When strangers have a reaction to my family, it’s usually quite predictable [And quite tiresome]. It’s usually an older woman, grandmotherly. It starts by her getting lured in by Gideon’s stellar smile, adorable eyes and babbling nonsense. She notices Stella…she says something like, “Wow, you must be busy.” Then she wants to know their ages.
I imagine that my gaze gets a little harder as I answer her and hope she avoids commenting further.
She usually doesn’t. “How is that even possible?!”
And then I usually point to Gideon and say, “He’s adopted.”
It’s not that I don’t want people to know he’s adopted. I love that he’s adopted, I love adoption, and I love making people more aware of adoption. The problem is this: one day, he’s going to be old enough to understand. And of course by then he’ll know he’s adopted, because we try to tell him all the time about the miracle that he is and the blessing his birthfamily has been to us. But this conversation with complete strangers…ugh. When I have to explain it over and over, it’s like I’m explaining away some sort of societal abnormality. I don’t want him to think that he is abnormal because he’s adopted.
So, I’m trying to come up with a way to handle questions from strangers. There’s lots of advice for adoptive families out there. I just want one foolproof answer that my son will hear come out of my mouth and his mind will translate it into, “I am loved, I am safe, and I am blessed!”
Does that exist?
"How is that even possible?"
ReplyDeletejust answer... "with God All things are possible!"