We have been home with our little girl for almost 18 months and have heard many interesting questions and comments about our adoption. Most times people are simply and kindly curious, though that can get old. There are days I just don't feel like being the spokesperson for adoption I just want to try to be a good mom and enjoy my family.  Rarely are people intentionally offensive - despite the rather obnoxious things that sometimes get said.   I sent the below as a posting to one of the fabulous listservs our agency has set up to help adoptive parents. It seemed worth sharing in general so here goes..

This summer I had an adolescent ask some serious questions.  We were at a park on the swings and I thought this was an opportunity to educate the child and not to be offended - sometimes that's not the case. For some reason my brain was really kicking that day and I got my points across well... in a way that works well for us. 

It went pretty much as follows...

The first question was what did our daughter cost. I put it in terms like this:

Well let's think about it...

There is usually a cost for big important changes in our lives and important paperwork - getting a drivers license, getting a license for your car, getting married, you get the idea right? ...  Answer "Yeah."

When someone gets married do you ask what their wife or husband cost? Answer "No...."  Does it cost to get married?  Answer "Yes..." 

 Ok - so...the people that perform the service - the minister or the government official have a fee they charge for doing their job right? Answer "Uh huh.." And then the government has paperwork and fees that they charge so that the couple are registered as married and get their marriage license...

 But when it's done we don't say that they bought each other or that one of them owns the other right?  Answer came with a smile "No."

If you ask what our daughter costs it sounds like its' as if you think children can be bought - that we bought her.  We all know that buying people is illegal, wrong, and bad. Nobody should ever buy or sell another person.

Adoption has fees that need to be paid to the people that  do the work to make the adoption happen and to the government for the paperwork that helps to make sure that everything is right and is legal.  

 So adoption is like getting married because there are fees -  it's not free. But most importantly its like getting married because it's a good way for families to grow and people share their love.  

The next question had two parts: Why didn't her parents want her/why did you adopt?

Sometimes there are children whose birth parents can't take care of them - they are too young, they are terribly poor and can't feed their children, they are not healthy, etc. There are many reasons. Sometimes those children can be adopted to other people who can take of them, want to be parents to them and love them.

Families grow in lots of ways and for lots of reasons - do you know people that have more than one mom and dad? "Sure" 

(This example is way oversimplified but accurate)

So OK, here's an example... I have two brothers from my mom and two step sisters, and one step brother from my step father.  "OK..." 

Well most of the time people don't worry about why my parents chose to marry and make a bigger family. People just assume that love was the reason -  that my parents loved each other, love kids, and wanted to grow from our separate families into a bigger family. They're happy for us.  

My husband and I love each other, love kids, and wanted to grow our family.  Our daughter needed parents to love her and we needed to be parents and to love a child. We did not give birth to our daughter but we chose to grow our family through adoption. Adoption is one of the many good ways that families can grow and there can be more love in the world.

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Obviously it wasn't all quite as pat as this - though several ideas are some of my pat answers  - I had never made the analogy about marriage - nor heard it. It just clicked with me then. However I do feel that the child was interested and got the point that adoption is like getting married versus buying someone.  Also it seemed like she got the points about how there are times people can't take care of their kids and that adoption is just one of the ways families grow in the world.