Adoptee Story: Madeleine In Hwa Björk

November 26, 2019

Adoptee Story:

Madeleine In Hwa Björk, born in South Korea, adopted to Sweden

Intro: Sharing the adoptee story of Madeleine, who grew up the “happy adoptee” in Sweden. She was born in South Korea and years later, as an adult, when she decided to search for her first family, a story unfolded for her that not only caused her to re-think adoption, her own and in general, but that lead her on the path to advocacy and activism for change within the adoption system. Today, she shares her story with us, in her own words.

“I was born October 9^th, 1983 in the Gangnam district, Seoul, South Korea.

My birth mother was single, which to this day is a shameful thing in South Korea. She also had small financial means. Despite this she intended on raising me, or at least have a family member raise me. My grandmother decided it would be best for all involved if I was adopted, so she left me at the orphanage without my mother´s consent.

My parents had adopted my brother (not biological) two years prior, so they met shortly with a social secretary that confirmed that their situation hadn’t changed for the worse. I don’t think they participated in any parental education during their process, they just underwent the social investigation the municipality is responsible for, paid the bills and so on.

I grew up thinking I was one year and nine months when I was adopted, but it turned out I was one year and four months.

I have two different backgrounds, the one I grew up with and the one that actually happened. When I started to look for my birth family in 2016 it turned out I had been mixed up with another girl at the orphanage, which means she grew up with my background story and I with hers.

So, the first story I have that I grew up with knowing (which I still try to not see as my own, it’s all a bit confusing) is that my birth parents got married when they found out they expected me (or not me, you know). They were young and in love. But, when I was born, it turned out my mother had pernicious anemia, and the doctors were sure she was going to die. My father got drafted, and due to the Korean military service being long and obligatory my paternal grandfather was going to take care of me. He, a taxi driver, got in a serious car accident which left him paralyzed. So, my parents decided to give me up for adoption. In this story, my name was In Hwa Chae, born May 13^th, 1983.

The second story, what actually happened, goes like this: My name is In Young Shim, born Oct 9^th, 1983. My mother and my father lived together through the pregnancy and until I was about two months old. He then left us and hasn´t been heard from since. My mother, now single and quite poor lived with my grandparents. The family started to discuss what to do, and they all decided that I should go live with my aunt, who then lived in Hong Kong. She was married, financially stable and had a daughter just two months younger than I. My mother agreed, as she was still going to be the mother. They are to this day a close-knit family who see each other often even though they’re spread out all over the world. My grandmother then decided I shouldn’t be a burden for my aunt, and that it was better to leave me at the orphanage. So, one day when my mother was at work my grandmother left me there. My mother searched for me, and my aunt went to Seoul from Hong Kong to help, but when they found me the orphanage or the adoption agency, said it was too late. The papers were signed, and I believe my parents also had been promised me at that time.

Since I found my birth family in 2016, I know a lot about my mother and her side of the family. I know nothing about my father or his side of the family. I have his name, and birth date. All I’ve been told is that he wasn’t a kind man, he abused my mother and left her. My aunt has asked me if I want to find him and offered me help, but I haven’t felt the need. Maybe one day I want to hear his side of the story, but hearing he was unkind to my mother put me off.

Growing up as an adoptee has been both a struggle and not a struggle at all, and I think that the ambivalence of that sentence summarizes it all. On one hand I’ve had a good childhood. My mom was a stay at home mom, who always had the time to read books, bake cookies, comfort and so on. My dad worked a lot, but he always was fully present when he was at home, and most of my best childhood memories has to do with activities my dad and I did (I realize this shows the inequality and the injustice of the unpaid work my mom did, since I spent most time with her). My maternal grandparents owned a big farm, and I spent a lot of time there with cats, and cows, and sheep, and I love animals to this day.

On the other hand, I was exposed to racism from an early age. I grew up in an almost all-white neighborhood, and of course, this lead to me (and an Indian boy in my class) being teased about my looks. It wasn’t that I was seriously bullied, I was still invited to play and so on, but there were daily reminders that I didn’t look like my classmates. A typical example when I was told I couldn’t be Lucia, ’cause I had black hair, or just being called Chinese as a racial slur.

I’ve almost always chosen friends who weren’t nice to me. In hindsight, I don’t think I made a good choice of friends until I was in high school. I’ve always been drawn to the ones who wanted to control me or use me as a mean to look better themselves. There was always an imbalance between me and my friends, where they took advantage of me in some way. And, I was happy to let them, because it was important for me to just belong and to have someone want to be with me.

Funny enough, it hasn’t been that way with boys. When I was younger, I was always in love with the popular ones that never even looked at me. When I asked to go steady with anyone they always said no, referring to not being interested in ”chinese” or some other racist thing. When I was about 14-15 I had my first boyfriend, and he wasn’t the popular guy. He was the sweetest thing you could imagine, and what did I do? I tried to scare him away buy being mean and jealous. He put up with me for almost a year before I was successful. Then I met my now-husband, before I turned 17. I’ve tried the same with him for many, many years but he just stayed, and stayed. Don’t ask me how he did it, I haven’t been easy to live with… Well, he’s not perfect either and I have put up with some BS too, and I’m not saying he has “saved me”. He just stayed long enough for me to save myself.

I’m certain I have an insecure ambivalent attachment, which means I either get to close to people, smothering them with my desire to belong and to be loved or I try to push them away by being cold and mean. For me, this can happen in the same relationship, which means I can come across as somewhat ambiguous. Now, in my mid 30’s I think I’m ok, but my really close relationships still suffer from this sometimes. My husband, for example, describes that I either want to be under his skin or want nothing to do with him. It’s not like this all the time of course but in the extremes.

The insecure ambivalent attachment comes from being sometimes rejected, and sometimes taken care of as a child, or separations not being handled well. It can be described as “I want to be neither with you, nor without you”. If I had to point to a single effect of my adoption it would be this. I will forever have to handle this, and work through it. I think I’m doing quite well. I can have healthy relationships, although I always must check myself, am I too much or too little, will this scare people away etc. Of course, this leads to a whole new set of insecurities, but I´m working on it.

I’ve always played “the happy adoptee”, smiling, being well-mannered, well-adjusted to the outside world. It wasn’t until I found my birth family and the whole “mixed-up identity, stolen child”-thing unraveled that I let myself think about my adoption and what it has really led to. As you know, when you start to see you can’t unsee so my whole view on adoption took a u-turn, and now I’m trying to just incorporate all this new knowledge in me.

Being adopted to me means lifelong work. It will never end, but I want to get better at it.”

Written by Madeleine In Hwa Björk

Madeleine was born in South Korea and adopted to Sweden

In the summer of 2019, Madeleine won the vote of listeners of a Summer show, on Swedish Radio, where she was featured and got to tell her adoption story to a large audience of listeners. Today, she is involved in raising awareness in Sweden, among adoptees and non-adoptees, about what it means to be an adoptee and the sides of adoption that people have been reluctant to talk about before.

To read more of Madeleine’s thoughts, you can find and connect with her on Instagram: @madeleine_inyoung

Amanda Medina

I was adopted from Medellin, Colombia to Sweden in 1985. I was about a year and a half when I started my life as an adoptee, and it would take 32 years until I was ready to face what that means, what that has always meant, and what that will always mean.