Trying to explain PC

I guess I feel the need to explain why I think we are too PC. I'm am certainly for not hurting feelings...and certainly not about being racist. I want to smack people upside the head when they say the "colored boy down the street" (as sad as it is...someone said that to me the other day). Or that "nice Oriental man over there helped me" (yup...heard that one recently too!) And I correct those people. I don't know that their intentions were to be racist...stupid? ignorant? Yes..but racist? I don't know, maybe they just don't know better, that's all they heard their entire lives. Maybe they don't know the appropriate word to use. Of course...as I said earlier...maybe a good smack to the head would work too.

I come from that 80s generation that always says..."what are you retarded?" Then not too long ago I read online about a group of parents' of some special needs kids being quite upset with Paris Hilton. Apparently "Are you retarded?" is one of Paris' favorite sayings too (who knew we had so much in common?!?!). Sometimes the words just pop out of my mouth. Since reading that...everytime it does I cringe! But I've found it's very difficult to change that behavior. I never did it thinking I was hurting a whole group of people. ...the person I was calling a retard... yes!...but an entire demographic of people? No!

Sometimes I have a difficult time putting my thoughts into words. So I'm still not sure if I'm explaining this over PC thing right or not! My mind goes too fast! I agree we need to be PC..to some degree... but I think this country has gone too far.

For example...At work today there was a conference going on down the hall. Many important people (they think they are important..if they were so stinking important they wouldn't be state employees!) were gathering at the end of the hall and apparently there was a coffee machine problem. The coffee machine nazi (that isn't too PC is it?) wasn't in. So the back up coffee nazi had to go refund the guys money...but the gentleman had left the note w/ another woman in the office. Confused yet? So this women walks coffee nazi #2 into the hall...points down the corridor to the group of about 8 people and proceeds to tell the coffee nazi that it was the guy in the blue shirt. Well, there are 2 guys in blue shirts...one black and one white. So coffee nazi say..."which one?" The women answers..."the one with the glasses." Huh? I mean was she truly and honestly just too afraid to say the black guy? Then another woman who was standing there (an African American women) turns around and says..."you mean the black guy?" I just cracked up. I mean what can you say to that!? I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes in our journey to be so PC what we are trying to say just gets muddled up. Sometimes we need to say just what needs to be said. We dance around the point...wasting everyone's time while they are trying to figure out what the real message is....and it just gets old. It gets tiring...and to be honest it isn't helping anyone.

During my home study the social worker wanted to know why I wanted to adopt a child from China. I pondered this question for sometime...went to websites...read message boards and blogs. Why did I want to adopt a child from China and not another country or even here in the US? Well for me the reasons were pretty clear.

1. The domestic adoption system is really screwed up and I don't want to compete with 20 other couples w/ for one baby, to be disappointed again and again..to become disillusioned and bitter (and probably broke!)
2. In this domestic adoption I don't want the mother to change her mind and come back and take away my baby because she or the father suddenly had a change of heart. That would just rip my heart out...and I know even if she didn't I worry about this for years.
3. Open adoption? Please! I don't want to have manatory montly visits with a birth mother. I want my baby to be my baby. I don't want to live in fear for the rest of my life. There is enough to fear when raising a child...this should be one of the things to worry about!
4. Other int'l adoptions...I don't want to go to many of the Eastern European countries... Why? I have a few friends with children from there and I'd say 80% have suspected fetal alcohol syndrome and/or other problems. In my experience the risk of having a child with severe special needs is just too high for me to chance.
5. Cost was a huge factor for us too. We are not rich, we pay the bills with a lot extra. This is a one time thing for us so we had to do it right.

So I post on a message board about what I'll say...and I got 100s of emails telling me not to...it isn't the PC thing to say. I must tell them this is where my heart is leading me...because this is where my daughter was born...yada yada yada... Yuh? You've got to be kidding me! I couldn't believe the response I had received. I was just amazed!

God bless the people who feel this way but I'm not one of them. I don't feel some invisible pull from half way across the world. My heart aches for a child..but it doesn't pronounce that it must be a Chinese child. I wish my heart would make all my decisions for me but I have this thing in my head...It's called my brain...and it is the one making the decisions...and sometimes it even screws up! If it was my heart doing a lot of the decision making maybe I wouldn't second guess myself all the time...maybe if I believed in that thing called faith or destiny I wouldn't worry so much. But to me this was a business decision. I knew I wanted a child, I didn't care what race or sex (well I did want a girl if at all possible)...I wanted a child and hopefully a healthy child. And I wanted the process to be as predictable as possible with out driving me out of my mind or into the poor house. And that really left us w/ 3 options...China, Ethiopia and Guatemala...and at that point my heart made the decision...and it was China.

Funny part is when the social worker made her visit I gave her the non PC answer.........and I think she appreciated my honesty. I just can't be that PC!

So I guess my point is lets just stop all the PCness bullshit and say what's on our minds, of course say it so not to offend everyone but realize no matter what you say, you will offend someone! Speak the obvious instead of hiding behind all the PCness bullshit... Otherwise what you are really trying to say gets lost in all the PCness bullshit