Growing Family

Transracial Adoption and the Grocery Store Checkout

Why do half of the stories about strangers asking stupid questions, occur in grocery checkout lines? There must be a bizarre aura emitted from the scanner, that addles people into saying strange things.

Today, the checkout lady asked (as they frequently do), "Is he your son?" (sometimes it's "are they both your children?). I smiled and nodded, absentmindedly, emitting my "I am not interested in discussing my family with you, stranger" vibe.

She watched us for awhile, over the bags, before saying "he looks like his father, and she looks like you." Okay lady, whatever floats your boat. Again, the absentminded nod and smile. If that's what makes the most sense to her when she sees my brown skin-hair-eyed boy and my blond-blue-pale daughter, well cheerio.

I've actually heard that one before. I always acquiesce. My children do look like me and their father, and I feel no need to clarify that the father my son looks like is not the father my daughter looks like. I am especially wary of the grocery line questions. There is no where to move off to, and nowhere to remove your child to when a stranger's questions start to make them squirm. If the "bug off" vibe doesn't work, or the silent treatment, a clear "mind your own business" is the last resort. Today, my lack of interest in her interest seemed to do the trick.

The Closer

So, I'm a fan of the show The Closer but this week's episode really upset me. It's a murder investigation show and this week the victim was a 13 year old adoptee from Russia. Spoiler alert, be warned.

The character displayed all the "classic" symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder, the prize-winner of potentially scary developments in adopting a child that has experienced trauma. To me, RAD is my greatest fear when I consider adopting older children, though children adopted quite young can go on to exhibit symptoms (and it certainly isn't confined to children that are adopted). I think most adoptive parents, and probably the general public, can think of some horrible situation they've heard about where a family adopted children that wreaked havoc and violence in the home. It is a truly scary disorder.

The case is resolved when the investigator maneuvers the parents into confessing to the murder of their son. The father admits that after the first blow, he was overwhelmed by his feelings that the boy "wasn't mine, he wasn't from me" or something like that. The mother wept that the boy was so horrible, they were so trapped.*

To me, the truly unfortunate conclusion of the episode was that the main character, along with her partner, have a discussion about buying a house that will accommodate children in the future, or not. She votes against the larger house, and by extension, children. Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but as the character is at the end of her potential childbearing years, (they have explored her entering menopause in previous episodes) the message came across loud and clear: if adoption is our option for children, and adoption includes the possibility for a child with RAD, better go without children rather than risk that possibility.

So, from my perspective, not only did the writers prey on adoptees and their loss and pain for cheap tv thrills, they also played into parent's greatest fears when considering adoption. I am disappointed in the show, and am pained for any people experiencing adoption who see it, not to mention the general public who doesn't need any more fear-mongering when it comes to adoption.

*I am a huge advocate of special families for special children, as I think Jae Ran Kim phrased it. Many adoption agencies don't have any special requirements for families adopting children with special parenting needs (older children, children with disabilities, children that have experienced significant trauma, siblings groups), and adopting families are often under prepared and lack the resources and support necessary to contribute to the success of placement. Both the children and the parents are ill-served when they enter an adoption without training or resources and I think agencies can do so much better to minimize the stress and difficulty these placements can entail.

Twisty Straws, Uteri, and Babies

Adoption professionals encourage parents to start telling their children their birth and adoption stories right from the beginning so that by the time your child is old enough to ask questions and interact with the storytelling, you have worked out all the kinks in how you want to explain their history, as well as having become comfortable with the story itself and the unfamiliar terminology you may use (like birth mother, etc).  Like a good little adoptive mommy, I set right to work explaining as best I could, trying to find an easy and comfortable way to explain adoption to a young child. Actually, it's never been easy for me, even before Small Sun responded to what I was saying.

Maybe I have trouble because I'm the kind of person who wants to know ALL the details about something, and I have a hard time paring Small Sun's adoption story down to developmentally appropriate sound-bites. The way we can explain adoption to a child can seem overly simplistic - leaving out such dynamic, weighty, and crucial information. Yet, an infant or preschooler doesn't need to know EVERYTHING. Nevertheless, I always feel tongue-tied as I try to sort out what to say now.

I am always eager to hear from parents with children slightly older than mine, when their child(ren) began to listen to the story, taking it in and asking questions. After three years of telling a very important story to a sweet boy who just looks back at me with no comprehension and smiling eyes, Small Sun is starting to ask questions. I am simultaneously relieved and panicked. It is easier for me to respond to his interest than just blanketing him with information. Yet, what if he asks something I don't know how to answer? Ah! What if something I tell him leads him to feel negatively about his self worth? It's scary stuff.

