You talked to the mirror last night. What you said was, "Are you copying me? Don't you copy me!"

I originally intended this blog to not only give me an outlet for updating your doings, but also to talk about adoption issues. Which I haven't done very much, thank you.

Today I will.

It's a small issue, really. But it kind of stuck with me.

When you adopt, you go through a lot of education. A good thing, for sure. They want to know that we're going to be your advocate in the big wide world out there. Even though trans-racial adoption has been going on since the 1950s, there are still a lot of people who don't understand this way of making families. It hasn't quite hit the mainstream, I guess. Although the GR community is very welcoming and we've had no problems here. In fact, in your nearly four years in our family, we've only received one comment and it was from a very naive 7-year-old girl.

Part of this education process informs us that we are educators too. That we, as parents, should make it our mission to correct any misconceptions out there and to help people to use the right terminology.

That isn't easy. I'm totally non-confrontational. I truly avoid confrontation in every manner I can.

So sometimes I hear things, or read things, and I just don't really know how to respond.

Like the comment I heard from a co-worker the other day. What was I supposed to do?

Someone walked past his office, where he had a photo of a young Asian girl on one of his file cabinets. They asked about who she was, since he has two older kids and this obviously wasn't one of them. His response was to say, "That's my brother's adopted daughter."

What he really should have said was, "That's my brother's daughter."

You are my son. Not my adopted son. Yes, you're adopted. But I even told you today, based on the stuff we had in common, "Devin, you couldn't be more like me if you'd been in my tummy!" Seriously. I couldn't love you more if you shared my genes. You are perfectly and everlastingly my child no matter what.

My co-worker didn't do anything wrong, really. He actually made the statement with a bit of a pause. He may have thought he should explain why his brother might have an Asian daughter. It may not be something he has to talk about much. But it just struck a small nerve with me. I would never introduce you that way.

You will always be "my son."

Always.

Posted on June 3, 2008 10:03 PM