My wife and I adopted a beautiful little girl from China a couple years ago who just turned three on Monday. It's hard to believe that she's grown so much, and two years have passed already!
Anyway, since we're white, it's obvious that she's adopted. We're constantly amazed at the audacity of people asking questions about the adoption. My wife tends to be diplomatic, but I'm fairly hostile about it because it's just not appropriate. Why ask someone, "Can you not have kids of your own?" Keep in mind that fertility issues are extremely emotional, for obvious reasons, and I've also italicized part of the question to emphasize that the implication is that an adopted child is not your own child.
So, are people just ignorant and displaying it for the world when they ask these questions? I can hardly come up with something more personal than reproductive questions except maybe walking up to someone near the condoms and asking them about their favorite sexual act.
I guess the purpose of the thread is to get some awareness to people that questions like this are not welcome when they are not diplomatic. We are more than happy to answer questions regarding the adoption, but not along the lines of "How much did she cost?" (real question). Since my daughter is now comprehending nearly everything spoken around her and asking questions about it, I will now be even less diplomatic if I hear anything like that. Use your head, be polite, and be mindful that the little person is very much a part of the family in question, is just a child, and understands English quite well. In fact, our daughter speaks at a higher level than most kids her age who have heard English their entire lives.
Our favorite one so far? A cashier at Target said to us, "Wow, she has quite a tan!" Uh, she's from Hunan Province and is quite obviously not Caucasian. We wondered what the cashier was going to say to the extremely dark black man that was entering as we left!
Anyway, since we're white, it's obvious that she's adopted. We're constantly amazed at the audacity of people asking questions about the adoption. My wife tends to be diplomatic, but I'm fairly hostile about it because it's just not appropriate. Why ask someone, "Can you not have kids of your own?" Keep in mind that fertility issues are extremely emotional, for obvious reasons, and I've also italicized part of the question to emphasize that the implication is that an adopted child is not your own child.
So, are people just ignorant and displaying it for the world when they ask these questions? I can hardly come up with something more personal than reproductive questions except maybe walking up to someone near the condoms and asking them about their favorite sexual act.
I guess the purpose of the thread is to get some awareness to people that questions like this are not welcome when they are not diplomatic. We are more than happy to answer questions regarding the adoption, but not along the lines of "How much did she cost?" (real question). Since my daughter is now comprehending nearly everything spoken around her and asking questions about it, I will now be even less diplomatic if I hear anything like that. Use your head, be polite, and be mindful that the little person is very much a part of the family in question, is just a child, and understands English quite well. In fact, our daughter speaks at a higher level than most kids her age who have heard English their entire lives.
Our favorite one so far? A cashier at Target said to us, "Wow, she has quite a tan!" Uh, she's from Hunan Province and is quite obviously not Caucasian. We wondered what the cashier was going to say to the extremely dark black man that was entering as we left!
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