[jan1763]

Hi Everyone,

We are caucasian with one 3 yr old bio daughter and considering an AA infant adoption. I understand the potential issues around insensitive people and feel we're ready to handle that. But I am concerned because we live in a very "vanilla" area. We don't have any close AA friends and our neighborhood and school doesn't have a good diversity of people from different ethnic backgrounds.

So we'd like to get some feedback from those of you who have diverse families. Do you live in multi-ethnic neighborhoods? How important is it for a child to see others that look like him/her? We feel strongly that this is a wonderful opportunity for us to build our family but I'm trying to keep the child's best interest in mind.

Thanks in advance for any response or open discussion you're willing to have about this.

[allabouthorses]

I'm so glad you asked, rather than just jumping in blind!

I would definitely suggest moving to a more multicultural area if you decide to do this. While it's possible that this child would be just fine where you are, it's very likely that there would be big problems.

I grew up in a multicultural family. My parents and one abrother are caucasian, my oldest abrother is milatto, my asister is AA, and I'm mixed (jamaican, native, lebanese, and scottish). We always got looks and comments, and they never bothered me. At school, I had friends of all races, though I usually gravitated (and still do!) towards caucasian people.

My younger sister, however, has always sought out other AA people, and has struggled to find herself and an identity that fit her. She tried extra hard to be "black", and it caused a lot of problems for her.

How this will work will greatly depend on your individual child. You can help by creating opportunities for the child to be with other people of colour, explore his/her heritage, and express who he/she is. Also explaining and reinforcing that there is nothing wrong with the child or with your family, and that you love that child just as much as your biodaughter is very important.

Best of luck to you!

[LisaCA]

you might want to do some reading first. There are two books I'd recommend, "Inside Transracial Adoption" and "I'm Vanilla, you're chocolate". You might also want to visit this website:

http://www.pactadopt.org

they have a ton of articles there that will give you some things to think about.

If I might, you might want to ask yourself a few questions, just to provoke some thought. why are you interested in adopting an AA child? why do you live in a 'vanilla' area and not a more integrated one? why do you not have friends of color? How does your family feel about african americans? Your extended family? what do you know about AA history, culture, and are you willing to learn? What do you know about white privilege?

adopting a child of color means that you and your family will now be multicultural, and that requires an adjustment for most. I'd encourage you to do some reading (those books above are good), have some serious thinking and discussions with your spouse, your family, and ask a number of questions of yourself and others. these books and the website should help you get started.

good luck!

Lisa

[sneezyone]

Just to echo Lisa, transracial adoption can be a great thing. You will, of course, need to take a hard look at what else (besides love and creature comforts) you'll need to provide to ensure a happy, healthy and well-adjusted aa, biracial or multi-racial child (got an aa hair salon or barber nearby?).

Expounding on Lisa's comments, you'll need to determine whether/how you benefit from being cc in this country (white priviledge). Do you understand that any priviledges you enjoy as a cc will not carry over to your aa child and have/will you come up with strategies to deal with that (ex. relocating, broadening your base of friends, attending cultural summer camps, etc.)? You'll need to think about what could happen if your aa son/daughter wants to date in high school and has a hard time finding one in a predominantly cc community and/or faces subtly disapproving cc parents. Or in the alternative, what could happen if your aa child identifies so closely with cc people that he/she is rejected by other aa's in high school or college for 'acting white' or 'being an oreo'. These things do happen (although not to everyone) and you'll have to be prepared to address them.

I give folks props for considering transracial adoption...it's certainly not something I could do (adopt a cc, asian, or latin child in my case .) It takes some serious committment to do it well. Shoot, any cc child I raised would probably end up like Eminem (sans trailor park beginnings). Anyhoo...there are a lot of great threads here on this topic as well with input from all members of the triad.

In answer to your questions...
DH and I are both aa and we adopted a biracial little girl. About half my familiy is cc, with a few asians tossed in for good measure. My step-mom is Mexican and has a stereotypically HUGE family that I love (she's one of 13 kids)! So yeah, we have everything from menudo and spring rolls to greens, ham hocks and salmon croquettes at our family gatherings. We also live in a very diverse community. DH is military and military neighborhoods tend to be more diverse than average.

I mostly grew up in the northwest and CA but spent some very traumatic years in upscale Connecticut and Arkansas neighborhoods.

Being around other aa's was VERY important to me growing up. Actually, more important than simply being around them was being able to develop friendships with aa's that shared my family's cultural traditions and values. Depending on our location, that wasn't always possible. In my Arkansas community, for example, aa kids weren't allowed to be smart and athletic, into rap and obviously college-bound. As a result, I had to choose my friends from two groups - those labeled "hood rats" and those labeled "oreos" and making that choice had very obvious consequences as far as the treatment I could expect from teachers and administrators. In our CT town, we had to have aa's bussed in from Hartford to attend school (so far as I could tell, there were no locally grown black folk) so there was no one to hang with after school or on weekends. It sucked. Big time. Not a soul among my classmates had heard of Morris Day or Neneh Cherry. Ugh!!

Clearly, IMHO, the depth and breadth of your connection to the aa community will absolutely be important if you choose to adopt transracially.

So...I wish you the best in developing those connections.

[leaabc123]

As foster parents, one of the things we looked for when purchasing a house was a more racially mixed neighborhood because we knew that we could get children of any race. So, all have been AA, except one who was Latino.

Big D gravitates towards shows and books that have AA people in them. She loves everyone but will also pay special attention to AA people at the playground. It is obviously very important to her.

Little D is in a clingy stage and doesn't like a lot of people at all. So, it is hard to tell with her right now.

Think about this: as a child , how would you have felt growing up in a place where no one you saw or knew looked like you? It would have been pretty hard.

Also, are you prepared for stares, comments, and questions? (not all negative, mind you)

[jan1763]

Thanks to everyone for your input! I was especially glad to hear from AA adoptees as to their experience. This confirms my gut feeling that, although we would love and cherish any ababy as our own, we can't provide a well-adjusted living experience for an AA child until we move to a more integrated community. I will also get the recommended books and do some serious reading.

Thanks again to all