Right in the Middle

Image credit: Photo by timtom.ch on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

Last week, I was walking with my daughter. As she dashed out ahead of me, racing up a small hill, a girl of about ten years old, approached me from behind. I've seen her around a few times recently, and she knows who Janie is, although I don't know her name or where she lives. Her face is open and cheerful, and she has freckles across the bridge of her nose. She looks like a child Norman Rockwell would have painted.

She matched my stride, looked up at me and said, a little hesitantly, "I hope I'm not causing any trouble, but I was wondering if I could ask you something?"

"Sure," I replied, wondering what was bothering her.

"Well... Is Janie adopted?" she asked.

This was a question I'd been expecting for a long time. Both Janie and her brother are biracial, and even before my kids were born, I'd imagine hearing that very question whispered by as-yet-unknown people who were lurking just out of sight, in the shadows of the future. At the time, I assumed that being a mixed race family would be the biggest challenge we'd face. I used to worry about how to make sure we raised the children to embrace both sides of their family, both parts of their heritage. I used to worry about how I would help them find their own racial identity and whether or not I'd be up to the task. And I used to worry about facing the very question this girl was asking, facing the assumption that my children were not "really" mine because they looked different. Sometimes when Austen was little, I used to see other babies out with their nannies, and I'd wonder if other people looked at us and thought I was the nanny too.

But these days I worry much more about the challenges Austen has, and will continue to have, around his autism. I worry about Janie, who is increasingly struggling with her role as the neurotypical sibling of an autistic brother. I worry about the family history of addiction and how that predisposition will play out. I worry about what effect addiction has had on them already. And of course, I stopped worrying long ago about whether or not other people consider us a "real" family; I know that even if I had adopted my children, they would still be my children and we would still be very much a real family.

Racial issues do come up, and I do talk to the children about them, but they've come up less often than I expected and have been less challenging to deal with than some of the other problems our family faces. So, last week, when that dread question of adoption finally did come up, I simply said cheerfully, "No, she's not adopted."

It didn't occur to me that this answer might not cover it for my little questioner, who paused for a moment and wrinkled her forehead in thought. Then her face brightened and she said, "Oh, I get it! You married her dad. You're her stepmom!"

The missing piece was my husband Mark, whom this girl had not yet seen. "Well, I am married to her dad, but I'm also her biological mom. I know. She and I don't quite look alike, do we?" By this time we'd caught up with Janie who was busy examining something on the ground.

A few years ago, Janie had asked me (in much the same way that she would ask "When will I grow breasts?"), "When will my hair be straight like yours? And when will my skin get light?" She could see that little girls' bodies looked different from grown womens', so she thought that all girls, however they were born, must grow up to look like their mamas. She was surprised and dismayed to find that she was going to grow up to look like herself and not me, which broke my heart because she is so beautiful. By the time I caught up to her on the hill, we'd already had many conversations about how she is half Daddy and half Mama and all Janie.

"Janie doesn't look exactly like me, because she looks like her daddy too. She's halfway between the two of us. Right, sweetie? Her daddy has very dark skin and curly hair, and I have very light skin and straight hair. Janie's skin is not as light as mine, but not as dark as her daddy's, and her hair is not as straight as mine, but not as curly as her daddy's. She's made up of a little bit of both of us, so she's right in the middle."

"Oh, ok. Thanks," said the girl said brightly, "See you later."

Like so many things in my life, I worried about that question at a time when I wasn't ready to handle it. But by the time the moment came for me to face it, I was ready after all.