Unsolicited advice and comments... Havent even adopted yet!

We had some of those types of comments while we were waiting. Sadly some of them were from family members. I am a pretty quiet person but I spoke up and said that we would NOT tolerate those things being said and if I EVER heard anything in front of our child(ren), they would not see them or us again. Nothing has been said in our presence since then. Our DD is biracial and they all love her so much and do not care at all that she is not CC. I think in our case, there was a lack of education about adoption in general and once we explained/educated them, it got better!

People around me know better to say that sort of thing. I cut off all negative people, so I have no problem doing it again. I rather have 2 or 3 very good supportive friends than having a dozen or more negative "friends" that bring you down. But that's just me.

I would say something like. "why would you even say that?" (looking shocked) or "Please tell me that you don't believe that garbage!". This would give them either the out of backtracking and watching what they say in the future to me, or of deciding they don't want to be around me, (good riddance) You will find your real friends through this process.

Good advice. We got comments and questions that bordered on the offensive. To friends and family I turned a lot of questions around with a "are you kidding?" with a look in my eye that suggested how rude/offensive they were being. Then we became parents. There have been a fair amount of people both in my family and friends that I just don't go out of my way to see. I thought it would be hard to just cut people out, but it's not. I don't have a terribly cold heart, I just want my kid surrounded by people who will love and respect her. And to be honest, I didn't much care for those people to begin with. :D My DH and I have taken classes and sit on panels at our church that really look into racism. Deep workshops that, while not such a big eye-opener for me, were for a good deal of the white folks who sat along side us....and we belong to a VERY open, welcoming congregation. Race and racism NEED to be talked about in this country...and we felt it needed to start in our own backyard. You want to see people squirm? People who don't see themselves as racist? Start talking in earnest about race. White privilege. Personal beliefs. The deeper we get (DH & I) the more we question where we live, and old friendships. It's not about overt racism any more (for our family), it's about making sure DD sees us "walking the walk"...that she isn't the only person of color within our family, our friendship circles, etc.

The good news for us is that we belong to an incredibly integrated church, and our circle of friends is pretty dadgum diverse, and we have at least 4 other transracial adoptions in our family. So maybe that's why these comments were so shocking? It's so abnormal for us to hear stuff like this, but it seems like somehow when it's adoption, the views are different. The crack baby myth still seems to exist, even among educated and racially diverse groups. And that makes me incredibly sad.

You might want to let people know that the questions/assumptions are offensive to you, and that you will adopt a child of any race that you and your spouse want to, thank you very much. Rather give them an inkling of your feelings about this, than get blindsided by attitudes and actions once you match and/or bring a baby of color home.

Totally agree. We just started sorta kinda a little bit telling people that we've chosen this route (you can see in my siggie it's pretty new for us). So I'm still gauging how to respond to reactions. I think I'm still trying to figure out who I want to tell before and if we want to tell and if we tell everyone, and what we tell and so on. I know everyone else has been in that same position in the past.

We did have this reaction from some people and it shocked us to. I shocked us, largely I think, because if these people know us at all, then they would know these are not the kind of statements to make around us. Like others said, ask crazy as it is, it's better to weed out the people who don't want to be educated now rather than later. And now that we have our kids home, everyone is clear on where we stand.