I love the “God’s gift” response.  My hubby and I are Caucasian and our boys are multi-racial.  I think you’re doing a great job, you may want to share with your daughter that her hair comes from her “tummy-Mommy” or Birth Dad.  Our kids (2 boys) seem to really enjoy their bio-traits and we are proud to tell them when we see those shining through.
The more conversation we have with our kids the better.  I always tell my boys there are no “wrong” questions or conversations and nothing is “off the table”.

My daughter and I are both caucasian but we also get hair questions. I have very curly dark brown hair and my daughter has straight as a stick dark brown hair. People do comment on the hair difference(not knowing she is adopted) but then usually notice that our eyes are so similar. We usually end up telling them about the adoption, but as my daughter is getting older now (10) I am noticing she doesn’t say as much about it to other people. I think it is about time for me to follow her cues. When she was little she used to tell me she really wanted curly hair like mommy’s. My 6 yr old is brown (this is what he wants to be called which is fine with me, I don’t like the term african american. We are all something american) and as people comment on our “different family” as I am also a single mother, our comment is ” this is the way god made our family”. The children, ours and others listen to everything we say and watch our body language. It is difficult to tell if we are always saying or doing the right thing.

Me and my husband are white and our son is black. We get lots of stares and comments. We enjoy them though and don’t get frustrated at all. We knew what we were getting into when we accepted any race. We look at is as a joyful educational experience for people who are curious and just don’t know about adoption. We are all curious by nature and some people just act in it by asking questions.

Try to not let it bother you. I feel that if it bothers you or annoys you then your children will be able to sense that and you don’t want them to ever take it the wrong way as of something is wrong with them bc y’all are different. I know that obviously isn’t the case, I’m just saying you never want them to take it that way. Technically it isn’t anyone’s business but at the same time if their is a noticeable difference then people are going to get curious and ask.

Adoption is a BEAUTIFUL thing so take any opportunity to educate people joyfully about it. You will walk away smiling and so will they! plus it puts way less stress on you!

I am hispanic, my husband in caucasian and my adopted daughter is Chinese.  I also have a bio daughter who many people think is adopted once they hear my baby is adopted.  Go figure!  I definitely think some people are confused, based on their curious expressions, but are afraid to ask.  I agree that discussing it joyful may be a great way to let others know what a wonderful experience you have had, or that there really are lots of joyful ways of making a family.  Right now, my adopted daughter is 2 and my bio daughter is 4.  My 4 year old LOVES to tell everyone who will listen that her sister is adopted.  She does this as she wraps her arms around her baby sister and beams at her with pride as if she were completely responsible for bringing her home.  It’s slowing down and I’m slightly grateful, only because I want my 2 year old to be able to share or not based on her own desires as she gets older.  I have a couple of adult friends who were adopted and they said it made them feel good to talk about it.  As they put it, “there is nothing to be ashamed of.  It’s like telling people what I do for a living.  It’s part of who I am, not the ONLY thing I am.”  Makes sense to me! 

I really think most people are simply curious, and I appreciate a direct question over loud whispers, pointing and staring.  I’m thrilled to talk about it with anyone.  On the other hand, RUDE questions, although rare, are met with curt, direct response of “That is an inappropriate question”,  and immediate removal of my children from the vicinity.  Whatever you feel comfortable with sharing should be your rule of thumb.  Not what others like to share.  But really, I DO love sharing my happiness in being able to adopt my sweet girl.  What a lucky Mommy I am to be so blessed.

My son could have a multiracial background; but to me, he looks Italian and Irish—that part I do know for a fact.  Strangers come up to me asking if he’s mixed, which is understandably hard for me to answer.  My husband always said if someone puts you on the spot, put them on the spot, too.  I would start out with “Why do you ask?” to better understand where they’re coming from.  If they say because he has curly hair and tan skin, I can answer ,“Yes he does.  Isn’t he beautiful?”, with a smile.  When other strangers have asked me where do his eyes come from, which happen to be very prominently blue and gorgeous, I have answered God gave him them.  I am going to hopefully assume as my son and your daughter get older, people will think about what they say in front of them as children have eyes, ears, and feelings.  I think it’s important, too, to reinforce with our children how handsome and beautiful they are, how we love the color of their skin, eyes, hair; etc.  Hopefully, this will build our children’s self esteem to help them weather these questions!

