I watched The Amazing Race for the first time last night.  I am generally not a fan of reality TV and rarely, if ever, watch these kinds of shows but I have to admit that I got pulled into the game last night and found myself rooting for Tammy and her brother Victor as they valiantly tried to jump off of a three meter diving board and hit the water at the same time. (they finally gave that up and decided to swim instead!)

This week’s episode found the contestants navigating the streets of Beijing, without benefit of a translator.  If you have ever travelled in China without a translator, you can relate to just how difficult this can be.  Difficult yes, not impossible.

The teams, with the exception of Tammy and Victor who speak Mandarin, stuggled to communicate with the various taxi drivers and others who helped get them to their destinations.  Granted, it was likely frustrating and stressful.  After all they weren’t ordinary tourists simply seeing the sights they are competing for $1,ooo,ooo. 

However, one team let that frustration bubble over into racism.

This team was visibly upset when they had difficulty communicating.  It was as if they expected a cab driver in Beijing to speak English and were pissed off to find that he didn’t-can you say Ugly American?.

I might have been able to slough this off as the stress of the game.  However, in the previews for the next week’s show was quoted as saying, “this is why I didn’t want to come to China-it sucks.”  It struck me that it under stress that we show our true colors. 

Sure, we can say the right things when we are in control but when the going gets tough our filters are strained and deeply hidden feelings and biases surface.  And yes, we Americans are arrogant.  We do expect everyone to speak English.  We do expect that things work as they do in the United States.  And when that doesn’t happen we get pissed off.  Irrational? Yes.  Arrogant? Yes.  Racist? You bet. And on national TV no less!

I am just glad that my Chinese-born daughter didn’t see this show.  And I hope that everyone realizes that the comments and attitudes of the contestants don’t reflect China or the Chinese-but they do tell a disturbing story about the contestants.  So if you see something similar while watching TV with your kids you can take a great leap forward by discussing the existence and dangers  of biases and stereotypes.  You can help break the cycle.

With Respect,

Deb

PS: here’s a tip-look for a young person when you need an English speaker in China.  Kis are taught both Mandarin and English in school!

Remember Newton’s Third Law of Motion-For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction?

Well, kids in China are finding new meaning to Newton’s law. 

It seems that the ramifications of China’s one-child policy are coming home to roost as parents worry about their son’s marriage prospects.  Estimates from 2000 indicate that there are 117 boys in China for every 100 girls and most experts agree that this number is likely to increase dramatically.  The reaction to these startling statistics-parents of children of marriagble age are taking their children’s love life into their own hands.  After all, in China there are three ways to be unfilial

1. -   not produce offspring,                                                                

    2. not listening to your parents

    3. not making enough money to support your aged parents 

Given the cultual pressure to marry, worrying about a child’s prospects is practially national sport in China, but these grim statistics have many parents panicking about their kids ability to find a mate and provde them with grandchildren.

These same parents are taking drastic steps to insure their children’s futures. On a recent Sunday in Beijing, thousands of anxious parents peered at a billboard with instructions geared at helping them find a mate for their kids.  Parents of sons looking for love wore blue ribbons, parents of potential girlfriends wore red ribbons. Singles wore a tag that proclaimed-”I’m looking for you!”

Parents then exchanged information about their kids and, I suppose, hoped for the best.  Who knows what their children were doing or thinking when their parents were interviewing their prospective in-laws.

Probably trying to pretend they were lost in the park!

So the next time your kids complain that you are too involved in their lives or that you are embarassing them, remind them that you could be dating for them if the situation were different.  That ought to stop them in their tracks!

Enjoy your weekend,

Deb

Susan Boyle-Before               -Susan Boyle-After

                    Lin Miaoke-seen but not heard             Yang Peiyi, heard but not seen

 Ok, you can admit it.  When you saw Susan Boyle walk on stage you rolled your eyes and thought, “oh my God, what is she doing?”  Of course, that attitude came crashing down the minute she opened her mouth.  Like the judges-and everyone who saw Susan Boyle get on that ”Britians Got Talent” stage you let your pre-conceived ideas of what an entertainer looks like color your judgement. 

