[Forever_family]

***edited to add*** after reviewing the ENTIRE thread I see that OP is already a multiracial family , most of this doesn't apply to your specific situation and I considered deleting it, I decided to leave it up thinking while our situations are different the amount of attention your family will get would be the same. You'll have a whole set of come back and answers up your sleeve! ****

Now that my son is older (he's only 3 but he looks much older-very tall) I am shocked at how other children treat him. Lord of the Flies is what I think...If we go to a park and it is ALL CC children playing, generally speaking, he will be avoided and sometimes it can be blatent and intentioal and sometimes in the past children haveplayed "games" of running from the "black boy." Often parents did not step in and redirect the play, I had to . Unless he knows them before hand I feel it's almost automatic its usually not healthy for him, so it is unfair, in my opinion, for my son to be in several situations where he is the ONLY AA child there.



Some of it is so subtle you don't know for sure. Like drop of care at the gym, my 3 year old is the only AA child there, which I dn't like but its the one thing I do for myself. If I had a gym that I could go to that was more diverse I would so be there!!! That is hard, me wanting to exercise and feeling guilty for putting him a situation that may be uncomfortable for him. I also feel he's gong to have to deal with it, but at 3 NO WAY! So I have to be almost hypersensitive. Some people think I'm wrong...I don't. (he is only there for an hour.)

I didn't really understand this before the why-the way I can see the hurt in his eyes even if he can't verbalize it when he doesn't feel accepted, but it is absolutely utmost importance to make sure my son has friends and mentors that look just like him-he NEEDS this and at 3 years old he notices when the kids don't play with him. Not just every so often but several times a week he needs to be around peers that look like him. I am astounded at how CC vs AA children accept him, it makes me sad but it is automatic. He goes right into play with AA children at a park. This SHOCKED me, we are talking about small chidlren. It may just be where we live. I feel we live in a "diverse" area (we are more out in the country but go to the city every day) however, there is such a divide in our city we have to go out of my way to be part of the AA community.

I also had no idea what racism really was, thoguht I did but I had no idea how it felt, how ugly and hurtful it REALLY is, how many times I'd cry because my son is so beautiful and amazing and to have people NOT see it because they are blind HURTS....have you heard of the term "white privledge"? Just recently discovered the term from a friend and it describes our learning curve.

With that said I wouldn't trade our family just as it is for anything in the world or any other experience. I got over the stares a long time ago. Certain places (Walmart) I avoid eye contact with strangers, I do not need unecassary questions and comments. Other places I feel "safe" and am okay with the attention. We are a walking billboard for adoption, it takes some getting used to but after awhile all the questions and comments are the same, you come up with what to say and it becomes automatic. I have a horrible sense of humor and usually get toungue tied, I think of how to react after situations but like I said it becomes 2nd nature.

Even well intended comments..."oh aren't you a wonderful person to take in this child..., he better appreciate you when he grows up" I always so "no, we are the ones that were blessed." The saddest part for me is that I can't beleive how many AA make these types of comments to me.

All the stupid comments on my sons hair. For my older son who's hair has changed. "oh I hope you keep it short it would be impossible to handle...I like that you cut it like that how else could you manage..." Uh, ya "shut-up" is what I want to say. We keep it short because he has a sensory disorder and can't handle having his hair touched otherwise we may have kept it long and in braids, who knows. I just tell them he doesn't like having his hair combed out or we may have tried other styles.

I had NO FREAKING idea people thought they could touch my children's hair!!! Perfect strangers touch my 3 month old baby's soft curly hair all the time! Never happened with my CC babies (we were foster parents for 2 years and have 2 older bio daughters this happened EVERY time with AA infants!). Its irritating after the 100th time. Ugh! WHY? I don't understand why anything needs to be said about my baby's hair other then "oh look at all that beautiful hair" and then keep your hands to yourself, my baby is not a puppy. Its like they don't know what to say because there is a level of discomfort they are perhaps unconciousely feeling so they make a fuss about the hair and then TOUCH it. Haven't figured out what to do about that.

What makes me happy, when the random person comes up to me and tells me my sons are gorgeous oohing and awing over then like they deserve, or that my son has amazing eyes (he does), or that smile you get from the AA man or women in a store... A feeling of approval from random strangers by the nod of a head. That happens daily too! Or meeting another adoptive family, LOVE that, and having that instant connection. Most of all feeling with all of my heart and soul that these are my children. Love and nurturing and being a family like any other family.

