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In my excitment I forgot to add that if anyone wants to share information about LDSFS please PM me! Thank you.
Some of you already have and I appreciate that. I appreciate your insight. I will deffinatly be checking out the boards for more information on AA and Biracial adoption! Thanks for the heads up. I Love the LDS point of view, so I love coming here knowing you all understand adoption in a different way. Its nice.
Since there are at least 2 people lurking here is some more about us. I'm going to take a break from the boards for a few weeks but will be back when my dd's start school again to give an update. Swimming lessons end this week (that is when I come online) and so my free time is ending.
We lived in the Caribbean for over 2 years. During that 2 year period of time we were able to get to know and love 24 children living in an orphanage on the island. We were the minorities in our LDS branch and on the island. It would have been very easy to stick with the "Americans" while on the island and stay strictly at the beach resorts, resort hotels (we did a lot of this too!) but I feel we were blessed to be totally immersed in the Caribbean culture. My dh was the branch mission leader and I was in the primary presidency. It was one of the best experiences of our lives. We had a few very special experiences letting us know that we were to adopt an AA or biracial infant once we were finished with school.
All of the children and adults we grew to love were African/Caribbean. I am also a proud foster mom of an 18 month old who is AA. I hope to remain part of his life when he is reunited with his mom. We are fortunate to live in a diverse area and have a diverse ward.
My dh is a Veterinarian and I am a stay at home mom to two beautiful girls and a busy foster mom of our special needs toddler who will be going home very soon (this is a happy/sad time for me).
I've dealt with ignorant comments towards myself and my AA foster son by AA, and by CC peole, most are innocent some are not. I know what to stay, have my lines memorized. I'm a mama bear if anyone says anything remotely racist in front of me or ANY of my children. I already feel like we are a multi-racial family. While in the Caribbean we were embraced by the people on our island. I will never forget their love and acceptance of us. I have grown to love the AA community as I have served in our Primary here. Many of our primary kids come to church from the inncer city. Most of them come on their own.
I have seen racism towards my foster son's mother and have advocated for her. Rasicm is unfortunatly still around and if you parent an AA or Biracial child you need to teach them how to deal with it-so I've done my best to advocate for the foster children I have had in my care.
I understand skin and hair, my AA foster son's mom is teaching me the way to dress (at least for a boy!), how to keep his hair, what is acceptable/what is considered "too white", it's different then Caribbean culture so its nice to be learning. And it IS important in NY that our AA or Biracial children do not feel like outsiders when it comes to the AA community, so dress, care of hair and skin is very important. Fortunatly there are many biracial families in our area and tons of beautiful biracial children. My closest friend in our ward just moved, she was Caribbean. I have several close friends who are either AA or Biracial or who have Biracial children. We naturally have a diverse group of friends. My dd's pediatrician is from Trinidad and is African decent.
We were able to have one of the 12 year old girls from the orphanage spend Christmas with us and weekends. This is when I really learned about hair. She has a beautiful hair, long and thick, kept in braids. Because she had her hair done on Saturday it was up to us to fix it. I had seen some cute hair styles I thought i could try. I realized quickly my limitations. Our landlady was excellent at hair so every Saturday our "adopted" daughter was with us she would fix her hair. I may be limited (all thumbs) but my SIL is excellent at ethnic hair and she lives close by. She has promised to help me learn. I'm ready...hope those fingers cooperate if not she offered her services (She is a cosmotologist and works mostly with ethinc hair).
As foster parents we took a 10 week class preparing us for transracial adoption/placements. They were very helpful. I know we are not prepared for everything that will come up but at least we are not going into this unexperienced!
L
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