{"id":23923,"date":"2018-02-22T19:11:11","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T19:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adoption-2020.local\/something-to-consider-when-talking-about-adoption-an-adoptive-parents-perspective\/"},"modified":"2021-03-10T11:31:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T19:31:28","slug":"something-to-consider-when-talking-about-adoption-an-adoptive-parents-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/something-to-consider-when-talking-about-adoption-an-adoptive-parents-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Something To Consider When Talking About Adoption: An Adoptive Parent’s Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lost pregnancies, tracking
\ncycles, scheduled sex, and injecting hormones strong enough to take down a race
\nhorse \u2013 it\u2019s enough to make you want to\u2026 who knows\u2026 something terrible.
\nSomething unspeakable.  Well, I see
\nyou.  My four miscarriages make me one of
\nyou, and I have also spent many tearful nights supporting ladies like you who
\nare struggling with infertility. I will not subject you to another round of
\nhair-pats, or offer bizarre platitudes about things happening for a reason. I
\nwould, however, like to talk to you about something marginally more fun:
\ntransracial adoption<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Did you give an exasperated
\nsigh when I said that? I feel like you might have. Maybe you\u2019ve already built a
\ncase against whatever you think I may say in your head: Adoption is so
\nexpensive, and you\u2019ve already suffered enough emotional trauma to last the rest
\nof your life. Exhausting finances on top of it all is so not an option. And what about that Lifetime movie where a birth
\nmother knocks on the adoptive parents\u2019 door to reclaim her child? You would prefer
\nthat kind of drama to remain out of your life and in your TV. Or maybe your
\nmost tried and true argument against transracial adoption is the simplest of
\nall: you don\u2019t know what your friends and family might think of you having a
\nchild of a different race, and you really don\u2019t want to find out.<\/p>\n

As an adoptive white mother
\nto two, beautiful, black babies, I can do virtually nothing to help if the cost
\nof adoption is prohibitive to you, but I can say any preconceived notions of
\nadoption based on inaccurate chick-flicks are, well, horribly inaccurate. And if
\nfinances are not a barrier to pursuing transracial adoption but your family and
\nfriends are, you\u2019ve got a bigger problem on your hands than figuring out how to
\nbuild your own family.<\/p>\n

I know what I am saying has
\nall the risks of coming across as static, especially with today\u2019s exhausting
\npolitical climate, but as I meet each new day with my two fabulous kids
\n(Ambrose, 2; Isadora, 4 months), I find myself wanting to reach people who
\nshare the shoes I wore before my husband and I welcomed our babies into our
\nlives.  I do not think I am better than
\nyou because I now have children. I also don\u2019t think that I am ready to conquer
\nthe world\u2019s racism just because I have two kids with more melanin than I do. I
\nam a normal mom, with a normal family. My toddler tantrums when he can\u2019t have
\nchocolate for dinner, and has recently learned to crawl out of his crib and
\nroam the halls of our home, which is equal parts fascinating and terrifying at
\n3 a.m. My infant is only now sleeping for stretches longer than 2 hours, which
\nis great news for the bags under my eyes. 
\nBut even on their worst, tear-filled and sleepless days, I am grateful:
\nafter so much physical pain and emotional grief in pursuing biological
\nchildren, Ambrose and Isadora — two very different kids with two very
\ndifferent biological families of their own — made my husband and me parents,
\nand for that we are joyful.  Let\u2019s face
\nit, the world could use more joy right now, and I want so badly for you and
\nyour partner to have it too.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you that your
\nfears of what others may think of your transracial family are totally
\nunfounded; we have had strangers attempt to touch Ambrose\u2019s hair at the grocery
\nstore, and others ask how much Isadora cost. We have had to break ties with
\nlong-time friends, after seeing what they support and share on social media.
\nIt\u2019s definitely racist, absolutely cringe-worthy, and the kind of problem that
\nwouldn\u2019t exist for us if we had adopted white children. But if it wasn\u2019t
\nhappening to us, it would still be happening to another transracial family, and
\nI think we can all be honest in acknowledging it happens to black families
\nevery day. This is wrong, and it needs to stop. I firmly believe that we as white
\nwomen pursuing motherhood are the ones to stop it, and I am here to rally the
\ntroops. It\u2019s time we take our privilege and do something productive with it.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be perfect;
\nyou just have to be honest. Ambrose\u2019s birth mother, despite choosing us
\nspecifically to raise her son, voiced concerns that we were white; the irony of
\na hipster couple leaving Central California for Central Virginia with her baby was
\nnot lost on her. Isadora\u2019s birth mother still drinks in a prominent \u201cblack
\nlives matter\u201d tattoo on my arm with a laughing eye roll every time I see her. To
\nthese strong black women in my life, I am definitely a stereotypical white girl
\nwho tries too damn hard. But they also know that I love their children to the core
\nof my being, and that I will fight to protect them until the day I die.  They recognize and respect this trait in me
\nbecause it is something the three of of us share, despite having very little in
\ncommon otherwise. It is also something that is deep inside of you; it is a seed
\nthat was planted during the first trip to the bathroom that left you bloody and
\nreeling, or at the appointment when the doctor couldn\u2019t make eye contact as
\nthey delivered the news of another failed cycle.<\/p>\n

