An Open Letter to Michael Buckley, author of NERDS
Yesterday was an almost perfect Mother’s Day. A simple day of being together, it was filled with the little things that make our crazy family the only one I could imagine having.
My husband and son cooked an incredible brunch for my mother and I. They made us wear funny hats and Hawaiian leis while we ate, piles of special gifts on the table. We went to the tennis courts, chasing balls and laughing at our misfires that sent tennis balls shooting off in the wrong direction. We sat on the couch to watch the trio of rabbits snacking in our backyard, hoping the nearby fox wouldn’t come to visit. We ate a scrumptious dinner together, and played a rocking game of Transformers Monopoly.
Like most days, the day ended with my son and I snuggled up, his warm little body curled into mine in the way he likes when we read. It’s a nightly ritual we began when he was only 3 ½ months old, cuddled with my husband and I as we read Ezra Jack Keats‘ The Snowy Day, a book we all still love.
Last night, he was excited from the day, and eager for me to read another few chapters of your book NERDS. My son loves spies, gadgets, and kids who are more than what they appear to be. He loves kids with skills, and power, and kids who are often smarter than the adults who limit them.
I should confess right away that I haven’t been thrilled with the book from the very beginning. For a book ostensibly about the fact that the “Nerds” are the ones with true skills and power, I find it still relies on some stereotypes I’m not comfortable with. But my son has enjoyed it and I’ve read it to him willingly, always enjoying his belly laughs.
Sometimes, my eyes read faster than my mouth can and I read ahead a few lines. Last night, I was grateful for that when my eyes came upon the following line uttered by your book’s hero, Jackson.
“I’m in deep trouble with my dad. I’ve got a list of chores a mile long, and if they aren’t done by the end of the day, he’s going to put me up for adoption.” (p.187)
I stumbled as I read, then skipped over the paragraph, wanting to throw the book away immediately, ever thankful that he still likes me to read aloud. As much as I wanted to chuck the book, I know that for my son, I will finish it, hopefully not having to edit too much, and that afterward, the book will disappear, not going to the Book Swap at his school the way some other books do. He’ll forget about it, and eventually, I will too.
But I cannot let this book pass through our lives without explaining to you why this seemingly simple line is so upsetting to me.
As lovely as yesterday was, there will never be a truly perfect Mother’s Day in our home. As much as the day means celebration and love, it also means loss. In our home, Mother’s Day is about my mother and I, but it’s also about the two other mothers in my son’s life, his birth mother and the foster mother who cared for him in South Korea.
10 years ago, my husband and I spent my very first Mother’s Day in South Korea. We had gone to bring our son to his new home, and at their invitation, spent Mother’s Day with his foster family in their small apartment. Regulations in the Korean adoption system meant we were not allowed to take physical custody of our son until we were leaving the country and so had to be content, or at least patient, with seeing him in bits and pieces, small visits that never felt long enough.
For Mother’s Day, it was different. An entire day with our child, who we were getting to know, and his foster family, who knew him so well already. With little to no shared language, we learned about him as they showed us how to give him a bottle, taught us how to make him laugh and how to comfort him. They fed us endlessly, toasting our family with Korean rice wine in between lessons on how to change him quickly, how to put lotion on his dry cheeks, and so many other little things only a family can know.
On that day, we also spent our first moments alone with our son when his foster mother led us to an empty bedroom, put our boy in our arms, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. It was a Mother’s Day gift unlike any other.
As in love and happy as we are, Mother’s Day, in our home, comes with a grain of sadness and loss for the mothers who do not get to share in the day-to-day life of this incredible boy. I spend at least part of the day quietly thinking of them and certainly, honoring them. I talk with my son about the other mothers I am grateful to and endlessly grateful for. And I remind him of how wonderfully fortunate I feel that I am the mother who gets to parent him, that I am the one who spends Mother’s Day with him each year.
This weekend was also the Pride parade where we live. As it does every year, the parade reminded our community of the importance of the diversity of families that surround us. Families created through adoption, families who are multiracial and multicultural, families who have two moms or two dads, or transgender parents, families with children who have special needs or families confronting illness in their lives. My husband and I are a white, heterosexual couple, yes. but we are also parents to a child of color and so it is often these families I feel I have the most in common with because we all know and to some extent, understand difference.
When adoption is used in a context like that in your book, it makes us the other once again. Comments like these should not be made lightly, and when you alienate a family like ours, you alienate so many families who live with difference—the real normal.
By including a line like that, you dismiss my family. You diminish the seriousness with which his birth family made an agonizing decision, the love and devotion shown to him by foster parents who still love him, and by my husband and I who also desperately love this boy.
For a book about a reformed bully learning and embracing NERDS for all the reasons he could not have known with his previously short-sighted vision, it is upsetting the way a comment like this distances at least this family of readers.
There’s another element entirely troubling about this. A line like this, a throwaway, passed through countless readers before it was published. You have an agent, editors, readers, and your publisher, and it seems that no one caught this. How does that happen?
It happens because of a lack of awareness, and that’s why I write to you today. Adoption is not trifling. Adoption is a legitimate and meaningful way of building a family. Adoption happens with love, and sadness, and grief, and more emotions than can be quickly detailed here.
Adoption is serious business. It’s not a punishment meted out for a lack of chores done. It’s not a punchline. It’s not a second-best.
I spent a lot of time wondering how my son would have felt if he had been reading this book on his own. As much as I might want to, I cannot possibly pre-read every book that will come into his life, and yet as his mother, I want to protect him from lines like this. While I can’t do that, I can reach out to writers like you and point it out when these things happen.
I don’t believe you were mean-spirited in including this. I think it’s easy to do because it still happens all the time. My message, however, is that we can all do better.
I encourage you to look at some of the YA books that deal with adopted characters so effectively. The first that comes to mind is The Secret Series, which my son and I have devoured and loved, and which has a young adopted woman as its main character.
Better yet, I ask that you think about an adopted character for one of your next books. The more society makes those of us with “different” families a part of the new mainstream, the more ALL our children will benefit.
And hey, if you need help with that character, I know a mom and 10-year-old boy who’d be happy to assist.
Thank you for your time,
Sydne Didier,
Mom to Aidan Jin-Kyoo, age 10
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