Texty

So, in assembling this photo collage for our adoption agency profile, I went looking for pics of the two of us.

A while back, my mom gave me a CD full of pics she'd had stored--old family pics, a bunch of stuff from her camera, etc. I'd not gone through them--my mother takes tons of pics and most of them are pretty repetitive. But I wanted to see if there were any shots she'd gotten of us that I hadn't seen.

I did find some interesting pics--not of us, but of the rest of my family. Some interesting old ancestor pics, and a few of me and my dad. There was a little bit of "huh. These are my people, I spose." Not nostalgia, really, but wondering whether there might be any merit to including them as part of my family now that I'm adding a child of my own.

And then I opened a folder called "great pics." Which was full of all sorts of horrible racist "jokes." Like really, really horrible ones. So horrible I don't even want to describe them.

Oh.

Given that we're still considering a transracial adoption, and may well end up with at least a mixed-race child, I just ... I wanted to throw up, quite frankly. The idea of exposing my kid to people who would think that kind of hateful garbage is funny is nauseating.

The weirdest part is that there's already a PoC kid in my family. One of my cousins on my mom's side has a daughter (now a teen) whose father is half black/half Japanese. She's gorgeous and sweet and a nice kid. And I wonder exactly what the rest of the family says behind her back. I know that my late grandfather, on seeing her first pics, said something to the effect of "that child's going to be black!" in a horrified tone. But beyond that, I'd not heard anything. She's featured in plenty of family pics, etc., so it seem like she's accepted, but who knows what people really think or say when they think they're in like-minded company?

And honestly, if having a POC grand-niece hasn't cured my parents of their racism, will having a PoC grandchild help? I doubt it. I'm guessing my dad probably won't be around much longer--not long enough for my kid to really know him. But my mom may even outlive me, so I'm going to have to find a way around that. If my child and her birthfamily--who will be part of our family--aren't white, how are my parents going to handle that? And what will be the effect on these new family members whom I want to feel loved and welcome, to know that the extended family of the adoptive parents is so awful?

The obvious solution--and the one I've been operating from for quite some time--is to simply keep my family at a distance, so their toxic hate doesn't affect me or the other people I love. I already have PoC friends, and the idea of having my family around where they can say stupid things to them is horrifying to me, so that's just not an option.

But when it comes to my kid, there WILL be questions. She'll have birth grandparents, and with luck, those will be good people, but we won't be able to give her that experience on our side. Trying to explain to her why we don't see our bio families is going to be excruciating even if she is white. She'll have to understand, for instance, that we're not out to M's family because their religion doesn't allow them to accept us the way we are. And that's going to be hard enough to deal with. She'll otherwise be surrounded by all sorts of queer and queer-friendly people, so she'll know that we and the people we choose to have around believe it to be perfectly normal, natural and worthy of support. She'll know that the vast majority of people in our lives believe in voting in a way that supports human rights. But there will still be this one segment of her adoptive family--a big one--that doesn't, and I'm lost for how to explain that to her in a way that won't mess with her head. She'll know about homophobia, of course, but to know that her own family is part of that problem? Depressing, to say the least (just as it is for me.)

And then to add racism on top of that ... I just. Ugh. We ourselves can be role models to counteract the homophobia. But we don't have the framework around race established well enough to offset that, and I'm terrified of not being able to give my PoC child enough support in that area.

Generally speaking, we already believe in the idea of chosen family, and adoption is just a part of that. We'll be establishing the idea that family is the people who love you, regardless of whether they're legally or biologically related. And, out of necessity, we'll have to explain that sometimes the people we're legally or biologically related to aren't actually family. We'll have to make it clear that just because DNA or a piece of paper says someone is connected to you doesn't mean they love you. Love is demonstrated by actions, not words, and people who have not chosen to act in a loving way aren't qualified as family. But there's SO much cultural framework built up around blood family that undoubtedly this is going to be upsetting for her, and that breaks my heart.

