Spectacular S: Her eyes.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Her eyes.

When we saw SS for the first time, we were immediately stricken by her sheer perfection. After our happy tears were dry and we could focus, we carefully studied her features. Her neck rolls, her fingles, her skin tone, her beautiful smile. We were smitten, head over heels in love with Baby S. To be honest, we were in love with Baby S five years before we met her, when she was conceived in Vancouver, Canada.

Her referral pictures, especially her mug shot, gave the erroneous impression of a doe eyed child. We took notice but did not think much about it. When we met SS, we saw a deer caught between headlights child. Her eyes did seem rounder than we expected, but again, she was ours, and she was perfect. Once SS became more comfortable with her life changing experience, we saw THE SMILE, THE LAUGHTER. You know, when she is in such unadulterated laughter that you can't see her eyes. It has become such a source of joy in our home, our lives, and how we will always see SS.

Last week I came across this blog entry , and we have been seething since. In case you do not click on the link, here is what made us upset:

"The speaker was a proud father. To illustrate his comments about a piece of art that celebrated the wonders of modern medicine (and which he had just donated to a local hospital), he told a story about his adopted Asian daughter. He described her as a beautiful, happy child in whom he took much delight. Her life, he told the audience, had been improved dramatically by the miracle of modern medicine. When she joined her new Caucasian family, her eyes, like those of many people of Asian descent, lacked a fold in the upper eyelid, and that lack was problematic—in his view—because it made her eyes small and sleepy and caused them to shut completely when she smiled. A plastic surgeon himself, he knew she did not need to endure this hardship, so he arranged for her to have surgery to reshape her eyes. The procedure, he explained, was minimally invasive and maximally effective. His beautiful daughter now has big round eyes that stay open and shine even when she smiles."

Initially I thought this was a hoax. I mean, really WTF? But the blog author (and China adoptive Mom), was given this article by a fellow college professor. The latter uses it in her Bioethics class. Why the FUCK would anyone adopt an Asian child when they feel their beautiful phenotypical features are defective? Yes, I used the F word. P reads my posts before they are posted and I am sure he is going to object to that word on SS's baby book. Too bad, this is how I feel. Then again once my bio Mother sees that word, I know I'm going to get an e-mail about my foul language and it will be edited. Until then, what the fuck, fuckity fuck was than man thinking? Also where the fuckity fuck was his wife?

We are aware that many Asian adults have chosen to "Westernize" their eyes. Heck, right here women spend thousands in an effort to look like Barbie. Fine, they are adults, and they can choose to mutilate their bodies. This is a child, a child adopted by freaking Caucasians. What message does that send to the child? We wanted a child, the wait for a healthy Caucasian child was too long, so we got you, then we fixed your defective eyes. UGH!!!!!

P said it best, "He mutilated that child, plain and simple." Yes Baby, he did, and why did he get away with it is beyond me. Obviously adoption is close and dear to our family. Still, we would feel the same had we not had SS. It's about human decency and respect for diversity. For us, our children are just perfect the way they are. We also feel sorry for that father, that he could not enjoy the beautiful child before him, and love her for the otherness she brought into his sorry ass life. We celebrate our children's otherness daily, and it is an amazing gift.