"There is nothing to see here! Move along folks!"

Walks: The boys and me out for a walk earlier this fall

Forwarning: This is a long post! I’ve been thinking about this for almost two years now so there’s a lot to say…

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine who is an adoptive mom told me about a person she had met in the mall one day. My friend is white and was shopping with her toddler son, who was adopted from South Korea. This other woman was white and was with her white daughter, who as it turned out, she had adopted domestically. The woman had made a bee-line to my friend and asked her, “Is he A.D.O.P.T.E.D.?” [spelling out the letters of the word so that the kids wouldn’t be able to make out what she was saying]. My friend said proudly, “Yes!” And then the woman asked, in a whisper, “Are you going to tell him he’s adopted?” My friend was telling me about how crazy this felt to her — to be asked this — because in her mind it is just not even a question: of course she’s going to “tell” him he’s adopted… it is plain to see that they are an inter-racial family… how could a family hide adoption in such a scenario?! So, we were talking about how we cannot even imagine hiding adoption from our kids. And how we cannot even imagine not talking about adoption openly together as a family. And the more I think about it, the more I simply cannot imagine it any other way in our family. Especially because at this point adoption is such a huge part of our family identity.

I’ve never had the “Is he A.D.O.P.T.E.D.?”-question or the “Do you think you’re going to tell them that they’re adopted?”-question that some other adoptive families seem to get. I think because we are a black/white family (so to speak), it is sooooo blatently and visibly obvious that K & O were adopted, and that K & O will know they were adopted. There have been only a couple of exceptions. Twice, when I’ve been out and about alone with the boys (i.e., without Braydon), I have gotten: “Wow, their father must be very, very dark.” ?! … Like I could possibly biologically produce them being as white as I am with any man no matter how dark he could possibly be?!?! Anyway, it seems that most everyone else I’ve ever encountered just knows that my babies were adopted. So, we don’t get the “Are they adopted?”-questions, but we do get tons and tons of other questions. And comments. And stares. We can’t get through any public place without people, usually many people, approaching us. For some reason, stores (all kinds of stores) are where it seems to happen the most.

Parents of twins – even biological twins – have a hard time getting through stores because of all the people admiring the twins (parents of twins talk about this all the time), so I guess this is pretty “normal” for twin families… And (I know I’m bias about this but…) I think my twins are so super cutesy that it makes the admiring crowd that much larger! However, honestly, I really believe that the blatant staring and all the comments and the constant questioning is escalated about a zillion times because of our unique family’s double whammy: the twin thing & the black/white adoptive family thing *combined*.

I feel like we’re on display everywhere we go. Isn’t that a horrible thing to say? But it is true. We knew when we decided to go through with our adoption plan that we’d be an unusual family. But honestly, I had an unrealistic idea of just how unusual we’d be. And I had absolutely no idea of how many people would bombard us with stares and comments and questions everywhere we go. In truth, it is sometimes exhausting just to be in public. Sometimes we want to just retreat to home– to our private little oasis where there is no one to catch staring or have to answer to or educate. But life cannot be spent entirely at home. Especially since all four members of our family are extremely extraverted, social people who enjoy human interaction. So, we’re out and about a lot. And people bombard us wherever we are.

Lots of people just stare. Or pretend to not be staring but they so obviously are. We hear lots of anxious whispers from parents telling their curious kids to “stop staring!” or reprimanding them that it is “rude to stare!” We basically just try to take all this in stride and generally ignore it. However, when people come up to us and overtly comment, or ask questions, it is nearly impossible to ignore.

People often feel compelled to comment. People regularly say things to us like, “I think it is great what you’ve done!” Other adoptive parents tell me that this comment really bothers them when they receive it. I understand that. But honestly, it does not bother me at all, in fact, I kind of like it when people say that stuff to us… I think because it feels a lot better to hear something affirming than all the rest of the time when I am totally unsure of what people are thinking (or kind of afraid of what they might be thinking) as they silently stare at us.

People ask a ton of questions too. All the time. Things like, “So, you couldn’t have kids of your own?” and “Do you think you’ll ever have your own kids?” It bothers me for all the obvious reasons (I have kids of my own; Kyle and Owen are my own kids). But when they ask these things I don’t ever correct them. I think when K & O are older and taking more of this in maybe I’ll be more proactive about it, but right now it just doesn’t feel worth it to me. I also get tons of questions like: “Where are they from?” Sometimes when I say, “Haiti” they say, “Where’s Haiti?” or “Oh, Haiti, like in Africa?!” and I’m like, “Um, well, Haiti is actually not in Africa… but….” I also get lots of: “What happened to their mother?” This bothers me because I wish they would say “birthmother,” but again, I don’t correct them… at least not at this point in our life. The worst is when they say, “Do you know their mother?” or “Do they know their mother?” etc. etc. etc. Again, I don’t correct them and I try to not let my feathers get ruffled by it, but I do feel the sting and sometimes fantasize about the things I’d like to say to those “mother” questions (I think any mother would get a little unnerved by people implying — even unintentionally — that she is not her child’s mother). I also get a lot of: “Do you think you’ll ever bring them back to Haiti?” Of course our answer is “Yes.” but I’m not sure exactly what this question is getting at, and I often ponder it because it is really interesting to think about what they are trying to ask with that one. … And… then there’s the big one… when they ask: “How did you adopt them???” I get that a lot– like they want to know the whole entire story from beginning to end—– A lot of times I’ll stand there to chat as long as I possibly can until my two year old twins go nutso in the shopping cart, or one or the other (or both) have a total complete meltdown. But sometimes I get really frazzled, because there are days that I just want to buy my stuff and get through the darn store like a normal person.

When I’m really not in the mood to chit-chat about it all, then I try to do something that I have been trying to learn from Braydon — who is exceptionally good at this — that is, to appear (in his words:) “unapproachable.” This basically involves just launching myself/us through wherever we are and avoiding all eye contact and plunging forward with an unmistakably unapproachable look that screams: “Keep moving people! There is nothing to see here! Move along folks!” Since I’m such an open person this is a major challenge for me, but I’m getting better at it (and I pick up tips everytime we’re out as a family and I can watch Braydon in action!) You should see him do it — he can really be good at it when he wants to be!

Regardless of my mood on any particular day, one thing I do try to do whenever we’re talking with folks is to say, “they were adopted…” instead of “they are adopted…” because as K & O start understanding things more I want them to know that was past tense — that they WERE adopted — that adoption was a process we went through to become a family, that indeed it made us a very interesting and unique family that draws a lot of attention, but that now that’s all done and they’re just ours and we’re just theirs. At the end of the day, through stares and comments and questions, for better or for worse, we are a family now, and I want K & O to feel secure in that. “Keep moving people! Johnson-McCormick family coming through!!”