The things that people say…

There are two things about me that have been consistent throughout my life. I don’t believe these two things will ever change.

   I’m VERY difficult to offend and I’m RARELY rendered speechless.

Well, today, I was speechless.

Because I’m difficult to offend and because I’m rarely speechless, I’ve handled the occasional comments and questions regarding our family with relative ease. I do absolutely want to note that this is due in large part to the fact that Mattix does not yet have the ability to comprehend what others are saying when they ask or comment about him. I’m not sure how I’ll handle things in the future because each of these incidents I’m about to recount would have upset me greatly if my child were old enough to understand the conversations but not yet old enough to have developed a level of comfort with himself and a recognition that the world is full of douche bags who do knot know (or care) that just because you think something doesn’t mean you can say/ask it. Self censorship, people, self censorship (I know I’m preaching that one to the choir here). If you read to the end, I’d really appreciate advice from BTDTs in this regard.

The first incident occurred after we’d been home for a month or so. I was entering a clothing store not too far from our house. We don’t live in a cave or an itty bitty town, by the way. We live in the fifth largest city in the United States with a population of over six million, so our family isn’t exactly a freak show around here.  Mattix and I had walked into the clothing store and there was a guy, maybe in his late 20’s or early 30’s, standing behind a stroller. I have no idea how old the kid in the stroller was because I wasn’t paying attention. I was just walking into a store to shop. His eyes about popped out of his head when he looked in our stroller, saw Mattix, then looked up and saw me. ‘Cause the craziest thing in the world is a pasty white woman with a baby who has darker skin. Okay, whatever, but then his mouth fell open and he actually turned around and smacked his wife’s arm to get her attention, said “Look at that woman…and look at her baby!” and then POINTED AT US.

Now, my initial instinct was of course to appreciate him noticing what a hot, rockin’ mom I was, looking all fabulous and whatnot. Then I remembered that I’ve never been hot in my life, my clothes were wrinkled, my right shoulder was covered in baby food, I had bags under my eyes the size of quarters from lack of sleep, and I hadn’t washed my hair in four days. So that wasn’t it. The woman proceeded to stare at me. All the while, I was walking towards them because they were in the middle of the isle that leads into the store. They just stood there, in the middle of the isle, staring at us.

So I stopped, looked at them, smiled, and said in a friendly tone, “Do I have food stuck in my teeth or something?” and motioned to my mouth.

A few other customers who were nearby witnessing the whole thing, who had the “I can’t believe that this is hapening” look on their faces, laughed out loud. Then I just said, “Excuse me, do you mind if I squeeze by you? Thanks so much!” And they moved over and I’m pretty sure they were speechless.

Okay, no big deal. If Mattix were old enough to understand me but not old enough to notice the stares and blatant pointing, I would have skipped the whole first part and stuck with the “Excuse me, do you mind if I squeeze by you?” thing. If Mattix were old enough to understand me and old enough to notice the stares and pointing, I’m not sure what I would have done. Maybe ignored it and talked to him about it after we left the store?

I wasn’t offended and I wasn’t speechless.

The next notable incident happened in an airport restaurant on the way home from DC. Ed was on a conference call during our entire breakfast and he was in and out of the restaurant depending on the noise level. Our server noted over and over to me how adorable Mattix was. I know he’s adorable. He’s super cute. He’s freaking beautiful. I’m well aware that I’m fully, disgustingly, unobjective. I think he’s the cutest kid in the world, but that’s a mom’s prerogative. I don’t mind other people noticing, either. ‘Cause after all, he IS that cute. However, when she said it for the 15the time, I knew where this was going.

Finally, she couldn’t take it any more. Following is our conversation.

Woman: ”Is he adopted?”

Me: “Yes, we adopted him.”

Woman: “Oh, that’s wonderful. What a lucky boy.”

Me: “Thank you! Yes, it is wonderful for my husband and I. We are so lucky to be his parents. I never knew I’d be so fortunate and I still don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

Woman: “Oh. Well, I think he’s lucky.”

Me: {wanting her to go away, but still using my nice voice} “Well, we know we’re the lucky ones. He’s an amazing kid.”

Woman: “Hmmm. Well, it’s nice. But don’t you want any kids of your own?”

