What They Don't Tell You

Here's what the do tell you: every story they can remember about it going wrong. Anyone who's ever adopted a child will tell you it's like everyone has an inner Miss Rachel Lynde who just can't wait to say: "Adopting a girl? Well I know someone who did that and it was just a disaster. She'll burn you to a crisp in your bed. That's what!"

I'm sure it's the same if you have the audacity to birth twins or if, god forbid, you consider having more than the requisite 2.5 children. People have thoughts. And people love to think out loud.

The truth is, you learn how to respond to what they tell you pretty quick. Or, I did. Every now and again someone will throw me a curveball; but there's not much a You must be so embarrassed to have said that won't cover. Transparent idiocy—what they do tell you—is easy to address.

But in this time when people are learning to be more open about their privilege, their inadequacies, I'll just go ahead and tell you what they don't tell you. What they don't tell you is who you are, how you react in the face of the less-than-straightforward buffoonery—the intersection between people who are openly racist and who love your black kid.

Oh, they'll tell you straight up that our country is bursting at the seams with people who "have black friends" but who either consciously or unconsciously uphold all kinds of racist bullshit. They'll tell you she's a token. And a particularly easy one because she comes with the "privilege" of having white parents. The privilege that affords us some kind of sainthood in the eyes of the racist and makes her easier to swallow by association.

But they won't tell you about the two sides of your brain. The one side that says you should let them love her because she deserves to be loved and maybe they'll learn something in the process. And the other side that says you cannot teach her to settle for being their token. The one side that asks her all the time if she is being treated well and the other side that knows being treated well isn't even close to all that matters. The one side that appreciates how much they genuinely care for her and the other side that has seen what they post on social media. The one side that wants her to feel at home in her neighborhood and the other that cannot unsee the swastika tattoos all up that dad's arm. The nice dad. The one who brought a pineapple when we moved in and who loves to talk to her about soccer. The side that lies in bed and looks up swastikas on the internet hoping that maybe there's some kind of interpretation that your other side just doesn't understand and hasn't learned about yet. Something totally innocuous. Surely.

They just don't tell you about how it feels to never know if it's out of weakness or love that you let her feel like she's one of them when, if put to any test, they'll never let her be.

I know how not to be a transparent idiot. I know how to cast my vote, how to make a sign, how to talk race and read race and call out racism that's designed to hurt. But what they didn't tell me is that "love is blind" isn't a cliche fact of life; it's a choice. It's two sides of a brain at war. It's closing my eyes because my heart insists that on my battlefield love beats hate. 

They told me parenting would be tough. They told me she would need therapy because we all screw things up. But they didn't tell me that all my choices would be bad. That I can't make the right one because there is no right in a world that only turns left. They didn't tell me that it wouldn't always be love vs. hate—that more often it's love vs. love and that neither will be enough.

And that's when I'm grateful to have a brain at war with itself. Because I don't need anyone to tell me to love anyway. To hope anyway. To believe anyway. I don't need anyone to tell me that "not enough" is far better than "not at all." They don't need to tell me that she'll burn down the house because I hope to hell she will. I hope she'll burn it all down and a whole new kind of love will rise from her ashes. That's what.