[sienna]

My husband and I are both white. I had always thought that I wanted to adopt a child who looked like me, blond and blue eyed. Lately, I have been having dreams about a little African American girl, probably about 3 years old. My heart always feels so warm after dreaming about her.

Recently, I read an article on how to care for an African American child's hair. In that article, written by a white woman who had adopted an African American child, she wrote that she couldn't imagine caring for any other child.

I am certain that I want to adopt an African American girl. There is no doubt about it!!! I would just like anyone's input as to if there is anything that I should know about how to raise a child who is of a different skin color. I know that sounds horrible, but as a white person, I know that I don't see the entire picture. I know that prejudice still exists. How would you address that with your child?

[Darca]

Oh, where do I begin. With non prejudice white parents adopting a black child in a non prejudice world there is no difference other than hair and skin care.

Regretfully the world is full of prejudice white against black and black against white. As a mother of 2 black children I have experienced prejudice from both. Sometimes a nasty comment from a white man in the store and sometimes a dirty look from a black woman in the store.

My children attend a school which is very ethnically diverse. Last week my daughter came home and told me one of the children told her that all black people our stupid and since she (my daughter) is black that means that she is stupid too. This just broke my heart (for one reason that it hurt my daughter's feelings and for another that this child who made the comment has learned some harsh lies from someone). My point being you have to be able to remain clam, instill a since of pride in being a child of God first, a woman (well girl at this point) and pride in their hertiage as a black woman.

You cannot be offended by questions (and people will ask) - and you have to teach your child to not be offended either. People are curious why you don't look alike - and most feel they are entitled to the full story (which they are not). Kids at school tell my children (after they see me) that I can't be their mother because I am white - this can make a child feel very insecure - but I just explain to the kids that ask when they see me "not all parents and their children look alike" and leave it at that.

I will not let someone's prejudice stop me from giving a child a mom and dad - letting them grow up in the system is no place for a child to call home.

I could go on all day there is just so much to know and learn - and I do learn all the time. Feel free to email me if I can be of any help.

[sienna]

Darca,

Thank you so much for sharing. I have been reading a lot of the posts. It seems that a lot of people have similar experiences. I appreciate the advice. If you have anymore, please let me know.

I am truly sad hearing about how some people pass ignorance and/or prejudices onto their children. I am a seventh and eighth grade teacher in an extremely diverse school. Believe me, I have had many student conferences about namecalling. In some cases, the principal has been involved.

Anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you for writing me!

Sienna

[makenasmom]

Sienna -

My name is Tina, and we live in San Diego. I am white and my Caribbean-born husband is a lovely light-skinned bi-racial hunk. We have two black children: Aidan, 16 months, was adopted from Haiti last year, and our daugther, Makena, 6 weeks old, was adopted domestically and brought home on Valentine's day.

We live in a mostly white neighborhood in Clairemont, but are extremly fortunate to live in a cul-de-sac with a rainbow of neighbors who have all been extremely supportive and enthusiastic about our growing family. Both of our families have also been extremely supportive of our adoptions and love our babies. For that we are extremely thankful.

We have not had any negative experiences out in public with our children, but Aidan has only been home since October '03. We get looks from both sides of the racial fence, and most people just seem to do a double-take and stare out of curiosity. I have had at least two older black women praise us for adopting black children, and many white folks have engaged my son in line at the grocery store or at Target, etc. I am thankful for forums like this where parents like us can turn for advice on how to handle issues and racism. Though I haven't had any bad experiences yet, they are certain to come, and it's for my children that I worry when it happens.

I get together regularly with two other white moms of Haitian children. There is another family in Huntington Beach whom we see as often as possible, and their Haitian-born daughter is a real beauty. My son and the baby from Huntington Beach are from the same orphanage, and the two other kiddos are from the same orphanage. It's a small world how we all came together - it's got to be a God thing! Our kids are all within 6 months of each other and it's awesome to see them all together. It is over our kids' heads at the moment what it is that they have in common, but we know and it is truly a blessing that we found each other and are nuturing friendships amongst ourselves and our kids.

I think I saw another post from you, Sienna, about support groups here in San Diego, and, although it's nothing official, you are welcome to join us for our weekly coffee date at Starbucks or a romp in the park.

Good luck, and God bless!

Tina

[Darca]

Hey Tina-

I posted to Sienna as well, on this thread (see above).