Ironically, we are the same people that reacted with distaste when we discovered that Lin Miaoke was actually lip-synching during the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.  Apparently, someone decided that the actual singer, Yang Peiyi, wasn’t cute enough to be seen and heard!

If, as adults, this dicotomy is diffult to grapple with imagine what it does to our kids.  We tell them not to judge people by the way they look, yet they see adults doing it all the time.  They feel our outrage when a child is penalized because she isn’t cute enough to be seen but is talented enough to be heard. Yet when Susan Boyle stands on a stage we quickly judge that she can’t be talented.

We tell our kids don’t judge books by their covers when in fact we do judge books by their covers.  If we didn’t, then publishers wouldn’t spend enormous quantities of money on designing book covers!  We also judge people by the way they look, sound, smell or other cues that may or may not indicate what they are really like or what talents lay hidden beneath the surface.  We are in fact, human.

So rather than telling our kids not to judge the proverbial book by its cover and holding them to a higher standard than we hold ourselves, perhaps we should be teaching our kids to do something that they can succeed at.  Maybe the message for our kids is to be aware of our immediate judgements-note them and then put them aside until we have had a chance to get to know the person better.

Maybe, just maybe, our kids will be able to suspend judgement-positive or negative-until they have more information.

Maybe, just maybe-we adults should try to model that behavior….or at least be consistent.  If we are appalled that Yang Peiyi didn’t get a fair shake because she wasn’t cute enough then we should be equally appalled that Susan Boyle didn’t get a fair shake initially either.

How do you model accepting and respectful behavior for your kids?

With gratitude,

Deb

 Little Rubina probably thought she was the luckiest girl on Earth when she was cast in the Oscar-winning movie Slum Dog Millionaire.  For sure, the experience was worth its weight in gold but she would never, ever anticipate that the experience would mean that she was worth her weight in gold.

News outlets all over the world are reporting that Rubina’s father is trying to sell her-that’s right, SELL her.  And her price has increased since Slum Dog won the award.

Of course, Rubina’s father has denied the allegations-including the one that reports he increased her price, saying she is ’special. She is an Oscar girl’.

We may never know the truth but what we do know is that the price to Rubina is incalcuable and it is potentially devastating to others as well.  

Why?

We are seeing human-trafficing splashed across the pages of our newspapers and as lead stories on other news outlets-under the guise of adoption!

Put yourself in the shoes of a child who was adopted-and who saw or heard about this story.  Can you imagine the pain that he/she may feel.  Maybe he/she would wonder whether or not he/she was bought and sold-no different than a transaction they might see in a supermarket.  No matter how secure he/she might be in your love the mere suggestion of this kind of exchange could be devastating to a child-especially one that wonders about how and why he/she came to be available for adoption.

Human trafficking is as horrendously wrong as legal and legitimate adoption is spectaularly right.  The problem is when one gets confused with the other. 

Let’s make sure that we keep them straight.  You might also consider the similarities and differences between Rubina’s situation and the ongoing Madonna/Malawi saga! 

Forget the tagline “Is it live or is it Memorex?”  The new mantra is “Is it adoption or is it human-trafficking?”

Whatever you decide,  you are going to have to tell your kids.

With Respect,

Deb

We recently had the opportunity to foster a lovely little dog named Bessie.  Bessie is a sweet lab mix who was rescused from a ‘kill’ shelter in South Carolina and by Last Chance Animal Rescue Fund.

While we weren’t responsible for finding Bessie her ‘forever’ family, we were naturally interested in helping Last Chance finding a great home for her.  When one of our acquaintances expressed interest in her we were quite pleased.

My excitement dimmed when the acquaintance grilled me about Bessie.  “Ok,” I reasoned, “this is normal.”  But as the questioning continued, I became increasingly uncomfortable.  It seemed to me that the prospective owners were looking for the ‘perfect’ dog.

