I know we’ve all had those parenting moments of exasperation. With 6 kids I have had my fair share and then some. These moments of ridiculousness can make parents say either publicly or whispered under the breath, “Anybody want a four year-old? I’ve got one to sell.”
I fully understand that this is intended as a joke and when I’ve heard it or read it, I’ve never felt compelled to call Child Protective Services or go on some mean spirited rant about how insensitive it is. But I know there are people like me who tend to say flippant things and don’t realize how they might be hurtful and if we just knew how our little comments negatively impacted others, we’d want to change. So if you’ve ever joked about selling your kid and you’re willing to rethink that, let me explain why that joke just isn’t funny to a lot of us.
Abandonment isn’t a joke. There are some precious people in my life who have been abandoned by their biological parents. “Abandoned” isn’t just how we refer to empty buildings, there is a legal definition in your state about what constitutes the abandonment of a child. There are actual real parents who are overwhelmed with their parenting responsibilities and simply opt out. They may struggle with addiction, extreme poverty, or mental health issues, but it is devastating to be a child who was abandoned. That is a painful reality that these kids did nothing to cause. When we talk about the obnoxious, childish (and totally typical) behavior of our kids and then say how we’d like to give up on them today, we may not realize that someone else’s story involves a lifelong struggle with believing they were at fault for their own abandonment because they must have been a bad kid. Don’t reinforce that belief for these precious people.
Adoption isn’t a punchline. To even jokingly imply that parenthood can be simply transferred from one person to another with an exchange of money (or even “free to good home”) denies the realities of adoption. Adoption is a long, complicated process that involves loss for everyone involved. It is a constant struggle for adoptive families to fight the stereotypes that exist and advocate for normalcy for our kids. When you make a joke out of that process, it sets us back.
Infertility isn’t funny. I have no problem remembering a time when if you would have asked me if I wanted a naughty two year-old, I would have said yes. In fact, I’d probably still do that today. The inability to make your own babies when you want them is an extremely painful reality for many couples, even couples you may not know are struggling (infertility shame keeps a lot of people from being public about their journey). When they hear you casually joke about not wanting your children, it hurts. It’s one thing to share the joys and challenges of parenting with an infertile friend and entirely different to imply that you don’t want your child anymore. Infertile people can deal with parenting conversations, but conversations that remind them that you don’t want the thing they most long for are just not helpful.
Disruption is real. There are families where what you’re joking about has actually happened. These are tragic scenarios for everybody involved. When a child can’t stay safely in their adoptive home, there may be a “disruption” where a new home must be found for that child or they end up in foster care. Some biological parents have had to choose to send their children with severe mental health issues to residential treatment facilities so they can get the help they need. Being flippant about the very heart wrenching choice for your child to have to live away from your family adds to the pain of those who have walked that lonely road.
If you need help, help is out there. If you really are struggling to love your child and deal with their behavioral challenges, there are lots of resources out there: books, parenting classes, church support, counselors and friends with wisdom. If you actually want help, there are people out there that would love to help you. I don’t think we should be sugarcoating parenting and pretending like our struggles don’t exist. Parenting is tough! We need to be able to talk honesty about that, but do it with compassion and sensitivity– both for those around us who may be negatively impacted by what we said, and for our children who may overhear such things.
If you want to joke about how ridiculous parenting can be, there are ways to do that without talking about abandoning your kids. It is possible to be honest (and humorous!) without making a joke that could hurt your child or the other adults in your community. You never know how that “joke” is going to come across to the people hearing it– some of them may have experienced parental abandonment, some may be walking the painful road of infertility, some may be working through a complicated adoption process, and some may have had to make the heartbreaking choice to move an unsafe child out of their home to help them get the care they need. To any of those people, this joke may just not be funny.
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