Adoption Impressions - Your Responses!

I recently asked others to submit quotes to me, to share what other people's initial reactions were when they were first told that you were adopting. I got some great feedback!! Thanks everyone! I think this is just a great example to NEW APs that they are not alone and that many, many, many people say the exact same thing when we begin to tell others that we are adopting a child. Sometimes some of us said or thought the same thing because we just didn't know any different.


So without further ado, here are:

Quotes: What others say when they learn that you're adopting

24 year old: "Have you tried, you know, stuff that married people do?"

Adoptive Parent: “We are adopting a little girl from Ethiopia! “

Friend:  "Um...will she be black. I mean, is it like South Africa where some of them are white?"

From a black woman who found out our child was adopted:

“Please feed that baby some beans and cornbread for me.”

“Why do you want to adopt a kid? I'll just give you mine.”

Aunt: “Well, let’s just pray you get pregnant and then you won’t have to do this.”

When adopting an infant from China a family member asked if they had trouble weaning the baby from rice!??

Same family member – “Does the Baby (2 months old) understand English yet?”

"But you have such beautiful babies on your own."

After telling my father we were adopting two kids from Bulgaria, he said:

“why would you want to bring kids into the USA that have been exposed to communism?”
My initial answer:  “Dad, you know communism is a more of a belief, not a disease.”
When this did not seem to have answered his question, I said:

“Don’t worry Dad, they were vaccinated for communism.”

Behind adoptive parent’s back back:  

"I don't know why she wants more kids.  She can't even handle the ones she's got."

I was having a conversation with a co-worker who had heard we were in the adoption process (mind you-this person works in the education field, so I like to think those "types" of people are open-minded).

Co-worker: "I heard you are trying to adopt a child."

Me: "Yes, we started the process a couple of months ago, and hope to have our child home within the next year and a half."

Co-worker: "Someone also said you are adopting from *Africa*"

Me: Yes, Ethiopia.

Co-worker: "So, will the child be black?!" (in incredulous tone)

Me: "Well, he/she probably won't look Asian."

“Are you *bleeping* crazy???”  - Family when adopting #4, and yet to leak the news they are adopting #5.

“You're so good to be able to love a black baby.”

“I'd be too scared that the real parents will come back and take the baby away.”

“Adopted children have all sorts of problems.” (like non-adopted people don't?)

“Do you actually know any adopted kid that turned out...normal?!" – A Family Member

“Do you get to keep her?”

At the grocery store, a fellow shopper asks: "So do you do daycare?"

"There are easier ways to get a baby."

The most hurtful:  Silence.


“Why would you want to bring THOSE kind of people into your home?  You should go to China like some people from our church did and get a cute little girl.” - before one family’s first adoption and repeated for their other two.

"You need to have more faith!"

“Don't Adopt. The Birthmother will come back and Kill You!”

**I’ll try not to take too much offense for the following one, as it comes from a fellow RDH, but she does sound a bit blonde**

My wife's dental hygienist said this when hearing we were adoption from Ethiopia:
"You're adopting from Ethiopia? (extended, puzzled pause) You know he'll be black, right?"

I told our neighbor that we had begun the process to adopt a child from Ethiopia. She looked right at me and said, very seriously, "But, the child will still be white, right?"

When I told her that no, our child would not be white, she just stared at me with a look on her face that said "are you nuts?!"


"When will you send her back to be with her mother?"

"Oh don't give up!"

I can't tell you how many times we got "I just don't understand how you are going to take care of someone else's child."

AP: "No you see, my child is just that - MY CHILD"

"Are you gonna get one of them foreign kids?"

I've witnessed several AP's left out of conversations about pregnancy and early childhood with offhanded comments like "Well you wouldn't know, since you didn't actually have a baby."

AP: “We are adopting a little girl with cerebral palsy! “

Friend: "Well, will she be able to be trained?  Will they be able to train her to do stuff she can't do now?"

AP, who normally answers in a gracious tone, but this response elicited:  "She not a dog!  No! We are not going to "TRAIN" her!  We are going to LOVE her, and then get her the therapy she needs to do everything she has the potential to do!"

