For the most part, people offer a big congratulations when they hear that we're adopting. But even those people who offer their congratulations often follow it up with one of two questions:
- How much does it cost?
- Are your other children adopted?
I'm sick of the first question partly because it's just plain nosy. But I always answer the question: it'll be about $20,000 by the time we're back home. Generally blank stares are the ensuing response.
Would these people ask me what my annual salary is or how much we spend on groceries or what we have in our 401k?
In some cases people ask this question because they feel that it's unethical to have to pay for a child -- some kind of 21st Century slave trade. For other people, they wonder how they heck we can afford it. And for any who know us well, we're certainly not the well-compensated or even the frugal kind. We're pretty celebratory with what little money we have. (Ah, but we've got our health...) So, in all fairness the underlying question does have merit. Still I always want to ask what they paid for their last car and how they financed that and what it's resale value will be next year (let alone in 80 years). Or I could throw out some of those figures about a child costing about $500,000 -- the price of a two-bedroom shack in So Cal -- through until the age of emancipation (currently around 30, I think, based on my own history). Consider it a downpayment, I could wittily say. But comparing a child to a car or a piece of Southern California realestate just isn't politically correct, so I don't generally make the comparison. So, how are we paying for it? A bit of savings, some generosity from friends and family, a little grant, and a bit of HELOC -- doing our part to ensure that the housing bubble doesn't come crashing down anytime soon.
The second question probably shouldn't bother me. It simply shows the mindset that they're bringing to adoption -- that it's the end of the road, after years of tracking basal body temperature, then years of IVF.
If we could produce our own children, of course we would do that, right? Some people come into adoption sadly; we come in celebrating -- and I guess that it should be our opportunity to let them know that adoption is as magical, as intimate, as foreordained as natural conception ever could be. In fact, adoption is even more intentional than the age-old bump and grind method. There can be no mistaking what we are up to -- we are focused on the child, not the process. (Nothing wrong with the process in the former case, of course. Nothing at all.)
To add to these two gripes, there is one statement that I also hate to hear: "it's so good of you to do this." Yes, St. Luke and Ste. Sheri are opening our humble abode to the poor and needy around the world. A load of bunk. We didn't adopt Maya because of human rights issues in China; and we're not adopting Lu-Yu because he is abandoned and alone in Taiwan. We adopted Maya and are adopting him because
they are our children -- that's as simple and pure as it gets.
