Choosing to Parent a Vulnerable Child

Adoptive parents are endlessly pushing back against the public's assumption that the strength of their bonds with their children are less real or permanent. Ask about an adopted child's "real mother" and watch them recoil, or ask a family with adopted and birth children if they love all their children the same and you are likely to get cold silence or an earful. We are used to people questioning the strength of our relationship so we defend it with the intensity any parent would.

I find though, that from one adoptive mother to another, the conversations go somewhat differently. In like company, our fears and vulnerabilities surface. So right now I'm going to speak to you as if you were another adoptive mother, and skip the mother lion routine.

I think that the adoptive relationship has the potential to be inherently insecure. When people ask if I can love the son I adopted in the same way I love the daughter I bore, (and they don't really ask that) I can ask them if they love the spouse they married as much as they love their children. The relationship has power because of a mutual choice. Couples fall in love and make commitments.  The analogy might work for the way I feel about the son I don't share blood with, but he will have to decide if he feels the same.

Not right now, of course. Right now he is insanely in love with me and I am the core around which his little life orbits. In the future is when he will have to come to terms with the fact that his presence in our family was decided by adults and was out of his power.

That's been on my mind as I think about adopting again. As the choosers in adoption, we have so much power. We pick everything. Maybe our choices are limited by circumstances like which programs we qualify for, but we are still making choices that result in a child joining our family. In cooperation with agencies, social workers, and governments, we bring a child into our family that has no say, whatsoever in the matter.

Personally, I think that's messed up.

I don't know how it could be any different. That's the way of the world: people with power make choices they think will benefit the vulnerable.

I'm not saying that children won't be benefited by being adopted, especially children who will grow up in institutions if they are not adopted. I'm just saying that when a child gets old enough to understand that they were vulnerable and other people decided what would happen in their lives, that's got to be hard to deal with.

I've been thinking of this specifically in regard to choosing a country program, or another U.S. adoption of a black child.

We were at the park this week and my kids were playing with an Asian girl. There is a massive Asian population in Sydney that includes primarily people of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pacific Islander, and Vietnamese heritage, as well as a large Indian population. The area where we live and the places where we travel seem almost 50/50 Anglo/Asian or Indian. Anyway, at the park I was imagining how I would feel if I was parenting an Asian child and was at the park with this other mother.

I realized that I felt intimidated to parent a child of another ethnicity, right under the noses of people of that ethnicity, in a culture where adoption is uncommon. Back in Nashville I was interacting with the black community all the time (on surface levels), but adoption is not uncommon there. Here it feels like my child's community (if they were Asian or Indian) could really scorn me if I wasn't up to snuff as the parent of a child of their community.

As a white woman raising a (biracial) black son in the South, I think I was pretty isolated from criticism because of my white privilege.

Suddenly India (which was the more serious consideration) wasn't seeming to attractive and I started to think about Africa some more. That's when it dawned on me, how much power I have and how vulnerable children are. If I don't want my child's community peering over my shoulder as I parent, I can just adopt a child in complete isolation from their culture. That's a choice I can make.

I've always said that raising a child in close proximity to their cultural heritage is what I'm striving for, yet I find myself afraid of adopting a child from another country and being criticized and rejected by that community. I'm feeling the cushion of my power as a white woman in a highly racialist city deflated, and coming to realize how much it was there. I'm feeling myself accountable to the way I raise another culture's child. Before, cushioned by my whiteness in a white/black hierarchy, it was my aspiration and goal to raise my son to be connected and proud of his black heritage, but no one could hold me to it. 

So there it is, my nitty gritty dirty confession, talking to you like my closest adoptive mom girl friend who I know will listen with an open heart and help me find the high road. I'm talking to you like it's only Amie listening. Go easy on me, I'm trying to be woman enough to fess up to my own prejudices, even though I've seen others get flamed for it.

Comments

[Susan]

Thank you for your honesty and vulnerability. It is great that you are coming to realize this now. I really recommend that you read Chris Winston's book http://www.kaanet.com/books/euro.php

She managed to make real connections with her children's (Korean) community. I think she is a true inspiration and role model in this area.

(If I don't want my child's community peering over my shoulder as I parent, I can just adopt a child in complete isolation from their culture. That's a choice I can make.) Yes, you can, but please don't do that.

