Please come and beat me over the head...

[Kewcumber]

Reunion dinner on Saturday with ex-colleagues I started work with after Uni 25 years ago. Nice dinner, nice to see people, generally very nice evening.

Inevitable talk of childrne and much discussion ensues. A point comes (as it often does) where I have to either lie about DS being adopted or say he is and of course I (as always) say with a nice smile "Oh DS was adopted". There are a few radnom questions as usual which I don't mind answering then "oh what a lovely thing to do"

My response?

"no, it wasn't lovely. It was very stressful for both of us and hard and intrusive and long".

ARRRGH!

Why can't I just take it in the way it was meant - that I am such a marvellous person for doing such a selfless thing? After all I am a marvellous person. Truly wonderful.

I did the nice passive aggressive smile whilst I said it and did add "of course it is lovely now and DS is lovely".

I need a mantra

SMILE AND NOD
SMILE AND NOD
SMILE AND NOD

It could have been much worse though!

And I get it, the phrases like 'how lovely' grate on you and you get an overwhleming urge to just correct them and make them GET IT. But they don't REALLY want to hear it do they, or at least not a correction longer than half a sentence?!

So no I'm not going to beat you, just agree with you - SMILE AND NOD

I don't even have my little girl yet but I'm already fending off questions like
"why didn't her real mother want her?" Mind your own fucking business you nosy old bag.
"Aren't you great to adopt when you already have your own child?" fuck off you offensive old bag
"Are you not afraid of how she'll turn out when you don't know her parents?"

For one that hates confrontation, I'm getting very snippy these days, and quite proud of myself I am too.

"Are you not afraid of how she'll turn out when you don't know her parents?" I got that!! I said "Nah not a bit - now, if she had MY genes then I would be worried!"

Sarcastic responses are great on people you won't be meeting much again

It's funny though, my convent education did little to prepare me for confrontation, and I find it hard in other circumstances to be 'disagreeable' but I've already answered nosy (but not badly intended) questions like "did you find out much about her mother?" with "We're keeping all her information private for her for when she's older so you can ask her yourself when she's 18". And now I can do it without inwardly cringing and feeling combative.

PS I've namechanged from lettinggo

I agree about standing up for our children - I'm surprisingly non-confrontational about everything else! DS is 6 tomorrow. He is so beautiful and lovely and I'm so lucky to have him, I find it really hard to stomach that some people think he is some sort of charity case and that I was so lovely to rescue him.

I know I'm over sensitive about it but it comes partly from those people who have refered to DS as being "lucky" in front of him. I always wonder if they hope for their childree to be so lucky as to grow up never knowing their birth family

My mum was always warned by do-gooders that I'd have to be watched as i might turn out just like my mum (pregnant at 16). If i did anything 'naughty' it must be the 'irish' in me. I'd love to go back to these muppets people and say - yep, just like my BM - 1st child at the tender age of 36 . And doing 'naughty' things - isn't that what all children do?

I relate so strongly to this whole thread. Especially since our DC were adopted from Pakistan (which is where I was born). We also have absolutely no information about their BMs because all three were abandoned in cradles put out by the Edhi Foundation. I get asked about their health a lot and get lots of questions about "tropical diseases." As if the agency or us didn't get our DC vaccinated and we don't take them to the doctor. I guess all little foreign children are just petri dishes of ebola.

Tiny - a friend of my mums once asked her "does he speak english?". He was five at the time and has been with me since he was 11 months (at which point he wasn't speaking any language at all!)

ImHot - wait until they ask you why BM didn't want them in a very load voice in front of your very alert 3.5 year old at the playdough table at toddler group! I could have knocked her out there and then!

Also find the whole " oooh aren't you good /wonderful/brave" thing really annoying.
There is so much ignorance surrounding adoption.

I've just stumbled on this thread as it was in active conversations. I have not adopted but I fear I may say the wrong thing should I ever be in this situation.
What would be the best response to someone telling ne they've adopted? See I do think people who adopt are wonderful to go through so much to meet their child. I am sure that this is what others are trying to express when they cause offence.
Would be good to know what is the right thing to say.

Oh please don't call them "wonderful" I am wonderful in so many different ways that they are difficult to list... but single mindedly (and pig-headedly) pursuing adoption was a totally selfish act in my case. It was what I wanted and nothing was going to stop me not even what was best for DS (though of course I hope he ended up alright when he ended up with me).

