Outed myself at a birthday party today

[drloretta]

DD went to a birthday party today, and I mentioned to her BFF's mom that we adopted DD. OMG every negative adoption stereotype/language choice was there: "was she young?" "did she not want her?" "are you worried she'll want her back?" "Are you going to tell her she's adopted?"

I think I answered pretty well, but these conversations always remind me why I don't exactly broadcast this information.

[shemarie82]

Oh, I am sooo sorry you had to deal with that!

[girliegus]

Ugh. People suck. Sorry you had to deal with that.

[theatrepal]

That stinks. Sorry it went that way.

[lovelyplanet]

So sorry to hear that.

[packerfan4life]

Ugh, I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I need to start working on my responses since we get inappropriate and sometimes rude questions all the time, the difficulty of conspicuous adoption.

[grannypantiesrock]

Facepalm. Our SW said that we will mostly likely be matched with an African American child. We're mentally prepared to deal with this on a pretty regular basis. People are dumb.

[persianmaman]

The rudeness of others continues to astound me. We also need to start prepping for stuff like this. I always hope that living in a more PC/liberal city would mitigate a lot of this sort of talk, but I know that is a false hope.

[pinkie]

It's funny we usually get a very different response of "oh that's so nice of you to do this", implying we saved our kids. If it's just the one comment I usually smile and say we are all very blessed. If they push it I will say how we adopted healthy, predominantly white newborns and how we are lucky and how so many other families are waiting and that usually stops it . I have to say we have hardly ever gotten truly negative responses.

[theholmanherd]

Yikes, I'm sorry. I'm worried about my MIL's reaction to our birth mom when the time comes. She has a terrific knack for making people feel awful about their life choices when she's drunk, which is anytime after 5.

It sounds like you handled the situation well. Hopefully she's more tactful in the future. People are so ignorant.

[chele]

Yipes! I can't believe people still say this stuff.

[jwinct]

Maybe because I haven't adopted yet, but I don't understand why this is so upsetting. For people who have no knowledge about adoption, I would think these are natural questions stemmed completely out of innocent curiosity. People are curious by nature and I would not expect anyone to realize that these questions are considered ignorant or rude. Now that I know this, though, if I'm lucky enough to have a child placed with us and ultimately adopt, I'll make it a point to take these situation as opportunities to educate.

[Captain Serious]

Mar 8, 2015 20:58:34 GMT -5 jwinct said:

Maybe because I haven't adopted yet, but I don't understand why this is so upsetting. For people who have no knowledge about adoption, I would think these are natural questions stemmed completely out of innocent curiosity. People are curious by nature and I would not expect anyone to realize that these questions are considered ignorant or rude. Now that I know this, though, if I'm lucky enough to have a child placed with us and ultimately adopt, I'll make it a point to take these situation as opportunities to educate.

I don't know how the situation presented itself in Dr. L's case, but if her daughter wasn't around, most of these questions just showcase the questioners' ignorance, if nothing else.  There's not much inherently wrong with them, except they are based in common misconceptions.  Misconceptions that are not likely to be shaken regardless of Dr. L's answers.  If she indicates that the biological mother was not young and loved her daughter so much she thought it better that she be raised by another family, the questioner is likely to just file this away as a unique and unusual case.  If Dr. L were to respond with statistics, she'd likely be considered cool, off-standing, and prickly about the subject, and the questioner would, more often than not, forget the point relatively quickly.

Now, if these questions were asked in the presence of Dr. L's daughter, they are offensive, and could plant all sorts of seeds of doubt and insecurity in her young mind.  My kids don't look like us, and I can't tell you how often I hear completely inappropriate questions, right in front of my boys.  I do my best to shut them down, politely but firmly, without sharing any private information.  I want my sons to understand that the circumstances of their past are their private history, and they should not feel pressured to share them with anyone they don't wish to, just because someone had the audacity to ask.

And, while asking if the birth mother was young may not be offense in a vacuum, coupled with the other questions, especially "did she not want her?" it portrays a heaping of judgement.  Anyway you slice it, "did she not want her" cannot be construed to be genuine curiosity without negative connotations.

[irismorning]

Dr. L.- I am so sorry! I typically do not mention the fact that my boys were adopted either. There are two main reasons for this: 1. It is their history, not mine. It should be their decision if and when other people (ie. strangers or acquaintances) know. 2. People are really inappropriate and I have had some really inappropriate things asked of me in front of the kids. I agree with Captain, comments in front of the children can be detrimental to them.

[jwinct]

Captain Serious, Thank you! Very well put. See? I have a lot to learn. It never even occurred to me that someone might ask these questions in front of a child, but I'm sure it happens.

[NariaDreaming]

Mar 9, 2015 8:53:23 GMT -5 jwinct said:

Captain Serious, Thank you! Very well put. See? I have a lot to learn. It never even occurred to me that someone might ask these questions in front of a child, but I'm sure it happens.