"You're so lucky that you're getting to adopt and avoid all of that difficult labor." -Oh yeah? I've birthed and adopted children, and they both hurt as bad as heck.

Upon sharing the exciting news that we had just received our referral, a member of our church group said "oh great, she's from Ethiopia.  So she'll be a fast runner & she won't eat much!".

“You can never love an adopted child like you would love a biological child.”

“Don’t you think two is enough??”   

"Are you sure you are ready for a baby?" I was 32 when she asked me and she was asking me this as her pregnant 16 year old niece walked by. Really?

Got this one right before we left to get our child!
“You do know that race is still a big factor in 2011.”  

An acquaintance who just heard about our adoption process said:

"So, whats wrong with them?"
AP: "What wrong with who"
Aquaintance: "The kids, there must be something wrong with them if their parents don't want to keep them."

We shared the news with our small group, and we barely got any response at all.  No "Congratulations," no nothing.  Just blank stares.  

Relative: “So the baby will be black?”

"Isn't adopting a kid kind of like taking a puppy away from it's mother too soon? You're going to have all kinds of problems with that kid"

“If you adopt a black boy don’t have any other child because he will molest the other children.”

“Don't Adopt. The baby would not be Our Blood!”

"“All Adoptive children hate their parents.”

"What do your other children think about you adopting?" - well, I normally don't ask their opinion on if I want to birth another child or not, so their opinion doesn't count. 

At my daughter's baby shower, one person said, "I don't think it's fair that you got her when my nephew and his wife have been waiting and waiting and waiting to adopt."  And she had no clue how long we had waited or about what we'd gone through before adopting.

“Are your other kids your real kids?” …no, they’re imaginary.

“All Adoptive children feel like outcasts all their lives.”

“Only Adopt your child from a ‘Good Girl’”.

When telling their (white) family that they were adopting a “black” child, the family asked “Will you tell the child one day if they were adopted?”

“Why would you WANT to do That??”

“Let's Not Talk about That!  You will get Over that thought soon enough!”


“Don't do an Open Adoption you have to support the Whole family!”


We Said to my dad we're adopting from ET. He started smiling and there was silence... He said " continue " then there was more silence he then said "what's the punch line?"

Prior to our fertility issues, we knew we wanted to adopt, but also wanted bio-kids.  When I told my MIL, she said, "You better not adopt, I want REAL grand-babies!"  Then it turned out that adoption was our only option.  And she ended up just getting the "fake version".   (And I wouldn't have it any other way!)

“You really have to be worried about their mother coming after you.”

Our adoption was a surprise to everyone but family and close friends.  When we took our daughter to church for the first time, one person told us, "I don't believe in going against what's obviously God's plan."  Weird thing, she has one child and she'd adopted him.  

“$20,000 to Adopt a child?  Oh good grief just Make your Own!!”

“You Don't want one of THOSE children !  Nothing but heartache!"

“You know all of Those children have diseases!”

“The Birthmother can come back anytime and take your baby away!”

A single friend told me that really, she was as much my daughter's mother as I was... after all, I didn't give birth to her.  And she loved her, too, just like me.  The friendship went downhill from there.

“Do you ever hear from her real mom?"  

“Will she be black?”

“I feel bad for her, she will be raised in a white family,that isn't very nice of you.”

“This isn't fair to do to the children already in your home!”

“You better learn to braid better.”

“Why?”

“You know _____ was adopted, and you saw how they turned out.”

“Are you going to know how to fix their hair?!”

“Are you going to tell her she's adopted?”

From MIL when we told her we were adopting: "Oh. I was hoping for REAL grandbabies, not adopted ones."

"I will be your surrogate! That way the baby will really be yours." – A Mother In Law

My mother-in-law's immediate response to "we're adopting from Ethiopia" was "a black baby?"  Yikes!

Grandmother upon finding out our family was adopting:

“Ethiopia is in Russia, right?”

....”no, it's in Africa”

...."oh."

Tonight upon telling my grandmother:

"You're not gettin' a black one are you?"