[momtosami]

HI, my husband and I are in the adoption process and I wanted to ask some questions or just see what your thoughts were when you chose bi-racial adoption. We are both Caucasian and we have a daughter who is 5 adopted from Guatemala. Please, if I offend anyone I appologize as that is not my intentions. I am just looking at our options and have been dealing with a lot of different feelings about this.

When you chose to adopt bi-racial did it just come naturally or did you have to really think about it a lot. My husband and I talk about it a lot but I just keep wondering would I be able to raise a child that was Ex: Cau/AA to where they are aware of their heritage, their culture, things that I feel are very important to them. With our daughter we try to keep some of her Guatemalan heritage in her life as much as we can. People tell me that the childs culture would be our culture. I don't know I just feel like me being Caucasian will I be able to teach them things of the AA culture and such. That is just something that is important to me.

How did you all feel? What were some of your thoughts?

Thank you and I hope I did not offend anyone with this post.

[mommamarci]

First off, I don't agree with adoptive couples being open to biracial and not full AA. (Unless the couple is interracial or some other specific reason.) I fear a lot of people choose biracial thinking they will look less black and that is not always the case. (I am not trying to attack or offend, just expressing my views.)

As far as culture, we felt it would be much easier to teach an AA child his / her culture then it would be with a foreign adoption. Cameron has a CC (bio) mom and AA dad. His bio mom is a lot like me (in terms of looks, personality, etc.) Yes, we need to teach him about African American history, culture, etc. but his bio family is not much different than us. (With Spencer, we know nothing about bio family, so not sure.) However, if we had adopted from a foreign country, the child's bio family would have celebrated different holidays, eaten different foods, had a much different culture, etc. I don't think I could ever adequately teach the culture for a foreign adoption.

Bottom line to me is this: both my sons are American, so we share the majority of our culture. They would have eaten the same foods, celebrated the same holidays, lived in the same political system had they stayed with bio family.

Good luck with this decision!

[bajj]

I personally, I didn't "choose" any particular race. I was open to any race. We did some soul searching before we adopted and we knew we couldn't put limits. That is just us, but we felt we could not limit God's blessings and we figured He knew which children to send our way.

My oldest son is hispanic. His bparents are both from Mexico. My youngest son is black/hispanic. It would not have bothered me if he were full black, white, asian, etc. That is just me.

My youngest son's bdad was adopted from Guat and his (bdad's) Mom is the one that encouraged him and supported him through this process. I still send her letters and pics and we'd like to meet someday. We don't live near each other so I'm not sure when that will happen, but I hope it does!

[HeidiK]

This is not a popular position or a slam against any particular family or poster...that said....

It really bums me out when people are "comfortable" or "open" to raising hispanic or guat children but not to black children. I can't seem to figure out how it could be OK to raise a light or lighter skin child - but not a black or AA child. In what way is it percieved as easier for the child or the adoptive parents if they have lighter skin........and if you have ANY racial issues at all why not be CC only. I have the hardest time understanding this.

[bajj]

Being hispanic or biracial does not mean they will be light skinned. Both of my boys are very dark. I'm not sure why some consider light as better, but I do know everyone has the right to make their own choices and decide what is best for their family.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think it makes a person prejuidiced if they are not comfortable adopting just any race. I can't say I understand it myself, but it is my personal opinion that I don't care what my children look like, I can love them no matter what. However, some people can't, and I will not judge them for that.

[DPline]

I think that the area you live in also needs to be a consideration. In our city, while there is a small segment of the population that is of hispanic origin, there are almost no African Americans. While doing our homestudy, our social worker made a big point of asking us to consider carefully where we wanted to adopt from and the potential for prejudice and how we would deal with it. (Yes, we could move, but this is where DH's job, my job at the time, and our family and friends are.) So DH's and my feelings on the subject were not the only consideration. While DH and I were open to adoption from any race, we were not as confident in our abiltity to deal with the prejudice the child would potentially face.

I also strongly disagree that it would be much easier to teach an African American child their culture then it would be with a foreign adoption. We make every effort to incorporate our Guatemalan children's culture into our home and fully intend to go back and visit the country when they are older. We do acknowledge the Guatemalan holidays, and eat Guatemalan foods, and have Guatemalan art and books throughout the house. I personally don't feel it is a level of difficulty issue, but a personal choice.

[bajj]

you are so right Debbie!

I am blessed to live in a very very diverse area. I have white, black, Asian, and hispanic neighbors (that I've seen so far...I'm still new here and am not even in the house yet).

It's good to ask questions, momtosami. Do soul searching and make the choice that is best for you and your family. ((((hugs))))

[momtosami]

Thanks ladies for the thoughts, things to think about. I agree with Ani, it all comes down to you have to do what you feel is right for your family.

[atouchofheaven]

my son is hispanic and AA. to me, it is no harder to raise him than any other child as far as race and culture goes. he is american, he was born here, and his bparents are from here. if he lived with them, he would still have a typical american culture. we try to integrate puerto rican food into our lives from time to time. we also celebrated three kings day. but, we celebrate and appreciate all cultures and it wouldn't matter what race our son was, we would still integrate all cultures into our lives. we have art in our house from the caribbean and from china. i am learning to speak spanish and my husband speaks chinese (he is american) and we cook thia food, mexican food, american, italian, etc. we listen to lots of worldly music as well. we just like to be cultured people. i think it's healthy for all kids to have a cultured and educated view of the world, no matter what the race.

when our son gets older, i expect some issues to come up regarding his race and identity. i think people make a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be. we'll deal with it when it comes. but so far, i don't notice any difference in the way i am parenting him than any other child i would parent. but i do live in a diverse area and have friends of different races. so i can't speak from small town, no diversity environment and i feel like others here are valid in their concerns and decisions.

