Monday, November 20, 2006
Protecting Your Child
My friend who came back with M&M several months ago had her first encounter of bigotry. She was at the grocery store and a lady approached her and said, "you got one of them babies from China. Well, at least her eyes are not THAT slanted." She was caught off guard and didn't have a comment. When she told me this, we began a conversation about protecting our children.
Every parent's child will face name calling in various forms from strangers and family members, whether their child is biological or adopted. It doesn't have to be mean spirited. My family used to say or "When are you going to grow?" or "You are such a munchkin." My mom used to try to protect me, but that didn't stop people from telling me these things when I was alone. These comments used to bother me when I was really young, but by the age of 8, I became very comfortable with my short stature. I started to come up with statements which would flip the situation around.
We can't protect our children. I'm not sure what I would have said in my friend's situation, but I should prepare myself. My husband is really good at coming up with smart ass remarks for dumb ass comments. I am going to have to come up with some canned statements for the comments which may be said.
I hope that my child will feel confident with who he/she is and that his/her father and mother love them and respect them for who they are, respect their biological parents, their home country -- everything about them. We know their will be tough times when we are not there to protect them and we won't be able to fight their battles for them. I hope that we have the strength to help them get through the conflict and be able to learn from the tough situation so they can handle it if it happens again.
Every parent's child will face name calling in various forms from strangers and family members, whether their child is biological or adopted. It doesn't have to be mean spirited. My family used to say or "When are you going to grow?" or "You are such a munchkin." My mom used to try to protect me, but that didn't stop people from telling me these things when I was alone. These comments used to bother me when I was really young, but by the age of 8, I became very comfortable with my short stature. I started to come up with statements which would flip the situation around.
We can't protect our children. I'm not sure what I would have said in my friend's situation, but I should prepare myself. My husband is really good at coming up with smart ass remarks for dumb ass comments. I am going to have to come up with some canned statements for the comments which may be said.
I hope that my child will feel confident with who he/she is and that his/her father and mother love them and respect them for who they are, respect their biological parents, their home country -- everything about them. We know their will be tough times when we are not there to protect them and we won't be able to fight their battles for them. I hope that we have the strength to help them get through the conflict and be able to learn from the tough situation so they can handle it if it happens again.
