panicked though that's your heart was gonna explode on the airplane coming back what's been missing by being with me and with Sam and missing all that came before how's it going my name is Ben Smith and thanks so much for stopping by today I really appreciate it so I wanted to share my perspective on the whole Micha and Huxley situation I was adopted from China as a baby by two dads and grew up in New York City in what I call a modern family yes like the TV show and I thought it was important to
add my voice to the conversation as an adapting I thought it'd be interesting to do in two ways first by talking to my dad and learning and exploring about his his perspective as an adoptive parent rather than asking him questions like what would you do in the whole Mica's situation I wanted to only talk about his lived experiences so particularly his experiences with the unknowns the surprises what it was like in the early years raising me so that's this interview and then I'm gonna be releasing a second video tomorrow with my friend Sydney and Sydney
is really cool she's a Chinese adoptee and she has some really interesting perspective and things to sanli on this whole situation and we get definitely a little bit more in depth so stay tuned for that tomorrow feel free to subscribe if you want to be notified about that which will be released tomorrow again at first I didn't think that I was going to be making this video but too often adoptee voices are left out of the conversation so let me know what you think in the comments below let me know if you have any ideas
I think thoughts and hope to see you again here soon alright thanks I just showed Sydney part of this interview with my dad my opinion on the video and the interview specifically is that even though Ben and his dad aren't directly talking or relating their situation to the situation of Micha and Huxley and her family I think inherently the two are connected because what you're seeing here in this interview is the dynamic the dynamic being manifested and played out by the adoptive parent and the adoptee you know there's always two sides to a relationship and
the two sides to an adoptive relationship are unique because you have the parent and then their intentions and why they go into adoption which Ben addresses and then on the flip side you have the way that the parents decisions will impact the child people who want to learn more about adoption and the dynamics of adoption and sort of what goes into a parents choice to adopt and all the sort of phenomena they experience this is a very good interview to view because I think bill is very well-spoken and I think he you know presents a
really good argument and his opinion really nicely so alright well that was a much better description than I could have given about this interview so thanks Sidney Sidney and I we're gonna go and talk about the mic and Huxley situation ourselves well we're gonna be recording some of that and then we'll show this to you probably after the interview with my dad you will be seeing me again yes stay tuned we are recording okay so I'm here with my dad wanted to share a parent perspective on this whole situation with Micah and Huxley and James
I thought it'd be interesting to ask your perspective about the unknowns of adoption both pre-adoption picking me up and then put stop him know she mentioned that there were lots of unknowns with the adoption process some things were not fully transparent I'm wondering first of all made you wanted out and then second what was it like being finally matched with me and knowing that you were going to be able to that yeah good questions I think I just always wanted to have kids and I was queer and it was clear that you know at that
time it was still an issue so better to go ahead with adoption and that felt right anyway it just felt kind of right to kind of you know find another individual universe that needed a parent and I needed a kid you know and that's felt right but then it is all unknown I mean you go through this whole paperwork process it's very bureaucratic it's excruciating Lee you know translations and certifications and more documents and paperwork and getting things done and it just went on forever and it's it's very feels very thin and dry and bureaucratic
and and frustrating and then you one day get a picture of someone and told that that's your child or the first picture we got was of a little girl because we thought two minute might be easier as queers to kind of raise a little girl in an agency or a social worker we weren't allowed to use an agency at that time we used a social worker because to be gay you couldn't go through an agency and that's changed since then but at that time we do it through individuals and just they have to be cared
very careful about what questions to ask and what questions not to ask and everybody knew the game so that was cool um but then you get this little picture and suddenly it begins to kind of feel real and have a little soul in it and you begin to bond with the picture and fantasize about the picture and wonder about the picture and then you start thinking there's an individual I'm an individual and are we gonna be right together and are they gonna love me and am I gonna be good to them and is this am
i they're gonna be glad to be with me and it is the child gonna feel like this was a good thing and all those human thoughts start coming in which I'm not sure I mean I'm sure a birth parent has as well I've never been a birth parent but um I think it's different in its own way when you're adopting a child wondering if the child is gonna feel that you're the right parent for that child and that you're glad we were American white queers and you know you were you know a child from Asia
boy and like maybe you would have rather had a different situation than than us and all those things went through your head and then when you finally when the moment that we met I mean it really felt to me like we were two individuals facing off I mean you really you were I guess 11 months old but you felt fully embodied desert is as as a presence and I feel like you faced me often it was like okay this is a covenant between the two of us and and it's just I mean you have to
