We met an adorable African-American 2-year-old named Lila last night at a restaurant -- she was quite talkative and shared her name and age happily. She was there with her white parents.
My kids noticed her immediately, and Zoe said, "I think she's adopted." I agreed that that was likely, but I asked why she thought so. Of course, it was the mismatch between parents and child. So I said, "I bet people look at us and think you're adopted for the same reason."
Zoe was insistent that that wasn't true -- people probably just think she has a Chinese dad or maybe a grandparent who is Asian! "Why, then," I ask, "are you so sure Lila is adopted? Maybe she has an African-American grandparent." That provoked eye-rolling and the mom-is-an-idiot voice: "I just KNOW!" Oooo-kay. Hard to argue with that one.
Maybe it wasn't her parents.
ReplyDeleteOr her bio dad may be African American, but this is the mom's 2nd husband?
ReplyDeleteMy friend's ex husband is from Peru and her kids look 100% like their dad. Whenever she is out, she's approached by APs and PAPs to talk about how she managed to adopt from Guatemala!!! She was good natured about it at first, but is now pretty snarky at the personal invasion and assumptions being made....
Here in the Bay area, with many diverse families, you can't assume anything. We know many families with mixed race couples with children who are bio siblings but don't appear same race. When you factor in second marriages etc you just can't assume. If your girls lived here, folks would probably assume they had Asian grandparents! If I am with my adopted Indian daughter only, people assume my husband is Indian and she is my bio daughter. If my Ethiopian kids are with us, they assume my Indian daughter is also African and that the kids are adopted...
ReplyDeletefrom theadoptedones...
ReplyDeleteAnd quite likely the child was adopted. The real challenge an adoptee faces each time she is outed in public when other people realize she can't be genetically related to her parents.
My question is why the defensive need to provide alternative scenarios? If Malinda found out her name and states she is with her white parents there was obviously a conversation. You know by the comment that "Lila was quite talkative"...
Why be afraid to acknowledge the reality for the adoptee?
And I see this in another, somewhat sad light; that Malinda's daughter would argue that their own family might "not" appear to be adoptive, when confronted with her own certainty that another child is?
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
Also @adoptedones: if this was in fact an adopted child and Malinda knew this for a fact, why then engage in speculation with her own daughter about the childs' adoptive status? And if she was using it as a framework for adoptive issues, etc. why too can't the general commenting body on this blog add to the conversation without being accused of being defensive??
Here in the Bay Area, as a SF resident, coming out of the closet, I know, I always cringe when I hear, "here in the Bay Area we are smug beyond belief" yeah, I know and contributing to global lameness ty South Park.
ReplyDeleteJoy, why do you always have to be so nasty? Oh because that is how God in all his wisdom created me.
Here in the Bay Area, those of us who are adopted can still smell adoption on other people. We have what other people call gaydar, but we don't have a term for it because we are so objectified that we have not had the opportunity to define our experiences.
If your girls lived here Melinda and I saw them, a real person, not someone living the stereoptype I would know they were adopted and it would effect me emotionally. Just for a moment but I would feel it because it never goes away.
Even though here in the Bay Area we pretend that we are different, we are just the same as people everywhere. We still hold on to stigmas and pain and put adopters first. And it still hurts adoptees.
I try not to assume anything because I am so often wrong about other families. We have many friends where one parent is Asian, and the kids don't look Asian at all or completely Asian and it would be easy to think these kids are adopted when they are not. We also have friends who are adopted and are the same race as their adopted families and no one questions their adoption. People think my husband is Asian all the time when in fact he is African American/Caucasian and when he is with my kids no one thinks they are adopted. Interestingly enough no one asks me if my Son is adopted, but when my daughter was little I couldn't leave the house without people asking about her. I think people don't think Asian boys are adopted so they never assume he is.
ReplyDeleteI would ask my kids the same questions Melinda asked, to get them to explain their reasoning as an critical thinking exercise not as an affront to adoption.
Joy, it seems like what I wrote offended you, and you found what I wrote to be smug. Reading it over, my meaning probably wasn't all that clear. This is a diverse area, with diverse families, so you can't always assume adoption, or family ties etc. People make various assumptions anyway. My point re: Malinda's family is that with both a large Asian population and many mixed families, I know a lot of kids with both Caucasian and Asian bio family members, and so Asian kids could indeed be out with their "non-matching" bio mom. Apologies if I rubbed you the wrong way.
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