It is true that you could
\nexplore the wonderful world of motherhood with the help of a white birth
\nfamily. But that wait is long, and if you and your partner are anything like my
\nhusband and I, you may hear a soft rumbling inside of you when you tune out the
\nscary unknowns of your social circle; the rumbling will become a thunderous
\nroar that leaves you knowing in your heart of hearts that you don\u2019t care about
\nappearances, and that you just want to parent.<\/p>\n

When we excitedly began
\nworking with Adoption Network Law Center to pursue an adoption<\/a> open to all
\nraces, my husband and I knew very little about race relations in our country;
\nwe just knew that we had a diverse social circle, and we knew we wanted open
\nadoptions so our kids could maintain a connection to their roots, and we hoped
\nthat would be enough. Suffice to say, it was not enough. We were not prepared
\nfor how deeply we would feel each and every shooting of a black man or woman at
\nthe hands of police brutality. Ambrose is only two years old, and I am already
\nformulating how I will teach him not to cut through neighbors\u2019 yards wearing a
\nhoodie on the way home from school, just
\nin case. As a descendant of slaves of Robert E. Lee, Isadora\u2019s birth mother
\nis already working with me, planning how to tackle future family tree projects
\nwhen she enters school\u2026 more than five years from now. In so many ways, my
\nhusband and I find ourselves scrambling to understand how something as simple
\nas skin color can alienate an entire community of people, and we often feel
\nhopeless and helpless and in over our heads. 
\nAt the same time, I want so badly to do right by these fantastic kids;
\nand so I am trying to fix my little corner of the world. I participate in a
\nracial justice group in my community; I converted from Catholicism to Unitarian
\nUniversalist because of their strong message of social justice and diverse
\ncongregation; I am already involving myself in school groups to increase the
\nsupport of black students and decrease the amount of suspensions and expulsions
\nof children of color for things that wouldn\u2019t even get a white kid detention.<\/p>\n

Is it a lot of work? Yes. Is
\nit way more than my husband and I bargained for two years ago, when we decided
\nwe would be willing to adopt transracially?<\/a> You betcha. But at the end of each
\nand every day, I am lucky enough to put two kids to bed that love me to the
\nmoon, and it is the best feeling in the entire world. I want you to have what I
\nhave. And, yes: I want you to know that adopting transracially could very well
\nmean trimming the fat from your friends list, literally and figuratively \u2013 but
\nit is something that should be done regardless. It\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

By: Kate & Andy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lost pregnancies, tracking cycles, scheduled sex, and injecting hormones strong enough to take down a race horse \u2013 it\u2019s enough to make you want to\u2026 who knows\u2026 something terrible. Something unspeakable.  Well, I see you.  My four miscarriages make me one of you, and I have also spent many tearful nights supporting ladies like you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10914,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[649],"tags":[646,922,762,924,925,926,763,927,766,761,661,923],"class_list":["post-23923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birth-mothers","tag-adoption","tag-african-american","tag-biracial","tag-black-child","tag-black-children","tag-ethnicity","tag-interracial","tag-nationality","tag-race","tag-transracial","tag-transracial-adoption","tag-white-parent"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptionnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}