"Have you met his real parents?"
"Maybe one day you can still have kids of your own."
Yesterday David and I went to an all day seminar called "Inside Outside" sponsored by an organization called PACT. The focus of this workshop was to explore the ways people talk about adoption; both inside and outside the family. Those seemingly innocent comments above contain a deeper subtext about the way society feels about adoption. Clue: our culture thinks since it's not most people's first choice, it's a worse choice. That is so ridiculous it's redonkulous!
I had been aware of this but really had no idea how deep it ran until we started the adoption process. Almost everyone we've told has been supportive and wonderful (so it's not you guys... Love You!) but there have been a few stray comments here and there that have caught us off guard. Since we're deep in this process, we are educationally much further along than the general population on adoption so I'm chalking up negative comments to ignorance rather than mal-intent.
The seminar was great in teaching us how to talk to people about why we're doing this. Also, it reminded us that we don't have to give out every little piece of information. This is after all, going to be our family story and certain things should remain private. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't be blogging about this... ANYHOO, if anyone is thinking of asking us a question like those I mentioned at the beginning, we have learned to humbly answer:-Your choice of words makes us feel sad inside.
-We ARE the real parents... And you AREn't supposed to say that.
-That thing IS our own kid.
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