“Is she yours?”
Nobody has ever asked me that when out and about with Madison but Brett told me the other day that he’s been asked that more than a few times. Why the discrepancy? I’ve been thinking on that and here’s what I decided:
- According to American Family, Madison looks like me. I deny this but ok. (AF says, “No, once you’ve seen Jessica she doesn’t look like you but if you haven’t seen Jessica, she looks like you.”)
- Casual observation of our community says it’s not difficult to find white women with brown-skinned babies but white men with brown-skinned babies are less common;
- It might have something to do with the scarcity of men actively and publicly parenting? And so maybe people are just less used to connecting men on the playground with a kid running around? I don’t know.
Then again, my friend whose biological daughters are mixed-race has been asked if her daughters belong to her but her husband, who is African American, has never been asked. My friend is also biracial — Japanese/white — but people often assume she’s Latina. She’s been asked if she’s the nanny.
I’ve been thinking that Madison is likely going to have a shock when she realizes that Brett isn’t her biological father. Since her bio dad hasn’t been a part of her adoption (we have no pictures for our album, for example) and since pregnancy is easier to grasp than conception, I’m not sure when the father-realization will happen for her. I’m thinking that even with all the info she’ll probably think that Jessica and Brett somehow got together.
Other reasons I think this is that Noah will say things like, “Mommy and I have blue eyes and you and Daddy have brown eyes.” And she knows that she has dimples and that Daddy has dimples, too. Plus she’s a daddy’s girl and then, like I said, Jessica is a part of our life and we have a picture of her still pregnant (just one — from in the hospital while she was in labor). That’s concrete information for Madison but bio daddy? That’s pretty abstract.
I wish we had more info about him. I stalk him periodically on myspace but so far, no dice.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
People used to insist that Apple looks like Bert, but I have never seen it. Again, I’ve seen K, so I know what her first father father looks like. Apple has a cleft in her chin like Bert. We used to tease that Bert and Noelle got together because of it.
When Apple was little we pointed out the ways she looked like other members of our family, but we also said she looked just like Noelle. I really never knew if it was comforting to her to have blue eyes like my Dad, or curly hair and a chin like Bert. When Sunshine was born with blue eyes, Apple who was 6, said “her eyes are just like mine!” I think all adoptees at some time must crave some sort of physical connection to their adoptive family, and so they look for things- even if it can’t be so.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
I used to get asked a lot when my girls were little (I’m white) but my husband has never been asked (he’s latino). I’ve also been asked if I was a nanny, or if we adopted my kids, but again, my husband has never been asked any of those things.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I’m white and I get asked if I’m the nanny. It’s because I look too young to have three kids already.
September 29th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
My sister’s husband is Filipino and several times, people have assumed that her kids are adopted. Women in the grocery store have never asked if they are hers– they just ask how she adopted them or share infertility stories.
September 29th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
I’m hapa (Asian/white) and my adoptive parents were both Japanese. Once when I was about two, we were traveling through the South on our way to Florida for vacation and a small hotel owner threatened to call the cops on my dad because he thought they had kidnapped me.
September 29th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
This makes me crazy, and I have no personal connection to the adoption world. Yes, of course, she is yours. She is also Jessica’s, and Brett’s, and Noah’s, etc. You love her, so she belongs to you (as much as any of us ever belong to anyone else).
What do you say to these people?
September 29th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I think you’re probably right about Madison’s thinking about Brett. We had a similar situation with my son. At 5 he understood that he didn’t grow in my tummy and knew that he grew in Jennifer’s tummy, but it wasn’t until 2rd grade that he really understood that it took a man and a woman to make a baby and 3rd grade when he completely understood that the
“man” wasn’t Ron. This year (age 11), he realized that Jennifer’s children are half-siblings related to him.
So, I guess I’m trying to say that this knowledge about adoption/first families–it comes in stages.
September 29th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
it’s not so much that she really and truly looks like you, but as far as casual observers who aren’t assuming “adoption!” most of the time are concerned, she looks like she could be yours. She has similar-enough sketchy features that it wouldn’t make people wonder.
I do think asking Brertt has more to do with father visibility being low in general.
We have friends–both African American, both medium-complexioned, with a bio daughter who is considerably lighter than either of her parents. The mom gets no questions/comments in public, but the dad gets them constantly, including the offensive “way to go man, she has a white mommy, huh?” from strange men.
Oh–and of all the people who see me out alone with Nat, the one class of people who regularly think I’m her bio-mom are Black men. Not Black women, not white people of any gender, but Black men think she’s mine genetically and I have a Black male partner in the picture somewhere.
September 29th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
I think the “Is she/he yours” question is often just a poorly phrased attempt to find out if a person is a parent or a caregiver/relative, not so much an adoption question. Like, maybe Brett could’ve been an uncle. It might have been an attempt for some woman to flirt with him–he is pretty cute–and she thought, if he’s an uncle and being this sweet, great catch.
