Feedback: Adoption
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - 05:01 PM
Subject: doesn't just happen to adoptive families
a note on the very personal and sometimes rude questions that strangers will ask about other people's children:
my family background is quite diverse. black american, native american, portuguese, italian, and french on my mother's side; black american, jamaican, and senegalese on my father's side. NO ONE in my family is the same skin tone, or even has the same facial features. My point is: you just have to deal with other people's ignorance in as succinct a manner as possible. be as polite as you can while you let them know that they are being rude, or that there is a better way to ask whatever question they are posing. and your kids will learn to handle themselves assuredly because they KNOW who they are and who their family is.
-SW
Subject: Adoptive parents
People shouldn't assume that a child is adopted simply because they
don't look like a parent. I have 2 biological children, one looks
like me, the other like my husband. My husband is Filipino, I am of
eastern european descent. It is constantly assumed that my daughter
is adopted because she is dark, and I am fair. She (at 8) has been
asked if I'm her real mom. I've been asked what country my daughter
is from, straight out if she's adopted, and more. I want to tell
people how many hours I was in labor with her!
-NP
Subject: How disappointing.
I live in Ithaca, NY where there are lots of adoptive children,
but only a few adoptive African-American children. I wondered why there
are so many children adopted from other countries when there are so many
African-American children in need of being adopted. My personal thoughts
were that there might be a base in our country's "racist" past, but your
guest suggested some other reasons. Unfortunately, time ran out and we
did not get to hear the complete answer. Would you consider asking your
guest the remainder of her answer?
-ML
Subject: eskimo adopted by jew/ identity crisis
My best friend (I'm from Alaska) is an Eskimo, adopted by his Jewish father and Eskimo mother. He was raised with some Jewish traditions, but wasn't encouraged to go through a bar mitzvah. Nowadays, he is a borderline functional alcoholic, and I believe suffers from clinical depression. I don't know whether his problems have their root in an identity crisis, but I'm afraid that this may be true.
-IK
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