[cloudscome]

I am so glad to read this today. Thank you for putting yourself out there."it was my aspiration and goal to raise my son to be connected and proud of his black heritage, but no one could hold me to it. " Another reason why we need close personal relationships across racial lines. I feel the need for black friends who will call me on my blunders. One of the great things about the church we moved to a couple years ago - I'm building friendships in families that meet this need. In my old all white church I could go my merry way oblivious until my boys were old enough to realize what they were missing.

[alice]

What a great post. We're planning on pursuing domestic adoption in the US, and since it's likely that will mean our kids are POC, I've been thinking about this for a few years. However, I hadn't thought about the accountability side of things before, which strikes me as absurd now that you point it out. It really is a huge privilege to be able to avoid that kind of scrutiny, and therefore it's one to guard against even more assiduously.

One other point I wanted to make about the earlier section of your post - I think that the element of a child's lack of agency in adoption overall is unarguable, however I also think that we give too little weight to *children's* lack of agency generally. Children who are born into a family also don't get a choice as to their parents, and I've known more than a few people who have grown up and have extremely limited contact with their families because they don't choose to forge those two-way relationships as adults. (This occurs irrespective of abuse, FWIW.)

Adoption has many, many additional elements at play that will factor in, but the fact that our adult relationships with our families are *all* built on mutual choice is an issue I see very few people discuss. I don't say this to pooh-pooh your fears in any way, rather I say it because our societies don't often seem to acknowledge that this is a possibility for kids born into a family, while they all too often imply that it's a likelihood with our adopted kids.

[Amie R]

First of all let me say that I think you are amazing. I love the way you process things and you challenge me with your insights.

I understand what you are saying about your white privilege in general. What I can't comprehend (probably because I have only lived here) is how that is different in the US than it is in Australia. I know that you said you were expecting their culture to be more forward than it is here, so maybe people would be more likely to express their disapproval. I know I have felt a few subtle disapproving messages from people in the black community giving me glaring looks or people blatantly ignoring me. It was not something I anticipated prior to adopting, but it REALLY bothered me initially. These were not looks in response to my parenting (he was only a newborn), but looks to show me that they did not approve of my choice (and I am sure how I chose to use my white privilege.) We also may have had a different experience here since our children are very different shades of brown...who knows. All this to say, I find it interesting that you feel your power as a white woman being deflated, and realizing how much privilege you actually had. I am so spoiled...I have never experienced my privilege being deflated...from race, wealth, health or anything really..oh maybe my popularity going from high school to college :).

So on to your new life. One thing you wrote really stuck out to me..."I realized that I felt intimidated to parent a child of another ethnicity, right under the noses of people of that ethnicity, IN A CULTURE WHERE ADOPTION IS UNCOMMON." I think this is the key. You are in the process of feeling out how people respond to transracial adoptions in your new environment where adoption is not the norm. I don't really see this as YOU not wanting to face this challenge, so YOU just chose to avoid it because after all YOU have the power to do so. You are navigating a new culture, one that probably responds to adoption in general differently because it IS uncommon. (Human Nature says...new/different=bad/scary). And you are learning about a culture that is also probably collective in nature, where one person's actions are the responsibility of the whole group. So you may be feeling that you will be scorned as a parent of an Asian child, because by adopting one...you are now included into that collective community and you are now under their responsibility because you and your child now influence how their whole group is portrayed. (I hope I am explaining that right.)

So is it wrong to deliberately avoid this situation....I would say it depends on your motivation. Is your motivation to make things easier on yourself as a transracial adoptive parent? (Maybe that is your initial gut feeling (fear), but if you search your heart I just don't think that motivation would settle with you...fear is not from God.) Or is this a legitimate concern culturally when you think about the environment your child would be raised in? Will there be a stigma on the child that he/she is "adopted" in this culture, and therefore the child may be treated differently or even shunned by the culture? Will the CHILD be scorned if they are not up to snuff as a member of that community, and also would that also be the case if they were BORN into the community in the first place due to the whole collective culture mentality? Maybe the accountability factor would be there regardless.

