I’ve been waiting on myself to begin. I knew it was time to get back to this and I knew it was time for a shift. I shut down the old blog, bought a new name, and created a new site. A new chapter. But how to begin, Becca, how to start. The pressure. Y’all are like,...
My mom died on April 1, just a little over two weeks ago. I don’t know which cliché to use – does it feel like yesterday or years? Both, I guess. My mom was a young 74 and did all the healthy things – the exercising, the kale, the vitamins, the check-ups. I look like...
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So we’re homeschooling over here. It’s going really well, I’d say. We have great people, Jax’s anxiety is at an all-time low, he’s happy, he’s inquisitive, and importantly, he’s learning things that are relevant to his 14 year-old-life and skills he’ll use for his...
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Dear Jax,It's Gotcha Day, little dude. We adopted you eleven years ago today. I love this day, but this year's celebration is bittersweet. Your grandmother died on Friday night. Your dad's mom, Grandma Mary. This year's Gotcha Day will be a little less inflatable...
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Johnny, I've been down at the Capitol this past week fighting for a bill that would expedite the adoption of older kids. I'm pretty invested in it because you and I went through this. We had nine months to make your adoption happen, and had I not already had a giant...
And I quote: "And after fourteen years of foster care, Johnny was getting all As and Bs in school, happily helping around the house, had checking and savings accounts, and looking for his first job - all within just a few months of being adopted into a family. "...
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I was sick this week. Throwing up throughout the night, curled up in fetal position at the base of the toilet, not sure how clean the bath mat is, I do not even care, I will never eat blue cheese in a salad again, SICK. Being sick as an adult is lousy. Being sick as a...
Dear Johnny, I know this isn't where you thought you would be at age 17. Still in the foster system, a day pass on your birthday, preparing to be shuffled around again, and then again and again. I know. As a child, you must have thought ahead to 17 and pictured your...
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I had a moment recently. My son, Jax, and I had been in the car running errands for a few hours. I was singing along to the Beatles channel when Jax said, "Mom, I'm hungry." Well, yeah, breakfast was a hurried cup of yogurt three hours ago so that's reasonable....
A teenage boy is coming to live with me. Today. In eight hours, I will be an official foster parent. It's been only a few months, but I have notes upon notes about my short experience so far with this child welfare system of ours. I can't wrap my head around how we...
Last week, I was in my favorite place in the world with my 15-person family. Every few years, we head to a ranch in the mountains of Colorado. We've been going here since I was a little girl, and there is truly no place I would rather be. I told my clients I was out,...
I volunteered to go to an education meeting last week with a foster kid. This kid was in high school and not too interested in me at first. I didn't blame him, I'd never met him before and this was a child who lives in a constantly-changing world with...
It was late-September of 2008 when we brought my son home from China, just two months before December and our sparkly, over-the-top, American-style Christmas season. My little boy had no idea what Christmas was. He had no idea who Santa was. Hell,...
This time of year, man. It’s stressful and chaotic and my annual intention of providing a Pinterest-perfect Christmas lasts about a day and a half until I decide that F-bombs will definitely help me assemble the gingerbread house. Ahhh, December. This year, the...
Jax’s eighth Gotcha Day is coming up. “Gotcha Day” is the anniversary of Jax’s adoption from China. It’s the day Jax became our son, and like good adoptive parents, we celebrate. Jax gets a few presents, we decorate, we eat pizza and cake, we participate in general...
I was at a Ross the other day. I love Ross. There is one by my son's school, and on the days I don't feel like laptopping at Starbucks, I walk around in their exceptional summer air conditioning while having riveting conversations with myself about my need for their...
“He is soooooo lucky!”
If I had a dollar for every time someone looked at my internationally-adopted son and said that to me, I would be living large, y’all. I’d own a fancy horse and a yacht and some serious acreage, all owned by my corporation, MyLuckyKid, LLC. Sadly, I don’t get a dollar, and that is really unfortunate because my Chinese kid and I hear how lucky he is all the time and just about everywhere we go.
It makes me uncomfortable. Even though it is always coupled with the best of intentions, big smiles and friendly arm squeezes, “he’s so lucky” makes me uncomfortable and awkward and fidgety. It leaves me at a loss for the right words, and I end up bumbling together a response that would make you question whether English was my first language.
It took me a while to figure out why “he’s so lucky” is so unsettling for me.
