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I absolutely acknowledge the potential for loss when children are raised outside of their birth race or culture but do not presume anything when it comes to my kids or myself for that matter. I am aware, feel able to address issues openly when they arise and feel confident in my ability to observe and listen closely to the verbal and silent messages that my children send me about lots of feelings that they will have.

You have misunderstood me. When I said, much greater loss is a creative, open and curious child being raised in a stiffling, narrow minded and judgmental household or a happy and optimistic child being raised in a negative and overly pessimistic one. And my list goes on and on. I was not speaking specifically but generally and do not presume that this cannot be achieved in a same race placement. In fact, my statement was not about adoption at all but about the potential for loss for any child in any given family, adopted but presumably born into.

My real issue with this is the presumption that same race placements are in the best interest of the child. I vehemently disagree, and I will tell you why. I believe that life, becoming a parent, no matter how you do it, is emotionally risky. There is potential for loss in each of our lives. A child who grows up with a parent who is physically absent has potential for great loss but it is not a given. A child who grows up with a physically present but emotionally unavailable and critical or disinterested parent is at a greater risk of loss in my opinion. A child who grows up with an dysfunctional (beyond the norm of dysfunction) extended family is at risk for loss as is the child who grows up with severed or strained extended family relationships, regardless of the reason. A child that grows up with an illness, a sick parent, a parent with unresolved issue or grief, any obtacle, has potential for loss. My point was that any child who is raised within in a family that is vastly different in spirit or nature than they, that is outside of their community standard or that is different than what they would like to have has the potential for loss.

As an aside, I have two friends who were adopted; they have/had anger, not about adoption, but that their families had a biological child after them. One does not think she was treated differently though she wonders aloud why her parents adopted her. I do not ever ever presume that adopted children living within families where there are biological children present are going to be angry, resentful or feel lost; however, I know that it happens, because I have seen it. It is just that: individual experience.

I think this same standard of presumption about what is in the best interest of a child could be applied to many situations, such as children are always better off in two parent households, children are better off with heterosexual parents rather than homosexual ones, children are better off in devoutly religious and conservative homes as opposed to socially liberal ones (and vice versa of course), all of which I reject. Children of single parents, whether by divorce or the intentional choice to parent as a single person, probably have the potential for loss; I don't ever presume that each child will experience that. And yep, just like adoption, I presume that personality, sensitivity, how one internalizes events/experiences determines how they will feel about any loss or potential loss in their lives.