Comic storyteller shares adoption journey at Kensington synagogue
Artist-in-residence, performer and “professional Jew” Phoebe Potts visited Temple Emanuel in Kensington to discuss the “terrible things [she] did for love.”
The adoptive mother first looked into other ways of growing her family after struggling with infertility. To her surprise, Potts learned that China requires potential adoptive parents to have a body mass index of less than 29, barring her by a few decimal places.
This revelation gave way to Potts’ award-winning comedic performance, “Too Fat for China.”
“For me, it’s a piece of art,” Potts told Washington Jewish Week. “It’s an exploration into the question of what lengths we will go for love and what that means, at least for me, a white Jewish lady in America.”
“China raises a really good question: What makes you eligible to be somebody’s mother?” Potts said at her Dec. 6 performance, during which she scrolled through cartoon-like drawings on a life-sized “crankie” — a moving panorama.
In contrast, she noted, there are no requirements for biological parents to bear children.
“Nature doesn’t judge, but adoption is a family-making business run by people — the people judge the people,” Potts said. “As soon as you say you want to adopt, a social worker materializes on your doorstep.”
She ran down the extensive list of questions she and her husband, Jeff, were asked during their home study, a process that prospective adoptive parents go through to determine parental competency.
“I thought fertility treatments were invasive and judgmental,” Potts joked.
She described how a domestic adoption went “horribly wrong,” and ended unsuccessfully. Potts and her husband then chose to look internationally — their now 15-year-old son was adopted from Ethiopia.
In her one-woman show, Potts doesn’t shy away from conversations about race and “white privilege.”
“International adoption is not about finding families for the children who need them,” she said. “International adoption is about finding babies for the white people who can afford them.”
When she and Jeff finally brought their infant son home three months after meeting him, Potts was consumed by emotion about the adoption journey and what was to come.
“I’m crying because I’m anxious,” Potts recalled. “I am now legally somebody’s mother, and I know that despite my best intentions, I’m going to screw it up.”
“I’m crying because I’m ashamed: I owe everything to a family, to a mother somewhere in Ethiopia that I do not know,” she continued. “I’m crying because I’m worried. I’m bringing this tiny, beautiful baby boy, this child of God, to a country that does not value his life, that values his life at 60% that of a white child. … I’m crying because I know all of this and I’m doing it anyway. So what does that say about me?”
Potts reflected on motherhood in other species, namely the sea turtle, which returns to the ocean after laying eggs on the beach. “Her eggs are a food source for several other species, and I think she has evolved over 150 million years to flee the scene because she can’t bear to see what happens next,” she said.
Potts sees herself as the opposite: she wants deeply to experience parenthood and the opportunity to watch a child grow and change.
“I wanted the heartbreaking work of raising another human being in my life … and I’m American, so I bought it,” she said.
Though Potts didn’t witness her son’s birth nor hold him in his first moments, she’s given much thought to the stories she plans to tell him: “Every kid is born into a story about how these people are their people.”
She settled on three stories: the origins of Ethiopian Jewry, the story of Moses — the “Cadillac of adoption stories” — and the Rift Valley in modern-day Ethiopia, where the 3-million-year-old human ancestor Lucy took her first steps. “We’re all Ethiopian; we all walked out of that Rift Valley.”
Finally seeing the “closed circuit” of her family is one of the happiest moments of Potts’ life, she said before closing her show with a rendition of Etta James’ “At Last.”
The premise of “Too Fat for China” came about during Potts’ adoption process, when the people around Potts told her, “Of course you should be a mother.”
“It did bother me deep inside, like, ‘Why do I get to have a baby?’” Potts said in an interview. “And also, at the other end of this, there’s a woman who has to give up her baby, and why is she being put in that position?”
She acknowledged that while she can’t tell the Ethiopian woman’s story, she can talk candidly about her role in international adoption.
“What I discovered is that the reason I’m able to adopt is not because I’m a nice person or I’m going to be a better mother than that person. It’s just that I have resources,” Potts said, describing herself as a “mediocre person who just really wanted a baby.”
Such thoughts are especially pertinent to the Temple Emanuel community.
“We definitely have a visible number of congregants who are adoptive parents,” said Laura Naide, Temple Emanuel’s director of congregational learning. This number includes Rabbi Adam Rosenwasser, a father of three adopted children.
“People come to our community as they are … and we want them to feel seen,” said Naide, who arranged for Potts to serve as artist-in-residence Dec. 5 and 6.
Lisa Reff, president of Temple Emanuel’s Women of Reform Judaism chapter, has two children adopted from China. She has brought her children to the synagogue since 2002, when they attended Tot Shabbats.
“In terms of interracial adoption, there’s more than a handful [of families at Temple Emanuel], and so [my] kids would always see some other kids like them,” Reff said.
Reff can relate to parts of Potts’ winding journey.
“People can get pregnant any old time,” Reff said. “There’s all these hoops you have to jump through to even have the privilege of adopting, so I think it is important to have that perspective.”
Naide spoke to the importance of Potts’ appearance given the diversity of families at Temple Emanuel.
“Everything they bring to our congregation adds to our community. … It adds a story,” she said. “Especially when our attention has been drawn to local, national, international politics for so long, [“Too Fat for China”] is a really family-oriented story to bring to the congregation.”
Mrs. Potts,
Thank you for your wisdom and courage as a mother!
Education is love.
Our sages say (Avot 1:12), “Love your fellow human beings and bring them close to the Creator.” The way to bring others closer to the Creator is with love. Since our children are also “fellow human beings”, the only way to bring them close to the Creator is with love.
A child who is loved is a child that will grow in self-confidence. He loves himself and believes in himself, for these are the traits that become the basis of good character. Since his soul is healthy and happy, he has the power to give to others, to understand others and to yield to them. A person without these capabilities that were attained by virtue of parental love won’t act with courtesy or consideration towards other people. As such, parental love is the key to a child’s success in every area of life, his entire life long.
Thank you for your amazing experience. Blessings and Happy Hannukah.
Naftali Rubin
Jerusalem, Israel