[CeraDad]

Our daughter is aa/cc. When I mentioned to a co-worker who 2 adopted children that we were thinking about adopting again, she said we should specifically request being matched with a full aa child. She said this way our daughter would not feel "left out" as the only non-cc in the family. My question is: does anyone else feel this way? My thoughts are that we didn't do this for our first adoption and that it would not be necessary. I have seen quite a few families where one child is cc and another is aa. We are not going to base our final decision on this, just wanted to see what others thought about this little discussion.

P.S.-Both her children are aa/cc. Not sure if this is a factor, but it may be.

[sammycos]

To be honest, I feel the same as your coworker. We adopted our daughter who is full CC and our son who is full AA, now we are hoping to adopt another child of either sex and full AA. My daughter is very confident, but my son struggles that he is the only one in our family that has brown skin. We have many friends that have adopted full AA and biracial children. We also have friends that are AA. We feel that our son will benefit from our potential adoption. We will have to see how it works out but others might have a different oppinon, but for us it will great!

[Support2Adopt]

I could understand if the sw suggested adopting another AA/CC child, but I don't understand why she thinks adopting a full AA child would be best. First off, I don't know the color of your child's skin, but AA/CC people's colortones can run from looking AA to CC and everything in between. Now, maybe a full AA child might make your daughter feel good about her skin tone, but how would the AA child feel being the only dark one in the family?
Maybe someone on these boards has done so and can share their experience?
One other thing, I do find it a bit odd that the sw is suggesting that you have one bi-racial child and that you should adopt an AA baby next when she herself adopted two bi-racial children.
JJ

[amom4life]

When we contracted with our facilitator we said we'd be fine with any race so we did have a chance of being matched with a biracial or full AA baby.

While we were waiting to be matched with our forever child we were also discussing the possibility of adopting at least one more time. I remember thinking that if we were matched with an AA baby then I'd want to go with AA if we adopted again.

We ended up joyfully being matched with Elijah a little over a month ago who is full Hispanic, but that doesn't make me want to necessarily request only Hispanic if we adopt again.

I'm not even sure to what I'm getting at here or if it even makes sense to me but had Elijah been AA I would go AA again.

Anyway maybe someone else can figure this out. LOL!

I think I have a bad case of baby mush brains.
Judy

[BeckyS]

We were totally open to any race with our last adoption. Our dd is AA & this time around we will specify that we want an AA child or bi-racial that includes AA along with any other race. I don't really have any specific reasons as to why.

[PinkRibbon]

What is CC? I figured out AA. Thanks

[joymom]

CC is for caucasian.

Our sons are both AA, and our next child will be also. We made this decision specifically so our kids would have someone who "looks like them" in our immediate family. Our oldest has articulated many times that he glad that his brother is beautiful brown like him, and specifically asked that his "next baby" would be too. It thrills him to know how beautiful we think he is (that we want to do it again!), and also has given him a sence of security we couldn't provide otherwise.

I don't get the requesting full AA (vs. biracial) thing either... maybe because sometimes if the bmom is CC, there may be uncertainty of the ethnicity of the bdad? It seems a little strange.

[CeraDad]

Thank you all for your posts. As for her skin tone, she has very light olive skin. When we first brought her home, some friends with bi-racial children said her skin would turn more brown around 1 yr old. This did not happen. I can understand the issue of being "odd man out", but I don't see limiting options. As we can see from threads in other parts of this forum, an adoptee can feel "left out" for any number of reasons. I myself, as an adoptee, felt "left out" in my family because I am quite big (6'3" 300 lbs.) while everyone else is "normal". I could be wrong, but for the sake of my future child I am not.

[Linny]

Our next to the youngest child is AA. When we submitted for the next possibility, we would only accept full AA........or bi-racial. As it turned out, our most recent baby is full AA too. I would think adopting another bi-racial child, or full AA child would be a good thing, considering your child is bi-racial.
I know that for us, considering a CC baby was completely out of the question. We felt that it was unfair to our daughter; and we declined possible matches with CC babies.

Sincerely,

Linny

[bevy]

Our 2 year old daughter is aa/cc and we have purposely gone with the same agency to adopt an aa baby or aa/cc for the same reason's everyone else is suggesting . Because we are both cc, we really want alexa to share that part of her heritage with at least one family member. In the end, it really doesn't matter what we are blessed with but having already adopted an aa/cc child, we would like to adopt at least one more with similar ethnicity as alexa....from there, who knows were we will go...maybe Haiti.

Tara

[Jensboys]

I think when you children are toddlers or preschoolers these issues seem inconsequential ... and maybe as adults we forget too. HOWEVER, we have two cc children and two aa children ... I feel VERY strongly that there should be at least one face in the family that "matches" the aa child = for the sake of the children. Particularly if you live in a predominately cc area or if you child will be attending a predominately cc school/daycare etc.

My aa boys are now 8 and 9 and I KNOW it is important to them at this age and can fathom it will be more so down the road. Our cc kids dont really see race yet at all.

I also know how much effort it takes to support AA culture and their heritage in our home -- I cannot imagine doing it for more than one culture.

Have you ever travelled internationally and been a visible minority. Remember seeing that other "familiar" (ie cc) face and striking up a conversation because you have "something" in common. Now imagine living your whole life without that similarity -- I think it would be very hard.= Particularly if every other child in the family matches your parents ...

Because I have both cc and aa kids -- its ALWAYS the aa kids that are assumed to be adopted. Its ALWAYS the aa kids that have to offer an explanation to friends etc. Having a someone else in the family who gets it is a huge resource for them!

[BeckyS]

" Have you ever travelled internationally and been a visible minority. Remember seeing that other "familiar" (ie cc) face and striking up a conversation because you have "something" in common. Now imagine living your whole life without that similarity -- I think it would be very hard.= Particularly if every other child in the family matches your parents ..."

Jensboys, I wish everyone could have the opportunity to live as a minority. People would then recognize this as an important issue. Not an overwhelming obstacle but an issue to be aware of.