I always figure the question is not so much a literal request for information as it is a way of remarking on something beautiful and unusual. So I say things like, “it grows right out of her head that way,” or “she has curls in her ancestry.” I want my kids to know it’s not bad or unpleasant to discuss race or ethnicity, so I always make sure to calmly and happily state that, yes, they’re black if it comes up. As they get into preschool, I plan on switching more to answers like, “We don’t discuss our children’s personal information with strangers” when we get prying questions about how our family was formed, and then letting them take the lead on answering queries as they get into their tween years. But for the generally curious, or the casual questioner, “yes, our family was formed through adoption” is always good.

Everybody has given good answers, and I agree that the questions are usually well meant.  Two rude sounding questions I got within the first couple of weeks after coming home were actually coming from a good place.  “What is she?” which I answered with “beautiful baby girl” turned into “Is she adopted?” “Is she from Burma?” “My grandaughter was adopted from Burma.”  So it was really a friendly desire to share.  And the other one that sounded rude to me “Is she adopted?” was followed up with “I’m adopted too” so also sharing.

Btw, we’re dealing with the harder ones now, which come directly to her from her preschool friends with their very innocent and natural curiousity: “Why is your skin black?” “Why don’t you have a dad?”

It is often far more difficult for our children than we realize, when people ask intrusive questions, and we respond by giving lots of information about their having been adopted.  As children grow older, the unwanted attention makes them feel as though they are out for Show and Tell, and most decidedly do NOT want to be the Poster Child for adoption.  Most children who discuss this in the adoption workshop (amongst their adopted peers and the teen/adult adoptee volunteers) say that they wish their parents would not brag about the adoption when others give their parents the opportunity by asking questions about their looks—their apparent differentness.  This does not demonstrate a wish to hide their adoption status because they are ashamed of that.  Merely a wish to not have their parents give personal information that makes them feel different from most others. 

    I think we have to remember that we are modeling for our children the various ways we can respond.  Whether we establish and keep boundaries will help our children feel that it is permissible to do that too, or instead, feel compelled to tell-all when they really do not want to.  I’ve seen far too many adult adoptees sit on adoptee panels, receive very intrusive questions, and tell all, after which they burst into tears and say privately that they always give away too much and then feel sick afterward and wonder why they can’t stop themselves.  Some realize, at that point, that that was how they felt when their parents gave away personal information when they were young.

      I have a few other comments about some of what folks are writing.

  1. INTENT and IMPACT:  regardless of whether someone is asking questions that are well-intended,
the primary concern needs to be the IMPACT on the child.  A stranger will momentarily be affected by what you say, and then forget about you, but your child is deeply and permanently impacted by the accumulation of responses you give.  He (or she) learns whether he matters ENOUGH to count more than do strangers who are voyeuristically curious.  She learns whether your need to brag or educate others about adoption is more important, or whether her need to feel like everyone else—protected from being constantly and continually singled out—is more important to YOU—the person she depends upon most in the world. 

   
2. I cringe when I hear/read that others say that God meant for your child to be part of your family, or meant for your family to be as it is, or something similar.  That response is—again—about YOUR needs—to feel that there was some spiritual reason for your adoption to happen as it did.  While young children accept that at face value, and may even say it too, the teen/adult adoptee may very well see this quite differently.  Many to most think to themselves that if that is the case, then God had to have also intended for their first family to be destroyed, just so that you could be their parents—and are NOT terribly thrilled with that image.  They tend to meet or correspond with birth parents who were forced/coerced into relinquishing their child because others had all of the power/money/choice and think then that God has to be awfully cruel to have left them bereft.  Many also struggle mightily with an internal sense of rejection for at least a portion of their lives—worrying whether they are good enough—or whether they HAVE to be their adoptive parents’ happiness since their parents paid so much and had to work so hard to adopt them. 

