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Originally Posted By Carole

Hi Margaret,
I'm a biracial adult adoptee. My adoptive father is Belizean. Because of that, we had the appearance of being a biologically related family. On the other hand, my sister (who is also from Belize) looks nothing like me. She has very dark skin and more or less African features and I'm on the opposite end of that spectrum with olive skin and somewhat anglo features. Every time we introduce one another to someone new we have to go through the annoying disbelief at the mere utterance that we're sisters! It's always a mess. Naturally we don't want to explain every familial detail to every stranger or aquaintance. Sometimes we just shrug people off. Other times we skip the trial by fire and just say that we're "related," leaving them to guess how. However, although I can't speak for my sister, this "little white lie" causes me to feel a twinge of regret every single time we employ it.
I don't have any clear answers to your question, Margaret. Since you don't mention your racial background I'm assuming that you're a white American. That's always the default race in this country, the "unrace" or "unethnicity" requiring no explanation or elaboration. It's for this very reason that the children you've already adopted are going to have a lot of explaining to do...to their peers above all, but also to school applications and other miscellaneous forms. Maybe you should adopt another child from the same heritage, it might mean less "explaining."