4 Things to ask Yourself if You're Considering Adopting a Child of Color
“Whereas the majority of adopted children are nonwhite, the majority of these children’s parents are white (73 percent). Sixty-three percent of children adopted from foster care have white parents, as do 71 percent of children adopted within the United States, and 92 percent of children adopted internationally.” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).
Seeing yourself represented as a statistic is an unnerving experience. Yet, as a transracial adoptee whose life journey is rarely the topic of conversation, kept in the back-pocket of the day-to-day or shyly stuffed in the closet like an overflowing laundry basket by those unwilling to cross that sensitive bridge, seeing the facts can be a comforting sigh of relief. My experience is real. The numbers say so.
Take a moment to read that opening statistic again. Have you let yourself fully absorb the weight of that pronouncement? Most adopted children are children of color adopted into white homes. How are we ensuring those parents are well-equipped to cultivate a healthy and positive racial identity for their child? How are we ensuring those parents are dedicated to their child’s racial wellbeing as much as they are dedicated to their child’s physical and spiritual wellbeing? After doing research (ongoing), listening to other adoptees, reading adoption blogs, attending adoption conferences and living my own adoptee life, I can think of many questions that should be asked by prospective parents. Below you’ll see just four that I believe should be profoundly contemplated before pursuing a transracial adoption plan. The insight I provide isn’t gentle, but I think it’s important and I know more questions will be added in the future.
How uncomfortable are you prepared to be? Children of color need other people of color in their lives to share in and validate their experience. Children of color need to see themselves in the world, and not just on television or in the faces of the nightly news or the hands that cook their fast-food or take out the trash. They need to see themselves in empowering positions that counteract the dominant narratives they’re being told in the world about their abilities, their beauty, their intelligence and their worth. If you are not prepared to make drastic changes to your personal life (if necessary) like changing zip codes, changing churches and changing school systems to ensure your child is given the freedom to explore and celebrate their racial and/or cultural identity, then you need to rethink adopting a child of color.
Are you ready to get political? Right now, it’s not popular to be ‘political.’ Everyone wants to turn off the television during the nightly news, keep dinner-time talk light and excuse themselves from the Thanksgiving meal when Uncle Joe brings up Black Lives Matter. You no longer have the luxury of remaining ignorant to the political interests of your child’s racial/ethnic community. When you brush off the racial justice concerns of a group of people that look like your child, you brush your child’s concerns under the rug too. If you don’t feel confident defending all people of color, how can your child be confident you’ll defend them too?
Do you believe in white privilege? If you find it difficult to stomach the fact that Whiteness brings with it certain tangible and unspoken social and economic benefits you won’t be in a productive position to listen and receive the inevitable experiences your child will bring home attached to their skin color. In order to help your child through their racial identity journey you must believe the reality of their racially charged existence.
Are you willing to not have answers? When I call my mom on the phone to tell her about something that happened to me that day - the White man on campus calling people n-ggers, the class where a faculty member asked me, the only person in class, to read a Black History Month article aloud, the student who told me I was race-baiting, the frustration of having no women of color in the Anthropology department - she listens. She cannot and will not understand what it feels like to be me, but her willingness to listen and believe without the need to interrupt, place blame, justify or minimize is a way in which she actively allows my brownness to take up space and be heard.
Love is not blind. It sees hurt, it sees pain and it leans in, it doesn’t lean away. Are you ready to lean into the lifelong journey of walking alongside your son or daughter as they navigate their racial identity? Parenting any child is about ensuring they are safe and happy. If you do not fully see your child of color and the obstacles and twists and turns of their racial identity, you cannot parent them with intention, with grace and with a love that does not back away.