:::Dirty lurker adoptee:::

You'd be AMAZED the questions that adoptive parents get. I "lucked out" in the fact that my adoption was not super conspicuous, but since I knew from a young age that I was adopted, I often brought it up in conversation, and got all sorts of inappropriate questions?

Who are your REAL parents? Did they not want you? Were they drug addicts? Do you have any REAL siblings? Are you going to find your REAL parents?


One of my good friends was adopted from China. I shudder when I think about times that I was out with her and her family, and they would stop her parents and ask "Oh, where did you get the Oriental one from" . Yeah. They used the word "oriental".

I don't know what it is about an interacial family that makes people lose all common sense and brain-mouth filters.

[jwinct]

Mar 9, 2015 9:29:24 GMT -5 NariaDreaming said:

Mar 9, 2015 8:53:23 GMT -5 jwinct said:

Captain Serious, Thank you! Very well put. See? I have a lot to learn. It never even occurred to me that someone might ask these questions in front of a child, but I'm sure it happens.

:::Dirty lurker adoptee:::

You'd be AMAZED the questions that adoptive parents get. I "lucked out" in the fact that my adoption was not super conspicuous, but since I knew from a young age that I was adopted, I often brought it up in conversation, and got all sorts of inappropriate questions?

Who are your REAL parents? Did they not want you? Were they drug addicts? Do you have any REAL siblings? Are you going to find your REAL parents?


One of my good friends was adopted from China. I shudder when I think about times that I was out with her and her family, and they would stop her parents and ask "Oh, where did you get the Oriental one from" . Yeah. They used the word "oriental".

I don't know what it is about an interacial family that makes people lose all common sense and brain-mouth filters.

Oh, good lord, I need to prepare myself for this. Thank you for sharing. Ugh, that's just awful.

[pinkie]

Just to add to this, we took some classes from our agency the whole concept of "saving a child" can make the child feel they need to be abnormally grateful to their parents for their life. Like they would have been homeless without parents if we didn't adopt them and that can make the child feel they need to live up to expectations. Sometimes if this comes up I tell people our children saved us because we were childless and wanted to be parents so much. We haven't had any of these conversations around the kids in awhile. Our older son is only 2 but he pays attention to everything and really understands.

From looking at our family it is not obvious the kids are adopted so we don't get the types of comments that some listed above.

[pandd]

Mar 9, 2015 9:29:24 GMT -5 NariaDreaming said:

Mar 9, 2015 8:53:23 GMT -5 jwinct said:

Captain Serious, Thank you! Very well put. See? I have a lot to learn. It never even occurred to me that someone might ask these questions in front of a child, but I'm sure it happens.

:::Dirty lurker adoptee:::

You'd be AMAZED the questions that adoptive parents get. I "lucked out" in the fact that my adoption was not super conspicuous, but since I knew from a young age that I was adopted, I often brought it up in conversation, and got all sorts of inappropriate questions?

Who are your REAL parents? Did they not want you? Were they drug addicts? Do you have any REAL siblings? Are you going to find your REAL parents?


One of my good friends was adopted from China. I shudder when I think about times that I was out with her and her family, and they would stop her parents and ask "Oh, where did you get the Oriental one from" . Yeah. They used the word "oriental".

I don't know what it is about an interacial family that makes people lose all common sense and brain-mouth filters.

My older sister was adopted from Korea. Once when I was about 8 years old (she was 12), one of our neighbors asked me "Where did your sister get her Vietnamese-American heritage from". I realized later that he was alluding to the fact that she was a product of an affair my father (did not have) in Vietnam.  I can't believe that he could be so rude as to try to use me to pry into our family.

[pinkie]

pandd - OMG!

[perumom]

Oy Vey!!! I guess I have to get prepared for that, though we have gotten a few doozies ourselves already!! ughh, people sometimes!

[gnomesweetgnome]

Sorry you had to deal with that. We get questions about adoption a lot, since DS looks nothing like us (obviously, lol). I try to gently educate people, as I'm sure you did. Most people are just clueless and don't realize they're being offensive or speaking from ignorance/society's misconceptions about adoption. I try to remind myself of that, lol, but I still get frustrated.

[jwinct]

pandd - Um, holy crap! The assumptions people make are just insane!

[drloretta]

Mar 10, 2015 10:33:14 GMT -5 gnomesweetgnome said:

Sorry you had to deal with that. We get questions about adoption a lot, since DS looks nothing like us (obviously, lol). I try to gently educate people, as I'm sure you did. Most people are just clueless and don't realize they're being offensive or speaking from ignorance/society's misconceptions about adoption. I try to remind myself of that, lol, but I still get frustrated.

This is pretty much where I was at the party. I've gotten one or 2 ignorant comments, but this was the first time I got one after another in rapid succession, along with the "she didn't want her" comment. Fortunately DD was out of earshot and I could educate her as best I could in a short amount of time.