Transracial Adoption:
Love Is Just the Beginning
When my husband and I adopted our first child 18 years ago, agency staff
told us, “Take him home and love him. Everything will be fine.” Now we
have five children and our family is a beautiful blend of African
American, Native American, Latino, and European American races and
cultures.
Loving our children has been easy. As transracial adoptive
parents, however, it has been much more difficult to develop strategies
for dealing with individual and institutional racism. In our experience,
the best lessons we can offer are those that teach our children to
externalize racism and assure them we will always be there for them.
Externalizing Racism
Because my husband and I do not share our children’s racial or cultural
backgrounds, we must work extra hard to help them develop skills and
strategies to deal with the everyday reality of racism. To live
authentically in our racist society, each of our children must learn to
externalize racism: to understand that racism is NOT about him or her, but
a reflection of other people’s ignorance. Externalizing racism is not
about dismissing racism or pretending it does not exist.
The alternative—internalizing racism—will lead children to believe the
destructive messages of racism are true and directed specifically at them.
When children externalize racism they can develop a strong racial
identity, self-esteem, and attachments. When children internalize racism,
their racial identity suffers, their self-esteem ends up in shambles, and
their attachments are in peril.
Through the years, with help from many experts (especially adult
transracial adoptees), we have identified a number of strategies for
teaching our children to externalize racism. Four of those strategies are
explained below.
Cultural Membership
One of the most important ways our children learn to externalize racism is
through cultural membership. From adult transracial adoptees I’ve
learned that a central theme in their lives is the need to establish
meaningful relationships with adults and youth who look like them and
share their culture. Through these relationships, our children learn the
subtle and not so subtle norms of their cultural community—how to dress,
to talk, to be.
We parents must help our children engage with their cultural community in
meaningful ways. By choosing where we live, where we worship, what schools
our children attend, and the YMCA to which we belong, we can facilitate
cultural membership. For us, these institutions have provided cultural
membership, mentoring, friends, and community. Just as I need to find a
tutor to teach my children physics, I need to find a tutor to teach my
children how to be African American, Latino, or Native American in our
society.
When our children become members of their cultural community they learn to
refute stereotypes, develop survival skills, and make positive connections
with a broader range of people. Cultural membership offers a solid
foundation for externalizing racism.
Family Language about Racism
Within the family, we help teach our children to externalize racism
through a shared language about racism. For instance, when we are out in
public and someone says to my husband, “You are a saint to adopt these
kids,” he replies, “No, you don’t understand. I am the lucky one to
be their dad.”
“You don’t understand” is our family language to redirect the
ignorance behind the comment back to the stranger. The stranger’s
ignorance is the issue, not the fact that the members of our family
don’t all look alike, or the myth that only a saint would adopt our
children.
Inevitably, strangers will ask intrusive or inappropriate questions such
as “Where did she come from?” or “How much did they cost?” or
“Do you provide day care?” My typical response is, “Why would you
ask?” Again, my response turns the question around, and puts
responsibility back where it belongs: on the stranger.
As my children have gotten older, I hear them use this same strategy to
address questions such as, “Why are your mom and dad white?” and
“Why did your real mom give you away?” Their response is “Why would
you ask?” Indeed, why would you ask?
Honoring Feelings about Racism
Recently I was in a grocery store with my 3-year old when I felt my neck
tighten—my body’s usual response to the discomfort of racism. As I
quickly put the items we needed in our basket, it became obvious a woman
was following us. She got closer and closer to us with each turn down the
aisles until she finally approached us at the check out. She abruptly
asked, “Is that your son?”
“Why would you ask?” I replied. Then I scooped up my son and left the
store. As we walked to the car, I held him close. He clung to my neck and
said, “Mommy, I not like that lady.”
“Honey, where does your body not like that lady?” I asked him. He
answered, “In my tummy.” We went on to talk, in developmentally
appropriate language, about his body’s response to racism.
It is extremely important to honor our children’s feelings about racism
so we can help them to externalize it. For example, if my child says a
person does not like him because he is Native American, that is his
reality. I don’t question or try to talk him out of his feelings.
Instead we talk about externalizing the experience, discuss options for
handling the situation, and decide whether he needs my help in other ways.
Teaching our children to honor their feelings about racism is teaching our
children to be safe. They will often “feel” racism before they are
cognitively aware they are vulnerable. By tuning in to their intuitive
signals, our children can avoid or better prepare themselves for racially
charged situations.
