this woman’s work

Interracial Families in Friendship (IFIF) is a group of mostly white parents who have adopted kids of color, usually African American kids. It’s open to anyone who wants to come and we went before Madison showed up and found everyone lovely and welcoming and nice but somehow we never went back. Part of it was the way meetings would sneak up on me and part of it was that Saturdays are so often busy anyway so I lurked on the email list, commenting every now and then and promised myself that we’d get back eventually.

Well, today was that day and we had a grand time. My friend Terreece got me an assignment with Columbus Parent for their annual National Adoption Month issue and so I needed to try to interview folks. I decided to hit up the good folks at IFIF at their August meeting at the bunny park out near Dublin and then my editor asked if I could get pics so I got Kristen to go along with me and Abby came to keep an eye on Madison (Brett had stuff to do). I didn’t end up getting any interviews (I’m going to try email later) but I met some fun people.

But this is why I’m really writing this entry: I want to show you what a small town Columbus really is.

1. I met this one mom, Marie, and as we talked she realized she already knew Madison. We figured out that one of her kids was in the same lacrosse camp Noah was in and that her daughters played with Madison while they all waited for their big siblings to be done with camp. Brett was the one who took the kids so that’s why it took her a minute to figure it out.

2. Turns out she knows one of the other moms whose son was also in the camp and is a good friend of ours. Marie (or Ann, her parter, I can’t remember) said, “I volunteer at Girl Scout camp with her” and I said, “We watch her son for the week she volunteers.”

3. Then we figured out that Marie and Ann bought this house that Kristen tried to buy a few years ago. When Kristen and her husband went to put a bid on it, it was already in contract much to her sorrow (don’t worry — she got a very nice house, too). So the two of them chatted about the house and what Ann and Marie have done to it since and they invited Kristen over to see it.

4. We also talked about where their kids go to school and one of them was in the same class as one of Noah’s best friends. Noah’s best friend’s mother? She and good friend mentioned in #2 were college roommates. They lost touch but Columbus is a small town — mutual friends brought them back together again. (That’s confusing, right? I’ll explain it again. Mom that Marie volunteers with at Girl Scout Camp is G. Marie’s daughter is in a class with J’s son. J and G were college roommates.)

5. Wait. There’s more. So then Ann is talking about her oldest son and where he’s worked and where he works now. He works with Lisa the Waitress. Abby got her kitten from Lisa the Waitress. And the mom’s son goes to school with Pennie but we haven’t figured out if they know each other yet. (It’s a small program so they might.)

We found this many common friends/acquaintances without much effort. Imagine what we could do if we really tried!!

This happens with Pennie, too. Like Pennie’s Nate’s band used to play at Ruby Tuesdays. My good friend’s ex-husband does the sound there (or did — I don’t know if he does now). Before Pennie ever met my good friend, she knew her ex and used to hang out with him while she waited for Nate’s set to be over. When Pennie met my good friend, they talked about the ex.

I love this about Columbus. Sometimes it can be weird and sometimes it can be awkward but usually it’s fine and funny. Like the time I sat next to my friend Lis (the one with the ex-husband who does sound) at LLL and she said, “Hey, are you related to Justin Friedman?” and I said, “Yeah, he’s my brother.” Or how the little kid Justin used to run around with when HE was a little kid is now the homeschool gym instructor and lacrosse camp leader. The lacrosse camp that led to meeting this new family that I then met at IFIF.

And I think about this a lot in relation to our open adoption; Pennie and I would have brushed up against each other even if the adoption would have been closed. Would we have ever figured it out? (I sometimes think yes because Madison looks so much like Pennie and sometimes think no because we wouldn’t be looking. In any case, I’m glad it’s not something I really have to think about.)

Columbus isn’t so small (it’s the largest city in Ohio and two years ago was ranked the 16th largest city in the country although I have a hard time buying that) but if you’re of a certain age or have kids of a certain age and have lived here for more than five years, you can usually find some friendship in common. The more I get out, the more I’m reminded of this and it always makes me laugh.

So this happened before the time when Madison overheard the mom talking about slippery feet in dance class, right? Do you think it factored into the strong reaction she had in the dance class?

from Heather

Yup, that did happen after. The Incident happened at the beginning of February and then dance class was in April. Madison had already been talking a lot about wanting her skin to match ours months before February and for me one of the sad ironies of this whole thing is that the family in question was one of our social examples of families who don’t match and how that’s ok. I grieve the loss of the friendship with the wife in part because early in our relationship she was part of my support system around this stuff. (Didn’t I tell you that this was ironic?) Not that we agreed on everything about race or adoption but we agreed on enough that the differences were details.

Anyway. Yes, this may have played a part in her strong reaction at dance class. Then again, she had been talking a lot about race and differences and not matching so while The Incident surely didn’t help, she was already struggling. And that’s one reason I just felt so unglued about it all — the wife in question had been witness and support during those particular struggles and so to have her husband be so hurtful and at their home where my daughter had always felt safe — well, it just made it that much MORE. Again, I don’t hold the wife responsible for his behavior and she didn’t witness the event. I just want to make it clear that there’s a whole lot going on here and the password protected stuff is about my friendship with her but I feel pretty darn comfortable publicly condemning him.

I also wonder — and this is pure conjecture — if some surrounding circumstances of that class made Madison feel extra-sensitive going in. Because that class was bookended with socializing with various families including the family in question (without the husband/perpetrator of said deed). Given that she has expressed concern for the kids, I kinda wonder if seeing them might not have pushed The Incident to the forefront of her mind just before heading into ballet. But I don’t know. And I guess truly it doesn’t matter because all that matters now is coping with the fall out.