Overcoming Discrimination

 

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In the Catholic News Here/Now a young man tells the readers of the site about his life as an orphan and how the realization that he was different came to him.

He grew up in a nursery from birth until he was 19. It was after entering middle school that He realized that he was an orphan. When he went to school outside the orphanage for the first time he naturally realized: "I don’t have any parents." He realized that the person he called mom was a social worker, and that she lived a different life from that of an ordinary family. That was his first encounter with people outside the nursery.

When he first entered middle school, the teacher handed out a piece of paper for each student to write down their home address. He wrote down his address and one child looked up his address on the Internet and asked him: "Isn’t this a daycare center?"  He was so embarrassed that he couldn't say anything. In this way, the fact that he lived in an orphanage was revealed to his classmates. From that day on, he got teased a lot by the children.

One day, his homeroom teacher told him to bring his mom's, older sister's, or younger sister's skirts for they  were having a talent show at school. One of his friends said: "Teacher, he can’t bring their skirts the mother isn’t there. What should he do?" She looked at him,  everyone in the class laughed. He was so embarrassed that he couldn't say anything.  

On days when there were open classes at school, his friends said to him: "You don’t have parents, so no one will come."  These all became triggers for his anger that described him to his classmates: "he gets angry easily because he comes from an orphanage."

At school, friends from difficult families were called and invited to the hallway in front of the teacher's office. During break time, other friends were all passing by, and the teacher said: "Since he is not good at cultural activities due to financial difficulties, the school will support me, so let’s all get together and go to Namsan on the weekend." He hated the teacher who talked openly about other people's family situations in front of all his friends.

Having experienced this in middle school, he thought that he would never let others know that he was from an orphanage when he he entered high school. He felt if his situation was revealed, his entire school life would be ruined.  

One day his homeroom teacher suddenly called him during the finale class and said: “You grew up in a different environment than others, but your orphanage is a large facility, so there is a lot of support, so think positively." At that time, the kids in his class looked at him, and and he wanted to hide.

His high school years were also very difficult. The children started whispering behind their backs that they were orphans. There weren't many friends who would talk to him, and the ones that did come up to him were for the purpose of arguing or teasing him.

When he gave a presentation at school, they even ridiculed him, saying that he was studying for no reason when he wouldn't be able to go to college because he didn't have money anyway. This happened a lot.  

 

Later, he couldn't stand it anymore and warned the eight children who were teasing him that he would open a school violence committee. At that time, the friends said: "You don’t have a mother, so do you have someone to call?" he was at a loss for words. He hopes that his juniors will no longer experience the social discrimination they had to endure because they were orphans.

 

When he attended Aloysius Elementary School, he joined the basketball team."We've been working hard since we were kids, so were all really good at sports. So when we went out to a basketball tournament, our school swept the awards." Whenever this happened, parents from other schools said: "This is why we shouldn’t sponsor children in daycare centers." An indescribable sadness came over him.

 

He strongly agrees with the statement that it is not your fault that you graduated from an orphanage. It is not the children's fault that their parents were unable to raise them from birth or in the middle of their lives and left them in an orphanage. Their childhood environment was not their choice and is not their responsibility. If they have friends who criticize or ridicule them just because they are orphans, they are wrong.  He has forgiven all those friends. The act cannot be justified, but when he thinks about it now, those friends were also very young. He hopes they reflect on their past actions.

 

It is really difficult and painful to be ridiculed at school or in society because you are from an orphanage during your school days. People who grow up with these experiences may deny themselves or feel worthless. This is a situation that can create really sensitive emotions, and it can have very serious emotional repercussions. There are many children who have difficulty finding meaning in life as they go through these difficult experiences. In severe cases, people even think about death.

 

During his school days, he was bullied so much that it was difficult to put it into words. However, he is now  currently focusing on life and living it diligently. This is because he thinks that if he stays in the past, and remembers what those friends did to him, and gets angry and resentful, his life will  only become more difficult and unhappy. This is really unfair, he wants to  live a good life to show that it can be done.

 

As a young adult preparing for independence, he is  taking a leave of absence from the university he attended and preparing to re-enter the major of his choice. He studies at an academy during the day and works hard to make a living by working part-time as a video editor at home in the evening.