    While I am also very involved with our spiritual community, what I say to my children is that HUMANS make the problems that separate children from their original parents.  God holds us in His capable hands when we are hurting, alone, without a family.  We, as adults, chose to adopt—God did not “call” us to do so (which smacks to adoptees of adoptive parents who often struggled with family building and adopted for that reason, and NOT because they were doing something noble that God had to persuade them TO do—claiming that they were “led” to adopt).  God held them until we made that decision and the timing was such that they were available at just the time that our paperwork was completed.  Adoption—for a child—yields both gain and grief over who they were separated from and who they otherwise might have been.  I do not think ts OK to impose a mystical/magic sort of belief on them, just because we, as adoptive parents (the ones who had all of the power TO choose) feel that it was a magical journey for US.  Transracially adopted kids did NOT choose to be adopted, or adopted by people of a different race, so that they are constantly on display.  Just because WE enjoy the attention that comes to us because we have the racial differences we have, does NOT mean that our children do—and they usually DON’T.  Our lack of sensitivity to the fact that adopted kids see and experience adoption far differently than we, their parents, do because we chose, they did not, but are the ones who live it firsthand, gets in the way of kids being about to claim and express their all-too-real feelings, which helps them to stay psychologically healthy.

  How should we parents respond?  There have been some terrific suggestions here.  It IS wise, as one person pointed out, to see these comments/questions not so much as requests for information as a way to say that they are seeing and enjoying someone who is unique and beautiful.  Parents of children born to them receive the same sort of comments sometimes, but it is the racial difference that calls SOOOOoooo much attention to our children and families.  We need only acknowledge that they are offering a compliment—nothing more.  “She DOES have gorgeous hair/coloring/smiles”—or whatever is the focus of that attention—is what we can say in return.  Anything more gives us the chance to brag about our adoption, but at the expense and not the delight of our child. 

Jane A. Brown, MSW

I get alot of questions about my African American son. He is only three months old, so i know this is only the beginning. The question i’m most annoyed by is “where is he from?” We get that one a LOT. I came to the conclusion early on in the adoption journey that most people just don’t know about adoption. They don’t know what they can and can’t ask (so some just get uncomfortable and DON’T ask at all), they don’t know what’s inappropriate to ask. People just haven’t talked about adoption enough in the past for everyone to understand the intricacies.
Being a “glass half full” kind of person, I try very hard to look at these questions as a chance to educate people about it. Not all adoptions are international. There are some things that are just nobody elses business. Adoption is a loving choice, not a situation of a birth family “just not wanting a baby.” In every challenge lies an opportunity!

Sorry, but conspicuous adoptive families have been around—throughout the USA, Canada, Austraila, and Europe—for more than sixty years.  It is NOT that people haven’t talked about it, or have not encountered conspicuous adoptive families. That is not really an uncommon experience.  In fact, four out of five people have a close tie to transracial adoption—via family or friendship or proximity in their neighborhood. 

    I’ve been involved in the world of transracial adoption for most of my life.  My parents were fostering babies and young children whose parents were considering whether to parent or place them during the 1960’s, which is a LONG time ago, and this was part of a national movement rather than a very local and limited happening.  I have also been parenting transracially for many years—since 1977.  There were adoptive family organizations that had been in existence far before my first adoption that year.  In fact, this magazine was an outgrowth OF an national organization who started publishing the magazine (although it had a different name way back then, before the current owner purchased it—maybe about 13 years or so ago). 

    By the way, these discussions—about how to respond to intrusive questions and insensitive comments—have been taking place for DECADES.  Adoption is not new.  Transracial adoption is not new.  People’s insensitivity to adoptees and their family members is not new.  We are not “educating”: people so much as in the position of standing up against adoptism—stereotypes and biases surrounding adoption and the triad members (adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents). 

    I have seen us, adoptive parents- in general, do a lot of damage to the CHILDREN in the name of “educating” others about adoption, when it is quite obvious that those people are so insensitive that they cross the boundaries of what is proper social behavior to ask too-personal questions or made hurtful comments.  I realize that many of us did not realize that at first, when we were new to adoptive parenting, so I am hoping that those of you who ARE first-time parents of a child who is of a different race and was adopted into your family, will read/listen and learn from those who are veteran parents and have youngsters old enough to be able to offer THEIR opinions regarding what we do or do not do that is helpful.

My son is asian, who was born in Russia, who really looks Latino. All the Latino women at the grocery store dote over him and speak to him in Spanish. I just laugh inside because he has NO idea what they are saying.

He is only two, so someday we might have to deal more with a “correct” answer. As a mother of four under five and at one time three under 2 1/2 (no twins) I have had to learn to let most people’s comments roll off my back.

If they are close to me or someone my son (or my family for that matter) see regularly, then I help “educate” them. If they are not…I try not to let them matter.

