“You Couldn’t Have Your Own?”

When adoption comes up in conversations with new people, I often get asked the $10,000 question, “you couldn’t have your own?”.

My answer always is “Yes, I do have my own. I just told you I adopted three children, didn’t I? You meant to ask, do you have any biological children, and to that my answer would be no”.

I do try and say it as nice as possible, but coming out of my Brooklyn mouth while currently living in Florida, sometimes makes it hard.

The person always apologies and correct themselves. I know they’re not trying to be mean or rude. I don’t even think they realize how it sounds. They just don’t know any better. What that’s quote by Maya Angelou, “I did better when I knew better”-something like that?

Do you correct people when they ask you a question such as that? I almost feel like it’s my duty, as a parent of three young adoptees, to educate them so they know better for their next encounter with adoption.

Actually the next time someone asks me “you couldn’t have your own?”, I’m going to reply “No, can I have yours?” lol

Related Tags: adoptive parents, adoption, adopting, adopt

Tags: Parenting an Adoptee, parents of adopted children

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