Okay so that is just the beginning of things that I really should have known but didn't. I love our family, I love my sons. We would never have had the amazing experiences and growth as a family without them!

[LeighM]

Our adopted daughter is 6 and just finished K. It has been a rough year in many ways. Here are a few examples:

Being teased and told I was not her real mom.
Having her called the N word by another black child
Her telling me she wants a black mom and if I die she will get one.
S being told she is not Native American, white and black - she is just black.
Was told I didn't really love her because I am not her real mom.


I could go on but that is a few of the things that have come up.

Yes when she was young we had some comments and rude looks. We always dealt with it at the time. The past few months she has said some really mean things to me regarding her not wanting me to be her mom because I am white. What I find interesting is she never talks about the fact her Dad is also white. It is like a non issue.

[aclee]

Forever...

The Hair Thing...

Makes. Me. Insane.

My sister is a 1st grade teacher and she says that if people are touching cause they lack "exposure" and I'm helping expose them to something new, then it's OK...I told her we aren't a petting zoo. Further, since we have started keeping Ty's hair buzzed down, it happens MUCH less. It happened all the time when it was longer.

It also makes me crazy how many people try to pass off the touching as a "you're so cute head tousle" now that he's walking. Tonight at a restaurant we were cruising around and one guy at the bar hopped off his stool came over and went down on one knee and said to Ty, "Give me FIVE!" and of course Ty did (complete with the required, YEAH!") and the whole place went crazy. THAT kind of touching is fine, cause I know it wasn't related to his skin color. But honestly, who touches a kids head? I have two CC nieces who I am with all the time and I have never ever seen anyone touch their heads...

[lotsa_love_2give]

I guess the hardest part is answering the same ol questions all of the time!

#1- Who is her real mom? - This is fine as long as I have not told this same person a million times that I prefer "birthmom" over real mom, and secondly some things are my daughers business not everone elses!!

#2- Is that your foster daughter? Nope, she's mine!! (funny look on their face) Is she your real daughter? What is it with that word!!!? LOL REAL?! Yep she is real and she is my daughter!

#3- Where did you get her?

#4- When are you going to go get another one?


I know that not everyone is educated in adoption and all the acceptable words, but to me it's not about WHAT they ask but HOW they ask it.

I had a Sunday School class today where my daughter was. We are kinda new around here and my DD was getting cranky. One little girl said, I think she wants her Mommy. I said, I am her mommy. Another girl said, you don't look like her. I said, nope we look different, but she's my daughter. That was enough for them... the next thing was... can you hand me a marker? lol

I try not to let ignorant things bother me. A relative of mine last year told everyone that my dd's fav. food was fried chicken and watermelon, when we don't eat fried food and she hates watermelon. I told them it was racist and they got upset..... o well..

I can handle all the ignorant people because I've been preparing for this for a long time, but I worry about when my dd is old enough to understand what these people are saying or worse if they say things to her when I'm not around!!

But in the end, just remember that this is all part of life when building your family through adoption and then adding transracial adoption to the mix.

[sbaglio]

A bit off topic, but we had an office party a few weeks ago, and the main attraction was watermelon. I felt so self-conscious, and avoided the watermelon completely. But my daughter has a winter pajama jumpsuit that has pics of little monkeys all over it, and we love it, and she wore it all the time, even when we were out at friends' houses late. Go figure

[Nevada Jen]

I think a couple of unexpected things for me was how much more I notice people's color than I did before. For instance, I just dropped DS off at dance camp and he is 1 of 2 boys and one of 5 children of color out of 30. I never would have noticed the color breakdown before we had him.

I am also very aware of how I parent him in public when he is having a meltdown because I know people may not think he is my kid.

I am way more aware of racism than I used to be.

[lotsa_love_2give]

I ditto that!!! I am soooooo much more aware of it, too!

[leatherette]

I am White, and my daughter is African-American. I have to say, there have been no negative surprises. One thing I have noticed that I never really thought about.....everyone remembers us.

I have become much more aware of race and its implications.

My feeling that people are basically decent, loving and good is reinforced almost daily.

I truly appreciate my daughter's need to be surrounded by people who look like her, and I truly appreciate those moments where I am the only one who looks like me, because it gives me a deeper understanding of my daughter's experience.

I love doing her hair.

There have been some negative experiences, but they are few and far between, and they were not surprises.

[KansasMomToBe]

I have run into the hair touching thing. But, I think it is because DD has a lot of soft wavy hair for a newborn. I find myself touching it all the time too. As you can see in my avatar DS can't stop touching it either.