I have struggled with choosing my responses to questions from colleagues, friends, strangers….“Where is he from?”  grates on me as well, or people who fawn over my daughter and foster son when I know full well that the lavish attention would not be coming their way if I was African American as well. 

For my caucasian friends, I think I am their “safe” way in to ask questions about African American hair care and culture.

Jane - your experience and expertise is evident in your posts.  What specific suggestions would you give for these types of inappropriate questions/comments when they happen in front of my daughter?  Or those question/comments that come from complete strangers out of the blue while shopping.  She’s 5 and listening carefully.

I appreciate your discussion of INTENT vs. IMPACT.  That has helped clear some things up for me.  I’ve had feelings of discomfort, knowing something was off in these situations but I have been bombarded by the “educate your audience” perspective.  I’ve been encouraged by other transracial adoptive moms to see these situations as opportunities to enlighten/educate.  As a teacher, I see the value in that.  However, I can’t help but feel that there is at least a subtle message of marginalization inherent in their comments…how do I address that with people who are friends and family?  and how do I do that when my daughter is present?

The last thing I want to do is be the one responsible for marginalizing my children.  I understand that simply going off my “good intentions” will not always be good enough.  It is critical to educate myself.  I would greatly appreciate any resources anyone can recommend.

I have some more thoughts to share about why I think we as a community of adoptive parents, in general, encourage one another to “educate the audience” and tell ourselves that that is a good thing to do ,  but why that comes at the expense of our children. My thoughts about this are likely to be unpopular, but may very well be something that facing up to will help children more than just about anything else we can do. 

      If we “educate the audience” which means putting the focus on the fact that the children needed permanent families, then we take the focus off of our other real motivation for adopting—the one that was usually why we began to explore adoption in the first place.  (Some of the most common motivations: infertility, secondary infertility, single status so that we might not have felt comfortable going through pregnancy and birth without a spouse, medical problems or age or genetic history that yielded increased risks for us or any child we might have birthed if we had become pregnant—are not things we volunteer to reveal to others.  It is more comfortable to focus on the children’s needs and claim that that is what led us to adopt, even though that was, at best, a secondary motivating factor for the vast majority of us.  In fact, if we highlight the fact that there ARE many children in need of permanent families,when others begin to ask questions,  we may reduce or eliminate the possibility that “the audience” will make assumptions or ask questions about whether any of those other factors played a role in why we adopted. 

  Our kids, frankly, catch all of that.  In some ways, as they grow, they usually know us better than we know ourselves, and they catch the discrepancy between what we say and don’t, what we deny or avoid and what we allow ourselves and others to see.  It raises questions for them about how we truly think and feel, and whether or not we really value adoption as much as we claim that we do.

    Todd and Tree, you asked what suggestions I have for how TO respond.  My first is to NOT demonstrate an eagerness to “educate the audience, ” for I think we are often conveying something to our children that we ought not to.  We are, in effect, throwing them under the bus—aiming the spotlight on them as THE PROJECT—so as to keep it off of ourselves and our other motivation to adopt, whatever that was.  Its not honest to give the impression that we did something noble by adopting, when, instead, adoption rescued US from childlessness—in the majority of cases. 

    Secondly, I think we have to join with our child, rather than allowing the question-asker to set up a “we” vs “they” scenario.  When I write that, what I mean is this: we should not allow the question-asker to arrange for the White people to join together in objectifying and talking about the person of color.  For that is how many to most transracially adopted kids feel—not that they could put that into words until they are much older (older teens/adults).  When we allow these questions and comments to continue, and give detailed answers, we are, in effect, validating the unspoken but very powerful “right” of White people to categorize people of color as different—people “we” can talk about as though they are nothing like “us.”
     
      I also encourage us to take a hard look at our nonverbal behavior, for often we almost invite these conversations to start and/or continue.  Most of us develop pretty good radar for those people who look at us and are trying to figure out how to start up a conversation with us, so that they can satisfy their curiosity.  We can smile, but prevent this by using nonverbal language.  Put up the palm of your hand as though to signal “stop,” and then give a friendly wave, as though to say “please don’t approach us.”
If someone starts to say something insensitive, we can raise an index finger, and look downward, follow that with a raised palm (that signals “stop”), and say,
“right now is not a good time to have a conversation like this.”

    When someone asks “Where is he from” we can simply state where WE live (so I would say, “We live in Scottsdale, Arizona.  How about you?”)

