[MB80sgirl]

It really makes me sad to hear about how people are still so racially divided in 2008 & that there are so many beautiful black children not getting adopted, but I have to agree that adoption is a personal decision (not to mention expensive) & it should be up to the parents what kind of child they want to adopt. I've wanted to adopt a black girl since I was in 5th or 6th grade, before I understood fully about racism or knew they were harder to place. I think black girls with dark skin are beautiful, I guess the way some parents think Chinese girls are beautiful, & my daughter will be told she's beautiful & lovable every day of her life!

[bajj]

I think you worded this nicely, MB. I agree, I personally don't care what color skin my child has or what "race" they are labelled as. However, I also think it is a very personal decision and seriously, if someone is uncomfortable adopting outside of their own "race" then why would we want them to?

Yes it is sad, and it is still very much alive. What I don't like seeing is when people are ridiculed for choosing to adopt just white, or just black, or just biracial, or just hispanic, or just a boy/girl. You get the picture...

It's a personal decision and who am I to judge your choice?

[Vogi2002]

Originally Posted by bajj

I think you worded this nicely, MB. I agree, I personally don't care what color skin my child has or what "race" they are labelled as. However, I also think it is a very personal decision and seriously, if someone is uncomfortable adopting outside of their own "race" then why would we want them to?

I agree with this 100%. Yet, biracial IS outside your race. Again, I'm okay with personal decisions but I also think that sometimes rules are put in place for a reason (which is why some agencies don't allow you to say yes to biracial and no to full AA).

Of course, like i said a million times, if you are only open to biracial children (meaning a mixture of white and any other race) and not any other full races (including full hispanic, and full asian, and full guatemalan, and full chinease) then okay I understand.

But how is it okay to let a person be okay with full hispanic, and full asian, and biracial, but not full AA? How is an AA person not supposed to get offended to that thinking it's just thier AA race? I mean...it is isn't it? Just the full AA that makes you uncomfortable. It doesn't matter if the racial makup is completely different if the child is hispanic?

I guess I don't understand, and I don't agree with it, and I won't pretend like I do just to not offend someone. I'm seeing it more and more (someone okay with biracial but not full AA, yet okay with EVERY OTHER RACE POSSIBLE) and I think that is more of a slap in the face than not being open to the AA race at all.

[bethy724]

I think a family needs to do what is right for them. One thought on adopting CC/AA baby instead of full AA:
My adopted son is bi-racial & my friend adopted full AA-
My son "looks" full AA & her son "looks" hispanic (there is no doubt his parents are full AA DNA tests were done). You never know how your child will "look" as they grow. I have my sons birth photo & his skin is 5-10 times darker than at birth. My next adoption WILL be AA only for my son to have a brother the same as him (he is noticing we are different colors) maybe that makes me prejudice against all other races but I will do what is right for MY family & not judge what works for you.

Go with your heart but there is no guarente that you can bond w/ a bi-racial baby because they are 1/2 of your race - there is a chance that they will not have any of the CC features or skin tone as they grow (& forget about summer time - their skin WILL turn black-yet my friends AA son is as light as me) If you open up to full AA or open to any race you can bond w/ your baby at the "human" race level-but don't do anything that can harm a child or you as a parent. Good luck!

[bajj]

Vogi, is this directed at me? If so, I am quite confused! I have never said I am not "open to full AA." I don't specify race or gender when adopting, and that is my personal choice.

BTW, my youngest son is considered biracial, but he is not aa/cc. His bdad was adopted from Guatemala. Most people do assume he is aa/cc.

I am sorry if I misunderstood your post. It kind of blows me away since I have always been adamant about not caring what the color of skin is.

If I choose to adopt again, the agency I will work with here (I moved to a new state, btw) has that requirement where you can't be open to just biracial. I can see why their policy is there. I just don't want to judge people for choosing to only adopt one specific race or gender. Some only want hispanic, some only want black, some only want white. Some of us (I think you are one of us) know that we are all of the human race, so it shouldn't matter skin color. Fact is, it does matter to a lot of people. Is that sad? You bet. Is it wrong? Well, I'm not going to judge their hearts.

