Agency sent us our home study. Lots of typos in there. They listed my doctor’s first name as Russell and not Robert. WTH? Whatever. The Court okayed it. We’re good.
M’s post (PwPD, 8/17/09 ) gave me some thoughts to chew on. Her ILs bugged her about when she was going to get pregnant, but have become oddly silent after M and her husband announced their decision to adopt. I know the feeling, I really do.
After digesting the content of her post, my mind did that weird leap that sometimes startles even me, so here’s a thought that cruised through my mind as I thought about her post.
For a lot of people:
Pregnancy = comfortable, knowledgeable, visible, tangible, concrete
Adoption = uncomfortable, ignorant, invisible, intangible, abstract
Think about it.
- Comfort/Discomfort. When someone announces they’re pregnant, it engenders this… this… I don’t know. Pretty much everyone’s comfortable with it. With adoption, it’s the opposite: somehow it’s unnatural to many people’s minds, and nobody knows what to expect, what to do, or what to say. The interesting thing I’ve noticed is that my friends and acquaintances my age (I’m avoiding family as part of the topic at the moment) have no problem with adoption; perhaps it’s generational? Or do I just have an abnormal group to run with that they’ve been nothing but supportive and excited? Hmmm.
- Knowledgeable/Ignorant. The vast majority of people past the age of, say, four or five get pregnancy. Even a small child can tell you at a high level how it happened, how long it’s going to take and what happens in the meantime, when the kid will generally be here, how the kid gets here, and so on. Adoption? Adoption has this tendency to bring even brilliant people to their knees with what they don’t know about adoption. It’s like when you’ve told people you’re adopting, after their initial reaction, what’s their first question? The one I’ve been getting a lot is this concept that we can order a child, pick and choose, like shopping for an accessory. I’ve learned quickly not to get offended. You know what I’m talking about.
- Visible/Invisible. Physical pregnancy one can see over time; being ‘paper pregnant’ is like being in this vast void. It’s sort of like Voila! One day you have a kid out of the blue sky, no discomfort or labor required. And this is the part that piqued my mind with M’s post – they push for pregnancy because they can see it, but adoption is invisible (and intangible – next up) and I think that makes them, as well as many people, uncomfortable with the process and concept.
- Tangible/Intangible. Kind of like the previous. Pregnancy dances around the senses – see, hear, touch – where adoption, here again, is invisible and untouchable, and whose emotional satisfaction is rather inexplicable. One can touch pregnant belly; the cool and smooth white sheet with black letters of a court order certifying someone as an adoptive parent isn’t quite as satisfying to those outside the inner circle of the adoption world.
- Concrete/abstract. Let me put it this way:
Pregnancy : adoption :: HS biology: canonical philosophy
Adoption to some people is lofty, incomprehensible and sometimes worth confused silence and unintended contempt because it’s beyond comprehension, and therefore causes people to react in fear. And I think many people don't deal with the abstract very well. That fear of the unknowns of adoption leads back to ignorance and unwittingly causes people to say and do hurtful things. You know, like saying “But they can take the baby away!” Grrrrr!
But it’s also the fact that the child/ren will not look like anyone, especially if adopting from abroad or doing cross-racial domestic adoptions – that concrete proof that a child somehow belongs in the family – and I wonder if the skeered folk think that this is a bad thing, and therefore think that the adopted child will not belong. It’s a silly notion, but you have to figure it as a possibility.
As an aside, I think that it is an amazingly sad thing that we LITERALLY have all this information at our fingertips at our computers, and have celebrities and high profile people adopting kids right and left, but that there’s still so much ignorance and discomfort in the world about adoption. It just astounds me.
What does this all mean? Short of a well-financed national education campaign with a glossy PR crew, it means a few things.
First, as we in the adoption world already know, we have to educate the people around us. I’ve been tempted to snap at some otherwise super smart people to “do a frikkin’ Google search, fer criminy sake!” But no, that’s not the way we have to go about things, no matter how satisfying snapping at someone is. The most effective way is to genially and persistently revise others’ (usually false) impressions of domestic adoption. The ignorance I’ve encountered is astounding. We have to change that, one friend/family member/acquaintance at a time.
Second, we have to be patient. Patience is not my strong suit, but it means that once those in your circle—those reluctant family and friends who have no idea how to deal with adoption—see what blooms after the child comes home, they’ll see it’s not really so foreign after all.
Most of all, we need to stay positive.
The wait can be and is one of the hardest things about adoption, not just for those expecting but for those around them. When I explained to a dear friend last night that The Call may come tomorrow, next week, next month, six months from now, or next year, she had a hard time absorbing it. That said, I personally have only hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the weird and wacky reactions I’ve gotten when I’ve said that we’re adopting.
Emily at Emily the Hopeless has been bombarded by the anti-adoption crowd and had to dive to private blog land; this sort of behavior is completely mind-boggling. Ignorance? Okay, that’s usually not that person’s fault. But to essentially headhunt a blogger because you don't agree with them? Holy cow. That’s so difficult – adoption’s already not the easiest road, and then some of us get that? Unacceptable. But further commentary on that is fodder for another post; I already have a partial draft after running across some awful vitriol elsewhere. My point is that we shouldn’t let these people get any of us down.
Anyway…
The rude things that people unintentionally say are some of the hardest things to take in stride, intentional or not. No matter the basis, for your sake and for the child’s sake, be as positive as possible. Not only will it be easier on you, but the person fishing for a reaction will be taken aback when you don’t nibble on the bait.
There are many of us on this road who got here via heartbreaking circumstances. But despite it all, this is a road for those of us chosen, paved with grace, landscaped with hope, colored by the glorious future.
“And they can’t take that away from me…”
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