Me: {oh for the love of pete, make it stop. getting very, very difficult for me to keep up the nice voice. pretty sure i switched over to the fake nice voice} “Oh, yes, he is my own. And I do want to adopt a second child.”

Woman: “No, I mean your OWN kids.”

Me: “Yeah, he is my own.”

Woman: {believing that if she raises her voice and overemphasizes particular words, I will suddenly stop being such an idiot and understand what she means} “NO. I mean, don’t you ever want YOUR. OWN. KIDS?”

Me: “I have my own kid. He’s right here. We adopted him and he’s our own child.”

Woman: “No, that’s not what I mean. I MEAN, don’t you want YOUR. OWN KIDS?”

Me: “I know exactly what you mean and he IS. MY. OWN. KID. Do you mind grabbing our check? Our plane is going to board soon.”

Still not offended or speechless. Irritated? Absolutely. Surprised that she pushed it that far? Hell yes. Once again, all I could think about was how this would make Mattix feel if he could understand what this woman was saying. If he could have, then I WOULD have been offended because I don’t want my child to have to sit through that bull sh*t.

I don’t get all crazy when people mistakenly say “own” when they mean biological. I will fully admit. although not proudly, that I’m pretty sure I said that at some point in my pre-adoption life. I think it kind of just comes out of peoples’ mouths. As soon as I started our adoption process and began educating myself, I realized what a big eff up that one is. It’s wrong and the implication for a child who came to their family through adoption is horrible, particularly if the child has bio siblings. However, I recognize that society often makes that distinction – between biological and adopted – and that sometimes people say “own” when they really mean “biological.” So, if someone says that, I usually say something like, “Oh, he is my own. If you mean do we want biological kids, no, we don’t. We’re having our family through adoption.” I’ve had to say that on a number of occasions and it doesn’t bother me because people always get it right away and I don’t think it’s a rude way to nicely correct someone who doesn’t mean to be offensive. I’m pretty sure that just about every time I’ve said that, the person immediately gets it and corrects herself.  Again, the caveat is that Mattix doesn’t understand yet. I have no idea what I’ll do in the future.

Anyway, this was clearly not one of those situation. I gave her a big ol’ handful of free outs and this woman was so pushy and rude that she was wanted to MAKE me say that Mattix wasn’t my “own;” she wanted to MAKE me answer her question. That irritated me.

I was telling a few friends about this later, saying that I was put out because if Mattix could understand, that would be a horrible thing for him to hear. They agreed, then a friend of mine added a point that I had not considered. If we had adopted after suffering a loss or facing infertility, as many adoptive parents do, what that woman did would have been offensive to me, not just to Mattix. A person can love that their family was built through adoption, love their children more than anything in the world, know that they would never do anything differently, and still be sad to have experienced such a significant loss. Beyond her pushing the issue that irritated me on behalf of my son, she was pushing an issue that could have been painful to *me.* And how could she not have known that? Not nice in so many ways.

The next incident happened in a large department store. A sales woman noticed Mattix’s cute squeaky shoes that we bought in Vietnam.  My mom was pushing the stroller and had wandered off somewhere. I was holding Mattix, but at the time, he was walking while holding my fingers so his shoes were squeaking. Here’s how that one went:

Woman: “His shoes are sooo cute!”

Me: “Thank you!”

Woman: “My nephew would love them. Where did you get them?”

Me: “We bought them while we were in Vietnam.”

Woman: “Wow! So you got his shoes in Vietnam????”

Me: “Yeah, we bought several pairs in different sizes because we thought they were neat.”

Woman: {suddenly seems to have an ah ha moment} “Ohhhhh. Is that where ya got him, too?” {pointing to Mattix}

Me: “No, that’s where we GOT the shoes. We ADOPTED him from Vietnam. {smiling, picking up Mattix, and walking away very quickly before my mouth got the better of me…}

Speechless? No. Offended? Not entirely. Shocked? Um, yeah. I’ve never heard anyone refer to my child as though he were something “ya” just “get” while on vacation in a foreign country.

But tonight, Saturday, April 19, 2008, it finally happened. Not only was I speechless, so was my husband. We’re very similar in this area. Ed is actually speechless less often than I am, but tonight, a woman got us both! It came out of left field and it was so simple. Yet it was so weird and crazy that we both just looked at each other.

