A few days ago my 10 months pregnant friend at The Measured Mom posted a great list of things NOT to say to a pregnant woman, and politely suggest some alternatives. I laughed out loud reading some of them, remembering how many of them were said to me — and, shamefully, how many I have said to my pregnant friends, since I have forgotten what it’s like to walk around with another human being inside of you!
When I’m with my fellow adoptive girlfriends, you will often hear us say, “Oh, you won’t believe this one!” as we share the latest offensive thing someone has said to us. But just as I’ve been guilty of saying, “You look like you’re ready to pop!” to my overdue pregnant friends without meaning to make them feel worse simply because I’ve only been pregnant once and have forgotten all about it, other well-meaning people say some of the things on this list simply because they’ve never adopted and don’t know what else to say…or not say.
So I collaborated with some other adoptive parents to come up with this following list:
1. “Now you’ll get pregnant!”
Perhaps your friend is adopting because of infertility, but adoption is not a fertility treatment — and your friend is most certainly not adopting because she thinks, “THIS will do the trick!” When you say this, it can also make your friend feel as though you’re not excited about her adoption and view it as a “second choice”.
2. “He’s so lucky!”
Adopted kids are anything but lucky. They have experienced the loss of a first family and perhaps even the loss of their birth country and language. These kids don’t feel “lucky” to come to America — they are grieving the loss of their home and everything that is familiar. When you say this, it glosses over that loss.
3. “How much did he cost?”
Our child is not a car. If you really need to know this, Google it.
Read more of this post on: www.africatoamerica.org
Carly Seifert is a writer and blogger at http://www.africatoamerica.org A mother of two — a 5-year-old daughter by birth and a 1-year-old son by adoption, she is passionate about the arts, adoption and multiculturalism. She has a degree in drama from the University of California Irvine and teaches piano.