese, they want other forms of physical and emotional stimulation. They want to be challenged. And for that, I refer back to my history of things that I liked to do as a child their age.

Earlier this year, I finally had them learn how to ski. My memories of learning to ski were a bit more chaotic, so I took the right steps for them, and had a professional teach them to ski, and it was positive for them, and they will continue to ski.

I recall all the wonderful things I got to experience being involved in music with various touring opportunities and now get to enjoy them as a spectator and supporter for my daughters in their performances. I got to sing at a lot of cool places, but never in a professional sports arena or for a professional sports game. My daughter did.

So today, I dug deep. It was a beautiful Spring day weather-wise and I was going to take full advantage of it. First, a picture with the Easter Bunny (for my daughters, not with me). Then it was a visit to my father and stepmother. And with being in that general area, I realized how close I was to a favorite childhood location, a wildlife preserve, now being called a zoo. It is not large like Philly or DC, but for two young children, they got to see a lot of animals and without the hustle and bustle of a major zoo. And with it being a preserve, the animals had a lot more freedom of movement. But of course, if you have been to one zoo, you have been to them all as a child. As we left the preserve, there were more exhibits with larger animals such as elk and bison, and then just as we left the preserve is a pretty decent creek and the only way to get across that creek is over an underwater bridge which kind of sounds like an oxymoron. But imagine this…

We have all seen the foolish people on the news who have tried to drive through flood waters to disastrous results, yet this is exactly what you will practically do as you drive through this creek. The bridge is underwater, but not in tunnel form. It is a platform about a foot and a half below the surface of the water, but deep enough into the creek bed. But kids love driving through this water. This was a simple pleasure for my children that I remembered.

With plenty of daylight left on this beautiful Spring day, I decided to take my daughters further north into the Poconos to a place called “boulder field”. It is a huge area of boulders that were pushed by glaciers thousands and thousands of years ago. What it is, is one of the nations largest free playgrounds with boulders to climb as far as the eyes could see. And my daughters wasted no time traversing the rock maze. I constantly had to yell to my younger daughter to slow down as she showed the most agility and with no effort at all, was more than two minutes ahead of my other daughter and myself. I recall how much I enjoyed climbing over all those boulders, visit after visit.

But my walk down natural memory lane concluded with a visit to the lake in that same state park. My daughter had mentioned about wanting to go to a beach, and I was able to give her that wish as well. In fact, for April, with air temperatures in the lower sixties, my daughters had no problem whipping off their shoes and socks, rolling up their pant legs and strolling down the beach into the lake.

This was one time, I can definitely say was a good time to remember and learn from history. I got to repeat history through my daughters’ eyes. Though I do remember how much fun I had, I got to see how much fun I had watching my daughters.

Posted in Adoption, Education, Family and Friends, Recreation

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