[HileryS]

I just finished reading a fiction book about a 6 year old girl Native American girl who was adopted by a caucasion woman. PM me if you want the name of the book, it is quite interesting. The book brings up some interesting points regarding transracial adoption and I just want to hear what my fellow Guatemalan adoptive parents think about one of the issues.

One is that caucasion families will bring their babies up as white children, from no fault of their own, and then one day around when the child enters junior high, the child will realize he or she is not caucasion and will have a personal crisis trying to decide who they are.

My thoughts are that we will be open and honest about where our daughter is from and will try to teach her about it as a young child. I am curious if this is enough and what else can we do? Any ideas?

I am not trying to bring my child up thinking she is anything besides loved by her mommy and daddy. But the book really made me wonder if this will be enough or if I need to be more proactive in teaching her about the Guatemalan culture and giving her that tie as she is older.

Hilery

[Guatmom2006]

I do think that it is very important to teach children about their culture, but I also think that the most important thing for all children to feel is unconditional love from their mommy and daddy. Although I don't think we should pretend that these additional issues will not arise or do not exist, I think that all children around the middle school age go through the personal crisis of trying to decide who they are. We have one right now (not adopted) and in the timespan of a year, she has gone from an outgoing, fun-loving, precious, sweet, confident child to a pre-teen who questions each and every move she makes because she fears she won't "fit in."

[dancingmyrtle]

....as a brown person with white parents. :-) I speak on this actually, at conferences and stuff. Of course I have the disclaimer ready here: *everyone is different, this is just my personal experience.*
Okay, now then. Raising a child who is of a different race or ethnicity than you requires you to strike a delicate balance between acknowledging his or her background and making a federal case of it. For instance, my parents tried the best they could to expose me to areas of my heritage, from introducing me to other Guatemalans (really hard to do in the Midwest in the 70s and 80s, let me tell ya) to choosing Guatemala as the country to do my report on in school when you have to do those country reports. That was junior high, I believe. And I was like, whoopee, another school assignment, who cares? So at some point they backed off because they didn't want to cram it down my throat.
I didn't have an interest in learning more about Guatemala until college. Some people never have an interest in connecting with their birth countries. And some may want to do so from the moment they are old enough to understand where they are from. You definitely have the right idea of making sure your child is loved and is a part of your family, of course that is the bottom line. But one thing my mom had wished she had known is that you can't just pretend your baby is just a person and that that's all that matters. You do need to remember that your baby is a Guatemalan person. You just don't need to make it be the biggest deal there ever was. I hope this makes sense.
You're welcome to PM me for more information and examples about things I went through. Like how I had this revelation in college that I wanted to be around other brown people and my mom freaked out, suddenly feeling as if she had "messed up" by not pushing me into that at a younger age, and how I was all of a sudden going to abandon white people now that I'd found my people. Which by the way, was not the case, my poor mom was just paranoid! :-) And I can also tell you about the times I've felt like I belong nowhere, because there are white people who don't accept me as one of their own because I'm technically not, but then there are numerous Latinos/Hispanics/Guatemalans who also don't accept me as one of their own because I'm not fluent in Spanish/didn't grow up there/have white parents. So trust me, it's not all roses. But it's also not that big of a deal! If if weren't this I'd be dealing with something else, and to the earlier poster's point, kids deal with identity issues no matter what. My stepdaughter is thick for her age and while she's not fat, she's not a stick like all the other 8-year-olds, and she's already self-conscious about that. So honestly, don't lose sleep over it, but do make a plan for how you intend to introduce your child's culture to him or her so that it's there when they are interested. :-)

[WVUMom418]

I have read in a couple of books that say the best time for you to take your child to visit their birth country is just before they enter middle school. At this point they are old enough to understand and take it all in.

I worry about my daughter since I have a bio daughter only 1 1/2 years older. I want her to always know they are loved equally no matter how they entered our family (my bio daughter joined through extensive fertility treatments). But I also want her to grow up knowing where she came from and having a respect and love for that country.

It's funny, if you ask my bio daughter where she was born she says "Guatemala". She talks a lot about how we went to Guatemala to get Mia. I know these are memories that she won't have as she gets older but we plan to keep talking about it and sharing the pictures and video with the kids.

[Maria'sMom]

Thanks for taking the time to give us your perspective dancingmyrtle. It it very helpful!!

[Mariais5]

We are going to make sure that Bryce is fluent in Spanish. I think this is so important. We also have many spanish friends with children Bryce's age, so she is surrounded by the hispanic culture on a regular basis. She actually already has a little Puerto Rican boyfriend!

We are part of a local Guatemalan playgroup that meets about once every other month. I think that will help Bryce to realize that she is not alone in having caucasion parents.

We are in the process of adopting another child from Guatemala so they will always have each other to lean on.

We are also in the process of beginning a Guatemalan missions program through our church. As Bryce and her sister get older, we would like them to be involved in this work, so they'll get to travel to Guatemala every year if they want to.

Before we brought Bryce home, I was telling a Mexican friend everything we were going to do to make sure that Bryce didn't forget her culture, and she said to me, "M, she may just want to be an American." So, I guess above all else, we will follow our children's lead and see how much they want to learn and experience.

dancingmyrtle ~ So glad to have you here! Your insights as an adoptee are so appreciated!

[Julaine]

I am your normal mixed up caucasion. No emphasis on my heritage growing up except a couple Swedish songs my Dad taught me. My girls are of course Caucasion on my side but on their dads side they are AfroAmerican, Native American Indian and Caucasion. Through out the years I have tried to bring up different things to introduce them to their other cultures but it was just not a big deal to them. They knew that their dad and I loved them no matter who they were and that is all that was important to them. My youngest decided last night she was just going to tell everyone from now on that she was Native American since she has mostly those traits. We do plan to be sure our Guatemalaen child knows where they are from and we want them to learn Spanish because well it is spoke here in the US too. But we have such a mixed group of friends that I really do not think it will matter. I do not choose my friends by their race and neither do my daughters !