During our stay in the pediatric ICU, the hospital chaplain (sp?) came to visit. I saw him frequently in the PICU area so I believe he came daily to sit and pray with the families of the very ill children. On the particular day that he stopped by our room, Daddy Chaos was sitting in the chair holding Drool Prince & I was getting ready to sneak some lunch (I had to hide in the corner of the room so Drool Prince wouldn't see me eating or drinking b/c he wasn't allowed to have anything). Hospital Chaplain (let's call him PrayerMan b/c I can spell that!) came in and introduced himself.
PrayerMan: Hi, I'm the hospital PrayerMan. And you must be Mom?
Me: nods b/c yes in fact I am mom but my mouth is full b/c I just took a bite before he walked in.. lol..
PrayerMan to Daddy Chaos: And What relationship are you to the child? (said in a way that you really just wanted to smack him.. PrayerMan or not..)
Daddy Chaos (a much nicer person than me) calmly just said :I'm his father.
PrayerMan looked confused for a moment and then the light dawns on him : Ding ! Ding! Ding! -ohhhh, you adopted?!
Things basically went downhill from there.. He ended up leaving a few minutes later after realizing that we clearly weren't going to be sitting there happily chatting with him after he just offended us. He did pray & thanked the Lord for such great people *us-ha* who would take on Drool Prince and give him a home-- OMG it made me completely furious.. I'm still contemplating complaining to the hospital. At the time I said nothing bc obviously I had more important things to worry about than some idiot mans thoughts.
PrayerMan avoided us the next day but did try us again the following day. It was the 2nd and Last day that he came to our room. The minute he walked in Drool Prince began...
DP: GET OUT!!
PrayerMan: Hi little man.. What'd you say?
DP: GET OUT!!!!!!
PrayerMan: aww, he must have heard that somewhere, I'm sure he has no idea what he's saying..
DP: GET OUT NOWWWWWWWWWWWW!
PrayerMan didn't stay long as Drool Prince was insistent in his proclamations that he "GET OUT".. Yes I am a bad bad mommy, but I did give the boy an extra big kiss & hug as soon as PrayerMan walked out the door.. Good boy! lol!
Before he left, he did manage to get one last jab in. He asked if we had other children..
Me: Yes, we have 4 children altogether.
PrayerMan: Are they all adopted?
Me: No, we have two biological children and two adopted (yes I know DP isnt' adopted yet but I'm not getting into it with this man).
PrayerMan: Is your other adopted child..... Is she.... What race is she???
Me: She's caucasian but obviously we have no preference on race.
That shut him up pretty quickly but I honestly couldn't believe he had the gall to ask me what race my child was.. Just his tone of voice when he asked and how he stuttered around trying to find a way to ask other than to just come out and say "Is she BLACK too?" was offensive....
Apparently racism knows no bounds...
Um...wow. Yeah, I'd definately be complaining to the Hospital on that one!
ReplyDeleteI would be saying something about him asking about your other children's races. It is none of his business. uggg!
ReplyDeleteGirl, please complain to the hospital about this! How rude and insensitive. Drool Prince is still too little to 'get it' now, but he will one day. This man probably didn't mean to offend, but should still be called on his POOR word choice and comments.
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