[pbmorningstar]

Hi,
My husband and I who are both CC are trying to make a decision about fostering with the intention of adopting a beautiful biracial baby girl who is 3 months old. We also have two CC (one biological, one adopted) boys. Two issues that have come up for us are a) my mom is not for it and also b) we are moving to a largely CC and very small community in Maine.
We would truly love to bring her into our family but want to think of her best interests first. Any comments?

[lisa in venice]

Maine is not he most diverse place in the country so if this child is being offered in Maine the community that she will go home to is not likely to be more diverse than where you live. The concern I have is with your mom. Do you think she would come around and if she didn't would you have the courage to limit your contact with her?

I think often parents are concerned about you getting hurt. Maybe your mom is not worried about or unaccepting of this child but more worried about it's effect on your life. I would talkt to her some more to see where she is coming from.

lisa

[rastachris]

We are a primarily white couple (my husband is from the Caribbean and has some black blood from several generations ago) and have two beautiful black babies. Aidan was adopted from Haiti and is 17 months old, and Makena was adopted domestically and is almost 3 months old. We are blessed to live in a pretty diverse city, but we still get a lot of stares. It's one thing to be a white family with bi-racial babies and it's another thing to be a white family with black babies. Most folks assume I'm their foster mother. Our families have been very supportive and accepting of our kids and for that we are very thankful.

I agree with Lisa in Venice about talking with your mom and about being okay with limited contact with her should she continue to be unsupportive if your decision to adopt. Many times I've found that the resistance folks have toward a transracial adoption is out of fear of social repercussions for the adopting parents and/or for the adopted child and other siblings. Yes, there are those who are still living in the past and have racial prejudices that prevent them from having open minds and hearts, and for them I pray.

I know a single CC gal who lives in a small town in Maine who adopted a boy from Haiti. Her roommate is also a single mom with a bi-racial child. I don't know which town they live in, but I'd be happy to contact her for you.

If you'll be attending a church in your new town, I recommend you contact your priest or minister for some insight into the heart of the community.

Love is colorblind. If you love this child, adopt her. In my opinion, the baby's best interest is to stay with the one family she's ever known - yours.

Praying for you,

Tina

[spaypets]

Pbmorningstar -- I sent you a private message.

I agree with Lisa that the more important issue is the one with your mother -- just because a place isn't diverse doesn't mean it's bigoted. Rural people are also more polite since they don't have the shield of anonymity.

Has your mother said what her objections are?

[katieb31323]

Hi

This is a tough decison and simailar to one we are contemplating ourselves.

Our daughter is biracial and for the most part people "see" what they want to "see". We have lived in the town we live in for about a 1 1/2 years and our daughter is nearly 4. As yet we havent had any negative comments. We are beginning the adoption process again and wonder how a totally black skinned baby would feel growing up in a tan/ mostly white town. We have no problems with it at all, but we wont have to deal with the fact like a child will.

I agree with the concern over your Mothers reaction. Connection to extended family is important to everyone. Even if you don't like them ! Our family is supportive but I have heard comments when our picky eater 3 year doesn't want to try something saying things like, maybe its not the kind of food she likes (implying more southern dishes would be to her liking) Actually, mexican would be her favorite !

I haven't been much help but I am glad you brought topic up. So much to think about!
Katie

[Luna Moon]

Don't you think your mom will eventually fall in love with her new grandchild? I bet she is just afraid of the unknown.... I think my parents would feel the same at first. But once you have a beautiful little girl in your arms - YOUR DAUGHTER! - I can't imagine your mom disapprove for too long.

We are trying to adopt a biracial infant, but so far no luck. I am sure my parents will be wary... and then come around.
You must follow your heart!

Does anyone know of a good agency where we could adopt a biracial infant? Any tips or info?

[mckenna]

just something to think about. why would you be open to adopting a biracial child and not an aa child? if you feel the child will be more "white" you are really setting your child up to fail. my son happens to be biracial (i was open to fostering any race). he is much darker than some aa people i know. even the other day i was out with him and his two full aa friends, they are all the same age and everyone thought i had triplets with me, they could not tell that the actually twins were full aa and my son was biracial. please think twice before adopting a biracial child just because you hope he/she will be more white than black.

[blessed6]

We also live in a community that is so lacking in diversity, it is sad! Four of our children are hispanic. Our dd is darker than most CC/AA children. We definately get the stares and people think nothing of coming up to us to ask if we have adopted. I have told many people who are open to adopting hispanic children, but not biracial or aa children, to think again. I love the beautiful races that God has blessed my family with and hope that my children will feel the same way as they grow.

My dh's family were very against us adopting transracially when we first began pursuing adoption!! They said the child would never be a real member of the family. We decided if one negative comment was made once we had our child, we would cut off contact. Thankfully, once we had our dd home everyone fell in love with her! They tell her all the time how beautiful she is and how many hearts she will one day break. A complete turnaround from the initial reactions They love all our children dearly. I know many, many who have adopted transracially and were afraid there would be racism in the extended family, and there wasn't. It is hard not to fall in love with the beautiful gift of a child!

[pbmorningstar]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks so much for your helpful responses with respect to our decision to foster with the hopes of adopting a biracial baby when we are moving to a small community in Maine which seems to be 99% white, in addition to our family, as it stands today, being 4/4 , 100% white.

I am going to try and respond to the questions you all had.

1) RE: My Mom- She is afraid she won't be able to love a biracial baby as much as her other grandchildren. My husband and I have decidedly refused to make a decision for our family based on someone else's fear.