Tonight someone asked me where my kids were from. I thought that was odd. I couldn't figure out what exactly she was asking. So, I told her my kids were from Kansas.

Then she looked confused and asked, What are they? Once again I did not understand her question, so I replied, DS is 2 and My DD is 2 weeks old.

Then it dawned on me that she wanted to know their ethnicity, So I said DS ethnicity is Hispanic and DD is AA/CC. She seemed sort of satisfied by that answer and she told me they were adorable and I said thank you.

I don't know why she didn't ask my sister in law about her red headed 5 year old. Geez, he is really cute too and neither of his parents have red hair. LOL

[sugarandspice697]

I don't think I can say that I notice racism more - I just see a different type of racism and often times its so subtle.

For me, its hard to understand that our daughter will probably have more "priviledge" in society because she is Asian. There is a part of me that is still in denial that she will never have shopkeepers follow her around in the store because they think Black folks steal or she will never have to prove that she isn't lazy or stupid because of her race nor will the police stop her for driving a nice car because of her race. There are times that as an African-American lesbian, I feel I'm handicapping my daughter more than if she lived with her biological (or even another Asian) family.

[peregrinerose]

My husband and I are white, our son is AA/H (and a great looking kid... sorry, had to throw that in :-) Fortunately, as a 15 year old, he had a LOT of say in the family that would adopt him, and he knew going into this that we lived in a very white area (rural PA). He feels that it's our hearts that matter, not race. He's comfortable in almost any setting and relates to others well. I'm so proud of him for having that kind of maturity.

We haven't had any racist issues at all, but some interesting scenarios. Standing in line for ice cream, he was behind us and the person taking our orders assumed we were not together... that was partly the race difference, but partly that he always tends to lag behind us. He was bothered by that, but understood that he didn't show with body language that we were all together due to his lagging behind as well.

One of our first weekend visits together, we were all in the car when my husband got pulled over for speeding. We heard frantic giggling in the back seat. When we asked him what was going on, he told us that he wanted to tell the cop that we kidnapped him, and the cop would believe it since we look different. He was just delighted at the mental image of that! And I admit, it was funny :-)

The third incident... we spend weekends skydiving, and are generally around the same 30 or so people every weekend. Everyone knows our situation. A couple of weeks ago, a new guy showed up to jump. I was in the plane sitting across from him and he was staring at me very intently. It started to make me uncomfortable, so I asked him what was up. He said "you know, the more I look at you, the more of your features I can see in your son." I played with him for a little bit on that, letting him give me a long list of ways we look alike. After I couldn't keep a straight face any more, I filled him in :-) My son and husband found that hysterical, and since my husband is very densely freckled, we all decided that our son has my facial features, and inherited Chad's freckles, just more densely populated :-)

Overall, the race difference has given us some good funny stories to tell, at least so far nothing negative at all. When it comes to college and scholarships, his race will actually be an asset.

[ChromaKelly]

Originally Posted by aclee

Forever...

The Hair Thing...

Makes. Me. Insane.

My sister is a 1st grade teacher and she says that if people are touching cause they lack "exposure" and I'm helping expose them to something new, then it's OK...I told her we aren't a petting zoo. Further, since we have started keeping Ty's hair buzzed down, it happens MUCH less. It happened all the time when it was longer.

It also makes me crazy how many people try to pass off the touching as a "you're so cute head tousle" now that he's walking. Tonight at a restaurant we were cruising around and one guy at the bar hopped off his stool came over and went down on one knee and said to Ty, "Give me FIVE!" and of course Ty did (complete with the required, YEAH!") and the whole place went crazy. THAT kind of touching is fine, cause I know it wasn't related to his skin color. But honestly, who touches a kids head? I have two CC nieces who I am with all the time and I have never ever seen anyone touch their heads...

Aclee, people touch my CC daughter's hair ALL THE TIME! She has very curly hair, and some days it's huge and wild. People just touch her hair and yep, try to work it into the "you're so cute" thing but really' wtf? And she's almost four, so she's kinda giving them a "why are you touching me?" look too. But yeah, they also touch Caleb's hair too, like "ooh I got to touch an AA baby's hair!".

How did I miss this thread before? Anyway, the things I didn't expect.

-Being so aware of the lack of diversity and having it bother me so much.

-The "you're a saint" comments. Blarg.

-Feeling like a spectacle. Between my twin DD's looking nothing alike and Caleb, people just look at me and try to figure out what our deal is, especially when I'm out by myself.

-Yes, Caleb is adorable, but sometimes it's a bit much.