My husband and I have been shocked by some of the things people have said to us when they learn that we adopted our children. Our family is now a multi racial family, so the fact that we have adopted is no secret to strangers on the street. Most people’s comments are simple, sweet and made with good intentions.  Unfortunately, however, sometimes comments said with good intentions can come across otherwise. In the last several years, I have found myself combating the words that people say. I’ve had to defend our decision to adopt more times than I can count. Here are a few stereotypical statements I’ve heard and why they have hurt my family:

“Your child’s real mom didn’t want them.” This statement is two-fold. First, the term “real mom” is really off-base. I AM my children’s “real” mom.  A better term to use would be biological mom, first mom, or birth mother. Using the term “real mom” can sound like you are discrediting my role as their mother by not calling them my real child. My children could not be anymore mine if I had given birth to them. They are my real children and I am their real mother. Secondly, my children were wanted. They were so wanted and so loved.  They were longed for by both families.  Just because a child is put up for adoption does not mean they were not wanted. On the contrary, they are wanted so much that their birth mother realized she could not care for them, so she did the most loving thing she could do. Please remember, it does not matter what the history of an adoptive child is; they are always wanted.

“Is their birth mom a [insert negative stereotype]?” Birth mothers come in all forms.  She may be a single mom who realizes she just can’t feed one more mouth. She may be a young college girl who realizes that she can’t give a child all that she wants to give.  She  may be  a young girl who has been sexually assaulted and knows this baby deserves a chance at a life she feels she can’t provide. Maybe she is just a woman who got pregnant unexpectedly and feels she just is not ready to become a mother. Please don’t stereotype these beautiful women. They are simply women; women who deserve our utmost respect, love and prayers for making the hardest decision they have ever faced.

“Now that you’ve adopted you will get pregnant.” It felt like someone said this to us daily during the first year of our son’s life.  To an adoptive parent’s ears, this phrase translates into “Now that you’ve finally gone through all this work, you’ll get what you really wanted in the first place.”  You can never know why a couple adopts.  Sometimes adoption has nothing to do with infertility.  My husband and I always had adoption on our hearts, even before we knew we were unable to have biological children.

Another reason that this phrase makes me sad is because it felt like the person saying it was implying that it would be awful/bad luck if I did get pregnant.  My husband and I would have been thrilled to find out we were pregnant after we brought our son home-what a true miracle that would have been! Since we knew it was virtually impossible for me to get pregnant, people teasing me (even with good intentions) about pregnancy was very painful.

“I’m sorry you had to adopt to be a parent.”  Why are you sorry? I’m not! Adoption is so often looked at as the next best way to become a parent. Why is that? Much like pregnancy, adoption is amazing, beautiful, difficult, and physically and emotionally exhausting.  Going through my children’s adoption processes was my pregnancy. It was my experience and at the end of the first one I held a beautiful 6 pound 13 ounce baby boy. After the second, I wrapped my arms around a gorgeous 5 year old little girl. Both ended much like a mother giving birth: we added a new child to our family.
Please think a little deeper before making comments to a family who has chosen to adopt.  With many of these comments you run the risk of minimizing the adoptive parent’s role and the importance of the adoption itself even when that wasn’t your intention at all! Adoption is beautiful and it is “born” out of love. Remember to see just how beautiful the big picture is.  Like many other things in life, it may be messy, but the final masterpiece created is truly beautiful.