Point well said, Erin. We have never understood this ourselves; and yet there are agencies who perpetuate this myth just as much! None of our children have been raised with what some of society would call, 'THEIR culture'.
Our first two babies were Asian.....we lived a small portion of their lives within the Air Force; and the rest of their childhood in a VERY rural area, on a farm, with only a couple of Asian kids around---who were very seldom seen, except at certain events.
Ask them (the kids) now what they thought of this (both are in their mid-twenties)...and they'll tell you that the experiences were good. That they learned a lot about life, and seldom thought about these 'differences'. Did we try to instill stuff about Japan and Korea to them? Yes. In fact, we
lived in Okinawa, Japan for three years---brought a bunch of stuff we just KNEW they'd want to have around during their childhood, encouraged going to different Asian events, even had Japanese kids come live with us for two weeks; and to our surprise,
they thought we were NUTS to think that we needed to expose them to more! In fact, they have both said to us "We were adopted as INFANTS........we are American!"
I know each child is different, differences in ethnicity need to be encouraged and explored.....but there is also a lot of undue pressure and hoopla associated with this too. Bottom line on this: Be prepared, but don't be surprised if your child turns out to be more like 'you', than the 'culture' of which everyone else thinks they should follow.
There are a lot of smiliarities in values, beliefs and customs we all share, regardless of ethnicity.
In response to Fran's comments about family?
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Family, too. Linny, you say you wouldn't associate with people who would have problems with it... but how fair would it be for a child never to see his/fer family because people have a problem with it? I've heard people say that family gets over it. Well, I'm not going to use my child as a guinea pig to find out. I'm not saying that family is necessarily racist, but to me parents just thinking it's a bad idea would be a good enough reason not to be open to race - I can't imagine telling my children 'no sorry you can't meet your grandmother because she has a problem with your race'. Fran
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The point is, Fran....that if we had family members who didn't feel comfortable with a transracial family.........WE wouldn't associate with them....LONG before the child was placed with us, you see.
We'd/ We have no time for bigots--family or otherwise, and so they would have been 'crossed off of the family reunion list'
long before we'd have brought a child home!!!
In terms of being a 'guinea pig'....I completely agree with you. No family member would be so important to us that we would
dare bring a child into this unit without knowing what to expect....yet, I've seen this happen, and it's sad.
And......we have learned the art of having others fill in as grandparents to our children, simply because
my mother is already passed away, and almost all of our family lives a very long way from us now. The grandparents of my children have their faults, but they accept our children. They'd have been 'dropped' long ago, if this were not the case. No biological tie is
that important to us. (Never was in the first place! We chose to adopt rather than give birth to begin with.)
A few others have made comments that adoptive couples/people need to think through their preferences before deciding. I think this is very good advice.
I've actually heard of couples who 'brought the baby back to the agency because---once they got home--- they felt the child was too dark'
While this kind of action disgusts me to no end; I also think that the child is much better off without these bigoted parents; and certainly a better qualified parent was thrilled to have the baby!!!!
So, it's a matter of personal preference...and certainly not one to take lightly. As I said before, all of these reasons are valid, certainly. Each must think these things through. It is up to others to decide if these reasons are those of predjudice or not; but in the long run, if someone feels they 'can't love a child of a race different than themselves', then they should not adopt transracially. (And I guess we're just weird, because
there is no way we ever wished or fantasized to have a baby/child that looked like us! LOL!)
Sincerely,
Linny