DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My 84-year-old grandfather was raised in a family of immigrants from Eastern Europe who came to the U.S. right before WWII and immediately moved to an Eastern European neighborhood, which my grandfather was born into and did not leave until he enlisted in the Army in his late teens.
When we were little, he told us stories about how he was introduced to people from all over the U.S. and other countries for the first time when he was in the Army, and he did not always like what he saw in them, especially people of different races, who he had been taught from the earliest age to distrust and dislike.
When he had his family, he tried to brainwash his own kids into believing that it was best to “keep to your own kind,” and that people may be good whoever they are, but they won’t be “your people.”
This thinking was never taught to me and my sisters when we were growing up, thank God, and we all have a better-balanced view of the world, as does my husband and the family he was raised in.
After six painful years of trying to have a baby, my husband and I have started the adoption process to bring a four-year-old girl from South Korea into our family. She was orphaned when she was two and a half, and we know we can give her a good and loving home.
When we told my grandfather, he was not happy, and said this was a bad thing to do, and it will be hard both for the child and us.
We have tried to tell him that is all nonsense, but I feel like I am talking to his parents, and not someone who has lived his whole life in America, where things have changed, if not altogether, at least a lot in the past few decades — unlike my grandfather.
We thought he would be excited to have his first great-grandchild, even if she isn’t a biological one. His disapproval has been very disappointing to my husband and me.
Is it even worth the effort to try and convince him there is nothing wrong and everything right with giving a loving home to a child who needs one, no matter where that child comes from? --- HOW TO CONVINCE GRANDPA
DEAR HOW TO CONVINCE GRANDPA: While it may not be possible to entirely change your grandfather’s deeply ingrained way of thinking, perhaps it might be worth it to remind him that this little girl will be an immigrant, just as his parents were, and therefore he and his new great-granddaughter will have something special in common.
Once she’s here with her new family, being accepted into it by others close to you and your husband, hopefully your grandfather will see things differently, and come to accept there’s much to be gained by opening our hearts and our worlds to newcomers, regardless of where they come from.