Parenting After Adoption

One thing I will never truly know is what is like to walk in my children’s shoes. This is true of them all. I can usually empathize with them, though, because I have been through similar experiences. I can tell stories of my own childhood and we can connect over shared emotions through similar experiences.

What I will never know is how it might feel to be adopted, how it might feel to be the lone dark-skinned child in family where everyone else has very light skin, or how it feels to be judged solely upon the color of my skin? Nor for the latter to be the source of being pre-judged by those around me.

That truly bothers me. How do I help my Haitian children learn to live in their skin and weather the storms in life that will come from racism if I have never lived it myself?

One might think my husband and I never gave this consideration before we adopted our Haitian children. As a matter-of-fact, it was a very serious consideration, and we nearly did not adopt at all because of it. Two things helped us move forward:

1. We were still naive about the reality of transracial adoption.
2. We decided living in a white family was better than languishing in an orphanage.

In spite of making valiant attempts to educate ourselves, we are still not as educated as we need to be. I devour everything I can get my hands on. I also talk to Lucas about it. I ask him how he feels, what he thinks, and if he has anything in particular he wishes I would or would not do or say. I want him to know he can talk to me about it. He rarely does. I am usually the one who brings up the subject. I wonder if it is because he knows I do not understand what life is like for him.

A few months ago, a mother I am acquainted with in the community mustered up the courage to ask me how we deal with race in our family. I panicked. Was she quizzing me to see if I am raising my son right?! I wish that were so. Why did I panic? Because she is of African decent and I am not. I learned during our conversation that she was adopted by a white family who never took her skin color and racial identity seriously. Not just from her point of view, she shared experiences that brought tears to my eyes.

I had hoped she would be able to offer advice to me, but the stories she shared simply will not happen in my family because we are kind and considerate of our children. Instead, she was asking me for advice in raising her 6-year-old daughter, who is asking questions about her own racial identity.

Though she hasn’t read the text that I have read, she has something I never will: experience. I offered the names of some books and assured her that she is welcome to talk to me anytime, but that’s all I could offer. I walked away from the experience with a heavy heart–for her and for my Haitian-born children.

Three recommended resources:

• Anti-Racist Parent (website)
• Inside Transracial Adoption (book)
• In Their Own Voices (book)

Copyright © 2008 Becky Wilson. All Rights Reserved.

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons