I’m in the Chicken Pie Shop, I’m in the grocery, I’m waiting
to get shots for my boys and this is how it goes (No joke. It goes like this all the time.):
Uninformed Human: Your boys!
They all look so different! Are
they brothers?!?
Me [inwardly rolling eyes and sighing]: Yes.
Uninformed Human: Well, are they all yours?!?
Me [again, sighing]:
Yes.
Uninformed Human: Okay but do they all have the same dad?!?
Me [dejectedly hanging my head at the moron-ness of a great
deal of humans who live in society today]:
Yes.
This is for the server at the Chicken Pie Shop and for the
checkout dude at the grocery and for the nurse (even though she should know
wayyyy better) at the clinic where I took my boys for their flu shots:
I have some things to
tell you that will maybe enlighten your tiny little minds, then I have some
questions. First, the
enlightenment: For quite some time now
in our country and, you know, on the entire planet, people of different
ethnicities have been having babies together.
My husband’s mother is from the Philippines and he’s half Asian
(whatever that means) and he has dark hair and gorgeous olive skin. My ancestors are from the cold parts of
Europe where everyone has blonde hair and blue eyes and broad shoulders. And guess what! We’re totally allowed to get married and make
babies! We don’t have to be even
remotely the same color and we’re totally allowed to do that! (!!!)
What that means for you, tiny-minded people, (and I know this
might be tricky for you to comprehend, but please just try) is that my children
do not all look the same. Oliver has
dark hair and the aforementioned gorgeous olive skin of his daddy. Hudson is blonde with skin so pale it glows
and his eyes are icy blue. Grady is a
caramel boy, with hair, eyes, and skin that are all the same delicious golden
hue. They are my rainbow boys. The fact that they all look so different is
beautiful to me because my husband and I made them and we are different and I
think that’s really cool.
And now we will go back to the questions. I want you to really think about them, O Chicken Pie Shop/grocery store/nurse people, ye of the miniscule brains, because they will maybe change the way you behave the
next time you encounter a family like mine.
(And you will. We are everywhere. Get used to it.) I will space them out and put little stars next to them so you can take your time and really think. Please.
Please, think.
*How do you think my dark-haired boy feels when people gawk
and tell him he doesn’t look like his blonde brothers for the forty-third
time? Remember, he’s eleven. How might an eleven-year-old boy feel about
that?
*And while we’re discussing feelings, let’s talk about how I
feel when you ask if all the children to whom I gave birth and sacrificed a
career and a huge amount of sleep and sanity to raise are all actually mine? If you must know, it only hurts my feelings
the tiniest little bit. Your questions
mostly have the effect of being suuupper annoying. I’m trying to raise a semi-large herd of boys
here. It’s REALLY hard. I do not have
the time or patience to answer your blatantly nosy and obnoxious
questions.
*I wonder if you’ve ever thought about how truly ignorant
you appear to be when you ask your Uninformed Human Questions? I mean I’m sure you’re really nice and
everything, but when you ogle my children and your eyes glaze over in your
feeble attempts to understand basic genetics, you do not look like you’re
operating with a full set of hamsters in your wheel.
*This last question is the Most Important One, the one I
want you to consider and then consider again:
What if all of these boys weren’t
technically mine? What if one or all
of them were adopted? What if one of
them was a foster kid who I just rescued from a gawd-knows-what-kind-of-horrific
life? I’ll tell you what. That one little boy would feel your words
like nasty little knives, stabbing him in the parts of his heart that were
already broken.
Chicken Pie Shop/grocery/nurse people, I sure hope this
makes a difference. I hope you remember
these questions the next time you see my rainbow boys (or anybody else’s rainbow
babies) out in public. In fact, maybe print this out and laminate it and
memorize it so that next time, instead of asking your usual Uninformed Human
Questions, you might say this to yourself, “Oh look. There’s a family. They don’t look like each other but they sure
are beautiful. That is one beautiful family.”
*Post Script: I’m
aware that my tone is a tad aggressive in this piece and that I have done some
name-calling. Also I am aware that
name-calling isn’t the best manners, but guess what: people are messing with me and with my lovely
children and I’m super tired of it. If
you don’t want to be called tiny-minded, don’t have a tiny mind. Expand that brain of yours. It feels good.
Nicely done Momma Blunt! I want to share this with my other blonde wife/asian hubs friend....she was feeling some of your frustrations too and will love this! Your family has always been stunning...from the beginning when it was just the two of you goofy beautiful teenagers that always made me laugh!
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