[Alaskana]

I'm new here and have a few questions. My husband and I are waiting to have a 5 year old girl placed in our home. We know her as friends of ours had temporary custody of her when she was two. The TPR hearing is June 2nd and mom has already relinquished rights. Nobody is sure who dad is, but they've never found a man matching the name mom gave, so they're expecting that to go uncontested. So we expect to start transitioning in early June and are hoping she'll be living with us full time by July.

Anyhow, my husband, I, and our two boys (ages 4 and 2) are as white as can be and "Anna" is half AA and half white. I'm looking for any advice from anyone whose family is mixed, or where the parents don't "match" the kids. I'll take any advice from brands of shampoo that work on curly hair, to witty retorts to people who ask dumb questions.

Thanks!!

[reapingjoy]

I have blond hair & my dh has dark hair, but we are both white as can be & so are our 4 bio boys. We have an adopted 2 y.o. girl from Guatemala with pitch black hair, black eyes, & medium skin. She has a ton of long hair, but it is just like mine - very soft & fine so I knew how to do hers. We are in process right now to adopt a 3 y.o. AA girl from foster care. She has been home with us for almost 3 mo. now & we can finalize in Sept.

We get a lot of stares when we are out. The biggest thing you need to know is that the AA community takes great pride in how the little girls have their hair done. The FM was AA & had done our daughter's hair in cornrows so tight that it broke a lot of her hair off. If I had done that, you can be sure I would have heard about it all the time. Right now, M's hair is growing in nicely & she's only been here a short time. I was told to let her hair "rest" & not do anything with it for a few days except comb it out & moisturize it. I did that. When I took her out & she had a very nice headband in, etc. I still had an AA lady come up & give me a card for her hair salon because she thought M's hair looked matted. I told her that it was not matted at all & that we were letting it rest after the maltreatment from the FM's house. She totally understood & went on to say that she thought it looked very moisturized, etc. I wasn't offended because I know that when I am out, AA women will feel they have the right to come tell me how to do her hair because they don't know that I have many AA friends who help me & that I have done tons of research on it & that I have joined an adoption skin/hair care yahoo group. I have never gone out in public with her hair "undone" again (even though I thought it looked really cute).

The best advice I can give you is to join the adoption skincare/haircare yahoo group. I don't know the actual name of it, although I think that's it. They have tons of info on shampoos, styles, etc. plus lots of pictures. It has been a wealth of info for me. I now feel very confident when I go out because I know my DD's hair looks good.

I had my friend who is a hair stylist get me all the hair products I would need. My favorites are: Redken's All Soft shampoo & conditioner for dry/brittle hair (I only wash it every other week. I soap it twice & rinse it well with fresh water between & then condition it) I also have a leave in conditioner by Redken, too. For styling, I use Biosilk Silk Therapy every day to moisturize & then Paul Mitchell Foaming Pommade when we are going out as it makes her hair look "finished". Every few nights, I put on KeraCare Dry & Itchy Scalp Glossifier or Mizani H2O Intense.

Ok, gotta go get fingerprinted for an expiring homestudy so I gotta cut this off. If I think of anything else, I will write more later.

Good Luck!

[arubagirl]

We get questions since our youngest DD is biracil... one lady asked where does she get her big brown eyes from???.. i just said from her father ( it's true). she looked at my husband and then at me and walked away... I figured if people are close enough to me then they already know she is adopted.. the strangers don't need to know anything since they are strangers

[dtmckel]

My husband and I are a biracial couple. I am white and he is AA. I have 3 children from a previous marriage and they are white and we have one bio little girl together. We are also fostering a little boy that is bi-racial also.
I must say that most people that I have come across are really nice and just say how beautiful our children are but we have had a few people who will stare and make little comments. We just ignore them. People who are truly your friends will know your situation so there should never be any problems.
As for the hair, my sister in law has told me that I should not wash their hair quite as often because it is already so dry and that only dries it more. I use products that are found in the AA section of the hair products. Most work fine. You just need to keep it as moist as you can or it will break off.