Right now, Small Sun's current obsession is with sorting out who was in whose belly? At breakfast the other day, he was asking how a baby eats in a mummy's tummy (no matter how many times I say womb or uterus, he firmly sticks to tummy!). I tried to explain the umbilical cord to him but found it quite complex! Then he wanted to talk about how he was in his first mommy's tummy, and we also talked about the Sprout being in my tummy and how both of them ate through their umbilical cords. He was really interested and wanted to keep talking about it. As I was clearing away the dishes I told him that I had a book to show him and that he should ask me to see it, in case I forgot.

Not five minutes later he ran up and said "I want to see the book about how the baby drinks through the cord!" So off we went. I pulled out It's Not the Stork, so thankful that I'd bought it last year, even though it seemed like ages before my kids would be ready for it. (Some find it to be a controversial book in that it has full pictures of anatomy, and discusses different family structures, including same-sex parents, but I really appreciate it's inclusion of adoption as a family-building method as well as its inclusion of mixed race families, and multi-generational illustrations.) Skipping over everything else, I showed him the picture of a baby in a mother's womb and explained how the umbilical cord is like a twisty straw, bringing food and oxygen to the baby. Then I opened up his birth book and we looked at pictures of his first mother, with her very pregnant belly. Next we looked at pictures of me with my very pregnant belly. We talked about how he was in his First Mom's womb, and the Sprout was in my womb, but that they both got food and oxygen through their umbilical cords.

Today he wanted to talk about what his First Mom ate when she was pregnant. He wanted to know when she ate, and if he ate that through the umbilical cord. Then he wanted to know what I ate when I was pregnant. Sometimes he insists he was in my "tummy", (even when we're looking at photographs of me with him, while I was pregnant), and then he starts talking about how he was in Sprout's tummy, or they were in the Captain's tummy...but I think he is playing at that for fun. He finally seems to be sorting out that he didn't grow in me, even though we've been talking about that from day 1.

I think it's important to keep talking adoption, regardless of whether or not your children ask about it, just so that they know it's an open topic and they can always ask anything they like. Even so, I find myself tongue-tied. I hope that it gets easier with time, but I suspect not.

Continuing Education

Shannon, of Peter's Cross Station, has an excellent resource post up. She has compiled her must-read list for (white) parents raising Black children. She writes:

I don't think most of the Transracial Adoption Books are all that great. And when you tell me that people have to start somewhere, and these books are good introductions, I will disagree in the strongest terms. Because books that give you tips for handling public curiosity, or tips on styling a Black child's hair are not the places to start. They are the last details, not the beginning steps.

I couldn't agree with her more. Of course we need to know how to respond to public interest, and we need to know how to care for our children's hair. Those are real needs. However, I think it would so benefit potential adopters to understand, more fully, the multitude of factors that work together in contributing to the situation that has made adoption a consideration or necessity for the child they hope to adopt. That includes history, cultural influences, economics, so many things that are never mentioned at all in most books you are encouraged or required to read to "prepare" you to adopt transracially.

I really feel like adoption systems do such a disservice to adopters and adoptees, by requiring so little in the way of education and preparedness for engaging in a transracial adoption. I consider myself to be a little bit hardcore, when it comes to my devotion as a transracial parent, yet I am only familiar with a few titles on Shannon's list! I am doing my best, going to the bookstore and buying everything I can find on the Black experience in America. For me, it's really been like grabbing in the dark, hoping I am reading things that are educating me well, hoping that I am listening to authoritative voices (recognizing there is no one "Black experience"). For this reason, I so appreciate Shannon's list and will apply myself to working through it. It is daunting, yes, but I am thankful to have a guide on the journey.

The Adoption Story, As Told By Immigration Attorney "K"

Last night I lay in bed and shivered: within 24 hours I could be bolting past the green flag and scheduling a home study. This morning I felt so stressed. I sat with uneasy stomach, trying to eat breakfast, overcome by apprehensive emotions. I almost didn't want to keep my appointment with the attorney. When they phoned to confirm my appointment for the afternoon, I secretly hoped they were calling to cancel on me.

Well, I couldn't have asked for a more helpful professional to deliver the bad news. Here is the breakdown: the only way we can qualify for an adoption visa (and no other visa would be extended to a child joining the family through adoption) is through an "Intercountry Adoption". This means that we would need to move overseas for a minimum of twelve months. We would pursue, complete, and finalize the adoption before applying for an adoption visa. Moving overseas for the sole purpose of adopting is not permitted. An adoption can only take place within the context of an otherwise justified move.

So, job relocation - ok. Pursuing further studies - ok. Returning to the States for important (document-able) family needs (death of a loved one and handling of an estate, working out a will, etc) - ok. The move has to be thorough enough to hold up under scrutiny. It is thought that if we wanted to adopt from an international country (like Ethiopia), we would still spend the time living in the U.S., as we would be applying for an Australian visa after the child gains U.S. citizenship.

This puts me in a tough position. On one hand, technically we could do it. We would have to find a place to live, and furnish it. We would have to buy lots of airline tickets. The Captain would have to find a new job, after just starting this one, or request a transfer to one of the regional offices, again, after having just started.