take me and I have to take you but it's a 50/50 thing I felt that for me the first time I met you it was surprised to be I wasn't expecting it at all I thought you'd just be a sweet little blobby baby you know and then you have all the thoughts about like I mean you had a couple conditions actually while going back you said you got the picture from the social worker okay well this is the picture this you know I'm taking this at face value there might be things that we don't know
about the Smurfs but is just human to kind of like have a complete fantasy and a completely unfold which we showed everybody to picture it everybody would say oh this they had what a handsome baby or well this baby looks like that and look at the eyes and the picture was this big it was black and white I think it was like nothing it was like a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox but you know you completely humanized that and and and and begin to kind of that build all the fantasies and all the
kind of hopes and dreams that you have as a parent from that little photograph so yeah a lot of expectations you just have to kind of believe in magic a little bit so when you first got to China is that when you first felt like you were a father and you know what when when is the weight of that hit you it didn't hit me because when we first met you and I was like at maybe 11:00 in the morning and and I was you were handed to me and then we were surrounded by all
these people caseworkers social workers bureaucrats the people were traveling with me your nurse we all went out to a banquet in Chinese style we celebrated and then finally about three or four in the afternoon you and I were alone together in my hotel and you had pretty much been squalling for five hours you knew something was up and you were making your voice heard about me you were sort of bearing witness to this moment you were not complacent in any way you were sort of making your presence known and and I was I'd never had
a kid before and you were screaming like hmm so we came back and we went to the hotel and it was a quiet afternoon everything was raining we closed the door of the room it was just you and me and we got down on the rug together and that's my song for bonded you know that's when that's when that all began hmm so that's was for me the unfolding and I think we were alone together then for three days with nobody else and in that period I felt like you began to understand and make a
bond and when you first came you would cut your lip by there like this security thing and and you'd go around you'd hold my shirt very tightly and hold my shoulder like this and always look forward you never you never look behind you the way babies did you always look forward and we don't joke about your own like a little burden crow's nest of a big ship and just you always wanted to see what was going on you wanted to be in control yeah well I took a long time I mean I mean gradually you
kind of like became more of a baby but initially you were taking care of yourself hmm you know and I always had that lip so then it's a defensive security position and always looking forward and clutching and then what was it like bringing me back to New York me my other dad being the family and what were people saying about you adopting a child from China well then it becomes the real life thing by that time I'd been with you for a week and a half or two weeks and I felt very much that I
was the person obviously your parent I mean I was responsible for you you were my kid and and I was introducing the bigger world people were embracing you and then it begins to kind of cascade and kind of like build around you and the kind of the whole support system begins to grow but you know they were always moments in India's life where they wonder have I got the right parent is this the right family for me what else might have been for me and I think those echo differently for a kid that's adopted then
for a birth kid in some ways may be better in some ways not better and always different but I remember I was saying that I remember my best friend's mother who'd had four children and she had a couple special needs kids and she'd been she was super mother and she said Jen she couldn't imagine having a child she couldn't imagine the loss for you of being away from whoever had carried you in their womb and and you'd heard their voice for nine months and and that have been your whole world and that she always felt
a special connection with the children from that and then police struck me because uh-oh what's been missing by being with me and with Sam and missing all that came before how did you reckon with the complex of you know being the savior that's going to China adopting that never was part of my scenario I mean I knew that I selfishly wanted to be part of a family hmm I was aware of the fact that I didn't take a foster kid in America that was closer to my world that needed had maybe a higher need I
mean you were a Chinese boy you were probably gonna be adopted by anybody had a snap I mean I had to make a decision about whether to have a white surrogate kid a foster kid a black kid Latino kid a kid from Russia you know like like anything and then those were all complex decisions I mean I mean my politic might have led me in a different direction of taking a kid that had a higher need than you did for a family I mean a 7 to 15 year old you know American kid living in
a foster home or institution Hanna was maybe a greater kindness to the world then a very cute little asian boy so I didn't feel like I was saving the world I felt like I had made a selfish choice for myself I was pretty aware of not having made a hard choice mm-hmm interesting yeah and I guess in the 90s at that time a doctor from China was more readily available I mean it wasn't a politically progressive do-good action it was a self-serving you know thing that that we all wanted to do for ourselves for the