I'm dreading the moment--and there will be one, I know it--when my kid realizes that there are people who don't like her--or even hate her--because of her skin color, or because her parents aren't straight, or because her mom's fat, or because she's adopted, or because we're not religious, etc. And it'll be even worse if it's not just random strangers who dislike her, but people she's legally related to. I will likely choose not to really expose her to those people, so she won't develop a bond with them and thus be hurt even more by their prejudice when she discovers it. If they're effectively strangers, that revelation will sting a lot less.

But it's still going to hurt, and I'm still furious that my kid is inevitably going to suffer just because there are so many ignorant, hateful, small minded people--some of whom I have the misfortune to be related to.

These types of holidays are always hard for me, because I haven't had the best relationship with my parents over the years. There are a lot of reasons for this--which I've gone into in a fair amount of detail here from time to time--but suffice it to say, we're at a tenuous peace at the moment, and I hope things stay that way.

In all this time, though, I've watched many of my friends' relationships with their fathers, and have seen many become fathers themselves. Even though I don't buy into the gender divide thing when it comes to parenting, it's still enough of a part of the culture I exist in that observing these relationships around me--observing men as they come to grips with redefining themselves--is quite an education.

I've learned a lot from this that I feel I can bring to my own parenting, if we manage to make that happen. The "mommy" role is something that's never called to me in any way, and it's taken me years to realize that that doesn't mean I don't have a parenting instinct at all. But neither, of course, do I have some of the typical "fatherhood" instincts that have so broken so many of my friends--and me, too, in some ways. The drive to assert masculine dominance and fight off any hint of showing weakness has destroyed so many children, and also the men who can't seem to make themselves stop doing that to them.

My own dad has had his own issues with this, of course, and it definitely is part of the reason things have tended to be strained between us. But I think I can honestly say that the lion's share of our problems are more just personality, philosophy and lifestyle differences (backed up with strong wills and a tendency to be stubborn and cantankerous on both parts) rather than him trying to do what he thinks men and fathers are supposed to do. My dad has made a ton of bad choices over the years, some of which have hurt me quite deeply, but he's also done a lot better than a heck of a lot of other fathers I've observed, especially in encouraging my own strength, education, literacy, tomboy nature, etc. Though my mom tried quite a lot to get me to act like a proper girl, he never really did, and has always supported and even encouraged that part of me. It's ironic, but even though some of the worst things that happened to me were in part due to mistakes he made, the strength of character he gave me also helped me survive them.

I don't expect us to ever have the close relationship we did when I was younger. I'm too scarred at this point, and both of us are far too set in ways that are inherently opposed. I don't think either of us needs that drama. But I do have some good things that I take from his parenting, and think I'll eventually apply to my own. And maybe that's enough.

Thinking a bit more about the adoption thing, one issue has been nagging at me: Is it really fair to bring a child into a family of only two people?

M and I have a great deal of love to give, and would be very dedicated to any child we took in, but neither of us have great relationships with our families of origin. In fact, I can't think of anyone I'm biologically or legally related to with whom I actually have a close, loving relationship. I get a few birthday cards here and there, but really, those people don't actually know me, and wouldn't like me if they did. So... No.

We do have some good friends, of course. I consider D and K to be family, definitely, and there are plenty more people we love whom we'd readily add to that list if we got closer, but for capital-F Family--people we could be certain would be in our child's life for the long haul--it really is just us.

The popular concept of family--the dozen or so people gathered around at Thanksgiving or whatever--just isn't a part of our lives, and won't be. We've already lost all of our grandparents, so our child would never know great-grandparents, but they wouldn't know grandparents, either, except in passing. No aunts, no uncles, no cousins. They'd meet a few, sure--M's siblings, for instance, wouldn't be unknown to them--but they'd really be little more than strangers, not people with whom they'd really be close. On a day-to-day basis, we'd be it.

On a practical level, I don't see this getting in the way too much. Yeah, most birth mothers would probably prefer to give their babies to couples with a larger family, but I'm sure there might be some who wouldn't worry about that. The only issue is just my own concern with it, and whether we'd be emotionally shortchanging a child by having such a small circle of loved ones for them to come home to.

I just sent a short mail to an adoption attorney.

