The things that shock me

Roundtable #42: Sickness, Injury & Open Adoption

Think about a time when your child has been injured or sick (or for adoptees, when you have been injured or sick). Did adoption change or complicate that experience at all? Did you share it with others in your adoption constellation?  You might write about an actual experience you have had or think about what you ideally would want to have happen.


I don't know if this counts as an 'illness' but recently I found out(by my sons adoptive moms own status post) that he's being bullied. For some reason that didn't bother me, but then a friend of hers commented 'Is this since he got glasses' and this is what shocked me.
Both myself and Jacob(birthdad) have glasses, but neither of us got them until after puberty and oddly enough our vision impairment is about equal, just enough to need glasses.
I hoped that my son would not have to have glasses, and I of course I didn't expect that he would be needing them so soon(he is only 6!).

Of course there were a few times in the last 6 years where I learned of illness through his adoptive mom and she always seemed to point it out like it was a joke or something really annoying as in 'Oh geez.... he's sick again, this is cramping my style!'
While I do like her quirky sense of straightforwardness in things, sometimes I am not sure how to take it and feel immediately offended by her brief vague and almost insulting comments whenever her/my son is sick.(which is not often and not serious)
I know she has never meant to offend, and I don't think she realizes that she has offended me because I know that sharing that she offended me would only make me seem petty and oblivious as well as judgmental towards her parenting style. Being as I have no parenting experience myself, to say something about her vague comments about my son's illnesses. Which have usually been mentioned long after the illness is gone or when it is almost done. He hasn't had anything serious that I know of, and that's the key phrase 'that I know of' because I rarely get to know everything that has really happened. Oh I get the important stuff. She did seriously talk to us(Jacob and me) about my/her sons ADD behavior and a couple other minor development issues.

I mean, I know that she takes excellent care of him and knowing what I know about my son, I now know that he seems to get over illness with minimal effort.  I just wish she was more broken hearted when things go wrong for him. She seems more broken hearted when her daughter(who was born to her) has something go wrong than she does for her/my son. She is a good mom, I know this and I won't let a few quirky comments continue to offend me when I realize now that she didn't mean them as seriously as I view them.
The fact is that I'm more shocked now by a random vague comment like "oh ... he was so cuddly when he was sick with fever. He never cuddles me otherwise" Than by a serious talk about ADD or bullying.
I'm a strange quirky one too, I just wish that my son's adoptive mom would see how similar in personality we are and be a close friend to me so that I can hear more than just vague random comments that I take out of context in my imagination and get offended by.
If we were close friends I think that I would know more about the details of worry and see my son's adoptive moms mother-heart-of-love and then I wouldn't be so shocked to learn he needs glasses at 6 years old. Right now I see a energetic great mom, but I know it's not the whole story.