Adoption Faux Pas

I know what you’re thinking after reading the title of this post. 

 

Really?  MORE adoption faux pas?  How can there BE any more limitations on what I’m allowed to say to an adoptive parent?  I’m sorry, but I can’t remember all of the rules and I also can’t afford a speech writer.  Hey, I have an idea, why don’t we all just STOP TALKING?!  Would that help??  Yeah, let’s all just STOP TALKING!

 

Seriously, that’s not what I want.  I love questions about adoption.

 

They often lead to discussions about adoption, and if there’s one thing anyone knows about me, it’s that I love talking about myself. 

 

And besides, the questions and comments that bother most adoptive parents simply don’t bother me.  I take a very lighthearted view on life, and I know that most people who are asking the questions or making the comments are just curious—usually in a very sweet, innocent way. 

 

I mean, it’s fairly obvious as one drinks in the sight of me in all of my pasty horsefaced glory holding the hand of my adorable little brown, button-nosed boy that he did not come from my DNA.  Lucky dude. 

 

In fact, I’d say that any variation of the following thought is what first pops into a person’s mind when he or she studies us for just a moment:  “There is no way she made him.  He’s  way too cute.”

 

It’s quite similar, actually, to an experience I once had in college as I was walking down the dorm hallway with my very good-looking boyfriend.  One of my good dorm friends who hadn’t yet met the boyf stopped in the middle of the hallway, shocked, and looked straight at us and said, “Dude. How did you get him?”

 

I can assure you that it wasn’t my looks that snagged him.  Nor, incidentally, was it sex—much like I didn’t have to have good looks or sex with my husband in order to land the blessing of my son.  (SCORE!)

 

So I understand the curiosity, and I welcome the questions.

 

Bu-ut (You knew this was coming, didn’t you?), all of that being said, there are actually two things that bother the hell out of me when they’re said about adoption.  And since one happened just last night, I thought I’d write a little post about them.  (It’s what I DO, my peeps…I write posts.  Sorry.)

 

1.“Siiiiigh.  My brother is having trouble again.  He quit his job because he prefers partying to working.  We don’t know what to do.  He’s always been the black sheep of the family.  Of course, he is the adopted one…”

 

Oh, really?  You don’t have any biological brothers who are assholes?  Because I’ve got two.  You can have one of mine.

 

I hate to tell you, peeps, but unless you’re Charlize effing Theron, your genes are no better than anyone else’s.  Guess what:  Your brother isn’t a loser because he’s adopted—he’s a loser because he’s a loser. 

 

Oh, and by the way...you’re welc for the tip.

 

2. "How long have you had him?/When did you get him?"

 

First off, he’s not an effing rescue dog.  Good thing, too, because I don’t like dogs. If you’re one of those people who judges a person’s character based on whether or not she’s a dog person—well, then, I’ll save you some time.  I’m an asshole.

 

Secondly, why do you want to know?  Because there’s a cutoff for how “mine” he is, how much a part of the family he is?  “Hm…you’ve ‘had him’ since he was 6 months old?  Oh, all good then.  It’s like he’s really yours.”  Or is it, “Oh, you were two years old when you were adopted?  That’s too bad.  You barely missed the cutoff, buddy.  You’ll always be the adopted son.  Hopefully you won’t quit jobs to party all the time since you’re really not part of any family.  Tsk, tsk.”

 

Sorry, folks.  My kiddo’s all mine—whether he likes it or not.  And so is the biological one.  It’s not their fault they got stuck in this crazy family with the wackadoo mom. But thank the Good Lord in Heaven for the sweet blessings He pours on us from above, because those two boys are the best damned things that ever happened to the hubs and me, and they’re stuck with us.  Granted, their prayers of thanks for having me as a mom (“Why, God, WHY??”) might sound a bit different than my prayers of thanks for having them as kids, but ah, well. Such is life.

 

I think Marie Osmond said it best when someone asked her which of her eight children were adopted.  Her reply?  She couldn’t remember.  Fan-effing-tastic. 

 

I heard that answer before I had my kids, at a point in my life when I didn’t even think I wanted kids.  And still, I remember thinking she was my hero for saying something as awesome as that.  Now that I have both an adopted and a biological child, I feel the wisdom and heartfelt honesty in that statement—and I couldn’t agree more.

 

If you really want to know how long our children have been home (which is a much better way of putting it), just wait.  Most likely, we’ll let it slip out—not because it matters to us what age our children were when they came home; instead, simply because we like talking about our kids, like anyone else.

 

As for how I got the guy in college?  Why, with my sparkling personality, of course.  J