Asian Eyes

My 11-year-old daughter and I have been recently had discussions around when she can use make-up. Yikes! I am not ready for this, but I know that she is starting to feel more grown up, and I knew that this would eventually be a discussion we would have. She and her younger sister have a bag of make-up they can use for play, but I knew this recent discussion was beyond just play. She has been fascinated watching me put on my make-up. Although she won’t be wearing makeup out in public anytime soon, we have had some very interesting discussions around her Asian eyes.

She has been very concerned about putting on eye make-up without any eye folds. I have told her that when the time comes for her to be old enough to do this, we would get some books, research, and visit some cosmetologists that specialize in Asian eyes so that we can learn how to do this right. She has been one to comment on our differences in my Caucasian looks and her Asian looks since she was five years old. Her absolutely gorgeous eyes have been a topic of many conversations. When she was five, she had to have an entropion repair, to tilt her lower eyelashes out, as they were scratching her corneas and causing her severe vision issues. From this surgery on, she has asked so many questions about her eyes.

Having just had another discussion this weekend about make-up and her eyes, including the eye surgery she had to have when she was little, I was so interested to read this great blog from Malinda, who runs the China Adoption Talk blog. Last Monday she had a very interesting and controversial blog titled “Eyes Wide Open: Surgery to Westernize the Eyes of an Asian Child”. This blog was about a man who had his daughter's Asian eyes surgical changed to be more Western. I didn’t even know that this surgery existed, and I had no idea that some parents had even thought about changing their daughters' eye shape. I did a little more research and found this article titled "With These Eyes" from the Los Angeles City Beat. I was surprised to read that four out of ten women in Korea have this procedure done. Malinda had a great article today titled “Asian Beauty/Asian Makeup Links". I will be saving these links for our future beauty lessons.

Have you had a discussion with your daughter about make-up or applying make-up to Asian eyes? Do you have any great resources or websites for teen girls to use to tastefully apply makeup? What do you think about eye surgery to change the shape of Asian eyes?

Karen Maunu

Identity - Who Am I?

Over the last two weeks we have celebrated two different milestones with our daughters. One of my daughters celebrated her family day and the other celebrated her birthday. These two milestones have spurred many discussions about birth parents, China, their orphanages, and adoption. They are at a point in their cognitive development that our discussions have incredible depth.

Wanting to understand and help my daughters deal with these issues, I began a search for articles on identity. I found a really interesting article called “Anticipated Times of Identity Sensitivity” here. Looking back on our most intense discussions on birthparents, adoption and family, I can fit these conversations into one of these categories. This list will be helpful to me in the future as other discussions come up.

In addition to this list, I found one of the most complete blog articles on issues surrounding Adopted Asian Americans here. This article is really long but covers many topics including historical/sociological background, questions on legal status of orphans, how adoptive parents deal with racial differences, and cultural and identity issues faced by Asian adoptees. I found this article extremely insightful on so many levels. I was happy to read the statement saying that “research is emerging that suggests that Asian Americans who straddle diverse sets of cultures are happier and report less stress and anxiety when they create their own definitions for fitting in and actively shaping their own identity…”

Have you found certain times that your children deal with identity issues? How have you handled them? How are you dealing with your children’s racial differences? Do you see yourself parenting your children to be “normal” but white centered? Are you educating your children on Asian American issues?

Karen Maunu

Hope and Healing for Children in Need

Ducks

I was at a wedding shower this weekend and ran into one of my favorite fellow adoptive moms, whom I hadn't seen in quite some time. She has a grown daughter from Korea, and I remember feeling like a "stalker mom" every time I would run into her in public over the years. I wanted to hear all of her wisdom and experiences, since her daughter always seemed so well adjusted and happy as an Asian teen in a 99% white Oklahoma high school.

We had a really interesting conversation because as I was telling her some of the things my daughter had experienced this year in 3rd grade, she was telling me how her daughter had gone through the same things in elementary school. But the differences in how our children dealt with the obtrusive comments from peers was like night and day. For my daughter, they caused real sadness and pain. For her daughter....they rolled off her back and were gone in an instant.

I'll give you one example. Both of our daughters faced teasing in school for having a flat face. For my daughter, this was a very hurtful experience. The kids teasing her compared her face to a pug, and we have had many conversations on why children can be so mean. My friend's daughter had faced the exact same situation but handled it completely differently. When a child once teased in a crowded classroom, "wow your face is totally flat," her daughter instantly retorted, "I'm Asian, you idiot." No tears. No hurt feelings. Just an eye roll over anyone being so clueless. Her mom told me that she had always faced the world that way and really believed that anyone who made a racist or ignorant comment was completely unworthy of her time.

So how do your kids react to these type of comments? Every child is different, aren't they? As we discussed some of the ways my friend's daughter had responded to kids over the years, truly not letting people ruin her day, I was wishing there was a way to bottle some of her "I'm not going to let you upset me" attitude to share with my own kids and quite honestly even with myself.

I think her daughter is a wonderful example that there will always be people who are out to try and hurt us, but we really do have the choice on whether to let their comments into our heart or not. So are you a duck who lets the "water roll off your back"? Or are you someone who lets what others say get to you? Personally I think I need to still work on learning how to quack a bit better. : -)

Amy