    Many people will not be deterred by the clue we are giving them that we are not going to participate in a “we vs. they conversation,” though, and will pursue asking questions.  “No, where did HE come from?” is what they will ask.

    The next possible response we can give is:
“Why do you ask?”  That turns the tables, putting the other person in the position of explaining what information they are really looking for and why they want it.That, alone, may drive home the point that you are not going to give away personal information—that they are being intrusive and that that is unwanted attention. How they answer, though,  can help us decide what to do—to offer to talk with them by phone at another time if they tell us that they or someone they know are considering adopting, or to be more direct in letting them know that we are not open to giving away personal information.

  Or, we can respond by saying:  “I appreciate your interest in our family, but I have to tell you, we do not share personal information or answer questions about members of our family because it makes us uncomfortable. I am sure that you can understand, and that that is not your intent—isn’t that so?”

    I encourage adoptive parents to get feedback from their children about the way that they respond to intrusive questions and negative comments.  After the incident, one can say something like:  “That lady was really curious and I am guessing that she may have made you feel uncomfortable. On a scale of 1 to 10, how did I do with my answer to her?  What else might I have said? “

    Sometimes I hear/read adoptive parents encourage one another to have the CHILD respond. i.e. “Would YOU like to answer the lady?”  I emphatically DON’T think that that is fair or constructive.  Kids simply try to guess what their parent WANTS them to say, and say that, regardless of whether they think that way or not, and often feel even MORE singled out and awkward.  We should answer, and we need to remember that we are modeling for our child how TO respond to intrusive questions, or how to resist negative comments.  How we do that, and how well we do that will inform how they handle this when they are asked questions by their peers, or when their peers or adults make comments when we are not with them.

    I agree, Todd & Tree that sometimes White friends, family members, and acquaintances—even our kids’ teachers—sometimes think its OK to ask us questions about people with whom our kids share race and/or ethnicity, when they most certainly would NOT do that if WE had shared-race with our child.  While it may make us feel awkward and uncomfortable, I think we should bring that out into the open.  i.e. “I understand the curiosity you have, but I have to tell you that talking about people who are of ___ heritage puts me into a we vs. them scenario, in which “we” white people are talking about “them,” and that is making me feel uncomfortable. You might want to ask yourself whether you would be asking these questions if I was of ___ heritage like my son/daughter, and if the answer is “no,” then maybe its not something for us to discuss.”

    In my mind, it takes a great deal of courage, confidence, and competence to transform ourselves into the role models and good-enough parents our kids need and deserve.  It means that we have to go beyond our comfort level—we have to be very honest with ourselves, we have to be willing to analyze what is behind our words and behavior and how we might be hiding from something we are quite tender about.  We have to be willing to be “out there.” In other words, we have to be willing to be uncomfortable and sometimes push beyond others’ level of comfort.  We have to be willing to reveal what is hidden in plain sight—others’ racialized views and their sense of entitlement to ask questions about people of color of you—another White person who has some insider-information because you are the parent of a child of a particular race or ethnicity.  That will not always make you popular with those others.  Growing pains hurt!
For them—for us.

Jane A. Brown, MSW

I am so glad I found this! I had stumbled upon a rather nasty debate on transracial adoption. It had scared me, I will admit, to think people would even think so negatively about adoption, so this conversation is a breath of fresh air!

I have often wondered what is the best way to handle intrusive questions, and like previously said before, the “educate the public” was pushed down my throat. I had read that because we are standing out so much, we are automatically an advocate for adoption.

So I thank you all, especially you Jane, for showing another side to this. Instead of worrying about “educating”, I will focus on what is best for my daughter. And thank you for the excellent examples, I will keep your answers in mind! I will also have to remember the “isn’t she lucky?” and “God’s gift”.

So if I may ask, as I have seen this with my biracial cousins, how do I handle someone who is a complete stranger who walks up and touches my daughter’s hair? Again, I know this is done out of curiosity, but it is disturbing to me. If my daughter was white…would they touch her hair if they didn’t know me or her? I doubt it. My first instinct would be to get angry, but that does not benefit my child. But at the same time, I want to protect her and let her know I am doing just that. I know this happens a lot, but how do you handle this type of intrusive situation that benefits the child?

Some people just have poor boundaries. Asking a mom where did your child get that red hair? I bet he has a temper all red heads do, patting pregnant women on the tummy, asking when you are due (when you are not pregnant).