As the parent of a child of adoption, this plucked every string and even reminded me of a conversation I had with my daughter’s pediatrician when I recieved her initial paperwork.  In the pictures, my daughter appeared to have crossed eyes.  When I questioned-perhaps even grilled-the doctor she sternly reminded me that there was no such thing as a ‘perfect’ child-biological or adopted.

It strikes me that parents who choose adoption seem to think that they are entitled to some kind of guarantee that is not available to parents who grow their families biologically.  In the words of a kindergarten teacher, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset”.  Right?

Isn’t all parenthood-at its core-a leap of faith?   

Sure a guarantee would be great, but if that is what you are waiting for-good luck with that!

With Respect,

Deb

PS: Check out Adopting Smart for more great adoption information!

bessie

How do you feel when you look at these powerful images of things that can’t be recovered? 

With luck, they will make you stop and think of the things we can recover.  Today would be a great day to reach out to someone who has been on your mind but for whatever reason you have been hesitant to connect with.  

Real friends can always be recovered-either spiritually or physically.  What a great lesson to teach your children.

With Respect,

Deb

Please donate on pair of new pajamas to the kids in the San Diego area who have lost so much.

Send on pair of NEW pjs to:

SCRIPPS Hospital
Attn: Pajama Drive
9888 Genesee Ave
Mailstop LJ36
La Jolla, CA 92037

Please include a short note and a picture of your child.

Please do it today!

With Respect
Deb

Yesterday was one of the first crisp fall days in New York and so we headed to the Bronx Zoo’s annual “BOO at the Zoo” event.

We had a blast-as we always do at the Zoo. Magic shows, story-telling, sing-a-longs, hay rides and trick-or-treating were just some of the activities.

As the day drew to a close, we wandered in to a tent where John Farrell was hosting a sing-a-long. Towards the end of his performance, he invited all the kids to come up to the front of the room and join hands-which they did. When he invited the adults in the audience to do the same thing-we couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t join hands.

We kind of looked at the person who was sitting next to us and quickly turned away, putting our hands in our laps. There was no hand-holding on our end.

The kids, on the other hand, were having a ball-clasping the hand of the kid next to them without a second thought.

The difference was remarkable.

Now, the adults may have been fearful of germs-after all MRAS is making headlines. And it is scary stuff! Maybe we were uncomfortable with sharing ourselves with a stranger. But maybe we were somehow afraid of each other. This was a very mixed crowd-highly diverse as you would expect in a borough of New York City. Maybe we were afraid-not consciously-that someone elses ethnicity or race would rub off on us.

Whatever the reason, while kids joyfully and without hesitation grabbed anothers hand, the adults were uncomfortable and suspicious.

I wish that the kids’ lack of bias would rub off on us so that we might truly be able to embrace others-without hesitation or judgement. But I do have faith in our kids ability to look past differences and thrive in a multi-cultural world-if we don’t screw it up.

With respect,
Deb

Remember the days when we used the word ‘gay’ we meant happy? My friend Gay does!

But when my daughter asked, “What is gay”, I had to think for a minute about the answer. My daughter tends to ask me these types of profound questions when we are in the car, so thankfully, I could buy a little time while I ‘concentrated’ on driving.

Having gotten over my urge to jump right in, I asked her what she thought it meant.
She replied when two women love each other like they were married. Pretty smart, I thought.

“Can boys be gay,” she asked? That was an easy one-I just repeated her answer.

Things got a bit trickier quickly. She wanted to know if she was gay because she like the girls in her class (she likes the boys, too but she seemed to have forgotten that). Hmmmm….how to explain that one. We talked about what married people share-homes, family-building, committment and love and why that was different than having friends whom you love in a different way. Then I added that if she is gay then as she gets older she will have feelings-like marriage-to other girls.

I was really congratulating myself for some of these answers. It seemed to me that I was answering the questions she was asking, not giving her more information than she wanted and using her own knowledge as a jumping off point. Not to mention the lack of emotion in the discussion-it was clearly a ‘different strokes, for differnt folks’ kind of conversation.