2) Re: Us not considering adopting an AA baby. To tell you the truth we weren't planning on adopting a baby at all. The social worker who worked with our second child's birth mom who works at the same hospital as my husband asked him if we would consider fostering a biracial child (whose father hasn't given up his rights to parent the child, but also hasn't offered child support or made any contact at all) with the intention of adopting at a later date. This child is not available through an agency at this time. We were NOT considering adopting a biracial baby because she would be more white. I had posted the question before we met with the social worker to make clear what our family circumstances are (like about where we are moving).

3) Re: Agencies that help place biracial babies. I think that there are some out there but am not sure who they are. Please contact PACT (pactadopt.org), and they will address any questions you have. They specialize in transracial adoptions.

With all the information we gathered, we have decided not to try to adopt the baby in question. We don't know people in the community that we are moving to well enough to guess how they would respond to a biracial child who does not look white. And, even if the community responded kindly and lovingly to the child (which many all white communities are capable of), we can't guess how the child will feel if she is the only one who looks different. If we had been planning on moving to a more ethnically diverse community, our social worker's recommendations would have been different because there, we might have been able to find role models in the AA community, or other families that have adopted transracially to connect with.

Thanks again for your help. Hope this discussion helps others with their decisions.

Sincerely,
Bridget

[spaypets]

Bridget, please private message me...

[DebCsMom]

We too are a CC couple. We have 2 bio children ages 16 & 14. We adopted a Biracial girl 4 years ago next month. We got her as a newborn. Our families initial fear was for the child growing up in a small mainly white community and how it would effect not only her, but the whole family. Not that they were against us adopting a Biracial child, just that we lived in a small town. We are very active in our community so that was a plus for our daughter. We also told EVERYONE when we were in the adoption process that we were adopting Biracial/AA. Everyone knew right away that our child would not be CC.

It helped our family that we spoke openly & honestly with each other. We shared our concerns & worked them out together. We have since adopted 2 full AA children. They are now 21 months & 7 months. We have gotten some "looks" & a couple of comments. But nothing bad.

I loved the one time when we were all at a VERY busy McDonald's Playland & I told our then 18 month old very dark AA daughter to go by Daddy. I noticed a man in about his early 30's then begin to look around. I know he was looking for a Black man. When our daughter ran up to my husband yelling, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" you should have seen his face! It was hilarious!! LOL Total confusion & shock! LOL

Although our city is only about 11,000 people it is close to a major city & is pretty much accepting of our children. This Spring my Husband ran for Mayor of our City. It was interesting then to hear the comments made about our children. Being in the VERY public eye, having every breath we took being watched was interesting to say the least. The comments we got about our children were VERY positive.

Sit down & talk with your family. You my be surprised at what you will all learn. And if it still doesn't work out the way you hope, then I agree with the person who posted to have minimal contact, if any, with the family members who can't acept your daughter. It's accept the whole family or NONE!

GOOD LUCK!

Deb

[bellazmama]

We had trouble with my M-I-L. She didn't understand if we had to adopt, why we wanted to adopt a child that didn't look like us. We actually had to do counseling with her to get it all out into the open. Things are better now.

Our daughter is light-complected, but definitely darker than the two of us. It amuses us when people get confused. When I'm with her, they assume I'm her bio mom. When we're BOTH with her, they get confused.

Someone in my husband's office actually thought I had cheated on him and he was too stupid to know. Gimme a break!

[DebCsMom]

LOL Bellazmamma, that's too funny about the affair thing. We had that too a couple of times.

When I'm alone with our children, they too assume I'm their Bio mom & my hubby is black. When we are together it's almost comical to see the faces of people when I say, "go get Daddy!" Or We make any mention of Daddy when he's around! LOL TOO funny!!

Deb

[Sidswife]

It saddens me to see beautiful bi-racial or AA children passed over for the fear of being raised in a primarily CC community. These children deserve homes too!!!!!

That said...

My husband and I are an interracial couple living in an almost ENTIRELY white community. I think that there is one other couple in town that are AA, elderly, and have lived here for years. My husband and I moved to this community because we watned our children to grow up in a rural area as both of us did as children. Of course we were a bit concerned when we first relocated to this town of less than 2,000 but we thought that if we had any trouble we would just move again. I mean, our children ARE the most important thing to us and if they ever have problems we will address them. However, we have NEVER had one off comment or look from ANYONE in the community. i am very involved in our church and our children are the only children of AA decent that attend. My husband is the only AA who attends the church. We are ALL welcome.

Do not assume that everyone will be against a diverse family coming to the area because the community that you may be locating to is all CC. Our town has completely embraced us and went out of their way to make us feel welcome.

[lizziesbigsis]

For what its worth....

I live in Midcoast Maine and there are plenty of families who have adopted children of a different race. There is a family CC parents with three handsome, wonderful AA boys - and other families who have welcomed asian, guatamala, indian, and other nationality children into their families. All of these children are loved and treated like any other child. IMO you can deal with impolite stares and questions no matter where you live, small towns notwithstanding.

I would be more concerned about your Mother's balking at the adoption than moving to a small town in Maine. You can choose your neighbors but not your relatives in that sense.

I can understand the need to want everyone "on board" for an adoption in the family. However, it is YOUR family and YOUR child.

Good luck and welcome to Maine in advance!
PS. Bring lots of bugspray for black fly and mosquito season!