Stop Setting Alarms on My Biological Clock

[PrincessFiona]

Well, I personally have never judged someone for having no kids.....

Somehow, I doubt that if a woman with no children were to be sitting in a waiting room somewhere that people would stare at her and say out loud "obviously, she needs to get off of her birth control"....

[SuzySunshine]

Well asking someone when they're having kids or implying their life isn't complete without them is just as bad IMO especially when you have no idea what is going on with their life.

There are a lot of people in this world that should keep their opinions to themselves on both sides of all issues but they won't.

[PrincessFiona]

That's true.

ETA that I think that most people who ask about if someone is planning on having a family (for example) aren't doing it to be hurtful.....but the clueless people that I met today were.

[planet]

Especially not here!!

[DCJenn]

ETA that I think that most people who ask about if someone is planning on having a family (for example) aren't doing it to be hurtful.

You don't think? I'm telling you, people have been crawling up my uterus and hanging out in it's thankfully cavernous spaces wanting to know:

1) Why I didn't just go to a sperm bank (between husbands #1 & #2 this question was posed)

2) What was 'wrong' with me that I didn't want more than one.

3) Why we were adopting. Like all the nitty gritty details= "oh. you're infertile. Well, whose fault is it?" (WTF? Does fault ever need to be in a sentence about childbearing? or not as the case may be?) (and that was when I crafted my answer about being a 'ho before I was a Hussey)

4) Why we weren't specifying the sex for the adoption. (surprisingly many more people thought we should be asking for a girl because boys just don't do well in ____ environments...)

5) Why we weren't adopting more than one. (Which gets back to the what's wrong with us for wanting only one.)

6) and why don't we want more than one. Obviously we're just selfish. because don't we know that only children are _______. (spoiled, self-absorbed, needy, etc.)

7) Well, of course you must be disappointed about not having one of your own... (a personal favorite) (to which I normally answer if it's an elderly relative because otherwise I'd be long gone- well, actually there's no way our gene pools could have come up with someone as cute.)

8) are you going to tell him he's adopted? or conversely, you're not going to tell him he's adopted, are you? with long drawn out stories of everyone they've ever known who was adopted who knew or didn't know and how f-ed up they are as a result of X or Y.

So, I don't know if it's reality TV, lack of manners, mothers who work, mothers who don't work, distant fathers, up close fathers, the internet or what or who is to blame but Way, Way, Way too many people seem to give a shit about my little family of three. and 99% of them think it needs to be a little family of four or more.

and I disagree. and I have stopped telling people that Nikolai is adopted because we're getting to the point in his life where it has stopped being my story and started being his and soon it will be his choice to talk about it or not. When people ask about his name I merely say, "it's Russian."

and soon he's going to have to deal with people with apparent frontal lobe issues and my job is to prepare him.

and I still say he's not coming to any event that requires suit/tie/heels/hose/ or his daddy in his Blues. unless it's his wedding. ETA: and I mean Nikolai's wedding. His daddy has BTDT.

Jenn

[rainbabies]

a little off topic...but hey, this thread is way off now. jenn's post got me thinking about adoption. (no offense to you, btw)

why, oh why do people refer to adopted children as "their adopted children"

why cant they just be their children? like tom and nicole for example...when the tabloids or news talk about their kids, its.."suri and tom's two adopted children"

that really bothers me. dh and i want to adopt someday(have talked about it before we even married)..when finances permit...i vow here and now...dh, me or my other three kids will never refer to their sibling as adopted. i guess it just rubs me wrong..like they dont matter as much? :huh: am i way off here?

[DCJenn]

Total hijack:

Actually- Tom and Nicole have rarely if ever referred to their kids as their 'adopted children'- it's 99% the media and it's super annoying.

Like Brad and Angelina, too- they refer to the four kids as their kids whereas the media seems to think that ever time they need to list which one is the 'real' kid and which ones are adopted.

Sends me over the edge and I can't tell you how many letters and emails I've written.

jenn

[rainbabies]

i never even thought of it as the media doing it. it really grates on my nerves.

lily..that is just sooo wrong.

you know, my parents have each been married 4 times. my step-mom..who isnt even my step mom anymore..her mom and dad always refered to me as their grandaughter. they loved me more than anything. they bragged about me, came to my horse shows, gave me great love and gifts.

my grandmother..the one who passed away last year...she was my gramps second wife. my "real" GM passed before i was born. anyhow, she was the only one i knew as my grandmother. when dh, the kids and i visited her at her assisted living center, she introduced me as her "step-grandaughter" that hurt.

sorry for the hijack. i guess it takes all kinds to make the world go round.

[DCJenn]

oh- tangental thought to my hijack- there are actually states that make you state whether your adopted children or grandchildren should be treated as if they were your own.

Texas is one and I went ballistic in the JAG office about how patently offensive it is. (I actually went ballistic in front of a Colonel much to the dismay of my not even close to Colonel husband about exactly how would one demonstrate own vs not own...)

Jenn

[poky]

Two of my cousins and my husband and his brother are all adopted. None of them have ever been anything but the kids of their parents. Their parents have never been anything but their parents. If/when any of them ever got ahold of a biological parent (none of them have even tried yet, to my knowledge), that's what they'd be: "biological parents". *shrug*

In non-tabloid-fodder families, it really doesn't make any difference if you don't *make* it make a difference. Don't worry about it. And honestly, I think the media does it to the hollywood families to keep their readers from being confused. "wait - did I miss her being pregnant?"

[pstone]

why, oh why do people refer to adopted children as "their adopted children"

Because we live in a culture that gives tax breaks for paying others to watch their children? Because combining DNA with another being is really what is behind it all?

I only have one sibling (adopted) and I see her as my sister, though to be precise my adopted sister. We don't share DNA, we share life, we have history, and we survived childhood together. I can't imagine loving her any more if we shared DNA, but yep she is adopted.

[DCJenn]

but how does SHE feel?

Jenn

[Meenah]

WOW, this is one hot topic.

To quote a wonderful woman (my mother):

" I used to have no children and six theories on raising children, now I have 6 children and no theories"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DCJenn]

and since we've now totally hijacked this thread to be all about me, this brings up the discussion that Tara and I once had about our husbands who were both adopted- hers by the liberal lefty family and mine by the right wing conservative family.

and we both said that as much as they totally disagree with what their families think- they respect and love them as their family. and my husband met his Birthmother and really- his mom is his mom and his birthmother was the one who got knocked up and here we are nearly 40 years later.

Jenn-

and never once has he ever refered to them as 'my adoptive parents, my adoptive sisters, etc.' but he has made it perfectly clear that the birth mother is the birthmother. (and FYI- crazy MIL- is Crazy MIL not crazy BirthMIL which adds a whole dimension of craziness I can't deal with)

[planet]

Continuing on this tangent about Jenn ...

I know I am guilty of having totally offended someone unintentionally over the adoption issue.

An old friend got back in touch with me and shared her enthusiasm over finally being on the verge of adopting a child. My response was that kids are a blessing no matter how they come to us. What I meant was that having read about the ordeal and effort you, Jenn, went through to bring Nikolai into your family, I find birth to be simple in comparison and was trying to convey an understanding that adoption doesn't mean a baby just pops into your life anymore than pregnancy and birth do. You are probably cringing...she did. I wasn't trying to distinguish or invalidate it. So, please give a well meaning, but obtuse person a break. I don't use "adopted," "step," or "in-law" to indicate that a relationship is somehow less or more than another, but rather in the same way I use "cousin" or "aunt," which is just for clarity. Like many things in life, if unfamiiliar with them... the ettiquette can be mystifying.