“Don’t you just love it when people adopt out of their own culture?” These were the words hurled my way at a busy restaurant while I attempted to cast 75 stitches onto my double-pointed needles.
Don't mess with my family!
Let me set the stage. I was sitting with two friends enjoying an adult evening of crafting and tea when my Japanese friend stated telling us in halting English that mutual acquaintances had adopted a baby from Africa. A woman as the neighbouring table heard this and issued the above sarcastic statement, which went over the head of my friend, who as it turned out was interested in adopting from Africa but that’s a different story.
Of course, this woman didn’t know that I am an adoptive parent of a child who, while born locally, was adopted out of his Jamaican-Canadian culture. I took the bait and blood boiling, said, “I am one of those people actually.” She said she was entitled to her opinion and then followed up with a bizarre statement about how in her culture (she is a Turkish-Canadian who has lived here most of her life), they are very nosy and opinionated, and she wasn’t going to change her viewpoint.
The exchange brought up all kinds of random thoughts about adoption and culture:
1) Adopting out of your own culture will always elicit strong opinions from people. Some will give you a crown for opening your hearts to a “child in need”; others will vilify you for being rich, desperate and selfish.
2) Adoptive families will always be called upon to explain or defend their actions.
3) Culture is important but it shifts and morphs over time. Ask any children born to immigrants. Their experience is radically different from their parents. Even children born and living in the same country and culture as their parents are living in a new culture.
4) The culture of orphanages and extreme, life-threatening poverty is not a culture. It is culture-less.
5) Canada is entering an era of cultural fusion where many children will be mixed-race or comfortable living in a polyglot community. If they aren’t, their friends and schoolmates will come from a variety of different cultures and yet they will grow up together and forge a new Canadian and global identity that incorporates all those diverse cultural threads.
6) Like all the people who don’t have children and offer you advice on how to get your toddler to eat green leafy vegetables and whole grains, people who have not adopted have no idea what cultural connections you’ve made or what your circumstances are.
7) Theo’s birthparents chose to place their baby with us despite the fact that we did not share their cultural heritage. They have the right to choose the parents they want for their child.
8) People on the outside have no idea what level of preparation, training and dedication, respect and love parents who adopt have for their children and their birthplace and culture.
9) Being a parent brings up that ferocious, animalistic, car-lifting, defend to the death love that made me want to take her outside and give her beating for questioning my family. I’m pleased to report, no one got hurt.
Have you ever had to defend your right to be a family?
I haven’t adopted so I haven’t had to defend my right to be a family, but reading that asinine statement that the woman said, really pisses me off. Like I am PISSED OFF! I knew there were stupid people out there, but I had no idea that there were so many. You seem to be meeting them all. That sucks.
Thanks for the back up woman! I actually meet tons of awesome people all the time. I should blog about them sometime
I love this post! I’m sorry that there is such ignorance and lack of understanding but this just proves to me over and over again that while we can’t choose our trials, I do believe God or a higher power throws the “perfect” challenges to the “perfect” people to handle them. I wholeheartedly agree that Theo’s birthparents had a right to choose whom they wanted to be his parents and their wishes should be admired and respected. In addition people should never assume anything if they have no knowledge or experience, firsthand, with a situation. Biologically yes you are from different cultures but the lovely picture you posted shows the most important thing: a loving, strong and amazing family. That is the most important thing in any child’s life in my opinion!!
” in her culture (she is a Turkish-Canadian who has lived here most of her life), they are very nosy and opinionated, and she wasn’t going to change her viewpoint”
REPLY: Then I suggest you adopt outside of your culture.
One of the life skills I try to teach my Grade 8 students is not to say everything they think out loud. I think there are adults who need to hear this lesson, too. Of course, it’d be nice if people didn’t think these things in the first place, but my mind control lesson hasn’t worked yet.
Oi vey.
I’m just starting to share that we’re adopting. People who know us well are supportive and don’t question our motives. Acquaintances often have an obvious reaction when we say “…from Africa” (though I’m not always clear on what their reaction means). I’m sure I have a lifetime of learning ahead of me, but I’m not afraid of it! Kudos to you for not shying away from Clueless Woman.
Harriet,
Other than judgement and ignorance on the part of someone who has lived in Canada for “most of her life” but still doesn’t “get it” is that she felt a misguided sense of entitlement to insert her judgment so everyone could hear it into a conversation she had no business being a part of and then she laughably used her own “cultural stereotype” as if it could excuse her rudeness. Lame. Totally lame. Not to mention worthy of being told to STFU.
Good for you for speaking up.
Holy crap; that’s not your Turkish-Canadian talking, that’s your ignorant mouth.
I have to think that despite her bluster, that woman went home thinking about what you said and how sometimes it’s better to listen more & talk less.
I am glad you spoke up. Good for you.
It is super crappy that someone has the balls to speak up so loudly on an opinion that she obviously knows nothing about.