It certainly isn’t because it’s not true. My son was in a foreign orphanage. He was abandoned, malnourished and terrified. It’s hard even for me to reconcile the toddler I brought home with the tornado child I now have who dances around in his boxers “raising the roof” to the Rolling Stones. While lucky doesn’t quite do justice to the change in his circumstance, I definitely understand and appreciate what the kind folks mean when they call him lucky.
Is the weirdness because I feel that I’m the lucky one? Is that the cause of the discomfort? That’s what the unwritten rules of adoptive parenting instruct you to say. “He is so lucky!” “Oh my gosh no, I’m the lucky one!” I have said this more than once, I’ve probably said this one hundred times, and I want you to know that I believe it to the core of my being. But while I feel absurdly lucky and grateful and indebted to whatever cosmic force it was that brought my son to me, my own sense of gratitude isn’t why I feel unsettled about my son being pronounced lucky.
“He’s so lucky” is jarring because adoption, while crucially important to my son’s history and background, is not relevant at all to our daily lives. At the grocery store, at the school play, in the produce aisle, he is not my adopted son. He is simply, and without adjective, my son.
Picture me at the grocery store, for example, trying to fill up a static-filled plastic bag with some bulk oatmeal while keeping on an eye on my son who, five bins over, just asked a male shopper if he was pregnant. I’m searching for my ringing cell phone in my purse with one hand, the oatmeal bag is not cooperating when a voice from my left says, “Awww! He’s so lucky!” Huh? Who, the pregnant male shopper? My kid? Why, did he get a free sample? Ohhhhhh, that’s right, he’s adopted.
“He’s so lucky” is jarring because adoption, while crucially important to my son’s history and background, is not relevant at all to our daily lives.
“He’s so lucky” forces adoption into my current, seven years later, motherhood. It takes me by surprise because on a day-to-day basis, I don’t see China, I don’t see an orphanage, I don’t see adoption. Just like when I see parents with their presumably biological children at the playground or in line at Starbucks, I don’t see family planning, childbirth or a maternity ward, I don’t look at my son playing air guitar or sneaking soda into the shopping cart and see adoption.
I don’t want my son to feel lucky. I don’t want him to feel saved or rescued or burdened by some notion that he owes me a thing. He doesn’t. I want him to know that he is loved, that our family is as real as any other family, and that he has so, so much more to offer the world than just luck. I want him to know that the most beautiful part of adoption is that I, his mother, see adoption every single day and don’t notice it at all.
Sincerely,
Becca
(© 2015 Rebecca Masterson / Sincerely Becca, as first published on Scary Mommy.)
I love this one!
I love this one!
I love this picture. It captures a neat boy. Parents benefit from loving and nurturing our kids as much as they do. I always share with young people you will never know how much your parents love you until you have your own. Aren ‘t we parents the lucky ones, in spite of the hard work to help them grow?
I love this picture. It captures a neat boy. Parents benefit from loving and nurturing our kids as much as they do. I always share with young people you will never know how much your parents love you until you have your own. Aren ‘t we parents the lucky ones, in spite of the hard work to help them grow?
Celebrating 7 years w/ our son as well! 🙂
Celebrating 7 years w/ our son as well! 🙂
What an interesting article! I never thought of how that phrase could create an adverse unintended reaction. You always bring great perspectives.
What an interesting article! I never thought of how that phrase could create an adverse unintended reaction. You always bring great perspectives.
With my daughter, I think, how can she be “lucky” when she was abandoned by her first family and had to leave her country and culture to be in a family that can care for her?
THIS is dead on. Deirdre, do you mind if I post this?
With my daughter, I think, how can she be “lucky” when she was abandoned by her first family and had to leave her country and culture to be in a family that can care for her?
THIS is dead on. Deirdre, do you mind if I post this?
I stumbled on this page from the ‘Other people’s children’ post someone shared on Mother’s Day.
As a parent with a 4 1/2 month old son who was adopted at day 5 I cringe at this phrasing too. Aside from the great points above it feels like the child is ‘lucky’ someone took them in at all; not only do many of them have less than stellar backstories they’re evolving from, it implies that they were a burden of some sort and they’re ‘lucky’ someone decided to take care of them. I never want my son to hear that implied burden.
I stumbled on this page from the ‘Other people’s children’ post someone shared on Mother’s Day.
As a parent with a 4 1/2 month old son who was adopted at day 5 I cringe at this phrasing too. Aside from the great points above it feels like the child is ‘lucky’ someone took them in at all; not only do many of them have less than stellar backstories they’re evolving from, it implies that they were a burden of some sort and they’re ‘lucky’ someone decided to take care of them. I never want my son to hear that implied burden.