THE SCENE:
A riverboat cruise on a weekday mid-afternoon. LM is snuggled in his carrier and we are standing in the shade, away from our family.
A woman, about 50-ish, who is a professor with a local university is on an outing with about 50 college students, most of them Asian, who are attending a 6-week ESL program at the school. The students have come from throughout the world for the program.
THE QUESTION:
The instructor bounces up to me, gets a close look at LM, and the first thing out of her mouth is, "Is your baby daddy Asian?"
THE VERDICT:
Definitely the wrong way to ask. A) None of your damned business. B) Baby daddy??? C) Perhaps a little more sensitivity training should be mandatory for someone who is facilitating an ESL program.
My reply, by the way, wasn't exactly something I'm proud of. I told her that I assumed he was Asian but that I never met him. The reply really bothered me because my baby's Daddy is a very awesome Caucasian guy. In order to be a smart ass, I didn't acknowledge The Man as LM's father. Very bad Mommy.
I've since thought of at least 10 different answers to hopefully make idiots like this realize they are completely inappropriate. Can't wait to try them out on the next moron.
{insert evil laugh here}
2)
THE SCENE:
The same riverboat as mentioned in the example above.
THE QUESTION:
One of the Japanese ESL students, after having talked with me for about 20 minutes, carefully stated "your baby looks part Asian."
THE VERDICT:
This made me laugh, because my baby does indeed look part Asian. I loved the fact that she wasn't making any assumptions, and perhaps because the inquiry came from an Asian, it didn't seem inappropriate. I informed her that he was fully Asian, and shared that LM was born in Korea.
3)
THE SCENE:
Lunch with the family at a nice restaurant. The waitress was attentive and swift. She fussed sweetly over LM as he ate happily in his high chair.
THE QUESTION:
As we were finishing our meal, the waitress asked casually "is he adopted?"
THE VERDICT:
This was an appropriate question. We often reply to these inquiries with our own question-- "why do you ask?" but I didn't do it this time. When I said, yes, he was adopted, she nodded and said "so am I."
This led into a lovely discussion where she shared many details about her adoption at the age of 3 from Bulgaria. It was a chance for me to talk to a young adult about her adoption experience. Her question was sensitive and she was willing to share her adoption story with us, so I think it was really appropriate.
___________________
When I was telling these stories to someone recently, he said, "get ready to hear that for the rest of your life" which sort of pissed me off. Yes, we know that as long as there are nosy and insensitive people, we'll be dealing with these type of inquiries. And yes, being a conspicuous family certainly attracts a bit of attention.
But it still doesn't take away the annoyance of having to deal with these questions.
Nope, it doesn't take away the annoyance, just knowing you'll be getting lame ass comments for the rest of your life. Baby X is not going to look like us either, since we're Caucasian and he isn't. Right now it isn't so bad, but I'm sure by the time he's a toddler it'll be really obvious. Personally, I think you dealt with moron #1 pretty well even though you're mad at yourself. It's hard to reign in the sarcasm when someone is thoughtless.
ReplyDeleteUgh, first question=so obnoxious! It's interesting, a couple of times we've had a friendly waitress ask if we adopted our son, and it's turned out that she too was asking because she was adopted and wanted to share her story. I love hearing other adoption stories! So yeah, that's totally a better scenario than the baby daddy one...yuck. Btw I've answered questions like that similarly--they're so off-putting and shocking, it's hard to say just the right thing!
ReplyDeleteYes - we have had our share. We have had many more comments since we have had 3 kids (the sibling question does not go away). The best advice I was given is to have a short answer (to the first person "no" is enough) and not feel like you have to really answer the question. Especially when they aren't nice questions. But love it when the simple answer leads to a great conversation!
ReplyDeleteWe have an adopted African American beautiful little girl. And yes are conspicuous family. This is my question. What IS an appropriate way to ask if a child is adopted. I have an adopted child, yet, I get nervous to ask such a question other conspicuous families.... Any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteHa! That reminds me of a person, who's first language was something other than English, asked me, "Is their father Asian?" I said "No." and smiled. She asked the question again, and I stated the same answer with a smile. Then, she stated, "Oh. Magic!". My thought: Why yes, it is a very magical experience. Smile and walk away.
ReplyDeleteSince we have 2 adopted Korean kids with very similar facial structures we get the additional even worse question of ,"Are they brother and sister?". What they mean, of course, is are they from the same birth parents and not are they siblings in our family. We answer this in different ways depending on our mood. Surely we all answer the inappropriately worded multitude of questions "wrong" lots of times.
ReplyDeleteOne time my son heard another girl asking her father why "that kid has funny looking eyes'. My son asked my husband permission to address the child himself. He then went over and matter of fact told her something like he was born in Korea so he was Asian and this is how then his eyes were supposed to look; they looked different but work just the same.My kid rocks. :)