Disturbing encounter #1: I am walking down our street in our new city, balancing a very cranky heavy little boy and pushing the container of flesh eating ants or so you’d think from his screams stroller with my remaining pinky finger.  An older couple is leaving their house.  I smile at them and say hi and they smile back and coo at the boy.  “He playing football?” asks the man, apropos of nothing.  “A little young for that” I say. “Bet Daddy’s at home watching the game” he says.

Ball!

Most people correctly read Pepito as adopted – he looks nothing like me – nothing even like what might come of me and a latino sperm donor.   And while lots of straight folks have adopted kids, the obvious lack of resemblance does tend to reduce people’s attempts to assign responsibility for noses and eyebrows: I don’t hear a lot of “oh, so does his dad have jet black hair and chubby cheeks?”  And I have the dubious luxury of passing – that is to say - my personal appearence doesn’t trip off most straight people’s gaydar.

Lots of things run through my mind, this man is missing most of his teeth, as is his wife.  There is a big flag in their front window.  I am not sure that same-sex adoptive families are a part of their regular scheduled programming.  [Until we moved to our previous city, my experience of other gay and lesbian folk was pretty limited to people from the same middle-class, education is everything, socioeconomic bracket as my family.  I still tend to (incorrectly?) correlate higher socioeconomic status with higher likeliness to accept queers.] He is my neighbor, give or take a dozen houses.  I am carrying a very heavy child who may start screaming again, complete with huge fat heart breaking tears, at any moment.

I give a non-committal grunt, say nothing, and move on.

Disturbing Encounter #2: I have the boy nestled in the ergo, trying to convince him that naps are not for other babies.  I am trying to put up a clothesline in our back yard.  An older Caribbean man is working in our next door neighbors’ (very welcoming) yard.  He asks if I need help with the clothesline.  I politely decline.  He asks about the baby.  Ten months, blah blah blah.  He says: daddy oughta be puttin’ that line up for you.  Why can’t his daddy do that?  He doesn’t have a daddy.  He has two mommies.  Boy needs a daddy.  He’s got lots of uncles, and two moms who love him.  Hmmmp.  A boy needs a daddy.  He continues talking to me, explaining that my son needs a daddy until I excuse myself to put the boy down for a nap.  I leave feeling angry that I have, essentially, been driven out of my yard because I don’t want to continue this conversation and because I don’t want to fumble my way through putting up the clothesline in front of him.

I don’t know exactly why I share these encounters.  I wonder about my own assumptions about class and race and religion.  Why do I casually mention my partner and P’ito’s two mommy status freely to the white tatooed cashier at the supermarket checkout but not to the African-American woman on the bus who admires his yummy cheeks and brown eyes and asks me if he’s spanish? 

I think of the security guard at my old job, who proudly told me about her niece’s wedding, and how she flummoxed my expectations.  Incidents like these make me wonder – how do I protect my son and yet not give in to my own prejudices?  And yet, how can I be a good parent to a child of color if I don’t confront my own assumptions?