How Do You Spell That?

On Christmas day, My Brother's Mother-in-law asked us in a serious tone if we were going to tell our son that he was adopted. We are white, he is Korean. I replied by saying that no, we were not going to tell him he was adopted. We will tell him he was abducted. She stared at me, mouth gaping wide open. That was when I informed her that he already knows he was adopted and that he enjoys watching the tape of him being handed to us by the social worker.

Rusty, that is absolutely brilliant. I think I'm going to have to steal that the next time someone asks that question. ;-)

"8. How can you love your adoptive kids as much as your biological ones? (I don't know, take a swing at one of the adoptive ones and lets see what happens)"

I love that. '..take a swing at one of the adopted ones and lets see what happens..'

HA!

Are the people saying these stupid things also parents or are they 'non-parents' ??

The reason I ask is because I have friends who do not have kids who often say things that I would never even think of saying now that I have a son. And these aren't even things about kids, just their thoughts in general seem to be vastly different.

Nope, the vast majority are parents/grandparents who tend to recoil when they find out our children are adopted (we don't advertise they are adopted, but when the question comes up we proudly proclaim it). The latest was from a very close family member who was wondering why we included our foster son in our family photos we had taken. Like I'm supposed to say to him "OK foster son, stand over there against the wall while we have our pictures taken". Idiot.

A good chunk of the populace think that older kids adopted here in the US "did something wrong to get kicked out of their homes" and therefore are "bad kids", not worthy of their kids time. We've been asked so many dumb questions by parents over the years, including people we've known for years who become "concerned" when they see a behavior and thinks we're raising the next Jeffrey Dahmer.

I still like Rusty's comment about "telling them they were abducted". The whole family loved that at dinner last night... :-)

As an adopted child I can't tell you how many times I heard such things. Even from my own extended family. Now no one in the family is really close to my brother and I because as we were once told in our teens; "we were the bastard children lucky to be adopted by my parents". I am very close to my mom and dad but no one else. But I sleep good at night. Do the others?

Mine do as well...I laid down the law with everyone in our family right off the bat. These are your grandchildren/nieces/nephews. Treat them as such. If there is indifference to my kids, you will not see them or us. Guaranteed. We will move far away and you will get Christmas cards. My kids are more important than you. If you love us, you will lvoe them.

This doesn't work so well as there are people in my family who do show more love to their "biological" grandkids as compared to mine. It drives the kids up the wall, but I know that my wife and I have somewhat prepared them for it. What it does do is prepares us for moving away from this area if necessary. There won't be any tearful goodbyes to those people since my kids know they are second class citizens to them.

Redhot, I'm glad you and your brother got a good set of parents. And my kids sleep well every single night knowing they are safe and loved.

Moving is exactly what we did. We now live in Texas, MOM, DAD, Brother and I and our extended families and friends and we are all much happier, for the parting has left no sorrow! You are a great parent and your kids are lucky!