[ljsdo2007]

The reason we would prefer AA/CC rather than full AA is because we don't believe that because a child is mixed race they will automatically identify with the darker race. If they do, fine. That's great. We will raise the child as we were raised, and teach them that whatever society believes or makes you think about race, a human is a human is a human, we all look different and act different and assigning race as a more important difference that eye color, hair color, height, etc. is and arbitrary and artificial way to alienate human beings from one another.

We are light-skinned. We don't care what color skin our child has, but feel it would be easier for the child if the child has some similar features to us and was CC/AA rather than full AA.

I'm not apologetic about that, and don't feel I should be. We are all entitled to our opinions, and I know there are a lot of people who think you should be open to full AA if you are open to half but I respectfully disagree.

Regardless, the odds say that a child being placed for adoption, whatever color, will be placed with a CC couple, simply because that is the overwhelming majority of adoptive parents.

[mom2samuel]

My oldest son (age 6) is from Guatemala. He knows that and is very proud of his birth country. When we started our second adoption, we were at first open to bi-raciality, but not full AA. Why? That whole thought, "Will we raise them fairly, how will our community accept it...etc...etc" Let me correct that...my husband had these thoughts...race did not matter to me. However, after lots of soul searching (we were waiting probably over a 1 year before we changed our profile), the answer was born into his heart and we never looked back. I wanted a CHILD, to me, I didn't necessarily want it to be about an AA child or a hispanic child or a bi-racial child. A lot of people may disagree....and feel that race has to be important and be a huge consideration. I understand and respect that....but the bottom line is..everyone has to do what is right for their family and their level of comfort. I don't believe that if someone chooses not to adopt an AA child it is racist or unfair or whatever. A family's dynamics, community, resources, feelings, etc all HAVE to be part of the equation. It is SUCH a personal journey when one tries to complete their family....and while advice is wonderful (please keep it coming!) you still must heed the desires of YOUR heart.....

Good luck on YOUR journey!
God Bless,
Michelle

[mom2samuel]

By the way....my second son (age 16 months) is full AA....

Michelle

[buttascotchbaby]

OK, I feel that I have to put my 2 cents in here... and I in no way mean to be disrespectful of others rights to their opinions.

The whole BR vs. full AA is just so crazy! There, I said it! My opinion, but there it is. This is my reasoning: First of all, I have a biracial bio son (I really hate the term "biracial", since the last time I checked his father and I are different ethnicities but both part of the same [human] race! Just MY opinion) who's father is very dark (even though he is AA and Native American) I fully expected my son to be much darker than he turned out, and of course, could not care less. Of course, it could be argued (wrongly, I believe) that he is my blood, of course I would love him regardless, he is part of his father who I loved and part of me, blah, blah, blah...

So, #2: My soon to be adopted son is "biracial", Samoan/Tongan/AA but looks FULL AA! So, what if I had adopted him as an infant, believing b/c he was "BR" that he would be lighter and he turned out to look like a very dark, African American? Would I want to give him back? Excuse me, I know I am just being facetious and I know that is not what people are saying, but really, if you are only wanting to adopt BR children b/c you think they have a greater chance of being lighter and "look more like you", what happens if that doesn't eventuate??

This is just my opinion and I truly believe that everyone else has the absolute right to their opinion and do not have to apologize for it, I am just trying to show another facet of it as one who has/is raising "BR" children, so I may have come across situations that others have not, if they are in the early stages of adoption and/or parenting. We are extraordinarily lucky in the fact that we live in Hawai'i where racism does exist, but with such a huge mixed "race" population (with every possible configuration one can think of it seems!), we rarely encounter it. I also could not care less if people give a second look at my beautiful, mixed children and I am raising them to feel the same way. I was raised that being different and unique is what makes one beautiful. I hope that is what I am passing on to my children.

Just another take and hopefully, something to think about.

[ljsdo2007]

Originally Posted by buttascotchbaby

Excuse me, I know I am just being facetious and I know that is not what people are saying, but really, if you are only wanting to adopt BR children b/c you think they have a greater chance of being lighter and "look more like you", what happens if that doesn't eventuate??

I did not say I wanted a half CC child because I wanted them to look more like me. Please read my post carefully. I don't think there is anything at all wrong with wanting to share PART of my child's caucasian ethnic heritage. I want to be able to share something with them, like maybe their birth mother has family in Ireland or Germany, as I do...maybe we can take a trip together someday and share that. That's all.

They aren't going to look like me no matter what--if I was really concerned with that I would only want a white blonde haired blue eyed baby.

I know it's very much the party line in the adoptive community to be against choosing not to adopt full AA babies when you are open to biracial/multiethnic, whatever you want to label it. But as another poster said, we have to make these decisions based on what our personal situations are like.

I'm not judging anyone else, and I find it ironic that people who consider themselves so tolerant are so judgemental about another person's very personal decision.

Obviously if that doesn't 'eventuate' we will be thrilled and totally in love with our child, no matter what color. I don't feel at all ashamed of wanting to share part of my child's ethnicity.

[ljsdo2007]

How would a full AA couple feel about adopting a full CC baby?

Are the concerns the same as they are for the reverse situation?