This one Takes the Prize

I sat next to another mom yesterday as I was watching my kids at their activities... this mom had a baby who was about 3 months old. After exchanging conversation over growth rates, shoe sizes and eating habits as most mothers do, her daughter started to fuss, and she began to nurse her. My son was trying to climb up in her lap while the baby was nursing, and I kept moving him away. Finally he made it known that he wanted to nurse too... at which point I see the other woman's eyebrows go up. I could read it all over her face; the realization that yes indeed, he was really mine. Perhaps the assumption was strong enough this time to not warrant the requisit question about adoption. In any case, when my son started to crawl around on the floor again, she turned to her husband and said... "Doesn't he look like a miniture soandso (enter name here)" Then she turned to me and said, "He looks exactly like this guy we know, (enter name here); is that his dad?" Ok... so, not to point out the obvious here, but there are a lot of black men in North America!!!! The one black man that you know is not my son's father... I GUARANTEE IT!!!

Annoying little ignorance.

There was a lady standing behind me at Walmart the other day. She was watching me talk to my son, who was getting rather frustrated at having to wait in line while sitting in his stroller. She caught my eye and asked, "Is he yours?"
"Yes," I answered.
She transferred her glance to him again and continued, “He is absolutely beautiful!! Where is he from?”

Obviously this isn’t the first time I’ve had this happen to me… but it has been awhile. His dark skin and curly hair make it obvious to people who are looking that he is not white. However, it seems to me that any person who has been a member of the human race for as long as she has, would have a greater knowledge of genetics. I briefly contemplated telling her he was from heaven, telling her that the stork brought him, or coming up with some other unbelievable story, but instead, I wiped all expression off my face and starred at her… tentatively, I ventured a quiet response… “What do you mean?”

I see no reason why ignorance need be met with an explanation at all. I certainly wasn’t about to launch into an explanation of the birds in the bees to a 50 something year old woman in the middle of Walmart. An apology at this point, would have been profound… but instead she continued…
“OH!!” with big eyes, “You mean he’s YOURS??”
“Yes” I said, wondering to myself why I was still having this conversation.
“OH, I thought you’d adopted him or something.”

I turned around and carried on unloading my groceries.