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Back in high school, I had a good friend whose mother when miffed would, for the fifty-millionth time, say, “You know that you’re just a placenta, don’t you? When you were born, the doctor threw away the baby and wrapped the afterbirth up for me to take home.”
My father would tell anyone who asked my full name, actually Sandra Noreen, that it was Sandra No Weenie, “Because she doesn’t have one.”
I wrapped my son’s fifth birthday presents and set them all out in plain view a day in advance with the express intent of torturing him with anticipation.
A quick Internet search just provided such cruelties doled out by parents onto the innocent heads of their adorable children as:
If you fall out of the tree and break your legs, don’t come running to me.
Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about.
Which one of you wants smacking first?
Christmas is CANCELLED.
You were born in a barn!
Add to those contributions like, “You sound just like your father when you make that disgusting noise!”, “You’ll never have trouble swimming with THOSE feet!”, and “I brought you into this world, I can take you out!”, and you get a fairly representative list of common family refrains.
I have no doubt readers are well able to supply their own comments that can cut to the quick, either heaped on their own heads by parents, spilled from their own lips to children, or both.
Cringe inducing? You bet. Divisive? In the adoption community where almost anything can blow a triad to at least three peices, probably.
After yesterday’s News blog where I was going all soft and squishy-like over embracing the common ground that lies within the adoption triad over open birth records, today it seems that ground is shaking like an 8.1 with potential for a big vertical shift.
A New York Times blog post by author and adoptive mother Tama Janowitz has gone off like a cluster bomb and has many running for some big guns. Gauntlets have been thrown and beads are being drawn.
There is some commonality still, as some birth parents are as up in arms as adult adoptees over Ms. Janowitz’s unapologetic poke at transracial international adoption that uses her own daughter as the butt, but also no shortage of people amused as anything and thankful for a tension-releasing giggle, even one not at all PC and at the expense of someone’s kid because … what the heck! … we’ve all been there.
Here’s the bit that’s causing most of the hoopla:
So in a way it is kind of nice to know as a parent of a child, biological or otherwise – whatever you do is going to be wrong. Like I say to Willow: “Well, you know, if you were still in China you would be working in a factory for 14 hours a day with only limited bathroom breaks!”
And she says — as has been said by children since time immemorial — “So what, I don’t care. I would rather do that than be here anyway.”
Them’s apparently fightin’ words … or at least words that need a whole lot more words chucked in their general direction. Serious, strong words that don’t pussyfoot around or leave any questions as to their indignation.
Words like these from Lisa Marie:
Did she really in such a joking manner make a mockery of those folks who are working under the conditions of economic slavery imposed by the U.S. that actually admits that the black, brown and yellow folks they utilize as a labor force don’t deserve basic human rights? And does she forget that ‘those folks’ are her daughters people?
I’m just frothing at the mouth, writhing around, clawing at my eyes and wishing I could punch this woman, many times, right in the face.
Jae Ran of Harlow’s Monkey fame updated often until comments were closed, tabulating the number of opinions that weren’t posted, strongly suggesting censorship on the part of the Times. Since there are issues ostensibly of monstrous magnitude involved, the thought that some opinions have not been published while others have been is creating an atmosphere of oppression that has bloggers, at least, chomping on the bit they feel is stifling their reactions, and has one asking: “This begs the question: just what does The New York Times have against adult adoptees?”
So, Ms. Janowitz … hip, urban mom with a wicked wit, horrid racist, adoptive mother from hell? Or something else completely?
The reaction … OTT, right on the money, sheesh? Or something else?
Thoughts?
Haven’t had time to read the piece, but your blog was hilarious as usual.
Lisa
On one hand it’s great that she’s not pretending that her child isn’t Chinese like that lady in this documentary totally dissolved her child’s vietneseness.
But I still think it’s just a bit mean to say “if I hadn’t adopted you you’d be working in a factory for 14 hours.”
I know parents say stuff like that all the time, There’s stuff my mother or grandmother would say that were not very nice, but it still bugs me a bit.
But, she’s not really a monster but a loving parent trying to respond to the thig a lot of kids throw at their parents.
I never sad that to my mother, but perhaps because she would have hit me.
The part about the dogs was also funny.
I read the article and thought it was hilarious! Reminds me of a parenting book I read called something like “Mom, Stay Out Of My Life Forever, But First Drive Me To The Mall!” And she was not “mocking a labor force that is her daughter’s people” — in my opinion, she was reminding her daughter that in spite of her horrible mother there are some advantages to being adopted to a well-off New Yorker.
I thought one of the most insightful comments was “When a young child says ‘I hate you’ they mean they are angry with you. And who among us hasn’t been angry with our parents about something at some time?”
I thought the article overall was pretty funny and refreshing, though I’m personally not a fan of the factory remark. I guess I can understand the “outraged” reaction too, in a way… I mean, I was pretty infuriated when the adoptive mother in the Mother Jones article talked about sending her daughter back to Guatemala to live with her birth mother (!).
OMG, I am cracking up just thinking about all the horrible things my mother said to me….(including that they found me in a basket on the front porch and intended to ship me back to my “real parents” — and I am not an adoptee!).
I think it’s hard for people who don’t parent to realize that things “slip” and yeah, maybe you wish you could take them back. But I would rather be “comfortable” enough around my child to say things like this (jokingly) than worry about what is the “correct” way of talking to my child. Of course, I have a warped sense of humour.
I think that often the adoption world takes itself waaaayyyy too seriously.
Do we need to be sensoring ourselves around our children? Should I not say something to my adopted child that I would say to my biological child? The truth – parents are human beings. We get mad, we want our children to love us, we get hurt when they say “I hate you” or “I didn’t ask to be born” or “I wish you weren’t my parents” – all things I said to my parents at one time.
So, if my adopted son decides to pack his bag and sit on the front porch (like I did), should I immediately beg him to stay? My mom helped me pack my bag and periodically checked on me. Should she have dragged me back in and declared her undying mother love to the obnoxious little girl on the front porch?
I KNOW I will say something I shouldn’t – I did before I adopted my child – I will again.
Romee
Hence why I am torn.
There are all sorts of things I consider hilarious in one context, but not in the other. It depends.
One wants to be comfortable with their child and joke around with them, but then there’s crossing certain lines and who knows where those lines are because sometimes a phrase could be hilarious, other times, not so…
Does that even make sense?
Chromesthesia, I think context does mean everything.
My father used the “Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about” line. And he really meant. He had a belt and used it. His “parenting style” wasn’t uncommon 30 and 40 years ago.
Parenting has come a long way. Heck it isn’t too long ago that mothers were accused of causing autism by hugging/kissing/loving their children.
So I am bring my personal experiences/context to reading Tama.
By putting the words in writing… potentially in front of millions…
She turned a cute family story into something that is insulting.
It was NOT very smart of her.
Written words are perfect. 90% of human communication is via body language. So by writing the story, she has stripped off much of the context. So Tama shows herself as a racist when she was just trying to share a “cute” family story.
correction: Written words are not a perfect communication device.
Sandra, I didn’t answer your question.
I don’t 100% with all the bloggers out there on this topic. But I agree with the spirit of their reaction. I don’t think their reaction is out of line.
I think Tama was out of line. She really should have thought about the context. She wasn’t telling a cute family story to the neighbors. She was telling it to the world in writing.
Man I suck today… I cannot finish sentences.
I meant to say that “I don’t 100% agree with all bloggers out there on this topic”.
Roseanne comes to mind.
I LOVED this woman’s blog!
Lisa
haha, Sandra No Weenie. Sounds like something my hubby would comeup with! Thanks for the chuckle!