Sunday, April 3, 2011

Dumb adoption question

I almost forgot to post this. Last week sometime, somebody asked me, "Are you going to tell your son he's adopted?"

I only thought of it just now because of this amusing post about dumb questions people ask adoptive parents.

I replied, "Uh... um... he's Chinese."

The person failed to take a hint, and seemed dead set on having me take her question seriously.

"Well, we know a bunch of other adoptive families. We're in the adoption community," I explained.

"Ah," she said, finally satisfied.

Here are some of my other witty comebacks:

"He doesn't look Chinese!"
"Yes, he does."

"I thought you could only adopt girls from China. How did you get a boy?"
"Things change. They're changing faster than you know. Your information is old."

"Was it hard, adopting from China? Did you have to wait long?"
"Every adoption is hard."

"He's from China? Ugh, I have real problems with China. They should free Tibet."
"I agree. And we should free Hawaii."

"Where's he from?"
"Marstons Mills. Where are you from?"

Yesterday in the supermarket, I saw a white woman in her 50's pushing a grocery cart with an adorable brown baby in it. I smiled at her. She scowled and looked away. I smiled at her again. She finally managed to smile back. She probably didn't see my own nonwhite baby until after the whole exchange was over, because he was a few steps behind me, clutching his kitty in one hand and using the other hand to touch each grocery item exactly once as he walked down the aisle.

And now I must go. Family calls.

1 comment:

  1. I see that you follow a bunch of blogs and I'm honestly really honored that you gave mine a shot. I'm so happy that you enjoyed it and I hope you come back. YOu made my whole day and I wanted you to know.
    Robyn
    (from www.dimsumanddoughnuts.blogspot.com)

    ReplyDelete