AUTHOR: M. DATE: 10:04:00 PM ----- BODY:

Tonight we had dinner with a couple in the area who was referred to us in our quest to talk to other queer families who have done transracial domestic adoption (yes, really... there are lots of these families. Just look at the crowd on the High Holidays at any reconstructionist synagogue in the Northeast. I'd say that's a fair representation, wouldn't you?) This couple took us right in and invited us over for a 5:00 dinner with their children - their son, who is four, was adopted at 7 months from Cambodia, and their daughter, who is 16 months, was adopted at birth in good old Western Mass (editorial comment from one of the moms: "Here we were worrying about spending weeks in a hotel in Mississippi pretending to be sisters and waiting for our baby to be born, and we ended up in Western Mass where even the hospital social worker was a lesbian.") They are fun people. They obviously are very attached to their children, who are very attached to them, in turn. The kids are extra-cute. The older one runs around naked and giggling with his little butt flashing. The little one laughs hysterically when you tickle her belly and has itty bitty soft pigtails sticking straight up all around her head. The moms also think things to death, like we do. They complained that their huge committment to addressing race and racism had alienated some friends who they thought they knew very well. People who had loved and trusted and supported them began to say things like "race doesn't HAVE to be such an issue, you know." And this after leaving one school over a flap about "diversity," where an administrator informed them that, because they were "the only family," the school wasn't going to do anything to address racism and culture issues. And that after being cornered in the grocery store by people cooing over their "stunning, just lovely" daughter and demanding to know where she was from. Mom: "Western Mass." Grocery shopper: "No, before that." Mom: "Western Mass." Grocery shopper: "Yes, but..." This is scary. It's also affirming, particularly because I've been feeling recently like I'm running in circles in my own head (in case that isn't clear from earlier posts). It makes me feel like we're not crazy to think that race may be the single biggest issue we'll deal with in all this. It's funny to step back sometimes and remember that we're also doing this as two women. We've been so caught up with thinking about the race and culture issues that I forget that there are some people out there who hate us just based on that. Ironically, it's not particularly painful to remember that, most of the time - in fact, it's a reminder that we are so lucky to live where we live, to have our pick of agencies that will work competently with same-sex families, to have state laws that support our choice to adopt and our relationship with one another. This couple, too, is married, and have many friends in same-sex relationships. They live in a diverse neighborhood and have many things going for them. The whole evening I think we spent a total of five minutes talking about challenges they faced as a same-sex couple. It makes me feel like the stuff we know, we can handle. So now our job is to know as much as we can about sucessful transracial adoptions so that we can handle that, too. Congratulations! This has given me license to overthink everything even more. I can't BELIEVE you are still reading this blog.

-------- COMMENT-AUTHOR: Anonymous COMMENT-DATE:11:47 PM COMMENT-BODY:Yes, I'm still reading.
'Cause I love you guys. Can't be any other reason. Even I can't overthink THIS much! --------