To Tell or Not To Tell
I was standing in the pharmacy line today at Super Walmart and knew the question was coming. As always, it starts out simple enough.
They glance at my four year old son, Joey, and say, "He's adorable, how old?"
"Four," I say, feeling her stare from him to me. She's wondering, Is her husband black? Did she adopt?
"Is he your only one?" she asks.
"Yes," I say, keeping it short. Please leave me alone and let me wait in line to get my Advil Cold and Sinus so I can feel better.
"Is he adopted?" she pushes.
"Yes," I say. "Last August."
Now is the hard part. Foster care will teach you not to say you have foster kids (especially in front of the kids). I totally understand this and would never want to make a child feel like he wasn't part of our family. However, we take only babies and I'm proud of the fact that we're foster parents.
More often than not people will confess they've always wanted to be a foster parent but didn't know how to go about it.
Or they'll just comment that they could never give a child back, like I'm cold-hearted and actually enjoy doing it.
If I don't explain that we're foster/adoptive parents I feel like I'm not promoting it (there are tons of kids who need homes). And if I do explain, I usually get nervous and feel like over-explaining and giving out too much information. People always want to know my son's background and that's not something I want to share with strangers.
This is something I struggle with all the time. And now that my son is getting older, I don't ever want to embarrass him out in public or make him think I'm not extremely proud of him being our son.
They glance at my four year old son, Joey, and say, "He's adorable, how old?"
"Four," I say, feeling her stare from him to me. She's wondering, Is her husband black? Did she adopt?
"Is he your only one?" she asks.
"Yes," I say, keeping it short. Please leave me alone and let me wait in line to get my Advil Cold and Sinus so I can feel better.
"Is he adopted?" she pushes.
"Yes," I say. "Last August."
Now is the hard part. Foster care will teach you not to say you have foster kids (especially in front of the kids). I totally understand this and would never want to make a child feel like he wasn't part of our family. However, we take only babies and I'm proud of the fact that we're foster parents.
More often than not people will confess they've always wanted to be a foster parent but didn't know how to go about it.
Or they'll just comment that they could never give a child back, like I'm cold-hearted and actually enjoy doing it.
If I don't explain that we're foster/adoptive parents I feel like I'm not promoting it (there are tons of kids who need homes). And if I do explain, I usually get nervous and feel like over-explaining and giving out too much information. People always want to know my son's background and that's not something I want to share with strangers.
This is something I struggle with all the time. And now that my son is getting older, I don't ever want to embarrass him out in public or make him think I'm not extremely proud of him being our son.
Comments
When they adopted her, our cousin--who had also adopted a little black girl--told her a story about the way people treated her. She said they were either proud or thought her indecent for thinking she could properly raise a child of a different ethnicity. Her answer was always, "The way I see it, we're all the same or we're not. I choose to believe we're all the same."
For our family, we're the lucky ones. We get to share our lives with this beautiful soul. I don't know that I could love her more even if she were mine.
Looks like theres something to learn from here
But that's just me. You all look very happy, so you're doing something right :)