[futurefost.mom]

In responce to divame:I find it disappointing that you would use the sentence "Has to adopt a black child." I respect your opinion on feeling that an AA child couldn't flourish in a home of another culture. Obviously this can present issues yet working through these issues of cultural differences is what being well cultured is all about. Cultures coming together and living together can be a wonderful thing for all of those involved. If everyone felt the way you do then sadly no one other than Chinese decent would adopt from China. What about starving babies in third world countries? Sadly there are more AA children in foster care right here in US than the AA. culture is wanting to take in. As there are more children of different cultures all over this world that their own culture is not wanting to take in or adopt. If everyone was wanting to adopt or become foster parent the world would be a better place yet that is not the case. I am a CC woman with many different cultures in my family due to biracial marriages and adoptions from Romania and Mexico. We have African American, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Romanian and a few others and we are a very happy large family. My husband and I will adopt a child regardless of color and be proud to teach them their culture and keep it alive in his or her heart with visits to museums, facts,food, trips to their country and educating our biological children their brothers and sisters culture as well. We can try our hardest and yes maybe they would have been better off in a home of their own culture yet what if no one in their own culture adopted them anyway and they instead spent the rest of their life in the system or orphanage? Would a child of color be better off not being adopted or aging out of the system with no family at all sitting in in an orphanage somewhere in a third world country? These children in other countries such as Romania are thrown to the streets at age 18. My niece and nephew come from a family with 14 other siblings that lived in shack with no running water or electricity.

God forbid I was in the position where I could not care for my child and my child was that "waiting child" hoping for a family. I myself feel if there were 2 families wanting to adopt my family I would chose the AA couple if I felt they wanted my child more and would love him/her as their own. If they were more educated and stable than the cc family and truly felt that they could provide more family oriented lifestyle for my child. Also if the AA mom was a stay at home mother who loved to cook and play with my kids and the husband had steady well paying career and the cc woman was working full time and my kids would be in daycare all day I am 100% positive that I would chose the AA family.
It is sad that the cc woman only mentioned the negative things about being biracial and the negative side of the childs culture. I do not think that all cc mothers feel this way about their child. I also think that one persons opinion should not stop interracial marriages between educated people willing to teach both cultures to their children finding a balance between the the cultures.
I do strongly agree with you that more awareness needs to occur amongst the AA community. There are simply not enough people of AA decent to adopt all of the AA children in this world. The fact remains that there are hundreds of thousands of AA children in this world that need homes. Not just here in America.

It saddens me that you feel you would be doing a CC child an injustice by taking them into your home. You sound like a well educated compassionate woman and many cc birth mothers would be overly glad to have such a woman adopt her child. I think more AA history should be taught in schools. I think everyone should have the opportunity to have another culture introduced to them and live with it on daily basis.
Again in a perfect world everyone would want to adopt. There is a post in another thread called pictures of trans racial adoptions or something of the sort. In one post was a link to this family website. It has a slide show of the couple's adoption from Somalia. It has many photos of Somalia as they had to travel there for the adoption. Many photos of the family at the orphanage and their stay in Somalia. One look at all those babies and children and I feel like jumping on a plane today to adopt as many of them as they would allow me to take home with me. I guess we are all entitled to our own opinions and I respect yours yet I cant help putting myself in the childs position. Yes it would be different being raised by a different culture or race. Yes I would feel different. Yet putting myself in a childs position for a moment: yes they are a different race, yes I feel different at times. I could have been adopted by another family of my own race/culture, although that may not have happened either and Id still be in an orphanage, foster or group home. Hmm my mother is home with me, she rides bikes with me and takes me to the park. My father takes me fishing w/ my sisters, we go on vacations often we have a pool I have a big yard and a dog. My parents love me and can afford to buy me many toys and provide a good education. I think I like it here.
Cheers