A Natural Family

I am planning on writing a couple of posts on this topic, as it is something that we discussed a lot during our homestudy and we went to a whole conference on it. When we attended the Transracial Adoption conference at St. John's in NYC, there was a mix of people in attendance. A few birth parents, a lot of adoptive parents, many adoptees, and social workers working in the field of adoption were all present. Each party had a very different point of view regarding the adoption process.

The overwhelming feeling from the adult adoptees, most of whom were adopted transracially, was that they did not feel that their adoptive parents prepared them to be people of color in society as adults. They stated that while they lived at home with their white parents, color, of course, did not matter. They felt loved and cared for. Many of them even felt that their adoptive parents did well in talking to them about adoption. However, when they left home to go to college or begin working, the outside world-at-large did not see them as white, or raceless, or colorless. The outside world viewed them as African American, Asian American, Hispanic American. And, when they were unable to blend in with the cultures that come with those labels, they felt like outsiders.

Step 1: Make sure that you are intimately interacting with people from a diverse mix of cultural and racial backgrounds. If you are not doing this, you are communicating something to your child about which people you value. You are also, in a sense, excluding your child from relationship with a group of people that look like him or her. Step 2: Examine your life for latent signs of prejudice and racism including the language you use, the church you attend, the places you shop (or don't shop), etc... Step 3: Become aware of cultural resources in your community, including becoming involved IN the community of which your child's ethnicity will be associated. Step 4: Recognize that our adult associations and stereotypes of people of races different than our own are not to be handed down to our children. Recognize that all children perceive race differently than adults... without all the baggage. Do not gift this to your children. Step 5: Be aware enough to know that racism exists. People with skin that is not white have a different life experience than people whose skin color is white. Your child will at some point be discriminated against because of his or her skin color. He or she must be prepared to deal with that and have tools for defending himself/herself against ignorance. He or she has you (the parent) as a teacher.

There will be more thoughts on this subject. Today is a "rain day," a 'state of emergency' in NJ due to all of the flooding. I just had a couple of minutes for a new post while J was on the treadmill. We are heading over to friend's house to shower and work as our water is not working.

Stay tuned for a post specifically on the history of transracial adoption in the U.S. (it hasn't always been legal...).