Awkward social situations

Confession: I’m not the expert on how to respond when people say things about adoption that make for an awkward social situation. 

Awkward social situation #1:

Towards the end of the school year, I attended a school event for my two older kids. Families were gathering in the fellowship hall and kids were running around to greet their friends. I don’t recall where my husband was or where my youngest, Eden, was. It’s possible he was letting her play outside on the playground or that another friend was holding her. I just remember that I was finding us seats when all of the sudden the voice of a 5 year old (I’ll call her “Sweetness”) shouted out, “Malia! Did you know Eden is adopted?!” Those words being shouted so loudly in such a public place at such an absurd time had about the same physical impact on me as I imagine I would feel if someone took a bat to my midsection and knocked me to the ground. 

I’m sure people heard but I didn’t have time to look around and see if anyone was staring at me or Malia or Sweetness. Malia was looking for her best friend who is also the big sister of Sweetness. Malia and Sweetness started heading toward the exit and I had to make a split second decision: Do I say something to Sweetness or do I just sort of pretend this never happened or that it isn’t a big deal? I made a quick calculation: I could say something and risk saying the wrong thing because I had no idea what to say or I could say nothing and risk Sweetness would grow up thinking it is fine to shout private, personal things in public spaces. 

Before I even finished making my calculation I found myself hurrying after Sweetness and getting her attention. I knelt down with her in the middle of the hallway and looked into her bright smiling face and smiled back at her even though my heart was still recovering from the blow. I took a deep breath and said, “Sweetness, you are right, Eden is adopted and Malia knows this. I want to tell you something important though. It is ok to ask questions about adoption or say things about it but it is not appropriate to shout them in public places. I am not angry with you. I just want you to know that we don’t shout it, ok?” Sweetness understood and said, “ok” and then I gave her a big hug and she scampered off to play. It has been months since that encounter but I feel the weight of it every day. I continue to wonder if I said or did the right thing or at the very least a good and helpful thing. I still feel sadness that something so personal to my youngest child was shared in a way that felt like gossip without my youngest being able to even give permission for that information to be shared, let alone shouted in public. 

Awkward social situation #2:

My family recently attended my husband’s promotion which coincided with the same day as my book launch. One of his coworkers asked me what my book was about and I explained it was about the lifelong impact of adoption. He then tilted his head and told me that his sister had adopted two children. Without my prompting he told me the countries of origin where his nieces were adopted from and gave a quick description of their physical deformities and finished with a proud, “my sister is a saint!” My head was swirling. I wondered why he kept referring to his nieces as “my sister’s kids” instead of “my nieces.” It just seemed simpler and easier for me to follow if he had chosen to say “my niece/s” instead of “the older/younger one of the girls whom my sister adopted.” I also wondered why he was describing these girls first by their physical deformities. I doubt that is the script they would have written for him to give people when describing them. The only question I was able to get in during the conversation was, “does your sister have other children as well?” He said she did—a total of 7 kids. He marveled again at the life commitment of his sister to raise 7 children and reiterated, “she’s a saint!” Those were the last words I heard before my husband’s ceremony began. It’s probably a good thing that the ceremony began right at that particular moment because that was not the time or place for me to say anything in response to what this kind man shared with me about his family. The only appropriate response to what he shared would have been for me to simply thank him for trusting me with some of his family’s personal history. 

At the time, however, I was not in a grateful mood. I was very put off. I wanted to hold my hand up and say, “whoa now. Let’s settle down. Your sister is not a saint for choosing adoption. She might be many wonderful things but let’s not put ‘saint’ in there.” I’ve written about this before but I’ll say it again: I don’t like or appreciate it when adoptive parents are revered for their decision to adopt. We are just regular people. We aren’t special and we don’t need awards or attaboys or praise. We are parents, not saints. 

