He's SO LUCKY.

We are all so sick of the word 'privilege' that we could puke for distance at a high velocity and take out the nuclear warheads in Pakistan.  Even anti-racists are sick of that bloody term.

So what I am going to use instead of the word privilege is a far more insidious word.  A word that is the proverbial red-headed stepchild of adoption discourse:

LUCKY.

*pauses to give audience time to recover from collective gasping and shuddering*

My kid is lucky.

OUCH.

Oh yeah.  That is possibly the worst adoption community violation you can make, calling your kid lucky.  I am risking getting ostracized here.  But for a second let's strip away the adoption story.  Just for a smidgen.  Let's pretend my kid is a just a person in the world.  For a tiny moment that will capsize in two seconds time, let's strip away everything about adoption, race, and loss.

Let's just talk about resources.

Holiday Cookie Making!

Our beautiful Tiny Solstice Tree!

My kid goes to Kindergarten in an affluent community in a big, hella diverse city with loads upon loads of cool, cultural resources and with an entrenched, historical, culturally-rich Black and immigrant community.  On top of that, he sleeps in a bedroom that is all his own in two different locations; one where his Dad lives, the other where his Mom lives.  His parents are progressive enough to live a few miles from each other and to passionately share the perspective that they should get along and work towards their kid's best interests.  My kid will start going to Spanish class once a week before his Kindergarten class starts.  After his Kindergarten class, once a week, he will also go to theatre class.  On top of this, my kid goes to Tae Kwon Do twice a week and this Tae Kwon Do is no joke either in terms of expense or value; it is uber pricey, it is wonderful!  At 5 years old, my kid has traveled all over the place.  He has been to Alaska, British Columbia Canada, Cairo Egypt, has visited Ethiopia since being united with his adoptive parents, has traveled all over Texas, has spent over a week on the beach in Florida, has been to New York City several times, upstate New York, Philadelphia, and Seattle. He gets to hang out at his paradisaical grandparent's farm out in the Midwest and help harvest vegetables and feed cows.  Museums?  Galore.  Restaurants?  As if.  Kid activities and events out the wazoo.  My kid gets a flu shot every year.  My kid regularly goes to the doctor AND the dentist.  My kid goes to adoption gatherings.  Let's talk about toys and gadgets, shall we?  At his Dad's he gets to play on the iPad with a much greater frequency than I am comfortable with.  He has a drum set.  A guitar.  A kid's trampoline.  Baseball bats, soccer balls, footballs.  Puzzle sets, plastic toys of every nature you can imagine.  [And the amount of toys he has is actually minimal compared to the amount of toys his peers have, by design.]  Cars, trucks ad infinitum.  I ordered him a train set for Christmas.  We haven't even gotten to BOOKS yet.  By design, this kid has an overwhelming, outrageous, flowing out of every hole in my apartment, amount of children's books on every subject, lofty, superficial, deep, educational, super-hero-ey, you can possibly imagine.  Not to mention, we live three blocks away from the most precious children's library in town that is CHOCK full of gorgeous children's books and educational toys and guest children's entertainers.  That library just had a parade and a celebration with cake and people dressed up like Dr. Suess's cat-in-hat etc.

He has two parents; both of which are lawyers, that really love him and care deeply for him and do everything they can for him.

This kid, as a kid in the world, is one lucky kid.

I don't expect him to appreciate this, or be thankful, or even like it.  (Especially not at this age, not that it wouldn't be nice if someday he appreciated these things in the contextual abstract sense.)

But the luck he has in terms of resources is out of this world.  I did not get a lot of this stuff growing up, and I had a pretty decent childhood.

Last night I was watching this Aileen Wuornos documentary.  Man, what a fucked up childhood.  I felt sorry for her.  Yes, I felt sorry for the men she blasted away, but I felt really sorry for her too.  That is a sad, sad childhood for one person in the world.