[JPDakota]

We've tried quite a few products. For DD's hair we really like all of the Silken Child products....detangler, moisturizer, shampoo, conditioner and shine. DD's hair is medium in texture and extremely tightly curled. We wash her hair a couple of times a week as a rule. She has braids in back and poms up top. We never comb her hair while it is dry. We moisturize every evening or her hair gets too dry.
For skin we use lotion with shae butter. DD's skin is certainly not any drier than mine, and I'm CC. Its just that when her skin is dry it is more obvious. One thing a lot of folks don't realize is that AA/bi-racial kids need sunscreen just as much as CC kids do.
In terms of how we're looked at in the community, in the city nobody really notices that DD is AA, DH is Asian and I'm CC. We lived in a small town at first and we stood out like a sore thumb. It occurred to us that DD was never going to get to just blend in, and sometimes kids need to do that. So, we picked up stakes and moved to a city.

[Sunshinemom]

Congratulations to you and your family!! My DH and I are both Caucasian as are our three biological sons. Blond hair, blue eyes, etc. Our youngest son is biracial and adopted, though most people are surprised to hear he's only 1/4 AA as his skin is very dark. The funniest thing happened the other day at Little League. A mom who I have met this season and knows my DH and all my sons asked me "which one is adopted?". I laughed so hard at that one! What she meant to say was "how many of your children are adopted", but didn't quite get it out the way she meant it. He's been with us for 16 months and I can honestly say I've never received any negative comments. I do have curious people occassionaly ask about him, but it's been awhile for that as well.

I don't have much advice on hair care products as I still constantly am trying out different ones that are recommended to me. The only thing that I do love is Sunsilk has something called multi-symptom masque in a hot pink tub. I slather it on him in the tub and leave it in for a few minutes and then rinse out...leaves it soft and smelling yummy!

I do advise you to get some good lotion. His skin is so much dryer than the rest of us. I think I generally use Eucerin.

[Alaskana]

Thanks so much for your responses!!

We just got an email from our girl today and one of the things she hoped for her new family was that we would make her hair pretty every day. And since I have two boys, I CAN'T WAIT!! I'm nervous about being able to do it right, but I'm sure I'll learn.

I hadn't realized that her skin might be more dry. My younger son battles dry skin and eczema, so luckily we have every moisturizing product imaginable in our house, but I'll stock ourselves with more.

It's also nice to hear that many of you have mixed families and don't get strange comments.

Thanks everyone for your support!

[joskimo]

I'm CC, husband in NA and we have a bio daugter NA/CC, our adopted daughter is AA - everyone looks at my family! But I'm sure it's because my girls are drop dead gorgeous!

Thing about AA hair and skin is that you have to hunt for the products that work for her. It's just like CC hair and skin, it's all different. What to know is that both their skin and hair are dryer and need more mosturizer. I usually only bathe my little one once a week - more often if she's grubby, but washing really dries her skin. I almost never wash her hair more then once a week even if she gets an extra bath.

For her skin I use lotions or body butter with shea or coconut oil. Right after the bathe while her skin is still damp and then daily.

For her hair - I was doing it best I could for awhile. I also live in Alaska and didn't have anyone to ask for advice. Anyways, I was over-doing her hair. Afro puffs every day, really cute but when we were on vacation last winter, I had two different occasions where AA women let me know that I was on the wrong track. So I sucked it up and talked to an AA aquaintence I had to beg for advice and she's got me on Bed Head Moisture Maniac shampoo and conditioner once a week, Humectress to use as daily leave in conditioner, and now I braid her hair once a week, and apply conditioner daily to her braids. I started this in December and her hair is really bouncing back. The daily afro puffs were drying and breaking her hair.

Other things are: never dry her hair rough with a towel, just pat. Also use a satin pillow case, the cotton dries their hair out.

[jbee]

we're both white, our bio daughters are both very pale but one has dark straight hair, the other blond curly, our adopted son is bi racial aa/white. most of the time, people just ask 'are they all yours?' i take the chance to tell them about foster care and adoption. ds is only two, so i don't think he really gets what we are talking about yet and i don't think he feels singled out.
we have an asian fs too, so it really confuses people, lol.
i just make sure i use lots of conditioner on his hair and don't wash it as often as the girls. from what i can see, he has 'good' hair? it is not dry and behaves without a lot of work.