No pictures please!

I'm a people watcher.  You'll even see that I wrote this in my blog profile.  I remember when I was in middle and high school and living in a fairly rural community, my family and I would drive about an hour and a half to two hours into the great metropolis to go to the mall and eat at chain restaurants.  If we ate in the mall food court, my mom and I liked to sit where we could get the best view of all the other people (I guess that didn't make us the best dinner companions, huh?!).  We would watch and observe and make assumptions.

Assumptions... to assume something... you've probably heard this before, but I'll put it out there for those of you who haven't -- my parents taught me that making assumptions just makes an ass out of you and me, and they demonstrated this by breaking up the word like so:  ass-u-me.

I have made so many wrong and embarrassing assumptions in my life!  I'm sure that I will do it again too.  Making assumptions and passing judgment is human nature.  It's how we deal with these assumptions that needs a little tweaking.

Now when you look at my family, you probably make the assumption that Little T is adopted.

8-13-2011, Cooperstown, NY

Guess what -- you're right!

What I really want to talk to you about is being conspicuous.

Noah and I used to be sooo ordinary, and then we added Little T to our family.  Please re-read that last sentence, especially the second half.  We added Little T to our family.  This was not his choice.  So while Noah and I made the choice to be a little more conspicuous in public, Little T did not.

Like ALL children his age, he doesn't really see the color differences in our skin yet.  He doesn't know that our family stands out in the crowd.

It's okay to look at us.  It's okay to even take a second look at us.  Staring is not so okay.  Seriously, even if my family was all the same race, staring is still not cool.  I really don't know anyone that likes to be stared at.

And lastly, it is especially uncool to take our picture.  Without our permission.  We.  Are.  Not.  A.  Tourist.  Attraction.

We just returned from a very lovely and relaxing vacation in Cooperstown, NY, and I had such a good time, that I even tried to convince Noah to uproot our little family and move there permanently.  But finally, it dawned on me, we were there for 5 days, and I only saw 2 other black people besides my son.  And they were tourists.

See, the Sanderosas are not too conspicuous where we live, because we're in the suburbia of the great melting pot known as New York City.  We even partially chose our humble homestead due to the racial diversity of the town.  Also, our lifestyle being the way it is, we often run our errands with just one adult and Little T.  I think that this lowers our conspicuous level a bit, because (and yes, I'm making an assumption here) some people may think Little T's other parent could be black.

Overall, I would say we have dealt with almost no animosity regarding our interracial family.  We've had some very naive questions and comments posed to us, and we try to take this as an opportunity to educate others about adoption and possibly forge new friendships.

But to call an apple an apple, it's none of your business.  Do I walk up to you and in front of your child ask if you gave birth vaginally or by c-section?  No.  Do I ask if you underwent fertility treatments or tried specific sexual positions to create that adorable mini-you?  No.  And do you know what else I don't do?  I do not take pictures of you and your child(ren).

We've now had 3 instances of people who were very obviously taking our picture.  This is disconcerting, to say the least.  And unfortunately, I was so shocked in each instance that I didn't confront the person taking the picture.  Fortunately, Little T didn't notice on at least one of the occasions, and he doesn't yet realize how wrong this is.

I'm ready now, though.  Just try it, and watch out for the mama bear.  Because while Noah and I chose to raise our conspicuous level by adopting a child so racially different from us, Little T did not.  He doesn't understand why you stare.  He doesn't know why you're taking his picture.  Not yet.  But one day he will.

***

This post is my contribution on the topic of being conspicuous.  When I first read about this project, I had many other thoughts about what I would write.  It would be more informative, based on our first-hand experiences, and a little less of a rant.  I think that having our picture taken not once, but twice, on our otherwise lovely vacation got me a bit fired up, though.  So I would like to take this opportunity to say that I am open to your questions and/or comments.  You can send me a private email if that is your preference at chezsanderosa @ gmail . com.