more I mean there were other ways I mean in this judge VII round surrogacy there's judgment around you know adoption from China there's ad I mean you're like I mean the kids from China without to be better in health yeah they were but it didn't feel like a savior act at all it felt like a very carefully matriculated decision that was gonna fit my lifestyle but I think this whole issue of like the emotional chord about being an adoptive parent and and the adopted kid and like it's one thing if you're if you're flushing blood
you're you're born together and you've got flesh and blood it's another thing if you're two people in the universe that that or three people in the universe or however many people University come together in some way you can't help but feel the hand of fate in that and the hand of fate is different than the hand of biology and in some ways it has much more resonance for me it did I think it can have it as certainly as much resonance as flesh and blood in some ways more it's always been funny in my family
because I feel like in some ways you and I have more the same character than many of my nieces and nephews have with their parents or without the traditions in my family you know having to a spirit and energy and you know these sorts of things so I don't know it's but it's a mystery and and like all things in life it's mystery mean you can't really explain it maybe it's true maybe it's all projection who knows mm-hmm were there any other challenges in the first few years of me being in the u.s. and me
being in my new family yeah I mean for one thing I mean jump ahead five years you were very sporty little kid you were kind of a jock kid and and I was a and like I mean you know my cervix I thought I was gonna have a kid who's gonna want a water color and you know kind of like like look out the stars at night and stuff and you would ever interested in any of that stuff I mean I mean you were I mean you were an artistic creative kid but I mean you
were like it definitely um you know in the imprint that I mean who knows it if it would have been any different biologically but you did have health conditions and that was just surprised when I got back to New York is the first thing that you do that week bring me to a doctor yeah pretty quickly pretty quickly and you were too young to have the surgery you need but they scheduled it for what then what did you think when the doctor said oh he has this this heart condition has the hole in this heart
we learned that in China nowhere where you see I panicked panicked I panicked so that's your heart was gonna explode on the airplane coming back I mean not panic the whole time I watched plenty of movies and yeah read books were they reassuring you that you know it was a somewhat standard operation or um it was clear at that point that the reason you hit and this is anecdotal but that um you had been a boy which was unusual to be adopted out of China I think your pardon were one of the first or only
boys ever up to that time it had been adopted out and you know it was clear that the reason it was because you had this medical condition and the family wasn't able to do anything about it in China an American family would likely be able to to help you well I'm confirmed but yeah that's yeah yeah anecdotal this supposedly yeah getting back to the states did you know did you know if insurance would cover that operation stuff what I mean we were living in New York and then also most quickly click it was I mean
I mean that that was gonna be taken care of it didn't mean it wasn't frightening and we weren't scared but yeah I mean it was clear that we could solve that problem and in that way there was another bond thinking okay because you're always thinking Jack this baby's lucky to be with me I hope this was the right baby for me you know cuz you you do wonder am i the right kid for this parent I mean is this I mean I mean you know this I mean the kid could have had anybody in the
world were they lucky to get me and and I have a couple friends don't mean one time that she thought it was um I had no business adopting a child giving the child a mother I was quite shocked you know I mean there's just all a million things that any parent wonders about like you my the right parent for this child right you know what would you tell prospective parents these days if they're considering adoption if they're considering starting or adding to their family what would you tell them to think and feel well I just
keep moving forward because it's hard to move forward I mean the phone is there that Genesis the seed is there and so many people and it's such a gift if you can see it through but it's hard to get there I mean if you're pregnant it's biological time it's gonna give you whatever time gets you but if you're doing it through paperwork and through an adoption process you have to always be mustering up your own initiative to take the next step and people fall back and a lot of people start it and never complete it
and it's hard it's how it works like a lot of it's very hard so just keep taking the next step always be in play always keep it moving and then you know trust fate and trust your own believe above alright so that's the video thanks so much for watching I really appreciate it consider subscribing and let me know what you think of the comments below and then also feel free to check out the video that I made with Sidney so I think that's it for now thanks so much and hope that you have a great
day how do you think you'd feel if you are in Huxley's position I think I would feel very traumatized how would you think the complex of an abandonment has affected your life that's a good question Ben um I think specifically it's impacted my ability to trust people and and specifically in the sense of I'm always afraid that when I get close to somebody that they're going to leave