Until we got to her final question-”Mom, are you gay”? I nearly drove off the side of the road when she asked that question and really had to stop myself from shouting, “NO I AM NOT GAY”. Thankfully, I managed to answer her calmly with a simple ‘no, I am not”.

As I thought about this it started to bother me. I have many, many gay friends in my life-and I am glad that I do. It never has mattered to me who they slept with. I am supportive of their lifestyles and choices and don’t think twice about what being gay might actually mean to them. How shallow is that?

And what about my horror about being pegged as gay? What is that about? I have to admit that I am not too thrilled with my reaction, but I am pleased that we were able to have a calm conversation that presented my daughter with the facts-as I know them to be-and that I was able to reign in my emotional response to her final question.

I truly believe that being gay is totally ok. Now I know that for whatever reason it is only ok for other people. That realization is definately the stuff that bias is made of and is MUCH harder to keep from passing on to our kids because it can be hidden deep within ourselves.

So remember, when your kids ask about something as innocent as ‘what is gay’ take a deep breathe and see how you feel-really feel-and act accordingly. At that point the choice is yours.

With Respect:
Deb

Piyush Jindal was just elected Governor of Louisiana. Educated at Brown University, he is a Rhodes Scholar and the winner of many prestigious awards. When he was elected to Congress he was in his early thirties and may have been one of the youngest people ever elected to Congress.

Do you know who Piyush is? You may know him better as Bobby Jindal.

Ok, strike one..

When Piyush was a youngster-pre-school age-his classmates renamed him Bobby-and the nickname stuck. While we can be grateful on his behalf that the nickname wasn’t derogatory in and of itself, it may reveal the desire that he may have had to be more “American” and his contemporaries desire to-at best, make their lives easier by giving him a common name, or-at worst, consciously or subconsciously showing their biases and bigotry for people of color.

You might think that this arbitrary re-naming is something that has gone the way of the horse and buggy-but you’d be wrong. Just recently a Yahoo group that I peruse spent time and energy discussing a situation where a teacher had requested that a child “Americanize” his name because it was just “too difficult to pronounce.” Yikes!

Even thinking of that makes my blood boil. Who can’t take a few minutes to learn the correct pronunciation of someones name.

Unfortunately, in most of the coverage I have heard or read about Bobby Jindal, the lead is always that he has ‘broken the color barrier’, or that he is a first generation Indian-American who’s parents came to the US from the Punjab region of India.

Strike two!

Bobby Jindal is truly a remarkable man-educated at Brown University, he is a Rhodes Scholar and has won several prestigious awards. When he was elected in Louisiana, he was already quite accomplished. He helped the University of Louisiana expand the number of endowed chairs and his policies were key in increasing the University’s retention and graduation rates. And that is just the beginning.

While his politics are a little (ok, a lot) more conservative than my own, I can’t help but be impressed by his accomplishments-none of which have anything to do with the color of his skin, his heritage, or where his parents were born.

Now, Bobby aka Piyush, may not be upset or offended by his renaming and the focus on his race and background, it would be nice if we could evolve to a place where the focus was on the man and his accomplishments. All of our accomplishments-Bobby Jindal’s included-represent our ‘whole person’ and surely race, ethnicity, heritage form a part of who we are. But it isn’t all that we are.

Like Dumbledore who was a kind, intelligent etc, etc who happened to be gay, shouldn’t we talk about Bobby Jindal in the same way-a young, up-and-coming, newly elected Governor of Louisiana who is of Indian descent?

Wouldn’t you want that for your kids?

So let’s be careful with our own ‘leads’-especially around our kids. By leading with a person physical, racial or ethnic background we send the subtle (or not too subtle) message that these things are the most important factors about a person.

I don’t know about you, but I want my kids judged by her abilities and her soul FIRST. Her heritage is a wonderful part of that, but it isn’t the only part. If we want our kids to be able to live and work with people of all shapes, colors, sizes etc, then we need to model that behavior-every day.

I almost forgot-congratulations Piyush Jindal!

With respect,
Deb