Dear Prudence,
I’m in my 30s and am in a loving queer marriage. We’ve talked about children for a long time, and after much thought, have decided that adoption is the way for us. We’re both trans masculine, and for gender reasons, the prospect of getting pregnant is upsetting (I’ve worked for years trying to overcome this, to no avail), surrogacy is complex and expensive, and honestly, neither of us cares about genetics. We’re both really excited about the prospect of adoption!
The issue? My parents, especially my mom, are really upset with this decision. The context is that my younger sister was adopted (from Russia, during the 90s, as a 4-year-old). She had a lot of understandable emotional issues growing up, struggled with substance abuse, and still does. As a married, stable professional, I am definitely the more “successful” child, a dynamic I’ve always hated and tried to push back on. But my parents seem convinced that bio kid equals successful, and adoption equals disaster. Despite the fact that I’m going in a lot more informed than they were in the ‘90s (when they seemed to expect that she would just integrate seamlessly into a happy American family), every conversation ends up getting so upsetting. I don’t need my parents sign off on this, but it breaks my heart to think that they might not be as present as grandparents, or that I’m denying them an experience (we’re a small family with no cousins or other babies in the family, I doubt my sister will ever have kids, etc).
As we move forward in this process of beginning a family, I feel like I can’t share exciting details with them, and that breaks my heart too, because we’re usually really close. Do you have a script or suggestions that could help me convey this to them?
—Baby Blues