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This is the second time the following scenario has happened to me. I’m wondering if it is a common occurrence with other birth parents or if I’m just lucky. The following scenario is a composite of the two situations.
I made a new friend online. She is local and a sporadic reader of my blog though we interact in real life and on twitter with regularity. Over lunch one day, we were discussing our lives in greater detail. I was talking about my two parented sons when she said, “And what about your daughter?” Assuming that she had read a little bit, I begin to give my short-but-to-the-point story of how the Munchkin came to be adopted. She interrupted me at one point and said, “Wait, you gave her up for adoption? Wow. I mean, I just briefly saw the words adoption and daughter on a post that I didn’t really read and assumed that meant you adopted a girl.”
End scene.
Has anyone else had this experience of someone hearing the word adoption and assuming that meant that you were the one doing the adopting? I didn’t take offense. I really find it quite comical. In fact, it really makes sense when you stop to think about it at any great length.
For far too long, women who found themselves pregnant were shipped off to live in homes or with Aunt Gertrude. They came back after the baby was born and placed and no one was clued in. Secrets were the norm. As such, who birth parents were in our society remained a secret. We never knew who these women were that were forced to relinquish. As times have changed and progressed in the realm of openness, we have been confronted, head on, with what a birth mother looks like, acts like, speaks like and, really, who she is out from under the shroud of secrecy. Of course, we have found that birth mothers are their own unique people. While some of us share similarities, we all look, act, speak and are different. (That’s what makes us so awesome, by the way. I digress.)
As society gets used to our sudden visible presence, they’re still shocked when they find out that someone they know and respect “gave up” a baby. It’s not their fault (most of the time) as they have been conditioned to view us in various stereotypical ways. Some people view us as cold-hearted, unloving human beings. Some people assume we’re all drug addicted. Some people call us floozies and other derogatory terms. When we don’t fit any of those visualizations, people are taken aback. It’s laughable at times.
And so, I ask: has this happened to you? Have you brought up the subject of adoption and had it assumed that you were therefore the adoptive parent? How did you handle it? (I’ll discuss how I handled it tomorrow!)
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