[Saya]

Moderators, please move if this is in the wrong place. I have already asked this on the adoptive parents boards, but I am hoping to get an adoptee's perspective on a question now facing our family.

I am a mom through adoption. DH and I are CC, and our 3-year-old daughter is Hispanic. We are currently waiting to be matched with our second child, hopefully to have an open adoption. We wrote on our paperwork that our preference was that our next child share DD's heritage in some way, i.e. be at least part-Hispanic (defined pretty broadly) so that our DD would grow up with a sibling who shared some part of her background AND so DD wouldn't be isolated in the family as the only CC member.

We just found out that a potential b-mom has read our profile and might be interested, and the baby is full CC. Our social worker knew we might not be interested, but wanted to put it by us anyway.

My question for you as adoptees is - do you think race/ethnicity makes a difference? Do you think it's problematic to have one child be the only non-CC child to CC parents? Or am I making more out of this then I ought?

[epenn922]

I'm not sure if it truly makes a difference. Everyone was caucasian in my adopted and step families growing up and I still always felt very, very different. My sense of humor is different, my political and religious views are different, my talents, quirks and peeves are very different.

I can see in my husband's family that they have similarities flowing thru them. My niece bites her lip like my husband. You can see other relatives in different people. I never had that connection.

My stepsister adopted a baby from Korea and while she looks very different, it doesn't seem to be an issue. Maybe being accepting, open and honest - which you seem to be - is more important than nationality.

[smcd_fmr_attorney]

Race/ethnicity makes a difference. If you doubt this for one second please the book Outsiders Within, which you may have already read. Your daughter will already feel isolated as a child of color who has white parents and may have a hard time connecting with other people of color. If you had a full CC child to your family this feeling may increase...and the child might wonder if you love him or her more. Does it mean your child will grow up angry and feel unloved? No! Of course not, but it DOES matter.

[epenn922]

It may also depend on where the child grows up. If it's a racially diversified neighborhood, it may not be as difficult because lots of families don't all look the same. With families being divorced, children from previous marriages, same-sex parents, children of different religions, children of different races -- it may have to do with how the parents handle the situation.

I'm in NJ, so it may be more diversified here than in other sections of the U.S. I don't know. I see a lot blended families.

[KittyMay]

Saya, I think you answered your own question about if race matters when you are considering turning down a child because of their race, in this case caucasian. A strong family bond should easily be able to transcend race and celebrate the unique differences in all the members adopted or not. I wish you all the answers you need to make the best decision for your family.

[ripples]

I grew up with an adopted brother from the same country - we were from separate orphanages - and now I also have 2 Caucasian sisters via my adoptive father's side of the family. I come from a very loving adoptive family, all my family members are very cross-cultural and I'd lived in Chinatown as well as in China when I was growing up, so you could say that I had both love and a very multicultural upbringing. Personally, I think it does help to have another member of the family to be the same race. However, I suggest that you do a bit more reading to get a broader range of views than just my humble individual opinions.

Here are some suggested readings:

1) "The Colour of Difference: Journeys in Transracial Adoption", edited by Sarah Armstrong and Petrina Slaytor
2) "Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption", by Jane Jeong Trenka et al
3) "The Gathering of the First Generation of Adult Korean Adoptees", by the Evan B Donaldson Adoption Institute http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/proed/korfindings.htm
4) Inter-Country Adoptee Support Network Inter-Country Adoptee Support Network - the web site's Resources section lists a lot of reading materials
5) Queensland, Australia's intercountry adoption education program (you can read the materials online) - run by the Department of Child Safety that manages intercountry adoption placement Intercountry adoptive parent education

While I agree that a strong family bond and a loving family helps, as has been shared by many adult transracial adoptees, there can be a lot of complexities of transracial/transcultural identity that transcend the power of love. Similarly, as adoptees in unicultural families have been sharing, the power of love in one's adoptive family may not be sufficient for dealing with the depth, variety and complexity of adoption-related issues.

In the meantime, I'm curious as to what extent your adoption placement agency provides preparatory information for prospective adoptive parents about topics in post-adoption parenting. Having read some of the questions by prospective inter-country adoptive parents, I get the impression that the agencies provide minimal information about basic FAQs relating to the post-placement aspects of inter-country adoption.

Good for you for checking things out before you make your decision.

[Saya]

Thank you all so much for your input. This is a hard process - and no matter what we decide it is helping us to work through these important issues in a really stark way.

KittyMay, I know what you're saying, and I have to be cognizant of it. But I'm 100% confident that if we decide to go ahead and IF we are chosen (still a big if) the family bond will transcend race and there will no difference in our love for our two children. I think the question is more that having read that it can be of great value for a transracially adopted child to have a sibling-ally who is also a child of color, are we doing a great disservice to DD if her little sibling is CC. (We are stopping after 2 kids.)

As always happens when DH and I have a difficult decision to make together, we are both constantly changing our opinion. Last night I was in the position of "It will be too difficult for A to be the only person of color in the house" and he was in the position of "One thing that we have learned about parenthood and adoption is that you have to be open to surprises. This isn't what we expected as a situation, but we should embrace it openly and see what happens." This morning - and this is absolutely normal with us - we had changed sides. We'll probably go back and forth a few more times before we really figure out what works for our family.

epenn, we do live in a diverse community, so it's not like if were to adopt a CC child then DD would never see another child of color. We live in NYC and our neighborhood is pretty racially diverse. Our zoned elementary school is about 1/3 Hispanic. So no matter what both our children are going to grow up in a pretty diverse environment, in terms of race, family make-up (lots of adopted families, single-sex couples, etc.) etc.

Ripples, you asked a good questions about our agency. I think our agency does a pretty good job considering that some agencies out there really don't look at these issues at all. Inside Transracial Adoption by Gail Steinberg and Beth Hall (both founders of PACT) was required reading for our homestudy. And they provide quite a bit of post-placement support, including a whole series of free classes about post-placement issues, as well as access to their social workers, support groups for adopted kids as they grow up, etc. That said, there are certainly things that they could do better.

I realize there is no right or wrong answer to our question - and that at the end of the day there is no way to know, as with most parenting choices, what the impact will be. But THANK YOU ALL, and please continue to comment - it is really helpful to read what you all have to say.