Adapted

My daughter tells her brother that he is adopted, just to fuck with him. Of course, he's at the age when the possibility that anyone but we (preferably Pokemon) are his biological parents is more thrilling than alarming, so her strategy backfires. But when he asks me if it's true, I say "no" a little too sharply and he asks me what is wrong with being adopted. I start the tap dance of "there is nothing wrong with being adopted, but it's not polite to ask other people if they are adopted," which, of course, makes no sense, since he is not asking other people. He is asking me about himself.

And as I talk, I can see how the prospect of not sharing DNA with me could suddenly become a source of comfort. I grew up in an environment where adoption was not openly discussed and I am uncertain if other children and parents would welcome inquiries.

But I am constantly worried that my children will ask something inappropriate of someone who will not be forgiving of their curiosity and as result, I am worried that I am stifling that curiosity. It's certainly a relief that I am not running out of things to worry about.

When she was six, my daughter asked a man panhandling on our street corner if he was homeless. I told her that it was a personal question. But is it? Or am I teaching my children the unspoken lesson of living in New York, or perhaps in the modern world--do not engage. I want my children to be safe--physically and emotionally and I am afraid that in so doing, I am teaching them not to acknowledge difference. I read in this month's O Magazine an advice column where a woman met someone at a party and said "I'm sorry" when the woman she met told her that her child had autism. The mother said that there was nothing to be sorry about and the woman felt chided. What should she have said? I fully admit to my being distracted by some shiny object at this point, so I'm not sure what the bottom line of this advice column was, but I do remember retaining that making an understanding face and nodding sagely was appropriate. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I swear, it's advice like this that will make me barricade myself at home and not have any human contact, for fear of making a faux pas.

Are faux pas that bad? I guess it depends on your personality, should you be so lucky as to have one. Me? I still remember first day of swim team in Leningrad, when I was 8 and the coach said to get get changed and meet him at the pool and I appeared in record time, ready to swim and he looked at me and said, "You need to put on a bathing suit." Yeah, that nightmare that people talk about having--showing up naked in class or at work? Mine was a dream come true, if you will. Thirty years later, I am still cringing. And wearing a bathing suit under my clothes, at all times.

Having children is like a constant faux pas. Will they offend? I spent an entire afternoon once hovering over my son at a water park because one of the mothers there was a dwarf. (Ok, someone told me that the acceptable term is 'vertically challenged', does anyone know if that is true or if people are just torturing me at this point?) I was petrified that he would make some comment to her, an innocent child-like comment, but still. I kept making eye contact with her, and smiling maniacally, to "soften" whatever awkwardness he would spew. I think she finally left to avoid me.

I certainly don't know what the answers are. I tried to teach my children that it is not polite to stare, to ask personal questions of people that they don't know well and to be polite. By the way, what is that whore Britney up to these days, anyone know?