I honestly don't know if that's really the right place to start, but it'll at least give us a better idea than what I've come up with so far, which has been a giant morass of agencies and agents for agencies and useless directory sites and... blah. No way to tell which ones are a scam, or which ones would balk at handing a kid over to a couple of queer atheists or whatever. The whole thing seems like a big pile of Ponzi schemes and snake oil sales drones.

I'm figuring it'll take months to get through all the paperwork and such, so I may as well get going on it now, even though I'm a little concerned about financial issues at the moment, what with the economy being a disaster.

I guess we'll see what happens next.

Woke up this morning to discover that M's little sister had lost the baby. Things were going fine all day yesterday, and then they suddenly weren't. They did an emergency c-section but weren't able to save the baby.

There's a hell of a lot on my mind right now. I'll probably do a personal or spawning filter post in a little while.

Have a doc appointment tomorrow, so made it home for that. Sadly, M is not here, as he's still in Portland dealing with the family stuff. Still no real idea of how much memory loss she has. It seems to be coming in fits and starts, at least. Some of that may be sedation, since she's been under that frequently for various tests, including an angiogram.

I still feel behind, and tonight's production was punctuated by me screwing a few things up, which annoyed me. However, I must point out the piece by our columnist this issue. He's written a bunch of other stuff, but this is definitely one of his best. Makes me laugh right from the first graf. He has the makings of a Gen Y Dave Barry.

In the next three days, I must:

*Work up a presentation for my SPFH workshop. This may be challenging, considering that I have no idea what I'm doing for it.
*Study for my midterms (one Monday, one Tuesday)*Write my weekly participation notes for seminar (not hard, just time-consuming.)
*Finish an Excel exercise for my Adv. Rep. class (could sleep through that, considering I had to show the prof how to save time when selecting ~6700 rows of data...)
*Try to get caught up on my Adv. Rep. project, since I've done jack with it all week and the first draft of it is due two weeks from yesterday.
*Write up an outline for my thesis--due a week from today. May be challenging, given that I have done very little beyond gathering the sources from which I'm writing. The rough draft for it is due the day after the draft for my Adv. Rep. project. Oh, joy.
*Prep for and attend the Sunday budget meeting for the SPFH.

...in addition to the doc appointment, setting another one, doing laundry and dishes, trying to not go completely insane...

Yeah.

Five weeks left of the term, plus one final. While I'm glad the term's going by fast so I can come home (I put in my move-out notice this week! Gah!) I'm not glad it's going by fast so I can't keep up. Gah.

M's mom was off the ventilator today. She's still somewhat sedated, but she's responding to people a bit. The concern of the moment is whether she's had some memory loss, as she had trouble recalling some recent events.

Her docs said that her collapse was caused by v-fib. The likely treatment, after more tests, will be to install a fibrillator.

M decided to spend the rest of the week in Portland, to help the family get some business stuff sorted out (mom usually takes care of bills and such.) I may go down next weekend.

More when we know more.

M heard tonight that his mom suddenly collapsed. No pulse, no breathing. She was finally revived by EMTs. The hospital now has her in induced hypothermia for 48 hours to try to determine whether she has brain damage. If she does, there's a DNR order in.

We've known for a while that she was unhealthy, but she'd been doing somewhat better in recent months. She'd lost a lot of weight, was getting exercise, etc. However, she'd also still been avoiding seeing a doctor. She hates hospitals, and hates tests, etc. So, we've just been kind of aware of the inevitable for a while. I'd been hoping she could hang on until I was back home with M (and until her youngest graduated from high school, which he will be doing about a week before I graduate) but it's looking like that won't happen.

M has assured me that he wants me to keep plugging away, to get through this term, so that's what I'm going to do. I'll take the time off for a funeral, if necessary, but I have to keep focus on this. It's so close--I can't lose this, now. And delaying it only means delaying the time I get to finally come home for good.

Still, the rest of the term is going to be weird, at best. I guess I'll just do what I can.

Just a note to say happy anniversary to my mom and dad. Congrats on 40 years of putting up with each other!



Most couples don't even make it half that long these days, so it's quite a feat.

( Aren't they cute? )