Modeling Safe Responses to Racism
Parents are role models for their children. When we encounter racist
behavior or institutional racism, our children are watching, listening to,
and internalizing our responses for future reference. Our response is not
about the other person or institution; it is about our relationship with
our child. Every time we respond, act, react, or ignore behavior, we are
building or tearing apart the relationship (and attachment) with our
child.
A few months ago, I took my sons to the zoo. While we were waiting for the
dolphin show to begin, the woman behind us began harassing my two
multi-racial teenage sons. At first I sat quietly, allowing my sons to
handle the situation. When the woman in front of us turned around and said
to the woman behind us, “Shut your racist mouth!” it became obvious it
was time for me to get involved.
I told the woman behind us, “That’s enough. Leave my sons alone.”
She then began to berate me. The woman’s tone, the look on her face, and
the two young children with her convinced me we needed to disengage.
I turned my back to her and began talking to my sons loudly enough for her
to hear. “Just ignore her,” I instructed them. “She is ignorant. She
doesn’t understand. This isn’t about us; it’s about her
ignorance.”
After the show ended, my sons and I still refused to engage with the
woman. She finally gave up and left. We then left, and spent several days
processing what had happened and what could have happened if we had
responded differently.
As a woman with white privilege, my range of responses to racism is
different than the range of safe responses available to my children of
color. In all situations, I must remember my children are watching and
learning from me.
While I was sorely tempted to respond to the woman at
the zoo in a way that would ensure she would not soon forget us, that
response would not work if my sons used it in the future. I must respond
in ways my children can use, not in ways my white privilege allows me to
get away with.
Keeping Life Real
Confronting racism is painful, and while it may be tempting to try to make
things easier, it is essential we strive to make things real. An adult
transracial adoptee told me her mother tried to make things “easy” by
downplaying racism. When the adoptee’s white mother took her to an
all-white church, she would express her discomfort at the stares and
whispers. Her mother would then say, “Those people are staring and
whispering to each other because you are so beautiful.”
Because it did not acknowledge her reality, this seemingly nice but
dismissive response left my friend feeling very alone. Even as a young
child she knew the attention she received from the church-goers was about
race and culture.
Though they may not mean to, extended family members may ignore the
reality of racism for their nieces, nephews, or grandchildren. These
relatives often love and accept the transracially adopted child into their
family, yet harbor prejudices about the child’s race and culture. As
illustrated by the church story, transracially adopted children will long
remember the pain of having relatives deny what the child knows is real.
When it comes to racism in our extended family, we must have a “zero
tolerance policy.” If our child tells us someone we love and have known
all our life has done or said something hurtful, we must not minimize it.
If we say, “Auntie Marie didn’t really mean that,” or “Honey, you
are just too sensitive,” we are aligning ourselves with the person who
hurt our child. Instead, our child needs us to make it clear we are on his
or her side.
Being There for Our Children
For our children to feel secure in our families, we must be clear and
consistent in the way we support and back up our children. Our children
need to know whose side we are on—even when it is downright agonizing.
If we are teaching our children to externalize racism by working to make
things real, helping our children to become members of their cultural
communities, and teaching our children to honor their feelings about
racism, our children will know we stand with them.
My husband and I have also worked hard to make our family a safe place to
talk. When our children are dealing with peer relationships, making
decisions about priorities, or are feeling burdened, we want them to come
to us. Talking allows us to infuse our values and perspectives into our
children’s decision making.
When our daughter was in preschool she came home one day and announced,
“Mommy, I have a new friend!” I replied, “Wonderful! How do you know
she’s your friend?” My daughter innocently said, “She told me I am
her favorite vigger!”
I had to process this for a few hours before I was ready to discuss it
with my daughter. Our daughter did end up being good friends with this
young classmate, and over time we had many more talks about things our
daughter heard from her friend—things learned in a family with a very
different world view than ours.
For our children to feel safe and “at home,” they must feel sure we
are trying to understand their experience in the world as a persons of
color. Open conversations about difficult subjects like racism, sexism,
current events, and family dynamics are great ways to lay the foundation
for ongoing attachment and relationship.
To build our children’s trust in us, we must also keep working to
understand our own white privilege, stereotypes, and racism. We must
explore our country’s history from the perspective of our child’s
cultural community and commit to fighting racism even when we pay a
personal price. We need to be there with our children when they are
mistreated, denied access, or struggling to comprehend the cruel injustice
of racism.
Love is just the beginning of the transracial adoption journey. There is
no end. My husband, our children, and I continue to learn and grow
together. We are a family.