One of my favorite websites is "Damn You Auto Correct". I read it daily to get my fix of stupid humor. On one of the message boards I'm a member of, someone posted an auto correct that a lot of the other members were laughing at.
Read it first, then come back.
I guess my inner adoptee hackles became raised because I didn't find it funny, and asked the other members why they thought it was.
The answers varied, but basically I was told that not everyone has a negative attitude about adoption and that many kids will torture their siblings with the dreaded "You're adopted" line. And that I shouldn't read too much into the link since not everyone feels the same way I do. Okay. Yeah. Uhhhhhh...no...still not funny.
I know that they are coming from a different place than we are. I get that. I understand that there are people out there who are so far in the fog that me saying I'm angry that adoption exists gets them defensive.
I shut down while I read their responses...and if any of them are reading this, I'm not directing this to anyone person. It just really was a rude awakening to read some of the comments and to see how adoption is viewed by a lot of people.
I'm just tired of the jokes, you know? I'm tired of hearing the punchline and realizing that it's me.
I didn't see it as particularly funny. And I'm not adopted.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, I sniggered when I got to the end, but then I've long had a controversial sense of humour anyway.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see it as funny either. I have also been accused of not having a sense of humor when adoption or race is used as a so called joke. I don't want my kids to feel that they ARE a joke in some way and people don't get that.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think it was funny either. I am finding myself more and more asking people why they think something is funny-- usually a race related "joke" or comment.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, I have heard comments from some kids-- "I wish I was adopted." Usually in the context of their parent or sibling embarrasing them.
It definitely comes from a place of immaturity that doesn't really have a lot of understanding.
Here's what I don't get. The "you're adopted" joke is what siblings often say to one another. Why? Because siblings often torture each other with the horrifying possibility that they might be adopted. People so easily acknowledge that adoption is a dreaded and tortuous thing to consider--when it isn't true.
ReplyDeleteYet for those us to whom the words "you're adopted" were very much true--we're told not to read so much into it.
Like many things in the adoption world, a double standard must exist in order to make wiping out an adoptee's origins and falsifying our birth certificates "no big deal."
But it is a big deal. Because we were adopted. And that's no joke.
Not funny. I can't have a sense of humor about the life I've lived. I am with you. My kids used the "You're adopted, get away!" line on our dog and I blew up. Poor dog. He knows.
ReplyDelete(((Christina)))
I think I'll just go with "what Julie said", since she pretty much nailed it.
ReplyDelete