Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Reasons I'm Fabulous

There are so many reasons to admire me: I'm smart, I'm funny and I've been told that my knees are quite fetching. I'm also a good mother, a faithful wife and a loving and loyal friend and sister. However, please please please don't tell me you admire me because I've adopted children! Especially if it's followed by "....of course, I could never do that - you don't know what you're getting!"  You make it sound as if I did it out of a sense of noblesse oblige vs. simply wanting to raise my own children to grow up exactly as I want them to be. And being the sensitive type, I also hear "I have a better toy than you do" underneath their words, even if the person has four grown children who never visit.

No, I didn't know what I was in store for.



A disclosure: Yes, I would have liked to have gone through the childbirth experience, complete with blowing up real good and slapping the hands of strangers who felt the need to touch my belly.  And breaking down when well-meaning strangers felt compelled to say things like "my aunt was about as pregnant as you are when she miscarried. Don't eat any turkey - it spoils way too quickly." Although as one of my friends pointed out years ago, I get gassed up to get my teeth cleaned, so actual childbirth might have been traumatic for me. No, neither John nor I felt a loss that we have not passed along our genes. As we say in our house, we come from a long line of alcoholics and horse thieves, not to mention having bad eyes and generous rations of madness passed down from relatives who like to keep things real.

In no particular order, here are comments I've heard over the years:

"You're a saint!!!!" or a variation of something like "with all the kids in the U.S. who need homes, how could you adopt internationally?"

"What will you do if it doesn't work out?"

"I bet you love them just as if they were yours."

"Do you have any children of your own?"

"Why didn't you adopt special needs children? They are the ones who really need homes."

"How much did she cost?"

"Where did you get her?"

"Does she speak Chinese?"

"Will she speak Chinese?"

When standing in line at the grocery store, I am often tempted to get back at all the strangers who have accosted me over the years. I  imagine myself pouncing on an unsuspecting woman, standing in line with her child to buy some bread and a roasted chicken because she is too tired to cook after a long day at work.  "So, how long did it take for your afterbirth to come out when you had your little boy? Did you eat it? Because I read that Tom Cruise said he was going to eat Suri's placenta and the cord! How gross is that? What are you making for dinner?"

Or "I bet you had to do in-vitro to get your twins. How much did that cost you? And then I bet you had a C-section. Poor thing: your bikini days are over! I've heard that Vitamin E works well on that gigantic scar you must have."

But I refrain, because I was raised better than that. Just like I don't ask questions like "so why did you park in a handicapped spot and then run in here wearing those fuck-me stilletos? Have you no shame?"

One more thing, while I am on my soap box:  Please don't call my girls my forever kids - the phrase makes me want to puke. They're just my kids.


2 comments:

  1. Amen, Sister. I've heard many of those same things and I'd like to punch their teeth out every time. I've told my friends and family that after I die, if someone writes my obit and says, "She is survived by three adopted children" instead of just naming my children, I will make it my mission to come back from the great beyond and haunt that person until they are committed to an institution. People need to get with the program. Family isn't about DNA, it's about relationships.

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  2. ok so you have triggered my 'response' reflex.... actually not an easy thing to do these days since I have now become a Facebook lurker.

    I admired you and John long before you traveled to the other side of the world to save two beautiful girls and call them yours! So sorry, but I have to say that I do admire you for this also! (Sue Me):)
    Now for all the stupids out there.. you know you cannot fix stupid so don't let them get to you!!

    Just tell them that you really adopted the girls for a lebian friend and then walk away. That should either shut them up or throw them in to a homo-glycemic coma and you won't have worry about them anymore.

    Since the stupids will not even allow me to have the option to adopt a child, even though I consider myself and my partner 95% more normal then they are! (OK so maybe my partner fits in the normal catagory better than me).

    Anyway, I do admire you and I think you have two beautiful daughters.

    p.s. I think your knees are fabulous, but please don't tell Renee. :)

    Kiss Kiss
    The Dog Tick.

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