I know that this man was taking time to compliment his sister and establish some common ground regarding adoption. It sort of felt like when you find out someone is from Kansas and you’re from Kansas so you respond, “Oh cool! What part of Kansas are you from?” More often than not, when people learn that I’m adopted or that my youngest daughter is adopted I’ll often hear them say something like: 

• my sister adopted her oldest child
• my good friend did adoption
• my brother is adopted
• I grew up with a kid who had a younger sister who was adopted
• my parents have a friend who adopted all of her kids
• my pastor adopted 11 kids
• I had a roommate once who had an adopted sister

I don’t find these efforts at establishing common ground very connecting. Unless the person I’m talking to is directly impacted by adoption as an adoptee, birth parent, sibling or adoptive parent, I am not really interested in learning that you know someone who is directly impacted by adoption. If I take it back to the Kansas conversation it would be like saying, “Oh you’re from Kansas? I had a roommate in college who was from there.” I’m not really sure how to respond to that in order to move the conversation forward. So the conversation then begins to feel awkward.

Awkward social situation #3:

One time I was at a friends house for a birthday celebration and the host introduced me to another guest. The introduction went a little bit like this: “Guy, this is Julie. She’s adopted and writing a book on adoption. Guy adopted both of his daughters!” The guest and I just looked at each other and not once did we talk about adoption the rest of the afternoon. It might have been different had we reached that common ground on our own. 

I tried to imagine that same scene of introducing guests to each other when they have different types of common ground:

“Guy, this is Pretty. She’s parenting a child with autism. Guy’s son has autism too!”

“Guy, this is Girl. She recently went through chemo for cancer and is now in remission. Guy’s wife had cancer about ten years ago.”

“Guy, this is Dude. He’s from Poland. Guy lived in Poland back in the early 2000’s!”

“Guy, this is Average. His dad died when he was 10. Guy’s dad died when he was 10 too.”

“Guy, this is Cool-girl. She raises horses on her farm. Guy recently bought his first horse!”

“Guy, this is Julie. She’s a Coastie wife. Guy is retired Navy.”

“Guy, this is Gay. Gay is gay. Guy’s son is transgender.”

Some of these introductions make sense and others do not. The ones that include a place someone lived in, a career choice, or a hobby are socially acceptable in my mind. The ones that bring up a complex lived experience don’t make sense because those types of details are only for the person with the lived experience to share, on their terms only. 

Awkward social situation #4:

A mom of a young girl came up to me and started chatting. I was holding my youngest child, Eden, who is racially mixed—half black, half white. The conversation quickly turned to Eden’s race. The woman asked me point blank, “what race is your husband?” 

“He’s white,” I replied.

Her surprise was evident as she said, “Really? Huh. I wouldn’t have guessed that because your daughter looks mocha.”

“I am not sure what you mean by ‘mocha’ but if you’re wondering what race my daughter is, she is half black and half white,” I clarified.

“But your husband is white?” She asked.

“Yes, my husband is white and Eden’s biological father is black,” I further explained, almost daring her to continue this unnecessary conversation. Knowing that she might just go ahead and ask the specifics of how Eden has a biological black father I ended the conversation by explaining, “Eden is adopted.” Then I walked away. 

Takeways:

In each of these scenarios I chose a different response. In situation #1, I stopped and leaned into discomfort in order to gently educate and correct. In situations #2 & 3, I refrained from educating and correcting. In situation #4, I sacrificed my own comfort to ease someone else’s curiosity and then I walked away. 

There is a reason I had a different response in each of these awkward, hard, upsetting or offensive situations: I’m a limited human being and I had to calculate the following:

• Do I have the energy to communicate clearly?
• Will my response be rooted and motivated by kindness or frustration?
• Will the person listening likely understand and appreciate my gentle guidance for a better way?
• Do I have enough time in this moment to guide this person toward a better way?
• Will the person listening feel rebuffed more than they feel gratitude for learning a better way?

These are the things I have to consider when I find myself in these awkward social situations.

It’s a lot of mental work that happens on my end.