Transracial adoption information

Borski2B

Anyone have a good source (online preferably) for information on transracial adoption? My brother and his wife are starting the process (orientations, classes, paperwork, 1st payment) and are going this route, and I'd love to read more so maybe I'd better understand the "concern" or "fear" my parents (the future child's grandparents) have about it. I think it's wonderful, and if my husband and I make the decision to adopt one day, I think we would be open to a child of ANY race, but my parents are from an older generation and they are not happy about it. I just want to understand the issues involved! TIA!

Dragonfly_Bride

Maybe start with PACT... I'm looking forward to seeing other people's resources.

https://www.pactadopt.org/

jacksjerseygirl

I hate making assumptions, but I assume you mean by transracial in this case white parents and african american or bi-racial children?

I want to say congratulations to your family! And, tell your sister-in-law to jump onto our forum! It's a great place to ask questions and provide others your insight or to just vent!

My husband and I are also DA (domestic adopting) a child of African American heritage. DH and I both come from traditional white families. I assume that some of them have fears or would be hesitant themselves about adopting a child of color but we really didn't give them a choice between being loving and supportive or being hesitant and unhappy. We stated from the get-go when we announced our plans of adoption that we expected our family/friend's support and that we realize the adoption of a child of different heritage or color may be different for them but we expect them to respect and love our child regardless of their skin color. They have been nothing but supportive thus far.

So I think that your brother and his wife might need to get used to being dominate and not passive in this process, especially in adopting and raising a child of color. There is a fine line between trying to educate someone and then protecting your decisions and child from negativity and racism. Every aspect of adoption and the choiced made by the adoptive parents will not be a decision for all family members to make or be up for debate - at the end of the day 'they' are the parents and their decisions should be respected by all regardless.  IMO

I think it is great you are helping out and getting some information. I hope we hear more about their journey!

 Here are a few links of the top of my favorites list.

 Online forums and blogs:

- www.adoption.com (under community they have a great forum relating to transracial adoptions - you can see the POV of both white adoptive parents and african american adoptive parents): https://forums.adoption.com/adoptive-parents/

- yahoo has a lot of transracial adoption forums

- https://transracial.adoptionblogs.com/

Online resources:

- about.com has a lot of great topics about race relations: https://racerelations.about.com/od/parentingrace/i/transracialadop.htm

- https://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/AfricanAmerican.htm

- https://www.antiracistparent.com/

- www.tapestrybooks.com has a lot of great books

Books:

- I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla: Raising Healthy Black and Biracial
Children in a Race-Conscious World

 

jacksjerseygirl

I also wanted to add, the more they network with others who are in their same position the easier and more natural some of these conversations will become about race/ethnicity and how to handle family/friend and odd-ball-rude strangers.

Their agency might provide these workshops or support groups for others who are pre-adopt or even adopted of a different race. Our agency did not but we sought out a fertility/adoption support center who runs a lot of workshops in our area. We also contacted our state's adoption association who put us in contact with counseling services.

We found one group that we meet with every month, there are five other couples. It is a great group to talk about adoption issues in general  and the process. However, this group is not open to other races - so at times we feel left out or internally upset when someone says they passed up a match because the child was 1/4 hispanic. Ugh.

Anyway, we are members of another group that does have adoptive families with children of different races. So that is really helpful in hearing how they handle family/friends who are less than supportive.

I think in-person support groups are actually the best resource you can find.

copilot

Don't have any resources really but my husband and I are Caucasian and my kids are Latino. I had no idea how my dad would handle this. Once he realized that they are just kids and that they are MY kids, he has never once said a word about the way they look on the outside. Good luck to your brother!