So. I'm chatting with a woman that I had just met and whom I did not expect to encounter again when she starts to talk about adoption. I don't automatically launch into an "I know all about adoption" conversation with every passing acquaintence. Sometimes, (gasp!) I just listen. Imagine that! (My darling husband swears that is a lie because he cannot fathom me ever just listening.)

At any rate, I am, in fact, just listening and this woman mentions that her husband is adamant that they adopt a girl. They already have a biological daughter. The woman said she was hoping to adopt a boy. She admitted to wanting to live out her one-boy-one-girl fantasies and she figured that since she was in a position to actually make this happen, then her preference was to try to adopt a boy.

However, come to find out her husband was dead set against adopting a boy. He had been an only child and the family name was going to end with him. So, he did not want the family name being carried on by a male child who was not biologically related to him! Huh?

I was, and am still, totally perplexed by this. In fact, when I heard this I thought "Geez. What a jerk!" Obviously, I didn't know this woman well enough to ask her more about how she felt about all of this. Quite frankly, I was only entertaining the conversation to be polite. We parted ways and I wished her well with whatever her fate was to be.

I was fairly dismissive of the conversation, until, UNTIL, I arrived home and mentioned it to my husband with one of those "you're never going to believe this" intros. You see, I assumed he would see the matter from the same perspective as I did. He did not. He said he UNDERSTOOD, totally. We talked about it and he never could make me get it. I still don't. (Sigh)

Alrighty people. (In my best Roseann Rosanna Dana impression) Ya know how you're married to somebody for a hundred years and then one day you suddenly find out something about them that you didn't know and you discover that it just happened to not turn out to be a big deal because of something as fickle as fate? That feeling? Well, that's what happened, to me! I, Roseann Rosanna Dana... Oh, sorry. Impression over.

This business of carrying on the family name was a non-issue for us. It was a non-issue for me, because, well, I just didn't think about it. It was a non-issue for my hsuband because we already had a biological son. Like the woman I met, I wanted to live out my one-boy one-girl fantasies and so we went into adoption seeking a girl. Well the fantasy bloomed into reality and we have two girls and one boy. But, I just learned yesterbleepinday that if we had already had a girl, then adopting a boy might have been--a problem.

Now this is an adoptive parenting topic I never would have thought to even mention, had it not been for a so-called chance encounter while shopping. I presume this is a guy thing? Can somebody out there please enlighten me?