Reply to do people assume your child is adopted when he/she is not? An odd "reverse" challenge

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Reply to "do people assume your child is adopted when he/she is not? An odd "reverse" challenge"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, this is the Asian adoptee from above. How often is your child being asked by other kids if she is adopted?  I have several children, one of whom is also adopted (the others are mixed Asian-white as my husband is white). None of them has ever been asked by other kids if they were adopted.  While people say my bio children look completely like their father and nothing like me, it's very obvious that my adopted child is 100% Asian and totally genetically unrelated to her father, but no child has ever asked her if she is adopted and only one adult has asked her dad about adoption (no one has ever mentioned it to me either, but that's more understandable).  She's also elementary school-aged and has been in daycare as well so has been around a lot of other kids.

Do you live in a less diverse part of the DC area?[/quote]

[b]Im in Kensington, MD. I dont consider it as diverse as I would like, but people seem to think of it as such.[/b]

She is not asked my adults, only kids.

Probably once a week to every other week. Pretty much anytime she meets a new group of kids (race is not a factor in the kids who are asking).

I dont believe the questions the kids are asking are coming from a "racist" place. I dont think the kids have that motivation. Adults might, but again, those are not who is asking my kid.

Its a legitimate thing for a kid to be curious about. I was just not prepared for my daughter to feel alienated by the question itself. In part because I did not expect it to come up per se, and also because of course she is not adopted. So why would I have a repository of experience to draw upon to help her?

I dont think this is about her being "not white" either, as another poster weirldy put it (noone called HER post racist). When she is alone with her dad at the playground or out and about, because she resembles him so much, just being slightly different in skin tone, kids dont see any reason to ask, apparently.

I now can see that in fact there must be feelings of alienation for adopted kids more than I had imagined. Which might explain why some people are insisting on reading something into my post that just is not there. I can imagine it must be a daily issue for them: the questions, the questioning looks, what have you. Again, I can handle things fine, but for my daugfhter I need some tools here.

So far I am still waiting for more advice from someone with this direct experience.[/quote]

[b]OK, I really like Kensington, but it is very white.  I am the mom of an adopted Asian child and where we live is a very important thing. We live in a diverse area of Silver Spring.  No one asks my child if he is adopted.  There are lots of mixed race and adopted kids around here.  No big deal.   We found a couple areas of Kensington we originally wanted to move to but the racial makeup of the area is why we nixed Kensington from our short list.

I think your child may be getting all the questions from the lack of diversity in your area.[/b]  [/quote]

Well said!    [/quote]

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