Gimme a break

Okay this shirt over at Urban Outfitters is ridiculous. I cannot imagine what the person was thinking who came up with this--obviously, they weren't. I guess they're trying to be funny (the other one available reads "Rehab Is the New Black". Lovely, adopting an orphan and rehab).

Personally I find the shirt utterly offensive and if I see someone wearing it I might have to let them know. How might this make adoptees feel? As if they don't have enough to process already. I guess one reason this ticks me off is, for someone to imply that my sons' adoption is trendy and cool, well obviously they don't know my kids' story. I can assure you there's nothing trendy about your mother having HIV and not being able to take care of you. There's nothing trendy about spending the first six months of your life in an orphanage overflowing with AIDS patients. Nothing cool about your first adoptive family deciding they can't care for you either.

I think a lot about how my sons will process their past, how I will share with them and when the time will be right to share the harder stuff--truth be told I'm scared about it. None of us wants our kids to feel pain, or sadness, or have to deal with difficult stuff. But for adoptive parents this just comes with the territory. So yes I do take offense when it is implied, whether tongue-in-cheek or not, that this is just a fad I'm into like neon colors in the 80's. These are my KIDS for goodness sake!

I'm emailing Urban Outfitters today to let them know what I think about their dorky shirt. I'd encourage anyone else with strong feelings about this to do the same! (Also, check out Mary's post on this topic--that's where I learned about the shirt, thanks for the heads up Mary!) Oh and apparently they're not selling any more online, but it's still in the stores.