[Vogi2002]

no bajj - no way!! I was just using that quote! It really isn't directed toward any specific person, more so to a growing group of adoptive parents I have begun to see (not neccessarily on here). Especially as Guatemalan adoptions & Chinease adoptions become more difficult.

I apologize if it sounded directed toward you!!

[bajj]

Originally Posted by Vogi2002

no bajj - no way!! I was just using that quote! It really isn't directed toward any specific person, more so to a growing group of adoptive parents I have begun to see (not neccessarily on here). Especially as Guatemalan adoptions & Chinease adoptions become more difficult.

I apologize if it sounded directed toward you!!

No apology necessary, but thanks just the same.

[ljsdo2007]

Wow...this thread is still going strong?

How many times are we going to say the same thing over and over?

How is it anyone's business what individual families choose to do for their families?

As I said several pages ago, we have decided not to adopt AA or AA/anything else. We made that decision based on where we live and the fact that there will not be the kind of ethnic diversity and AA role models that we want for our child. We have really high standards in that area--we would want a child with AA in them to grow up feeling rooted in the AA community, and to us, that means living in an area with a lot of diversity. I don't want to have to be calling around looking for MLK celebrations to bring my kid to. I want to be able to walk around the block and see all colors of people if I am going to have an AA child.

So why are we okay with full hispanic? Because our part of the world has lots of hispanic people. We have lots of hispanic friends who live nearby, whereas our AA friends are farther away. Our child will have hispanic teachers and coaches and neighbors and friends. An AA or AA/something else child growing up in this part of the world would not have that, and we think that does not allow this child the best possible environment in which to grow up, so they feel rooted in the AA community.

People asked why we don't move. That's not an option for us at this time. Our jobs and lives are here.

I know this post will fall on deaf ears and people will continue to throw stones and think we are wrong for choosing only certain races, and that's okay. All that matters to us is our family and the well-being of any child we adopt.

[aclee]

Originally Posted by ljsdo2007

Wow...this thread is still going strong?

How many times are we going to say the same thing over and over?

How is it anyone's business what individual families choose to do for their families?

As I said several pages ago, we have decided not to adopt AA or AA/anything else. We made that decision based on where we live and the fact that there will not be the kind of ethnic diversity and AA role models that we want for our child. We have really high standards in that area--we would want a child with AA in them to grow up feeling rooted in the AA community, and to us, that means living in an area with a lot of diversity. I don't want to have to be calling around looking for MLK celebrations to bring my kid to. I want to be able to walk around the block and see all colors of people if I am going to have an AA child.

So why are we okay with full hispanic? Because our part of the world has lots of hispanic people. We have lots of hispanic friends who live nearby, whereas our AA friends are farther away. Our child will have hispanic teachers and coaches and neighbors and friends. An AA or AA/something else child growing up in this part of the world would not have that, and we think that does not allow this child the best possible environment in which to grow up, so they feel rooted in the AA community.

People asked why we don't move. That's not an option for us at this time. Our jobs and lives are here.

I know this post will fall on deaf ears and people will continue to throw stones and think we are wrong for choosing only certain races, and that's okay. All that matters to us is our family and the well-being of any child we adopt.

It's just a discussion. I know we PM'd some though and I had given you some great books and articles to read over. Did you read any of those? For me they were a huge part of why we were comfortable adopting an AA baby. Our city registers as .09% black in the census. We have other diversity (hispanic and asian) and other major towns with in an hour do have higher AA populations. Anyway...I hope you read the information and gave it some thought.

[aclee]

I did find one agency that would allow a CC couple to adopt an AA infant, but not a BR infant. In order to adopt a BR infant you had to be a BR couple. I thought that was interesting, and sort of agreed with that logic. Clearly a BR couple would not be a couple that would ignore a part of the BR child's identity. They did say that if a presumed AA baby was born and appeared BR (unidentified BF) they would still place with a CC couple if that was who had been chosen.