I think to help child re stranger safety you need to say something like. Please do not touch my child without my permission. To her you are a stranger. This makes the child feel like yours and like a person worth protecting.

Thank you Jane.  What you wrote is extremely helpful.  I think that some adoptive parents’ responses to strangers and a willingness to divulge too much comes out of how we are trained to be friendly and open to others.  We (perhaps women especially) are taught not to be rude and to want to please.  The result of this is that when someone, stranger, friend or family ask overly intrusive questions, we tend to answer them, even if that is a betrayal of confidences to our children.  We have been trained so well be be friendly and open that it becomes almost a reflex.  I really appreciate your suggestions.  I also particularly like the suggestions of mommyluv.  When answering questions in a friendly and open way so as not to be rude is almost reflexive, it can be hard to turn off.  But it’s not difficult to answer a question with another question.  That I can do.  My children are too young yet to understand these prying questions so now is a good time to start practicing and that’s what I will start doing more often.  Thanks again everyone for this really great discussion.

I wish to say: “you are welcome” to those who have thanked me/us who have responded to the original post and some of the subsequent ones.  One is put on a steep learning curve, once a child of a different race joins the family, and many to most of us could never have anticipated all that that would entail in order to learn how to do an effective job. 

    Becoming a member of the adoption community is, effect, joining another family—a family of choice.  It means that there are and always will be others with whom you are parenting side-by-side, and others in whose footsteps you are journeying who will give you a hand when and if you need help, or suggestions, or encouragement, or comfort because the journey is miraculous, but arduous and complex. 

  I have been blessed to have many wonderful and wise people guide me on my own parenting journey over the years.  They made my journey less lonely, less confusing, and in every way, more satisfying.  I am happy to pass along that which they, and my beloved sons and daughters, and the many precious adopted youngsters I have worked with- have taught me. 

Jane A. Brown, MSW

I have a hard time with this also. I am a single Mom (white) to an adopted black/puerto-rican daughter. The coments are almost always just simply how beautiful she is (true!). I am concerned that someday (she is 1 yr old now) she may simply not want the attention.

“tummy-Mommy”

Please don’t use this term to refer to a child’s natural mother. I’m sure Jane can provide a more coherent explanation of why it is not good for a child to be told that the woman who gave birth to him, and who provided him with his genes, isn’t just an incubator.

I dislike tummy mommy because on the one hand we say be honest on the other you were in your mom’s tummy. Really? With digesting food? We can’t say the word uterus? or womb if you want to get less medical.

A thousand thank yous, Jane!! You have articulated so many important points. The point around religious language is particularly difficult to navigate and you did an excellent job. It really grates on me (as a person of deep faith) to hear an AP say that “God selected her for me” or similar. One AP I know even told our AP group that she told her daughter “God put you in the wrong woman’s belly, so I had to go and find you”!!! I wanted to ask her why she didn’t tell her child “God made ME infertile”.
For me, the key in all of this is to take the child’s perspective.

When I think of all the intrusive questions that we have been asked in the last 14 years, my least favorite has been, “Are they real sisters?” We have 2 daughters both adopted from China and 5 years difference in age. I finally came to the conclusion that what they wanted to know was, “Are they biologically related?” But i reserve that answer for people who have already indentified a connection to the adoption community, rather than just being a “nosy pokey question”  For all others I respond, “they must be real sisters, because only real sisters could disagree this much!” and that ends the conversation or moves it to the challenges that siblings bring to their parents, which is a topic that parents of most versions can relate to!

The question: “Are they real sisters (or brothers)?” is a common question that many families struggle to answer.  Here is a possible response: 
“I am guessing that you already know that children in the same family ARE “real” authentic siblings, regardless of HOW they got to be part of their family—right? ”  I am guessing that you are wanting to know more about their background, and while I am pleased that you are interested in our family, I should tell you that we do not share personal information with outsiders.  Thank you in advance for respecting that!”

