‘Tis the season of light, so let’s lighten things up with a touch of the funny. A couple of years
ago, I was out running errands with my three youngest kids. The errands took longer than anticipated (don’t they always), so we stopped at a fast food place to grab something to eat. The lady taking our order stared and then did a double take, staring first at me and then at each child. It is worthy of mentioning at this point that two of the three kids look absolutely nothing like me and none of them share any resemblance to each other. The woman gave me a sly smile and said, “Lord, you sure like your men different!” It had been a long day and I really wasn’t up to extolling the virtues of adoption. The kids weren’t listening, so I replied, “Yep, variety is the spice of life.” She chuckled, “Ain’t that the truth.”
I know, I know. Not only did I miss an opportunity to educate, I was horribly politically incorrect and set a bad example for my kids if they had been listening. Yes, and I know that they are often listening even when they are otherwise engaged. But appropriate or not, I’ve laughed over that incident for years, and parenting is supposed to be fun, at least some of the time. Here are a few funny tales from the Creating a Family Facebook Support group.
Kathleen: When we lived in VA a lady actually said to me “Ahhh, she’s so cute. How much did ya’ll pay for her?” To which I replied “Oh, we aren’t from Virginia, we don’t buy people”. We now laugh about how uninformed some people can be.
Cindy: Hubby was shopping at Walmart with our son. The young man behind the counter asked him, “Is your son mixed?” My husband replied, “With what?? A splash of cherry flavor?”
Susannah: After three semen samples, hubby decided he had had enough of the “sample” room at the clinic. (He actually said he was tired of their porn selection.) The clinic agreed for him to get the sample at home and bring it in. He was carrying it up to the lab in a brown paper lunch bag when a woman on the elevator said, “Oh, your lunch is making me hungry.” He responded, “It has that affect on my wife too.”
Michelle: While at the check out at a local WalMart, I had my adopted daughter (less than a year old) with me. A lady told me she has my eyes. I don’t know if she didn’t know what to say or what. My daughter is bi-racial, white/black with big brown eyes and the afro curly hair and skin looks a little tan, not dark. I am very light skin, blonde hair with blue eyes that are not big. I didn’t know how to reply and just smiled and said, “Really?” [I suspect the lady was looking for a way to engage Michelle in conversation and complimenting our kids or saying they look like us is usually a sure fire way to start a conversation. Still, I thought Michelle’s startled response was funny.]
Tammy: My bio daughter so loves her adopted sibs that she can’t understand why she can’t be adopted too.
Me: I try to only grocery shop once every two weeks to save time and money. Needless to say, my cart (actually carts since I usually have at least two) is always full. A couple of years ago, I was loading 10 gallons of milk into a cart, when a woman asked me what institution I was buying for. I felt like saying “An insane asylum and actually I’m the head patient.”
So, tell us some of your humorous—appropriate or not—stories about adoption or infertility. There are less funny (in the ha-ha sense) stories to tell about infertility, but let’s see what you’ve got.
These totally have me cracking up! My husband’s Grandpa is very old fashioned and when we told him we were adopting for the 2nd time he actually asked us if we were “ordering from the same catalog”. I about died! And nope, not a chance! We’re a beautiful biracial family with one whiter then white boy and two gorgeous african american boys!
Shortly after we brought our son home, we were at the store and this older gentleman kept staring at us. I didn’t give it much thought as we continued to check out. As he and his wife were leaving, he looked at me and asked if we special ordered him. Why yes, we kind of did. Well he was special ordered by God for us.
After we adopted our three youngest who were born in Russia, I became an adoption social worker so they’ve always been involved in my life personally and professionally. One day my daughter said that her friend’s mom was having a baby. She said to me “mommy, why would she have a baby when she could just adopt”. I realized that to my kids adoption is something expected and ‘normal’ and pregnancy is odd… we had a lot of discussions following that about how families are made in all different ways and how all of them are wonderful.
Judy, I can hear you now: “Honey, it is OK to be born to a family. Families made by birth are just as special as families by adoption.”
Love these! So many things come up when we educate our kids about adoptions and their place in it. My daughter insisted we had to get a present for her hamster’s birthday. I said we really don’t know when his birthday is, and she said “well then a present for his gotcha day!” Can’t argue with that!
I received the following from Robert via email and with his permission am adding it here.
Our six year old told us the other day, that when she grew up she was going to have a baby and love her so much she was going to “make a ‘doption plan” for her. We were startled and realized we needed to do some more talking, but it did give us a momentary laugh. It’s interesting the insight kids can give us on where we need to focus our “talks”.
Oh, that made me smile. I can so identify with your reaction. I wrote a blog on one of my weird reactions as a mom in a blended family awhile ago titled Swimming in Mom’s Pee.
Because I am darkhaired and my Asian girls are also of course people will do a doubletake and look twice at my face. I’ve had people say to me “they must look like their dad?”. I’ve always WANTED to say “don’t know, never saw his face”.
I love your post! You made my day! Marie from ICLW!
I love it! Happy ICLW!
I don’t have any adoption stories but I LOVE your response…seriously funny.
ICLW #6 Dragondreamer’s Lair
LOL! Good for you on lighteneing up. Hope you had a Merry Christmas!
I should laugh, but I’m quite honestly horrified that people would say things like this to strangers. What on earth are they thinking?? Not that family should make such clueless comments either, but “you like your men different”? OMG!! I’m scandalized!
It reminds me of when our zumba instructor told the class she was pregnant, and one older woman said loudly,”So when are you getting married?” Our instructor was actually married but that’s not the point. It was such an inappropriate thing to say – completely none of her business. It’s not like the instructor is 16…she’s clearly in her late 20’s or older. And again…still none of that woman’s business even if she was 16. That would be her parents’ issue to deal with.
Visiting from ICLW.
Hi from ICLW. No stories of adoption to share yet. We are planning to adopt when we get more settled in.
Yup, we attract the crazies 🙂
Lori, I have been very fortunate to not face many horrible comments. For that I am thankful.
OMG Dawn I was cracking up at your comment at the fast food restaurant. THAT is funny.
Honestly Dawn, all of my stories are HORRIBLE!! People say the rudest things to me- so intrusive. We do joke in my house though. Most of the time when we are out someone will say “wow- your daughter is so PRETTY!” and although of course i think my (adopted) daughter is beautiful we joke that the person realized they have opened their mouth and can’t figure out how to say anything politically correct about adoption so that say that, but what they mean to say is “wow- your daughter is pretty….Korean!”
Thanks Lori, now I want to hear a funny story from you. Come on, you know you’ve got one!
Not yet a mom, so don’t have any tales. Just wanted you to know that you made me laugh on a day I really needed to laugh. Also, your recent show on Saving Your Sanity and Marriage While Trying to Have a Baby couldn’t have been more perfect for what we needed right now.
I loved this blog today. Everything my boy says and does is hilarious, but probably only to us because we’re his parents. Even 3 years post adoption saying that gives me a chill. Thank you for your radio show and this site.
The other day I was driving with my 3 kids (2 bio, 1 from Kazakhstan) and my daughter was really fussy in her car seat. Her brother looked at her and said in a very sweet voice, “Do you want us to take you back to Kazakhstan, Sasha?” at which point I got all prickly with fear that he was going to threaten to return her to the baby house or something equally horrible. All of my Mommy paranoia was swept aside with his next sentence, however, “Cause Kaz none of us had to wear seat belts!”