Since my children are Korean and look different from my husband and myself, I’m often asked whether or not there were any huge issues with that as they were growing up. The short answer is that we are so fortunate to live in Southern California, a melting pot of every conceivable ethnic and racial identity.  People were, for the most part, endlessly curious, but kind. Jaik did struggle with looking different than other people around him.  Despite the fact that we live in a very ethnically diverse environment, we live on the small island where, for the most part, the population is Caucasian — a lot of them are blonde and blue eyed.  So, until Jaik got to high school he did look different than most of his friends and classmates.  Jaik’s reaction was to change his name when he was nine. I know a lot of adoptive parents choose to keep their adopted children’s names.  My husband and I also made a decision to keep the children’s Korean names as their middle names instead of their first names.  My decision was born out of trying to limit the things my children were going to have to explain in their Read more