[Sheba]

ripples,

I am not adopted but read this forum now and again. I like to know how adult adoptees feel so I can be prepared to help my daughter. We are a multi racial family. My husband and I are pretty white (blonde), my son is part spanish, my two older daughters blue eyed white, and my youngest daughter was adopted from China. I try very much to encompass her Chinese heritage and my son's spanish heritage into our family. My son is helped by his dad in this part but my daughter only has us. We have gathered as much information possible about her abandonment (hate saying that) her foster parents, her culture or any piece of information and have it all ready for her when she is old enough to understand. We attend Chinese festivals and keep in contact with the 6 families that she was adopted with. These girls will grow up knowing they were together in China and chosen to be our children. I think it is important for me as an adoptive mother to do what I can to keep her culture while main streaming her into being an Asian American not a white american! I value all of your opinions as I know we have years to go and I really do not know how she will feel as an adult but I do hope she loves us and understands that we have supplied her with all the information available short of her bio parents. We do plan to take her back to her China town when she is old enough to understand and we are also adopting another child from China. I hope that the two of them will grow up and be there for each other when I cannot! I love them all with all my heart and would not trade any of them. We do our best and I hope that is good enough!

Thank you for posting your opinions for us to read. I get a lot of guff because we adopted from China and sometimes I worry about my daughter. But I figure if we raise her to be strong and believe in herself both as an American and Chinese woman, we have done our job!