On June 25, 2010, J, BE, BC, and I celebrated adoption day. We went to court to finalize our adoption and make our family legal. We were given an order of adoption, and later we received our children’s birth certificates with their new last names. I thought this would cement out position as our children’s parents, at least with the government. But, then we did our taxes.
J started working on our taxes recently, and he used Turbo Tax. When it came to children, we were given the choice between “son,” daughter,” and “adopted child.” I was all for selecting “son” and “daughter.” I wasn’t happy that Turbo Tax included this distinction. However, J pointed out that it might look strange, since we had no children in 2009. So, we chose “adopted child.” After answering a few additional questions about our children, Turbo Tax told us the following:
Turbo Tax responded that it would “treat” BE and BC as our children. This made me laugh because it seemed so ridiculous. As far as I know, BE and BC are our children, there’s no need to treat them as such, they just are. I know this is just a computer program, and maybe some of you will say I’m taking this too seriously. But, I do think this is just a reflection of the fact that we often feel the need to distinguish between adopted and biological, when it’s often not essential information.
Shannon Mackie 