Today was a special day for no particular reason. Thursday is Dimitri's chess class before school, so everyone was up early and he and Laura left the house earlier than usual. This gave me the opportunity to have breakfast out with Lily. I love these one-on-one opportunities to eat with my kids, and breakfast helps to set the tone for the whole day when they get to have a special time with dad all to themselves.
Today's special moment was interrupted by one of those little moments of shock and indecision. While paying the bill after our meal, boom: "Where does that blond hair come from?" While I certainly belong to the "burn, don't tan" camp of the pigment spectrum, my hair color is far from blond these days. No, this question was about my Lily, who is finally adding a small amount of flaxen to her white and transparent hair now that she is nearly four. While this seems like a fairly simple question, it leaves me with a brief deer-in-the-headlights moment: how should I field this question?
I could go with direct and honest: I imagine that it comes from her birth parents. I could simply lie: My wife is blond. I could go vague: Blond runs in the family. Which answer I give depends on the situation. In this case we were in a public place and the question came form a waitress that I don't know and will only see from time to time. Do I care that she knows how we made our family? Is it any of her business? Will I enter into a relationship of trust or caring with her? No, so I go with vague. If I had been at church and a fellow member asked the question, I would probably opt for direct and honest, but perhaps not for any number of impulsive decisions made in the heat of the moment.
At this point,the decision to hand out this information is mostly up to me, but as the children get older I expect that I'll have to defer to them much more. I want them to feel comfortable with their whole identity from their birth family to their adoptive family, but I also know that I need to balance that with discretion due to the culture we live in. The general consensus from the courts to the media is that non-extended family adoption is an inferior form of family and that those who participate in it are defective. In my state a non-extended family adoption must be published in the public notice section of the paper for multiple weeks informing any biological family that they have the right to contest the adoption. And then there are the movies like The Orphan and numerous television shows that use that childish old insult, "you were adopted." I've even had a school teacher tell me that "most adopted children are sexually deviant."
After all this mental calculation is complete and the answer is given, I'm left with that empty feeling after the illusion is broken. Most of the time, I don't even think about the fact that we built our family through adoption. But in these moments, I'm reminded of the fact that my family isn't considered "normal" by some people. But then, many other families are rejected by our culture, from single parent families to inter-racial families and on to families with same gender parents. And in this realization that there are other families out there like mine and otherwise, each looked down upon, I relax a bit and hope cracks the surface. I sincerely hope that people can recognize that choosing to love and choosing to commit is much stronger than blood. Belonging based on choice is far more substantial than belonging base on obligation.
And then the most amazing thing happens: Lily grabs my hand on the way out the door and starts to bounce along the sidewalk, feet flailing, hair a golden mane about her head. The question is gone and only a father and daughter remain, having breakfast on a beautiful autumn day.
Today's special moment was interrupted by one of those little moments of shock and indecision. While paying the bill after our meal, boom: "Where does that blond hair come from?" While I certainly belong to the "burn, don't tan" camp of the pigment spectrum, my hair color is far from blond these days. No, this question was about my Lily, who is finally adding a small amount of flaxen to her white and transparent hair now that she is nearly four. While this seems like a fairly simple question, it leaves me with a brief deer-in-the-headlights moment: how should I field this question?
I could go with direct and honest: I imagine that it comes from her birth parents. I could simply lie: My wife is blond. I could go vague: Blond runs in the family. Which answer I give depends on the situation. In this case we were in a public place and the question came form a waitress that I don't know and will only see from time to time. Do I care that she knows how we made our family? Is it any of her business? Will I enter into a relationship of trust or caring with her? No, so I go with vague. If I had been at church and a fellow member asked the question, I would probably opt for direct and honest, but perhaps not for any number of impulsive decisions made in the heat of the moment.
At this point,the decision to hand out this information is mostly up to me, but as the children get older I expect that I'll have to defer to them much more. I want them to feel comfortable with their whole identity from their birth family to their adoptive family, but I also know that I need to balance that with discretion due to the culture we live in. The general consensus from the courts to the media is that non-extended family adoption is an inferior form of family and that those who participate in it are defective. In my state a non-extended family adoption must be published in the public notice section of the paper for multiple weeks informing any biological family that they have the right to contest the adoption. And then there are the movies like The Orphan and numerous television shows that use that childish old insult, "you were adopted." I've even had a school teacher tell me that "most adopted children are sexually deviant."
After all this mental calculation is complete and the answer is given, I'm left with that empty feeling after the illusion is broken. Most of the time, I don't even think about the fact that we built our family through adoption. But in these moments, I'm reminded of the fact that my family isn't considered "normal" by some people. But then, many other families are rejected by our culture, from single parent families to inter-racial families and on to families with same gender parents. And in this realization that there are other families out there like mine and otherwise, each looked down upon, I relax a bit and hope cracks the surface. I sincerely hope that people can recognize that choosing to love and choosing to commit is much stronger than blood. Belonging based on choice is far more substantial than belonging base on obligation.
And then the most amazing thing happens: Lily grabs my hand on the way out the door and starts to bounce along the sidewalk, feet flailing, hair a golden mane about her head. The question is gone and only a father and daughter remain, having breakfast on a beautiful autumn day.