Jane A. Brown, MSW

Jane, thank you for your answers here.  I always look for your comments on this forum.  Would it be okay if I excerpted some of them on our family blog?  There are many other adoptive parents who read our blog that I’d love to share your insights with.  I would credit you, of course, but wanted to ask permission first.  (I should mention that I am not any kind of “official” blogger, receive no advertising or income from ads, and am not sponsored by BlogHer or any other platform.)  I’ll check the comments here to see if that’s okay with you.  If not—thanks for sharing here!

when people ask where did she get that hair, we can always say, “some gene”.  When something feels inappropriate or intrusive, or you just are not sure, or you don’t feel like answering you can say “we love talking about our family, but we don’t talk about personal things with strangers,” which affirms for your child that there is no shame. you can also say to them later in the car, “that was weird when that person said… what do you think?” then you can get a feel for what is going on with your kids.

Hi NancyL,

  I’ve not been following this thread, so didn’t read your request to me before today.  Yes, its fine with me if you’d like to share some of the things I have written on your family blog.  I am honored that you would like to and grateful that you asked.  Its terrific that you are working to educate your extended family members for the sake of your child/children and you.  Nice!

Jane A. Brown, MSW

I am going to share one more thought, although this one is likely to be more difficult to receive.  Even so, I feel a responsibility to say it here, because of the children.  Over and over, I hear them express feelings of shame, resentment, and anger when they hear their parents respond to strangers’ questions or comments regarding their assumptions about adoptive parents’ motives for adopting.  This is multiplied when the child or children are assumed to have been adopted internationally, or are of a different race.

    Often parents are asked why they adopted, or receive comments from strangers (or others—their kids’ teachers, neighbors, friends, even extended family) about how “lucky” the child was to have been adopted (implying that the child was rescued/saved from an inferior life).  Or that the adoptive parents are “saints” or “do-gooders” for having taken in this
“orphan” (or some other term implying that the child’s adoption is a charitable project). 

    In my opinion—based on how destructive this is to the CHILD’s sense of self worth and dignity—it is not a good idea for parents to just deny this and say something like “No, I/we are the lucky ones!” or to seemingly go along with that wrongful belief, when the reality was/is that they adopted because they wanted to have child, or have a child of a specific gender, or to have another child (due to secondary infertility), or have a genetic history that suggested risk for them or a child if they became pregnant, etc….—you get the drift, I’m sure—of what I am suggesting here. 

    No one has to reveal the specifics of what motivated them to adopt.  However, it is hurtful to the child to have others left thinking that you adopted “to give a child a home” or “to get a child out of an orphanage” or whatever the other/you say that implies that you were acting nobly, rather than stating honestly that you wanted a child, and this was the option—the equally-first-best option open to you.  If you struggled with infertility and considered adoption for that reason, as my husband and I did prior to adopting our first 3 kds, you might say something like:  “We didn’t adopt because we are do-gooders.  We adopted because we wanted to become parents.  There are many reasons why that is the best option for families to decide to build or expand their families through adoption.  By the way, adoption is an equally-first-best way TO have a family!” 

    Sometimes adoptive parents take offense and defend the fact that they allow people to say such things because—in their words—they ALSO wanted to give a child a good home.  Nothing wrong with that, but then SAY that.  Don’t leave out the part of your motivation driven by your desire to have a child or expand your family through adoption because
pregnancy wasn’t an option or wasn’t the best option for whatever reason or reasons—shuffling to the CHILD the burden of being viewed as a charitable project. 

    Children do NOT feel “lucky” to have lost their original family, or to have joined their family in a way that is different from most of their peers, or to have the authenticity of their family relatedness challenged over and over.  Growing up adopted—especially when theirs is a conspicuous adoption—is complicated and challenging.  The ones who had the power to choose are us—adoptive parents.  This is not the life THEY chose—to have first lost a family before having the opportunity to get another family—wonderful as that family may be, and as much as they would not want to be growing up with anyone other than the parents/family they are now part of. 

Jane A Brown, MSW

Thank you, Jane!  A lot of other parents who’ve adopted from the same country as we did read our blog, and I am positive that they will appreciate your expertise.  We all hope to to a good job in parenting our kids, and your input is so very helpful.

I’m glad you mentioned the word “orphan.”  I do not use that word because my daughter was not an orphan.  She has birthparents, though it is unlikely that we will ever know much more than their names.  I do know that there are millions of children who are actually orphaned—but I don’t like to use the general term “orphan care,” etc. as many people do, to describe our situation or our reason for adopting.  That seems to create a situation in which kids are not seen as individuals, but as part of a broad category.  Even when kids are not literally orphans, it seems no less tragic to me when circumstances such as poverty or a bias against girls results in birth parents who abandon their child or place her in an orphanage.