We were eating dinner at a restaurant a few miles from our house that recently opened. It was such a nice day today that despite the fact that my allergies are so bad my eyes are bloodshot red and my nose is running like a sieve, I insisted we sit on the patio. Our server was a friendly gal, probably in her early to mid-20’s. She had noticed Mattix a few times and commented on how cute he was. Not in that weird sort of way…the way people do it so that you know where it’s going. No, it was just the normal “he’s so cute, look at his hair, ohmygosh, he’s waving at me, how old is he, he’s a doll” sort of thing. So when, after she brought the check to us and said that she’d take it whenever we were ready, she said, “By the way, is he yours?” all sorts of casual, we were seriously speechless. Because that one came out of left field. It was so weird and awkward that the couple sitting at the table next to us actually got silent. It wasn’t that it was offensive. It was just plain weird, out of the blue, what the hell? Ed and I seriously just looked at each other. At some point, I think I got it together enough to say, “Um, yeah.” Then she just said, “Oh,” and turned around and walked back into the restaurant. Then Ed and I of course made a string of smart ass remarks to each other, but for the first time, in, um, our entire lives together, we were both speechless at the same time.

 Not an easy thing to do, trust me.

We’ve gotten lots of looks and questions, but so far, nothing that required me to restrain myself from physically beating someone’s a$$. I’m sure that will all change as Mattix gets older, so if there’s anyone out there with children who are old enough to comprehend conversations, I’d love your advice (Kathy D!). I don’t want to have to beat someone’s a$$ in front of Mattix. (I’m kidding, by the way, in case you think I might do that.)

The nicest way anyone has asked about Mattix occurred at our favorite neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Mattix and I were eating there with a group of my girlfriends and our server was all over Mattix (in a good way). Mattix totally knew it and turned on the charm. They “talked” each and every time he came by the table. Mattix waved and smiled and broke out his fake laugh, his fake smile, and held up his hand for the server to give him “five” over and over. At some point, the man commented on his personality being so dynamic. He asked me how old he was. Then he said, “Where was he born?” so normally, so positively, that I didn’t even pause when I answered him. He then said, “That’s what I thought, but I also thought he might be Cambodian, so I didn’t want to assume.” (That was a very astute observation – I’ll talk about that in another post eventually.) Anyway, he was the nicest guy, totally over the top, and friendly, so the way he asked was quite possibly the most natural way anyone has ever asked about Mattix. I’m certain that if Mattix was old enough to understand, he would have felt very proud – and not like he was on display or like anyone was making an issue of him – to be asked that question. I wish the whole world was like that. It would be a nice world.

 I really am curious how parents of children who are capable of understanding/observing questions and behaviors handle them. The problem with me is that I’m very protective of Mattix and I’d like to be prepared to handle things appropriately when the time comes. I want him to be so proud of who he is and where he’s from, but I also don’t want him to feel like he’s a walking billboard for international adoption. He’s a normal kid who has a very special and amazing history, but that doesn’t mean he has to be an open book about it with every stranger who wants to know. My problem is that I’m going to be protective of him because I’m his mom. My ability to be incredibly sarcastic with a smile on my face to people who are rude,  my ability to remain incredibly calm when I’m pi$$ed beyond words so as not to miss making my point, and my ability to think even more clearly when my head is about to explode, all cause me to worry a bit about my mouth. I think I’m a really nice person. Truly. I have a huge heart and I’d do anything for my friends and family, and I’m very nice to strangers.  But I’m only nice to people I don’t know until they no longer deserve to be on the receiving end of nice. Then I’m not nice at all. HOWEVER, I want to do everything in my power to be a good example to Mattix and to react in such a way that doesn’t make him uncomfortable or feel like he’s on display. Do you ignore people and talk about it later? I know at some point, I’ll be able to take my cues from Mattix, but that won’t happen as quickly as he will able to understand, and this is one of those things I’d rather not learn from my mistakes.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mattix, and Ed I are all headed to Kansas City, MO, on Monday, then to St. Louis, MO on Tuesday to finally see our travel mates and friends Karen and Andrew, and Mattix’s KG buddy, Cobra Khai (and maybe a few other people I’d LOVE to see). We’re very excited about this and can’t even wait for the fun! I’ll post with photos, of course.