I wonder if Adoption Guy likes airplane peanuts?
Ok, I'm having a hard time with the parent/child classes. I go because Elle really likes it but I fricken hate it. I can acknoledge that this is totally my own issue and my own fault. If everyone in the class is getting along great except for me then I can accept that I'm the one with the problem. But I don't know how to fix it and I don't know how to make it easier so I just have to suck it up and tough it out.
See, the thing is that I actually like a couple of the moms in the class. Some of them seem really nice. The problem in the class is not with them, it's with Adoption Guy and that fact that everyone else in the class seems to think that Adoption Guy is just as awesome as he claims to be. I don't understand this. How does everyone else hear this guy say the same things I hear him saying and not think he's a total jackass? Even the mother who a few weeks ago seemed to dislike this guy now seems to think he's the neatest thing since sliced bread.
Last week I was talking with two of the other mothers in the class about potty training. It was a nice discussion and I felt like the three of us had a nice give and take going. All of the sudden Adoption Guy swaggers, plops down in the chair next to me and says (and I swear to god this is true but I know no one will beleive me) "You know, a lot of times when kids are first adopted they get constipated from the stress. So when we adopted M she was......."
I got up and walked away. It took everything in me not to scream "You know who else gets consitpated? Every other kid in the world! It's something that happens! It's not all about the damned adoption!"
When I looked back at where I had been I was disgusted to see that pretty much every other parent in the class was now listening to this guy with looks of awe and admiration on their faces. They really cared about his constipation story! I was in shock. No one looked bored or annoyed or bothered at all. It was just me. I just don't get it.
Today during the parent discussion part of class we were talking about travling with kids. Guess what story Adoption Guy told. Yeah, how he and his wife had to take a 17 hour flight when they went to adopt their daughter. We heard every damned detail of the whole trip. What shots they had to get, what food they ate, what the hotel they stayed in was like, it just didn't stop. I know for a fact that I was openly giving this guy a "what the fuck?" face about halfway through his story but I didn't even care anymore. Come on! The topic of the day was "travling with kids" not "what Adoption Guy thought of the room service at the hotel he stayed at when he went to adopt his daughter".
So why is it just me? Why am I the only one who seems to have a problem with this guy when everyone else seems to think he's nifty neato keen? And why can't I get past it? I think that part of it might be that I'm offended on behalf of this little girl who's father likes to wave her adoption around like some kind of major award. Part of it is that I just don't like blowhards. I have to accept thought that part of it is just me and my inablity to just relax and let things go.
I need to find a way to get over it or this guy is going to ruin the whole class for me. How in the world do I do that?
Jen
6 comments:
How about handing him a card that says:
I am sick to death hearing about your daughter's adoption. She is your daughter now, so get over it. There is nothing more special about your daughter because she is adopted than any other daughter in this room. My son is also adopted but I don't go on ad naseum about it. He is my son now and that's they way it is. And your stories and opinions are no more credible than any one else's. These classes are supposed to be about sharing and learning from one another, not one person dominating the discussions every week.
You asked for advice, so that's what I'd do. It might stop him in his tracks, and then again it might not. The only other thing you can do is challenge him on everything he says and make him look like a fool. Is he the only "male" there?? That might be why the "women" hang on his every word. And you are too smart to believe that all men are smarter than women!!
Hang in there... I know it is frustrating..... but you need to share your knowledge, too. When he barged in to your conversation with the other two mothers, you could have said, "Excuse me, but this is a private conversation. If you want to speak with us, you will have to wait for your turn."
Oh well.... I'll get off the soapbox now. Hope your Halloween is "spooky"........ Judy
HA I cannot stand people like this,I doubt the adoption stories themselves have anything to do with why you are annoyed. It just that some people ALWAYS have a way of making it about them, and yes, the poor kid, too bad she needs to be adopted, but to be swinging it around all over the place? i am sure it will make her feel insecure later on. We are in the process of adopting, and I have not even blogged a single episode about i;). It's private stuff really, and although I don't want to be old school, pretending we are her birth parents (pretty impossible considering she will be from africa and were like... white), i don't want to put all kinds of attention on the fact that she's adopted. I was basically given up by my parents and yep it's true, you get over it, life moves on, you become your own person anyway, but that only really happens if the people who raise you can encourage that way of thinking.
thanks for the post, i get you being annoyed,
not to mention he was a guy...sorry, guys who are TOO into their children are creepy. My husband likes kids, but my guess is he won't at all be enthusiastic about talking about our child's poo poo problems:) Call him the john Wayne type, but he much rather just take the kid to the park.
*If* it is really just you then all the other mothers need a reality check! but I'd wager half of them are just kind playing along because it's gone on for so long they're just kind of tuning out. Maybe?
I wonder if you don't hate confrontation as much as I do... maybe you could just call him on it in the middle of his interrupting. Like the next time he interrupts someone tell him to wait his turn and if it's something relating to adoption you don't want to hear it anyway. I don't know, just my thoughts!
I had a woman and her daughter in our Mommy & Me last year who was like nails on a chalkboard for me...and everyone else loves her...But I see through her phony crapola.
She irritates me to this day and I avoid her and her spawn like the plague.
I call her flash card bitch. Not to her face, yet.
my office mate has the best kids, the smartest kids, they cook me breakfast in bed and they clean their own bathroom and will call me mommy always - i want to punch her in the face. other people at my office think she is the bees knees.
thank you for sharing your rage at almost strangers.
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