In the description they stated that being BR comes with it's own special set of challenges and they placed BR infants with BR couples in order to make sure that those challenges were met.

Just wanted to see what everyone else thought of that logic?

[ljsdo2007]

Originally Posted by aclee

It's just a discussion. I know we PM'd some though and I had given you some great books and articles to read over. Did you read any of those? For me they were a huge part of why we were comfortable adopting an AA baby. Our city registers as .09% black in the census. We have other diversity (hispanic and asian) and other major towns with in an hour do have higher AA populations. Anyway...I hope you read the information and gave it some thought.

I don't think it's just about me. But my comments sparked this huge discussion about how awful it is that some people choose not to adopt AA or transracial children.

Yes, we've done a lot of reading from a lot of different sources, including the ones you mentioned.

I think that's great that you feel comfortable that you can do everything for your AA child that you think he needs in a city with such a small AA population, but we aren't as comfortable doing that in an area with a similar demographic. It's just our comfort level, and it's okay that it may be different from that of others on this board.

Have you read In Their Own Voices? That might give you another perspective. It is mostly transcriptions of interviews with transracial adoptees. It's very interesting. Many of them say they did better because of having a lot of AA friends and involvement in the AA community, or if they didn't have it, they wish they had.

We aren't comfortable not being able to give that to our child, and are not apologetic because we want the best possible environment for them. Our SW agrees, and has said that the racial makeup of the adoptive parents' community is often a big factor in whether or not they choose to adopt transracially.

We believe that you do need a little more than just love to successfully raise an AA child in a caucasian home. We believe you need firm roots in the AA community and plenty of good AA role models and friends. Unfortunately, we can't offer that.

It's really okay for us now. (Though apparently this discussion is not about us, but I can only speak for my own experience). We have made our decision and are really comfortable with it, we aren't sad about it anymore, because we know that someone else can likely give a biracial or AA child a better environment in which to grow and discover who they are.

One of the big things we learned was that we believe it is presumtuous (perhaps arrogant) for CC couples to think they can swoop in and adopt this AA child and everything will be fine with them growing up in CC world with no meaningful connection to the AA community. We learned that race is HUGE, and that because we are CC, we don't see that as much, so we don't tend to give it the respect it deserves. Color may not matter to us, but it does matter to many people of color. We have no idea what it is like to be black, so we have a tremendous amount of trepidation and concern about being able to raise a black child who can go out in the world and feel comfortable in the AA community, which is in many ways very different from the CC community, and have no regrets that they were adopted by a CC family.

[Linny]

....In the description they stated that being BR comes with it's own special set of challenges and they placed BR infants with BR couples in order to make sure that those challenges were met.

Just wanted to see what everyone else thought of that logic? ---aclee

You know.....I'm not exactly sure what I think of this; but my first impression is that I don't agree with it. My first impression is---I think to believe interracial couples have challenges of their own, is almost backward thinking. Hmmmmmm....maybe after reading other opinions about this, I might think differently. But for now, I don't like it.

I DO agree though, with agencies who won't allow couples to adopt a bi-racial (AA/CC) baby, unless they'll adopt a full AA baby. My thinking on this, is when a couple wants a bi-racial baby, it sometimes gets down to 'how much AA IS there with this baby??!!' And that, is ridiculous.

OT a bit....I can tell you that while we wait this time for another AA baby.....I'm becoming more and more discouraged by the (almost) daily raising of fees. At the rate adoption fees are going, most people won't be able to adopt more than one baby---if any at all!!!!!!

Sincerely,

Linny

[bromanchik]

Originally Posted by bajj

If I choose to adopt again, the agency I will work with here (I moved to a new state, btw) has that requirement where you can't be open to just biracial. I can see why their policy is there.

So can I and I am glad for it. If people are choosing bi-racial based on the belief that they will get a lighter skinned baby or that it will be somehow easier to bond with a child who is at least half their race, then they should not be adopting transracially at all. If they do not know if they can embrace the whole child than that child should not be placed with them. I know of a case where the adopting parents of a bi-racial baby brought him back at 2 months old because they "didn't think a bi-racial baby could get so dark." That poor baby should have never been placed with them in the first place.

