I am going to take a break today from the Transracial Adoption ABCs and write a bit about being a transracial adoptive family out in public.

My family just spent an amazing week in Florida on my daughter’s Make A Wish trip. We left the small, quiet town where we live, and where just about everyone knows us, and ventured out into airports, hotels, amusement parks, restaurants and many other places.

Every time we go out of town, I am reminded how very much our family stands out in a crowd. For one, we are bigger than most. Just asking for a table for 12 in a restaurant can get funny looks and annoyed reactions from waitresses.

Then when you throw in the fact that our family has white, Asian and black members of all different shapes and sizes, we can really bring in the stares, comments and questions.

I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised that we did not get any obviously or overtly negative reactions on this trip and I only got one rude comment from a woman who said she “felt sorry for me” for having so many kids. When I told her not to feel sorry for me because I was extremely happy and blessed and enjoyed all of my kids, she started to back track.

We did get a ton of questions on this trip. Oddly enough, the question we got the most often was, “What is this?” People would stand and observe the kids, count heads, watch Josh and I for a while, and then ask, “What is this?”

Usually I just replied with, “my family”, and most people then said something kind about how beautiful the kids were, etc. One time I got the “what is this?” question in the middle of a very busy moment, so I replied with, “organized chaos.” :) (We have since had fun coming up with other appropriate and in appropriate answers to that question!)

I found it funny that people didn’t look at us and automatically see that we are a family. What did they think we were, a very generous day care? (Do you know of any day care centers that take their kids to Disney World??)

I did have a few people ask me if I worked for Make A Wish. Quite a few people assumed I worked for MAW and was simply taking a bunch of kids on an outing.

We also got to connect with quite a few other adoptive families, or grandparents of transracially adopted children. That is always a fun thing for me. I was really surprised with how many other transracial adoptive families I noticed at the parks. It was fun to see so many other families like ours. I really believe that transracial adoption is becoming more and more common, and is being seen in many places as less "different" and more "normal".

All in all, our interactions with the public were better than expected. However since you never know what you are going to get, it is always a good idea when you are a transracial family to prepare your kids for the questions, comments and stares that your family may receive while in public. See my next posts for information on why it is important to prepare your children for the reactions of others, and for tips on how to prepare your kids for handling questions and comments.

Some more reading on the topic...

Concerns about Community Reactions to Transracial Adoption

Being a Highly Visible Family

Even Angelina Gets Those Comments