When do you tell?

[LastingLight]

This is an offshoot of Italian's thread about adult adoptees. When do you tell people that your dc is adopted? Like other posters I feel I have told people who don't really need to know. Sometimes it's unavoidable, e.g. someone asks me where dd is and she is with her biological grandparents. I also feel weird when someone says something like "Your dd is so tall for her age, is her dad very tall"? DH happens to be very tall but it feels a bit dishonest to just say "Yes he is".

I have nothing to add to what I said on the thread, except to say that privacy is not shame, and I think that that's an easy trap to fall into. Nor is privacy, secrecy. You can be very happy and positive about adoption, and still be very private.

the *other thread, that should say

I live in a really small village and my birth DS goes to the local school so everyone knew when I arrived with a 2 year old and my DS had been telling everyone he was getting a new sister.

Work also know as I've been off on adoption leave.

That said, I don't tend to tell people unless I know them well. I just either nod or agree. A lot of people tell me that dd and adopted DS look similar so I just nod and agree.

Thank you so much for everybody's input and insight, this has been very helpful.

I have been open with a lot of people that we're adopting... Work, social circles, neighbours... But that because we were adopting siblings and we knew they'd be older (turned out to be 6 and 5), so would rather talk proactively to people about it in order to control the level of gossip/conversation.... Not easy to 'explain away' the sudden appearance of two school aged children.

I started talking to work about it way back when I applied to adopt as I was going for a promotion at work and wanted to be totally open with them that if I got it and got appproved, I would be taking a year out at some point.

What I don't do however is to into the reasons why they are adopted... And going forward I will be more private, i.e. at the school gates where no explanation is required (not that one was previously, but hopefully you see what I mean).

Ds's favourite insult to me at the moment is "you are the worst mummy I've ever had" (although I know he doesn't mean it ) this is often shouted at me in public so I have no chance of discretion! Sounds bad but he really is the most gorgeous boy in the world!

Merry if I heard that I wouldn't assume the child was adopted,just having a strop!

Really? Just me being sensitive to other people watching and judging the 'tantrum' then!

It does sound like he has had a few mums to choose from if I'm the worst though?

Merry I agree with Kew. Many birth children also go through a phase of shouting "You're not my real mum".

Really? That is something I didn't know and makes me feel better thanks

Yeah, thinking about it, if a birth child who has no reason whatsoever to think they are adopted, starts saying 'there's no possible way you can be my real mum, I must be adopted' (which I believe is not unusual) it says a whole lot more about the child's degree of stroppiness than if an adopted child says 'my real mum would have let me'. Assuming that some teenagers' main purpose is to hurt their mums' feelings, the AC knows that there is another mum involved somewhere, so it is a convenient and readily available thing to say to hurt your mum. Might be said quite casually and without much thought. But the BC has to really dig it up; the line is a lot less readily available.
Sorry for some random tangential thoughts here.

Not so random 64 that makes sense

My neighbours birth child yelled 'I hate you, you're the worst mummy I've had in the world, HELP ME!!' all up the street a few weeks ago. I had many sympathies for her!

So birth kids definitely say it too. In fact, we've had a few funny MN threads about things angry kids have yelled in public, and a couple of them pretended they were being kidnapped by the angry parent carrying them away screaming, going "I don't know him/her!"!

DD2 preferred to take it up a notch by not only saying "you're the worst most stupid mummy I've ever had" but then emphatically adding on the end, "and I've had a LOT of mummies, so I know!" That last bit could turn heads

Whereas DS has never ever said that I'm the worst he's had, never said "you're not my real mum", or "I'm going to go and live with Grandma/DD1 instead of you" or anything like that.

Obviously there are times you have to 'tell', have to explain why you suddenly have an older child in tow etc

That's so funny Lilka "and I've had a LOT of mummies, so I know!"

For effect ds will add on "poopypantsbumhead" and for some reason if he is really angry he will add on "baby" pronounced "baybeeee"

If only he knew how much we laughed about this otherwise we would cry! at night when he was asleep!

We have " poo poo bum cheeks " from DS. No idea where he gets this stuff from

We also get " I hate [ sibling] . I wish they were dead "

The fact that one of their siblings has died has no inhibitory effect apparently

Apparently not kristina they obviously are just searching for the worst insult or thing to say and our role is to accept this challenge!!! Sorry about your dc

Hilarious maryz glad he's reconciled now! Some people want the best of everything!