Wow, that was rude. Especially when she didn’t even apologize. And how sad for her that she goes through life having already decided she isn’t going to change her mind or educate herself about anything. She’s already made up her mind about everything in the world and learning new things or gaining new perspective isn’t important. Sad.
I have found that my momma bear instincts are stronger and more fierce than I ever thought they would be. Sometimes about really dumb things. We’ve never encountered anything like that before. And we’re still in the honeymoon phase where everyone that approaches us in public only wants to tell us how cute our baby is. It will be interesting what the future brings.
p.s. In the time it took me to write this comment, Jayden unplugged my lap top 3 times and typed his own letters and added caps to my typing several times.
I’m about to say a very politically incorrect thing, but I think holding onto the “culture” that we seem to like to do is just plain stupid. We make far too big a deal of our past and heritage.
Yes, celebrate what’s good about our history or ancestors but we need to let it go.
One of the things I love about Canada is that it’s a pretty good place to just be who you are. Theo is a Canadian. He was born in Canada. End of story.
I’m not “Scottish” because my name is McLachlan. Why do people want me to wear a kilt? Where the hell does that come from?
Your commentor in the restaurant perhaps has more of a “culture” from the country of Idiocristan.
yo mama bear! i wish i had been a fly on the wall.
mixing it all up is one of the many things i love about vancouver – we can all learn from each other and each other’s culture. i think you hit it right in talking about fusion, and in parenting the fusion is absolute.
i do hope that idiot woman in the restaurant has now learned to keep her lip buttoned (and well done for not buttoning it yourself)
In the US African Americans make up 12% of the population and 31% of children in foster care. We wanted a child. She needed a home. That’s it. Culture is important but having a loving family is more important.
Culture is important but in the hierachy of importance for children, a safe, nurturing, permanent, loving family is numero uno.
Sounds like she was using her ethnicity as an excuse to be out and out rude! I am so glad that I have not run into many people like this. I dont have it in me to be polite to them all the time. I know it is up to us as adoptive parents (especially transracially adoptive parents) to educate the public, but sometimes I just dont want to and I want them to keep their opinions to themselves. Thank you thank you for being the voice of all of us when we just cant do it ourselves. I think the last person I dealth with was the starbucks barister and that in itself is a story… Hopefully one more person is a little more enlightened because of you! Thanks H! You Rock!
Don’t you just love it when Turkish Canadians open their big, fat, opinionated yaps in public? Most real Canadians keeps their big fat opinions to themselves. See how that works, lady? Yes, she does have a right to her opinion and you have a right to say something back to her. But if she isn’t willing to have an educated dialogue about it, she should shut the hell up.
Just saying.
I have never met a Turkish-Canadian, but something tells me there is no such thing as an entire culture made up of nothing but “Rude”. >_>
On an ignorant scale of 1-10 that comment was a 1000. Whoa! Back the bus up lady! I can never understand why people think it’s okay to make ridiculous statements like that.
Wow, I can’t believe she said that. Just … wow.
I haven’t had anyone question my family, perhaps obviously, since I gave birth to my children. Also, my husband and I are possibly the two whitest people alive, and our children are no different, so we’re not exactly challenging to most people’s worldviews. We’re very vanilla, who would question that?
I’m so sorry that you have to deal with this ignorance.
Fiven my husband is a farm boy from Nebraska and I’m a city girl from Liverpool, UK perhaps we shouldn’t even get it on, cos those are obviously two very different cultures. Our poor daughter so obviously confused about culture. I presume coffee lady store would suggest that we shouldn’t engage in cross cultural procreation?
[...] control your environment: The public has an opinion, and they aren’t afraid to share it. My recent encounter with a woman who had issues with cross-cultural adoption left me a little shaken. I dislike having to defend my [...]
Good for you for replying. I never know what to say when confronted with ignorant questions from strangers. I either give out too much or shut up. And I’m always shocked by what people think is acceptable. I’m curious, do you get rude comments from strangers more or less when with your husband? I am almost always alone with my son. My husband is Filipino so I think people may assume our Korean boy is half rather than assuming he’s adopted.
Whoa, wow. The nerve and single-mindedness of some people never ceases to amaze me.
My step-brother was born to my step-mother and her husband from a previous marriage. He was a black man from Bermuda. She remembers vividly how hard it was for her parents to handle, mostly because they worried how it would be received.
Thankfully it has neve been an issue, but my point is that people can be truly ignorant of what really matters, and the only thing that matters: that children have the opportunity to grow up in loving, happy homes. Period.
Great post! I think your family is gorgeous. My dad is white, adopted into a black family. My husband is Korean, adopted into a white family! I certainly think it breaks down stereotypes and makes clear the difference between culture and race, which I think is where most prejudice lies.
UGH at people who pull the “we are rude in my culture and I won’t change” card! My mother’s best friend was from another country and as I was growing up she would always say obnoxious things to me, oftentimes about my weight and other aspects of my looks, and it would all be chalked up as a “cultural difference”.