Back in May 2010 I posted “What Not to Say” to adoption parents.
Now that this process has been ever so long and hard, I have some additions that would fall under a similar category: “What Not to Say… to an adoption parent in waiting”:
“ You’re still so young!”
I’m not that young (29, and Isaac is 31) and this doesn’t make my reality and my desire any different.
“You want kids? Please, take mine!”
I get it. Raising kids is hard! But, that doesn’t mean I shouldn't desire children.
“I’ve been praying for God to give you your own kids.”
Why don’t we just pray for God’s will? I think that would be better.
“In some countries you have to wait four or more years to complete an adoption.”
While I’m really sad for those families, it doesn’t change my reality.
“Oh, you’re expecting?”
You can use the word “expecting” and not be pregnant.
I don’t say these things to scare anyone off from asking questions. I LOVE it when people ask about our adoption!
4 comments:
Your responses are so much nicer than mine.
We felt like we were the only ones who got slammed with questions sort of similar to this.
Our questions were more like -
Why not America?
What if your kids have issues when you get them - health wise.
What if you find yourself not accepting them as you would your own biological children one day?
Are you sure this isn't a fluke, you want to help people in Africa, but this feeling might go away.
What if your kids have bad genes and do horrible things when they grow up?
and so on, and so forth! This world can be pretty harsh! I'm on the same page as you though, I accept the questions, knowing that I went through questions myself for a year before we decided this is what we wanted to do. It's hard. But, maybe people will change their minds, and this will be a challenge to them in their own spiritual walk one day.
Thanks for sharing, it's good to know we aren't alone
I hear ya! I HATE the "own kids" one. It makes my skin crawl. THESE ARE MY OWN KIDS! And really, no kids are OURS. They are GODS children. Every.single.one of them! Why do we think that squishing them out of our body makes them any more OURS???? What's the proverb about being slow to speak? We need to wear that one around more!! All of us!
Tara, you probably don't know me. My wife Julie and I are friends with your mom and dad (and sweet Molly above). We have 3 adopted kids and one bio kid...two domestic and one international adoption.
Anyway...I so know what you meant here. I love the "whys" as in, "So why did you adopt?"
You either view it as a "why not have biological kids?" question and answer it with "because there's something jacked up with us fertility-wise". Because apparently they want to know all about that.
...OR you have to view it as a "why have kids (at all)" question and describe to them what children are. You take on a really condescending tone and tell them that children are like short adults with no verbal filters and no table manners. They've probably seen one in magazines or at the store.
My favorite story of ours is this: one of our kids is an international adoption. We found him in Russia, but he looks Asian (as many folks in Russia do).
One lady, as I was telling me about going to Russia to get Griffin, corrected me: she shook her head and said, "You mean China."
That story actually has a happy ending: she survived. I did not tear out her windpipe.
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