I can only remember a small handful of negative interactions about L’s adoption in the past three years. But last week, I had a couple different adoption drive-by comments that I wasn’t expecting. I think my guard was down while I was distracted by the move.
The first incident happened at Chinese Club. One of M’s older teachers asked me a question about adopting from China. She has a Chinese (1st generation immigrant) friend who has one bio daughter, but would like another child. The friend is in her forties, so she thought about adopting from China.
“She wants another baby,” said the teacher, “but she said to me: ‘what if I adopt one and then something happens to my own daughter? (i.e. she dies) I wouldn’t even want to look at that new baby because she would remind me of my real daughter and I would hate her.’”
“Uh, I think you should discourage your friend from adopting.” I said.
The teacher went on to tell me a saying in Chinese that means something like “Your real mother is the one who took care of you, blood bonds do not give you any feeling of love.” She went on to explain that I would feel nothing if I had given M away at birth. I would only have love for L.
She told us this in front of L and a couple of other adopted kids.
I told her I had to disagree, that both kinds of motherhood are important and there are many kinds of love (love grown out of hard work, love from a biological connection, etc.). Needless to say, I changed the subject as quickly as I could.
The other situation happened at the mall. I rarely go to the mall, but I took the girls there to play on the indoor playground while the buyers were doing their finally walk through. I sat M down in the food court with a piece of pizza while I took L to get some noodles at the Chinese restaurant.
“Ooooh, NI HAO!” the cashier said to L once he caught sight of her wandering around below the counter, “Ni hao ma?” (How are you?)
L looked momentarily confused, but I poked her and said “He said ‘Ni hao ma?’ what do you say?”
“Wo hen hao?” she said. (I am good.”)
The guy looked really surprised.
“Ni ji sui le?” he said. (How old are you?)
Again, I had to repeat the question and prod L a little, but eventually she squeaked out “Wo san sui!” (I am three years old!)
“Would you like some kuaizi?” he said, “Kuaizi are chopsticks.”
“I like kuaizi!” L said as she grabbed them and ran off to find M.
The man looked me up and down. “You are a very good mother.” he said, sounding quite surprised to be saying it.
I felt like I had been given a test and had passed it, without ever knowing what was happening.
These kinds of things happen to us so rarely, sometimes I forget that people around us are looking at our family and making assumptions/drawing conclusions/thinking effed up things.
Interesting.
Yeah, people assume I talk Chinese, except for when I am with my obviously white parents.
We have also had “the test” many times, especially when she was younger. I think M shows more confidence now in public and is more likely to speak up when she understands what someone is asking, they tend to focus more on her now than our making sure she is speaking Chinese.
Ah, yes. You gotta love Chinese people. Zero tact.
Yeah, that’s the understatement of the year.
Whoops… it cut off my quote. Telling that woman she should discourage her friend from adopting is the understatement of the year.
I agree with Tracey…telling her to discourage her friend was adopting was the understatement of the year.
A Chinese person once tried to speak Chinese to my daughter, which prompted her to look at them like they were insane, and I did feel like I had failed in some way, which is RIDICULOUS because my daughter isn’t Chinese. (She’s Vietnamese.)
oh…. people. well, that guy was right, at least. you ARE a great mother.
and there are people who give that language ‘test’ to any kid of their own culture, regardless of being adopted or not, as a way of testing if their parents are “giving in to western culture and not maintaining their family heritage.” (oh wait, or is that just indian people? sigh.)
and yup, that woman should not adopt, dear lord.
From the way you described, I just sort of thought the cashier was being nice. But anyway, you are a very good mother!
I would have failed the good mom test. The Tongginator recently began refusing to speak Mandarin to anyone except when she’s at Chinese class.
I’m with your noter “S’s Mom.” I was actually thinking that the interaction with the cashier was kind of sweet. It reminded me of stories that I read from another blogger, one who is Caucasian with an African-American daughter. She has said that she regularly feels like she is passing some sort of test with African-American women in the community who are happy to see that she knows how to fix her daughter’s hair — but she isn’t bothered by it; she wants them to know that she knows what to do. Although I can understand that it might feel like being judged, I also think that these adults (NOT including the teacher in the earlier part of your story) are just glad to see that their culture/heritage isn’t being ignored in an adopted child’s upbringing. Maybe there was a more unpleasant vibe to the interaction, but it didn’t sound bad to me the way that you wrote it.
Kendra, I see your point, but to me the interaction was negative because it suggests she would be a *bad* mother if her daughter couldn’t speak Chinese. And I disagree with that opinion.
I’m with S and Kendra … it sounds to me like the guy at the restaurant was being nice. I read that story as a sweet interaction, not as something judgmental.
That other lady though … just straight-up crazy.
Even if the cashier was giving you a straight compliment (which you do deserve! teaching kids to be bilingual is a big effort but having more than one language without the hard slog of lessons as an adult is brilliant) I think it still only happened because you are white and L is not, so I can see how it might make you feel weird. It does have the underlying message that you’d be letting L down if she didn’t speak any Chinese – but your husband’s Chinese family would have been less likely to have the same judgement from strangers when he was a kid even though they didn’t think it was important to teach him Chinese. (I get this impression from some of your posts.)
Anyway, thank goodness you gave that nugget of adoption advice.
@ june
> Ah, yes. You gotta love
> Chinese people. Zero tact.
That’s a little harsh and uncalled for.
What Chinese people consider to be socially acceptable is just different from what you consider to be appropriate.