Like MomSquared, I used to get asked a lot if I was the nanny, and I’m white with green eyes/brown hair, my kids are white with brown eyes/brown hair. I’m small (and don’t wear mom hair, have a longish ponytail to tame curls/frizz) so some people think I am younger than I am. But I was also the neighborhood mom who worked at home and had a bigger car, so a lot of the time I had my 2, plus several neighbor kids–they were a very racially and age-diverse group, and then strangers would often ask if we were a school.
I love the way you imagine how your children might be thinking and interpreting the world. I’ve always thought along the same lines and loved watching and listening and trying to figure my kids (and pets) out. I always thought it would be great practice if I started to write juvenile-grade novels, but maybe that is sort of mercenary of me.
September 29th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Ahh, women flirting with Brett! Yes, he never notices when that’s happening so if it there was an air of that at all, he wouldn’t get it! But no one ever asked about that with Noah. Then again, Noah looks an awful lot like Brett (build and facial features).
September 29th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
I get that question all the time. I’m black and my son looks white-light skin, green eyes, light brown hair. I used to be offended until I realized that I often think the same thing when I see people with kids who look nothing like them. I wonder if they’re adopted (like my husband who is asked about his Italian family when he so obviously is not), or if God was just having fun with the gene pool (like my pale baby). When asked if he’s mine I always respond with, “Sometimes” which gets a conversation going and you find out the person means no harm and is just curious.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
A close friend of mine was out with her two Korean children, one a three-year-old boy, the other a one-year-old girl. They were clearly different sizes, dressed differently and clearly not in unisex style. Someone came up to her and asked if they were twins.
I’m white (dark, yes, but racially white), our kids are Korean. My daughter and I have been told on multiple occasions that we look just alike. We don’t.
These kinds of comments are the ones that infuriate me, really get my eyes rolling. But I think maybe they come from a strange desire on some peoples part, when they recognize they’re looking at an adoptive family, to try to build a physical connection. I can’t think of any other reason people say things like this when they are clearly not so.
September 29th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
I never get asked if Baby R is mine or not but I get the “He looks so much like you.” comment ALL the time. Even from my mother. In some ways he does but I see how he looks so much like his mother (who is caucasian) and what I assume are his father’s traits (who is pacific islander).
My Hubby gets it too. Of course everyone says we look like brothers so I’m not sure how accurate these observations are.
September 29th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
I’ve been asked if I’m the caretaker, social worker or if she is mine several times. Usually I don’t mind. It was not until we crossed the border over to Canada (twice) and I had to not only show our passports, but her birth certificate as well as my marriage license that it really became evident for us that people sometimes have a hard time believing we are a family. Don’t get me wrong. I totally understand why they had to do it but it hurts to see them asking her a ton of questions (are these your parents, what school do you go to, what is your hometown, etc. while looking at us like we are trying to smuggle her through) when I didn’t see them go in-depth w/ the kids ahead of us because they all looked the same. I’m just glad I was a step ahead of them and didn’t assume passports would be enough to show our connection.
My husband had an incident where someone assumed he was kidnapping her (the lady was actually incredibly rude) or people have tried to bypass him and ask her if she knows him. I love it when he and his nephew take her out with them and people automatically assume they are a gay couple w/ an adopted child. I love that they are both secure enough to just brush it off or smile.
The border incidents have by far been the hardest..in that in the process of doing their job (which they should…I’m sure people do have cases of kidnapped children) they act so darn suspicious and look at us in such a weird way that all of us end up feeling odd…we brush it off but it’s harder for our daughter.
Also, my sister in law (who is Mexican) and her husband (who is black) have two children. The first one from a previous marriage. Lately people have been assuming that the eldest (a girl) is the dad’s wife…really upsets my sister in law because that would make her the mother-in-law!LOL It also annoys the daughter when she constantly has to say “ewww…he’s my dad”
A close friend of all of us (we three have known eachother since high school) has a hapa child (mom is black) so when we are all together no one can match our kids to the right parents. People want things to make sense and when they see our large group at a picnic or the beach and none of the kids match the parents they are calling “mom or “dad” it throws them for a loop. It’s our small little revenge for all the inconvinient questions.
It helps when the kid (like my niece) is vocal and loudly or in a bored tone says “he’s my dad!!” but in our case, our child clams up, acts suspicious, and LOOKS like she has been kinapped(LOL)! We’ve been working on her being more confident in these type of situations.
September 29th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
It’s reversed with us — Meredith gets asked a lot about Nathan (our adopted son), but I _never_ do when I’m out with him. In our case, Nathan has darker skin that’s closer to mine than Meredith’s, so maybe that’s why.
She doesn’t get asked “is he yours”, though. Usually the comment will be in the form of someone asking about my race (’is your husband…?’).
October 2nd, 2006 at 3:54 pm
You know, I’ve been asked–long ago–if my daughter is mine. She is my biological child, but she’s blue eyed and blond and I’m brown-eyed and brunette. When she was a baby someone asked me if she was mine and when I said, “yes,” the person went on to ask, “are you sure?”
Sometimes people are just dumb.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:33 am
“I’m thinking that even with all the info she’ll probably think that Jessica and Brett somehow got together.”
Yeah, because not only is Brett the one father Madison knows while meanwhile she has both yours and Jessica’s roles to contrast, but isn’t Brett listed as the father on Madison’s original birth certificate?