As I cruise the Holt and Bethany South Korea adoption message boards, nothing draws my eye like a post titled “Rude Comment from…”, usually detailing an ignorant, racist, or fertilist remark about adoption. (For example, see this recent thread about unbelievable comments from medical professionals; this Chez Miscarriage blog thread on drive-by mommies, while not related to adoption, had me glued to my computer for hours.) That probably reveals a number of unflattering aspects of my character, but I can’t help it. The faux pas are hilarious, and the comebacks, especially the belated ones, can be pithy and pointed. Occasionally a comment is truly hurtful to its target, but even then it’s not Schadenfreude that pulls me in, but rather the chance to summon a little righteous adoptive-mom indignation on the recipient’s behalf.

Husband and I don’t get too many rude comments about Aitch, our little bundle of joy from South Korea, now 19 months. Before we adopted Aitch, we practiced our parenting skills on Dog, an unusually beautiful specimen of Vizsla, and observations from the public on both dog and baby tend to follow the same line: “He’s so cute! How old is he? What breed/ethnicity is he?” From time to time we’ll bristle at something that seems to be mildly racist (“I hear they’re really smart”), only to realize that the remark concerned the dog, not the baby. For the record, the ratio of favorable dog comments to favorable baby comments is currently running 3 to 1, and no one has ever pulled his car over to exclaim over the baby, whereas that happens for the dog on a monthly basis.

We do get our share of dumb comments: for example, regarding Aitch at five months: “Does he speak Korean?” (“No, nor English. We’re thinking of having him tested.”) But so far, nothing blood-boiling. This is probably because we live in a small, crunchy, liberal, high-property-values-driving-out-all-the-real-people town in the commie, pinko, Godless, gay-marryin’ state of Massachusetts–which our esteemed president, I believe, disowned publicly during the presidential debates. (But before you heap scorn upon us, Fox News viewers, consider that we’re more socially stable and pay more taxes than our red-state brethren).

Said town has a high percentage of families created through adoption, and we CaucAsian families have our own version of the “Jeep wave.” The Jeep wave is a brief, casual, fingers-raised-from-the-steering-wheel wave that one Jeep owner gives another as they pass on the road. The CaucAsian version is a subtle nod that one white parent gives another as they pass with their Asian children. No hooting and hollering; no exchange of adoption stories; just an “I’m okay, you’re okay, let’s get down the block without embarrassing the hell out of our kids, shall we?”

So, hey. [Jeep wave]