Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Mistaken Identity
You might have heard — there is a lot of controversy in Wisconsin right now about the collective bargaining rights of public employees. I’m not a public employee but I’ve often been mistaken for one.
Various people have assumed that I was a social worker, child welfare worker, probation officer, and school principal. These cases of mistaken identity occurred when I was with one of my kids, usually at their school. (For the uninitiated, I am white, some say, super white – northern European. My three adopted kids are from Nicaragua.) I’ll never forget standing in the hallway of Milwaukee High School of the Arts having a nice chat with one of my kid’s teachers, walking away and hearing him yank my son back to ask, “Is that your case worker?” “Uh, no, that’s my mom.”
I started thinking it would just be better to be the social worker. Why fight it? Be a social worker. Flash that badge. Get all the info. Talk like an insider. Keep the school professionals from e-nun-ci-a-ting like they tend to do whenever they meet up with mominsweatpants.
If I just go along with being the social worker, I can avoid the story.
Because if I tell a nosy person the story, it will surely be like giving a Moose a Muffin or a Pig a Pancake. If I start with the plain fact that my husband and I adopted from Nicaragua, it will lead to the reason why, then it will lead to making it clear that we didn’t pay a lot of money for our kids, that they were abandoned and without options, that they were sick, because, of course, I would then want the person to know that I’m not a rich white imperialist thinking I can just buy children who belong to another country, and then I’ll have to answer questions about their ‘real parents’ and how they feel about that which I won’t be able to answer because I don’t actually know, and whether they have ever gone back and looked for them, and how much do I know about their past which is practically nothing. And I will feel like apologizing and my child, whichever one it is, will be slinking down the hall wishing he/she had never been born in any country because the big, giant JULY 4TH AUTO SALE spotlight will be shining on them and it just isn’t f**king worth it to explain.
So I just decided to be the damn social worker or probation officer or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really have an attitude about it. I never really got mad at people who asked questions because I figured it was plenty weird seeing me and my kids. (My husband – different story — he can pass as the Dad. Me, no chance.) Plus I figured that actually having these kids was like the most massive stroke of luck in the universe so I was ok talking about it.
Still. It does really make you feel like you are wearing a bikini at a PTA meeting. Really.
So, anyway, several months ago, I walked into a group home where my CASA (I’m a Court Appointed Special Advocate for a girl in foster care) girl lives and one of the group home girls said, “Is that your grandmother?”
I loved that. I really did.
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Thank you for being a CASA volunteer. CASA was qualified in WI legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tommy Thompson in 2000. I was standing next to him when he signed the law. As the law passed through the legilsature it was called the Drake London Law, named after baby Drake London, our foster child who was murdered in Kenosha in 1998 at age 18 months. Again, Bless You for being a CASA volunteer!