Grudges and Totem Poles

Sure my in-laws are dysfunctional like many families.  But you know what my real beef is with them?  It's that I just can't forgive them.

We decided to adopt after having 5 miscarriages.  My in-laws were very supportive of this decision because they didn't want us to keep trying to have a baby and put my body through more of that devastation.  That is, until we told them we decided to adopt a biracial baby. 

Sure they were polite on the phone, but within a day or so we got an email from them that told us they were very upset about our decision.  They said they would rather us adopt a 100% any other ethnic group baby than a baby that is any percentage black.  

Yep, they said that.  Then they said it is their experience that anytime black is mixed with someone's blood, the person will end up on the bottom of the totem pole.  W.T.F?!

They worried that we would be making a mistake that we'd have to live with for the next 18 years, and that would end up harming their fully caucasian grandchild (our biological son).  

That's when I realized I married into Archie Bunker's family.  We very politely informed them we weren't asking for permission.  We were just INFORMING them of our plans.  

The irony, of course, is that our multi-racial son actually looks white.  And he's their favorite kid.  So much so that they only pay attention to him.

But that's not the end of the story.  When we decided to adopt again (this time from Africa), we got a concerned call from them.  They were sure we'd either 1. be killed over there and leave our two perfectly good kids orphans, or 2. adopt an HIV+ child which would in turn infect us all.  

I'm happy to say neither of those things happened.  But they still treat our African child like she has HIV.  Or maybe just cooties.  

So you see, with every annoying, dysfunctional thing they do, it makes it just that much harder to tolerate because I just can't forgive them.  

I'm normally a very forgiving person.  I'm not usually bitter.  But I guess when it comes to my kids, I'm a Mama Bear.

By the way, when I told my dad we were adopting a biracial baby, his response was, "I don't care, as long as the baby is not Southern!"  Bwahahaha. Gotta love him.