What to say: To share or not to share

The other day, we took Tommy to a craft show.  He loved looking at all the crafts- knitted blankets, crocheted stuffed animals, wooden toys... tons of stuff he would have loved to take home!  At one point, we were approached by a woman, who made the comment, "Wow, your son is beautiful!  He looks a lot more like Daddy than Mommy though."

As you may know us, or see from our pictures, Mike and Tommy are Caucasian and Kit is Asian/Pacific Islander. In adoption, and especially in transracial/transcultural adoption, comments or questions like this may occur quite frequently.

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We are proud of our identity as an adoptive family; and oftentimes when comments like this arise, we will briefly share that Tommy came into our lives through open adoption.  We want to teach Tommy, through example, that we are proud of our story and are comfortable talking about the way in which we became a family.  In many cases, when people hear that our family was formed through adoption, they begin to share how a friend or family member has been touched by adoption!

While our family has been touched by adoption, we're also simply a family.  Depending on the interaction, there are many times when we simply acknowledge a comment, thank someone for their compliment, and move along... adoption does not even become a part of the conversation.  As much as we want to teach our children to be comfortable talking about adoption, we also want them to know that their lives are not open books, that their adoption stories are theirs and they can choose to share this or not with others.

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But back to our story at the craft show...

So in this particular situation, we elected to share.  Kit said to the woman, "He is a cutie, isn't he?  He looks just like his birth parents."

Her response surprised us, "Oh, didn't you want your own?"
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There is still a certain naivete around adoption.  Even through taking adoption classes and having many conversations with others around adoption, there are still certain terms and phrases surrounding adoption that create an internal yucky feeling.  We'll list a few here:

your own- used to differentiate between biological children and those who have been adopted
give up- used to describe relinquishment or termination of parental rights
real parent- used to describe a birth parent

You can learn more about positive adoption language here: Adoptive Families Magazine
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Again, back to our story at the craft show...

After a brief pause (mainly to manage that yucky feeling), Mike responded to the woman's "didn't you want your own" comment with, "I gotta tell ya, infertility was probably the best thing that ever happened to us... it brought us this little guy."

The woman smiled and said, "Yes, you all look very happy."

And she's right... we are very happy...

Happy Father's Day

For every child that is adopted, there is a birth mother AND birth father, who are a part of that child's story.  Sadly, birth fathers are often overlooked.  As far as we are aware, there is not a celebrated Birth Father's Day... and birth fathers are rarely mentioned, even in adoption circles.  Our son's birth father, M, was actively involved in the adoption plan and, just like Tommy's birth mother, remains very much a party of our lives, our family.  On Father's Day, we will spend the day enjoying our son and celebrating all the fathers in our life... Mike (obviously!), our Dads, Kit's brother-in-law, and of course, M, who helped make it possible for Mike to be a father!  Happy Father's Day!           

Gearing up for summer...

Wow, it's been awhile since we last posted to our blog!  Time has just been flying!  Spring and summer are such fun times... it's been days filled with swimming, barbecuing, jumping on the trampoline, biking, and a little bit of relaxing too!  Tommy recently caught his first foul ball at the ballgame... although it was more like Kit running and ducking in the opposite direction, Mike catching the ball, and Tommy laughing the whole time!  Ha!

Tommy's 1st foul ball!

In the coming weeks, we're hoping to make a trip to the family cottage in Canada with Mike's family.  This is always a great time.  The lake is just so beautiful and peaceful... the perfect weekend getaway!  Since Tommy is a bit bigger this year, we're thinking maybe he'll get to try out fishing and take a ride in the canoe.

At our friends' cottage

We're already making plans for the second annual luau party at our home.  Lolo cooks a roast pig Filipino style and its a real treat for all our friends and family!  We'll also be celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary and Lola's big 70th Birthday bash!  So much to look forward to!

Swimming...

Despite our busy-ness, we've continued to do a lot of adoption networking through this blog, our FB page, and Twitter.  We've already met a couple wonderful expectant parents, in addition to many supportive individuals just wanting to learn more about us and adoption in general!  We've appreciated all the help and support... and we know our baby will come to our family when it's the right time!