Would you say to someone who had been on bed rest for half their pregnancy or gone through a long and traumatic labour that they were "wonderful" for doing it? Say whatever you would say to them to someone who's recently adopted - my personal favorites:

"congratulations,how are you both now?"
"congratulations, has he settled in well?"
"congratulations is there anything I can help with?"
"congratulations, how old is she"
"congratulations, isn't he cute"

or even if you are totally stumped:

"Congratulations"

Some great ideas from Kew. I don't think of adopting as a wonderful thing to do any more so than having a baby the usual way. I adopted because I was desperate to have a child. People kept saying I was so wonderful for adopting a ten year old, but I don't think so. I decided on an older child because I didn't want to be dealing with dirty nappies and colic, and wanted my child to talk to me properly. MOST parents just suck it up, and remind themselves that that stage will pass. I refused to do it, and wouldn't accept any babies! It was a selfish decision, both adopting and choosing an older girl.

Not that I regret it, although I did end up wanted to have a baby many years later, by which point it was too late. Wasn't I a wonderful person for going through fertility treatment, it's such a hard process (just kidding) Although I notice no one tells couples doing IVF how wonderful they are for doing it. Just a question knackeredmother, why do you percieve adoption as wonderful? Are couples who do IVF or women like me who tried sperm donation...less wonderful?

I don't have any better suggestions than Kew - she nailed it with those ones. Being congratulated on being a mother is the best feeling

Lilka, I also percieve that the couples who go through IVF are amazing too as I am aware how gruelling and stressful a journey it is to meet their child. However, I really did not mean to offend by thinking of adopters as wonderful. On the contrary, having had a glimpse that this may not be acceptable to you I was seeking to understand how would be best to respond.

the problem with "wonderful" is that it has connotations of saintliness, of doing something worthy which is rarely the case. It makes me feel like DS is a charity case and that I somehow rescued him and that I am deserving of praise for that and that he should be grateful. People have said to me that he is "lucky" whilst he was standing there.

It an odd assessment of luck, I wonder if they would consider their children to be lucky in similar circumstances - removed from their birth family, toted around a few places and placed with a stranger with all the trauma that brings.

Adoption in many many cases comes from a desperate place for all parties involved and wonderful doesn't come close to describing the reality of the situation. Of course we (mostly!) think our children are wonderful and it is a constant source of wonder to me that I am able to feel the way about DS that I do and that I was lucky enough to get such an amazingly lovely child.

But no I'm not particularly wonderful to have adopted. Desperate maybe, but I don't recommend that as a response either...

"Oh congratulations, you must have been desperate".

On balance, best stick with "congratulations"

As an adoptee - i do think i was lucky - and my mum is wonderful. Perhaps a compromise and say I think you'll make a wonderful mum? . I've said that to friends who have been pregnant before.
Personally i've always found it hard (only twice tbh) to find congratulations cards when friends have adopted older children. I ended up making them

I love the suggestions on what to say to adoptive parents, Kewcumber and AuntEvil. Maybe my retort (as an adoptive mother) will be "perhaps you should just stick with Congrats!"

We are in the last days before placement. We are adopting locally after years of trying naturally and assisted. Right now, we're the closest we have ever been to being parents, but the challenge of local adoption is the uncertainty that comes because the birth parents don't formally sign paperwork until after the birth. While our experience is that local adoption can be a lot faster than international adoption - there is still that unknown until papers are signed.

Also it is terribly difficult to be so thrilled about an event that will cause others a great deal of loss. Hopefully the fact that this will be an "open" adoption will bring some peace to the birth parents.

Doctor expects birth any day now (but they still can't predict with any accuracy). We are all (birth parents included) on pins and needles expecting a marvelous little boy!

auntevil - you are quite entitled to feel lucky about who your family is, I feel very lucky to have mine. But feeling and saying it yourself and having a relative stranger expect you to feel lucky is (in my opinion) a tad different.

Totally agree Kewcumber. I would never say to a parent that their child must be 'lucky' , but both me and my brother agree that we have been very lucky. But if i do think that a person would genuinely make a wonderful mum (would have to be someone that i had knowledge of - not a total stranger) - regardless of how the child came to the family, i would say it.
It doesn't matter imo whether a baby is pushed out, cut out, conceived by IVF or adopted - a wonderful mum is a wonderful mum