[aclee]

and I do agree that people that know they can't handle it, for whatever reason, SHOULDN'T...it still however bums me out that so many people can find so many reasons that they think are totally legit for not adopting an AA baby. To me, honestly that just further indicates their unwillingness to really look at themselves and this world, and how they want to live their life. One of the workshops I took discussed the different levels of being a family, and it was so amazing to me. The 4 steps were
1) Being a Family
2) Being a Multicultural Family
3) Being an Anti-Racist Family
4) Being a Multiracial Family
These social workers said that many people DO NOT adopt transracially because they know they can't make it through all the steps to being a multiracial family, and they don't stop to realize that like anything with steps, being a multiracial family has steps as well. They said we should all allow ourselves the chance to go through our steps and as long as we as a family felt we were making progress, we were. They said that a lot of the CC couples that they counseled who were fearful of adopting an AA baby were very stuck on #3. They were fearful of being an outwardly Anti-Racist Family. She also said that going from step 3-4 took the longest for most families and it might be a step that takes you years to truly make. It was interesting. For me, had we had a biological child, I know that I wouldn't have had all the answers on pregnancy, delivery, or child rearing. I know that I would have done what I needed to do to make the best choices for each situation that I could. I think that's ALL you can do in life. Was I concerned about adopting an AA infant? You bet! That makes me a responsible parent. It was also a choice that once made we then knew we would have to (eventually) be an Anti-Racist family. For us? We are there, but still working on it. I don't think we've made it to step 4 yet, and sometimes we're still in step 2. I'm ok with that. I don't have all the answers. I'm letting myself grow and learn about being a parent to an AA infant the same way I would grow and learn about being a parent in general. I don't think it's irresponsible for me to not have ALL the answers now. I also don't know what the future holds. Maybe my DH will get transfered...maybe we'll end up in an area where we do have to be strongly anti-racist all the time. I'm okay with taking on that challenge. Was it a 100% natural for both of us from the 1st second? No way. I would say for even the 1st month when I would pick up Ty, I would think, "Oh, my gosh, this is Ty, he's my adopted son, and he's black." Was it in a negative, racist way? No way. I've always known he was the most beautiful baby born. I've always loved him and nurtured him and wanted everything for him to be perfect. Slowly that phrase became, "Oh my gosh, this is my son, and he's black." At that point it was more in Aww...and maybe a little panic. Why on God's green earth did someone trust little old me with this beautiful baby? I would say by 8 weeks it was just "Good Lord, my son is beautiful" Was I concerned with my reactions? You bet! So reached out to my resources and talked about them. I e-mailed my social worker and said, oh my gosh, is it bad that I notice that Ty is black? She almost laughed me into another state. By the time I met with her for our first follow up appointment she said to me, "So do you still notice he's black?" And I, who was busy getting him out of her carrier, turned to her and said, "He's what? oh, black? Yeah I notice, but it's not my first thought anymore." She asked what my first thought was, so I told her, in my snottiest voice ever, "I guess most of the time I just feel bad for people with babies that aren't this cute"...and she cracked up laughing...

Honestly most of the time I notice that Ty is black is when were are out and I wonder what on earth everyone is staring at. Then I remember...I have the most beautiful baby ever...and oh yeah, he's black, and we're white. I also remember when I'm oiling and combing out his hair. I remember then because it's a really nice bonding time that I feel really blessed to share with him. I also remember when I'm searching the shelves for pure cocoa butter because no one carries it. I'm thankful I have an AA son and he has sensitive skin. It's taught me a lot about chemicals and skin care in general. I think maybe this sensitive skinned baby was also sent to my house to save DH and I. Cancer runs in both our families in a strong way, and I know that by eliminating all the chemicals, it's helped us in a major way.

Anyway, that was my .02 (more like .10) worth...It's all process and that was part of mine.

p.s. I would also NEVER use an agency that lets you specify a BR infant and not an AA infant. I do believe that places infants in homes that are NOT fully accepting of their racial make up.