Dawn at Creating a Family wrote an article today that echoed some of my thoughts from my post the other day and I wanted to share. During both our infertility journey and now the adoption journey we have received many questions. Some more intrusive than others, some out of genuine curiosity and some out of I don’t know what. Another big one we have been getting is, “Why would you adopt internationally when there are so many children in the US that need homes?” (I get this one A LOT because part of my job is recruiting adoptive parents for the children in foster care in Alabama.) All I can say to that is that a child is a child regardless of where they live and this is just the path the Lord has us on. No way is better than the other, God just has a child for us in Russia!
Anywho, most of those questions don’t bother me when I know the intent is out of genuine curiosity. But sometimes I DO feel like there is judgment behind the questions and that is what Dawn really talked about in her post today.
My favorite part of her post said, “I don’t have a problem with real, honest to goodness questions. I’m all for increased dialog and understanding. But the intent of a real question is to receive information. Many of these so-called questions are veiled, or not so veiled, attempts to judge the other person’s decision. These questions come with an inherent sense of the superiority of one method of family building.”
Check out her post here. I’ll give you a minute to read it…now what did you think?
I agree with you and Dawn. It's actually kind of funny to me, as in any other circumstance, these types of questions would be intrusive and frankly none of anyone's business, but suddenly when we mention that we are having 'issues' or 'exploring options' people feel the need to be 'helpful' [and yes, its in quotes] and offer their opinions before we've even asked. I always feel more comfortable sharing information if I'm not bombarded by a thousand questions...let me share with you how much I went and on my own timeline. I don't think that people realize how much soul searching and thought any of these decisions take, and sometimes I don't want to hear other opinions until I can sort out my own feelings. I'd love to have the courage to simply say 'If you don't mind, I really don't want to talk about that now...can we talk about something else?" - but I don't want to offend, so instead I tolerate the questions and stew in my own anger. I just want to be supported in our decision...no judgement, just love and support!
ReplyDeleteGreat post I thought- while there are questions from within the IF community, I would still think the most judgmental are the ones from people who never needed an alternative to "normal" family building...
ReplyDeleteHey, Lisa, I saw that you are from Dothan! That was my mom's hometown. Good luck with your adoption. We're waiting on our CANs to come back to pursue a second adoption, so mostly the question we get is "FOUR?!?" As in, are you insane? FOUR children? But amid the questions, we also meet a lot of people who considered but never pursued adoption and people who are very pro-adoption. May you meet a lot of those!
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by Lisa. Although we've been blessed, it took us over a year of IF to get here and about 1.5 years the first time. During our journey, we also discussed adoption, fostering and IF treatments. It was hard to figure out how far we felt comfortable going wrt IF, and the cost of adoption is staggering - I don't think people realize what it actually costs to adopt. All of these decisions are not easy as you really need to have a grasp on your values, ethics, financial well-being and emotional strength to go through this entire process... and sadly, in our case, we felt very alone as we didn't feel that we could openly share our journey and our struggles... not to mention how hard it can be on the marriage too!
ReplyDeleteGreat post Lisa! I best most people who ask that question don't realize there are 147 Million orphans in the world.
ReplyDeleteI have received bad advice and insensitive or hurtful comments from way too many people trying to be "helpful". It is very frustrating and I often don't know what to say. It is good to hear other people's stories, too.
ReplyDeleteI have written a couple blog posts on the subject, as well, if you want to read them:
http://sunshinelady512.wordpress.com/category/infertility/