| Since we have from time to time considered adopting a multi-racial child,
the questions previously asked have come into my head, as well as:
A) How do you instill a sense of pride in the child for all of the races that
s/he belongs to?
B) If the child appears mostly African-American, how do you teach the child
about the problems that African-Americans typically experience, so that the
child identifies with the people facing these problems and is able to face and
fight the problems as s/he grows older?
I've heard that some ways are to move to a neighborhood that has a lot of
African-Americans, and to cultivate African-American friends. The cultivating
African-American friends would be okay, but I don't think I would want to
try to sell my house and move. How important is the place you live? Would
going to a church that had a large African-American congregation be enough
for that? What other suggestions does anyone have?
Carol
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Having adopted a multi-racial baby (from birth), what might Jim/I expect
to encounter during her "growing years" ... and how did you, as a parent,
handle these experiences?
1) Did you encounter any "uneasiness" from you/your spouse's families?
(Juli was loved and accepted by both our families.)
| No, there was a little 'uneasiness' about adoption per se, but our
| kids have always been accepted by my and my husband's parents
| and by our siblings and family as being 'our' kids. My parents
| have 10 grandchildren, only 4 of whom are 'birth' grandkids. 2 are
| 'step' and 4 adopted. My mom says she kinda got used to 'instant
| grandchildren.
2) Did your child experience any "cruel" inquiries about her appearance
not being like Mommy and Daddy's? (We receive a lot of stares and
inquiries like: "where did you get those big brown eyes?...")
| People did stare at us sometimes. I always made a point of the
| fact that Peter who looked the most black until we adopted Steven
| was my kid, by saying things like, go get your brother, or sister
| or other wise indicating that he was my son.
| There were a few remarks made at school, but no worse than other
| types of teasing children get. I called the principal once and
| he spoke to one child. This happend very seldom, however. We
| were quite open about the kids being adopted but that they were
| all "our own* now, which may have helped.
3) Did you or your child experience any clear-cut racism?
| A few fairly minor incidents. The most clear-cut racism that occured
| was when Peter attempted to get the school mascot, a characature of
| a Native American removed when he was a senior. Even then the racism
| wasn't directed at him as a Black but rather it was an inability
| or unwillingness to see that the mascot was racist.
4) How did your child feel (and handle) dating? Did s/he encounter any
racism from the dating-partner(s)' family?
| Peter didn't date much, but had no problems that he ever mentioned to
| us. He's now in college in a very cosmopolitan community and
| seems to have a wide variety of young women as friends. Judy and
| Jessica both 'look' white. They have introduced boyfriends to
| our family, so that guys tended to know that they had two black
| brothers fairly early on. Anyone this bothered I never heard about.
| They generally told the guy after going with them for some while
| that they were also half black. So far I've not heard of any
| negative responses. (Steven is mildly retarded and I don't know if
| he'll ever date.)
| We actually got more stares and negative reactions btw to Steven
| because he looks a bit odd (small head, protruding ears, and
| a habit - nearly broken - of various 'blindisms', playing with his
| face, spining, sticking out his tongue.) The kids tended to be
| highly defensive of their brother, tho Judy is/was often frustrated
| or embarassed by him. She used to get on his case a lot to cut
| out the odd behaviors. (as did the rest of the family, it just seemed
| that she was more put out by them.)
5) What issues did arise as your multi-racial child(ren) was growing up?
| Well the issue of the school mascot.
| Peter now feels that we can't truely understand his point of view,
| and has some negative feelings about having been brought up in a white
| family. I feel however, that these are more correctly the normal
| separations and frictions that occur between any parent and teenager,
| just that the color difference has given these normal feelings a
| different 'hook' to hang on.
| Certainly raising our kids hasn't been a bed of roses. Nor have we
| escaped from problems that could be related to adoption or race, but
| I feel they have played only a minor role, or have been a reflection
| of normal parent teenager tensions.
Bonnie
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| Switzerland has almost no white babies to adopt (or black for that matter)
so almost all adoptions are from foreign countries. When my son was in the
first grade, there were several adopted children in his class and several
naturalised children. In fact my son was the most "Swiss" looking of them
all (blond hair, blue eyes) and he was the only one in the class that didn't
have at least one Swiss parent!
They were twelve and there were black children and south American and Indian
and Indonesian, all sorts. One little girl was of Colombian origin. Dirk
thought that she was the prettiest girl in the class because "She has such
a pretty colored skin."
Today, Dirk's best friend is the son of Guinean royalty who was adopted by
a Swiss family. He was number 19 or 20 or so so he was sent abroad to extend
the family ties. He still knows his original family and has been back once
(I believe) but his _family_ is his Swiss father and his governess. His
adopted mother died several years ago. It is beautiful to see these two boys
going down the street, arm in arm, one so white and blond, the other so
black and black. The other boys in their *group* are a small dark French
boy, a boy of Vietnam origin, and an Iraqian boy.
Some friends of ours have adopted several Indonesian boys. It seems boys are
very easy to get because many people want to adopt the girls and turn down
the infant if a boy is born. My friends just wanted children and she couldn't
have any. Since they were of Dutch origin, they had good ties to Indonesia.
ccb
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