I guess I just see this as you navigating a whole new culture and realizing how different things are there, and not about your prejudice and wanting to stay in your white privilege bubble. BUT I think it is good that you are checking your motivations...that's why you are an amazing person...you are not afraid to go there.

[Mayhem]

You have definitely made me think, here. Thank you for writing this and putting it "out there."

As someone else has said already, you are so great at honestly evaluating your motivations. So many people cannot do this (I'm sure myself included in some areas), especially regarding race and gender in adoption.

Not blowing off your concerns at all, but you did JUST move about two seconds ago to a new country and culture(s). Maybe in a few months or a year things will feel different regarding potential acceptance of you, your family, and a potential child by the community around you. Maybe it won't feel different. But don't be too tough on yourself or other people too quickly!

You're right that there is no one to hold adoptive parents accountable for keeping kids connected to their culture or community of origin. (Other than *maybe* the adoptees themselves once they're grown.) It is a privilege, and good to acknowledge.

[quietstream]

So thoughtfully honest--I am amazed at your ability to look inside yourself and articulate what you find there. Thank you.

One thing that comes to mind quite clearly as I read this article is the immeasurable, unlauded impact of those like you who pioneer new paths. I can't recall exactly the words of a current proverb about making a way where there is no way, or don't go where others have gone but make a path that others may follow. You are one of those path makers.

Obviously you are not the first to adopt transracially across black and white lines, but within the circle of your immediate friends and community, you were the first (thus the "mother lion" experiences). In so doing, you have opened the minds and hearts of many in a way they would not have experienced otherwise. Concepts are one thing, but real lives and real faces in the context of real relationship are another.

An unanticipated privilege and challenge of pioneering is facing the headwinds of people's educated and uneducated opinions and prejudices. Thus the opportunity for constant self-evaluation and doubt/examination/affirmation and moving forward.

In the final analysis I think the decision must be based on what is you conclude is right, and then as a pioneer into uncharted cultural territory, take hold of the strength to face the looks, disapproval, misunderstanding that may go with that choice, BUT knowing that you are also forging a new path through age old barriers and mindsets. Whether it feels like a positive contribution, in an unmeasured, unlauded way, it completely is.

Hudson Taylor, absolutely convinced he had to honor the food and dress and language cultures of the people of China to be qualified to be heard by them, was completely rejected and misunderstood by the great majority of his sending institution, but he and his "seven" forged a way that is now the m.o. of many many institutions.

Conversely, China was closed to all other cultures for centuries, and westerners in particular were white devils. But those westerners who faced that mentality and chose not to be driven away by it as they lived within the culture, created by their lives tiny fissures through the seemingly impenetrable wall of a xenophobic culture. These tiny fissures helped to create the beginnings of China as it is today.

The examples of courage in the face of crossing over cultural walls could be endless, and most far closer to home for us than these. It is healthy to assess honestly your fears; they are legitimate and probably rooted, at least in part in reality. But having taken inventory, I know you must and will, because of the integrity of who you are, return to finding what is right and best after careful, prayerful seeking God's affirmation, And then you will move just as carefully and prayerfully into the uncharted waters that one enters with the addition of any new child, homemade or adopted.

If you do, as you imagine, have people watching you, I am quite certain that unknown to you, you will also be creating fissures, provoking new thought, and expanding the world in ways that will provide light and fresh air in some closed up spaces. And if at times it does not feel like a positive thing to you, you can return to your bottom line, which is to have done the best that you could for one child at a time.

One more thought: I would echo the comments of Alicia about the void of choice there is, in reality, for every child born into the world. Every single person ever born exists because of the choices and decisions of adults over whom they had no influence and no vote. Every child born is given a deck of cards with which to "do life", a deck of cards they had no choice about. Every child is hugely blessed who has someone in his or her life who truly cares about their well being. Your children are among those very blessed.

[Kat]

What an amazing post. Reading these honest, heartfelt posts is what makes me keep blogging and reading blogs. We can all gush about how much we love our children because we do, but it can be scary. If I'm totally honest, my deepest, darkest fear is that Lily won't choose to love me. Funnily enough, I confessed that once to my mom who told me she feared the same things from her children. And we're all bio. So maybe it's just one of the scary things about motherhood.
Thank you for this. Thank you for being honest and for writing so beautifully! :)