I am white, my husband is Vietnamese/white. Our children are black.

We are in California also.

Small world!

I know you must be talking about PIHS. We were going to be adopting through them, having watched the site for a long time, but they shut down as we were beginning the process.

Actually the family in HB you are talking about referred us to our homestudy agency.

I was absoloutely devestated to have to change countries. It took a long time to get excited about adopting from a country other than Haiti. Our dossier was sent to China last week. We still hope to adopt from Haiti for our last child. Maybe the new orphanage will be up and running by then.

I don't know of any support/play groups for adoptive parents, of any race, with black children (in this area, anyway). I would love to be part of one. My children are around people of similar ethnicity every day, but I would love for them to be around other children of their ethnicity who were adopted.

[makenasmom]

Darca,

Thanks for writing back. Yes, Aidan was adopted through PIHS, and we had a very long and troubled adoption process. We are so very glad that he is home and that our nightmare has ended in such joy. I strongly encourage you to keep your heart open to Haiti and the possibility of bringing home your own Haitian angel. I'm sure you are excited about your new adoption in China and wish you all the best.

Please let me know where in California you live. If you'd like to try to get together with any of us, please let me know. I know that there were several PIHS adoptive families in California and many more transracial families like ours. Maybe it's worthwhile to try to start our own adoption support group or club or play group in Southern California.

I look forward to hearing more from you!

Tina

[Chief]

I am a white male, and my wife is also white. She gave birth to four biracial children as a result of two differant relationships. We also have son of our own. It has been a long time, the girls are now in there twenties, but we still get odd looks from time to time. They were raised in an all white area. Our son falls between the last two girls, as we were separated for a time. For anyone adopting, it is worth it, but it is still a struggle at times

[lilysea]

We are a white lesbian couple adopting an African American baby (we just got started so it will be several months, yet). We are using Adoption-Link of Illinois and they have a clean public record and gave us many good references of successful adoptive families in our area. They do out-of-state and also have a new Haiti program (in addition to the domestic program we are using).
Our agency requires racial sensitivity training to help multiracial families learn to cope with racism and misunderstanding in the world around them. Hopefully any program doing transracial adoption would require something similar, but the company in charge of the training is called Bridge Communications and they have a distance program which you can access over the phone.
Good luck and I hope your family grows happily and healthily!

[heathernwolf]

Hi Sienna,

I am the CA mom of an AA 14 month old boy who we adopted at 3 weeks. The best advice I can give you is to read as much as you can on the subject. My favorite book is "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla". It is not directed at adoption, but it will answer a lot of your questions and concerns. I found it very helpful and freeing. While some books I read filled me with a sense of hopelessness at ever being able to raise a happy AA child with good self-esteem, it was really helpful and laid a lot of my fears to rest.

That said, my experience was that it was a very easy and quick process for us to be matched with a newborn. Frankly, I don't understand why people spend probably 3-4 times what we did in order to adopt children of another race from outside of the country when there are children of other races (newborns included) waiting to be adopted in this country.

My husband and I started out on the international adoption track thinking that was the simplest way to adopt a newborn. What we found out was that the youngest baby we could probably hope for would be 2 months old or older at the time of referral and much older yet by the time we could bring them home. And the expense and paperwork is incredible. Eventually, we will adopt an older child too, but for the first, we wanted to start "from the beginning" so to speak.

I fear that I have gotten off the original question, but I hope that my post is helpful anyway. Good luck and congratulations on your pending adoption.

[sienna]

heathernwolf,

Thank you so much for replying to my post! Would you either post a reply or send me a personal message. What agency did you go through to adopt your son? I am completely interested!!! Thanks!

[bambilu]

Dear you all,

my name is Lolo, I'm born 1971 and coming from Belgium.
my huband is Uwe, born 1961 , is german and we are living in Germany
We have two children.
To Uyen Luna is coming from Vietnam, born 2001, with a cleft palate
Raul Romeo is coming from Colombia, born 2002

we are now waiting for our third child, an afro american child through AL in Illinois

I hope to get contact with other "waiting parents" and to share experience

we do have several forums in germany, I do have one in english for people who are interested, or are adopting through AL in Illinois. (Yahoo : AL-Adoption-Illinois)

we do have a privet homepage, here you can have a look with whom you are "talking to"

Lots of kind regards from Germany