parenting classes

We have been taking a couple of parenting and adoption courses online. Our adoption agency requires several hours of education credits before you can complete your homestudy (where the social worker comes and talks to you.) We worked through two in the last week: Let's Talk Adoption and The Conspicious Family. They were both fairly informative and made you think about a couple of things.

Let's Talk Adoption
This was a course that deals with how you talk to your adopted child about being adopted. Some of it was meant for parents adopting older kids and addressed issue like how to talk to them if their parents abused them or committed crimes. Mainly, it was about keeping the lines of communication open so that your child feels like they can ask questions about their birthparents and how they came to be with you. The trend in adoption is to talk to your child as early as possible, so that there aren't any secrets about where they came from. No one has to watch what they say or worry about whether they've exposed any hidden truths. Charlie and I both feel like adoption is a blessing to us and we will share it early and often.

Conspicuous Families
This class was interesting and I think we both enjoyed it. The main theme was when you adopt a child that is a different race, it will be obvious to the world that the child is adopted, and there will be lots of questions about that fact. Some will be rude. Some will just be curious. And the course helps you work through how to answer those questions without being offended and to educate people at the same time.

For example "How much did you pay for that baby?"

Answer "We paid for the social work time and the legal fees, not for the baby itself."

It was a pretty good course and it made me think. I often ask questions of the women around me that have adopted and they are very forthcoming with the information. But I did have to ask one friend about the appropriate way to ask those questions. I mean, when you see a blond lady with an Asian daughter, it's pretty likely that she's adopted. I guess the woman could be married to an Asian man (that's possible...totally!) but usually adoption is the case. But how do I walk up and ask what adoption agency they used or what their experience was like without sounding completely uncouth? Yikes. My friend Sarah helped me realize some of the same things the course taught us, but in return. I will be the one answering the questions this time.

Lots more to learn. Lots more.