It is hard to know that we could make it happen, and choose not to. I really want this adoption to happen. I've got this place growing in my heart to nurture a special child. Does that desire justify putting ourselves and our children through a potentially very difficult year (or two), when we've just moved them here?

And what about pregnancy? I'm just opening my heart up on that one, trying to find some guidance.

One of my biggest fears in this whole thing is that we won't get to adopt again, or that it will be really far down the road. I know that having another sibling of color can be a very important factor for transracially adopted children. We never intended to raise Small Sun without siblings who shared that experience with him. I am afraid that if we have more biological children, Small Sun will be isolated as a person of color in our family, and as an adoptee.

How hard to you press to make your dreams happen? I struggle between feeling compelled to fight for what I am passionate about, even if it means significant personal sacrifice, and accepting the fact that no doors are opening for us here, right now, and the cost to our family would be extreme. When do you resign yourself to the closed door, and when do you break it down with your shoulder?

To be really honest, there are no open doors here, leading us to a next step. The only agencies saying they can work with us are sketchy, at best. There is a great international social worker who has helped us a lot, but if we went back to the U.S. for this, he wouldn't be helping us anyway. Basically I've spent several intense weeks of searching and have no viable options to show for it.

So...so...yeah. I feel sad. I don't know what to do.

Number 3, Where are You?

I am still heavy on the search for answers about adopting as an Expat. My understanding went from "NO", to "maybe" and now it is leaning back towards "no" again. I still have a few outstanding emails that I hope will make all the difference. I get waves of hope and send out flurries of emails.

Right now I think I'm coming to the end of the line. The big guns. The Hague Convention seems to be intent on squeezing me out of the pool of prospective adoptive parents. So now I'm waiting on an answer from the top dogs. "Do we fall within the acceptable guidelines?" Whose idea was it to want to start the adoption process, as an expat, a mere matter of weeks after the U.S. implemented the Convention Guideline's, anyway?

So, right now the path is forked in front of me. Once again there are two choices: adopt, and give birth. I know that the fact that I have giving birth as a presumable choice is part of my privilege of health. Also, that I am already hugely blessed with two! I don't want to take that lightly. There are, however, a couple issues on my mind.

First of all, I am ready to start to draw a third child into our warm circle. It happens in twinges, and warm moments here and there. It happens in me tucking adorable baby things into the bottom of the drawer under my children's clothes. It happens in me thinking about my double stroller in the container, and how three children can actually fit on it nicely.

This desire hasn't bloomed into full-blown readiness yet, but I am ready to start the process one way or the other. However, I can feel the over-ripe longing not far around the bend.

I don't think The Captain is feeling as ready as I am.

Also, I had always imagined that the next child would come via adoption. I was late last month (you know), and I found myself torn between sadness and disappointment over a potential missed adoption, and excitement at the possibility of being pregnant. There isn't an absence of discussion, in the adoption world, about overcoming the issues that surround adoption being a second choice, when it comes to building a family. I haven't heard many people talk about the sadness of birthing being a second choice, after letting an adoption dream go, be it temporarily or permanently. With Small Sun, I wanted to adopt first. I was thrilled to be pregnant second. I'm trying to sort out my feelings on our next child scenario.

Lastly, the thing that my friends promised has come true: my memories of The Sprout's time in my womb, and her exit from it, have begun to glow and shimmer. Sure, sometimes I can still physically feel in my body, the 23 weeks of daily vomiting, and the dramatic birth that left me in bed for weeks, and took a year to heal from. But instead of those being THE memories of my pregnancy and birth, they are becoming SOME of my memories. I am having fuzzy feelings as well. I don't remember much of her first year, what with having two under two and all, but now that the edge of exhaustion has worn off, I'm starting to daydream again.

So, there's a lot on my mind. Unfortunately, the U.S. business day is starting right when I'm trying to fall asleep around 11 pm. After staying too long on the Internet, and watching too much t.v., I get emails from adoption agencies, closing more doors. Then I try to go to sleep, but instead, lie there trying to find a way through the Hague Convention maze that stands before me.

It would be much "easier" to get pregnant instead. (So insensitive to those who can't, I know!) But first I'd have to let go of the adoption dream, for now, and fully move on to embrace a pregnancy. And even then, I don't know if we'd get pregnant. So far, our Maker has seemed to lay a clear indication of when we're supposed to get pregnant, and when we're not.* Oh, and then I'd have to talk the Captain into it. :)

*We tried to get pregnant for a year, using ovulation charts, temperature taking, etc, before adopting Small Sun. I  had a pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. After a year we started the adoption process. Five months later, Small Sun was home. Then, when we decided to try for a sibling, I got pregnant the first go. So, I really don't know what to think regarding my fertility, except that I am so thankful we have Small Sun in our lives. Two weeks one way or another, in our lives or his mother's life, and we would have missed each other entirely.

The School Search Begins

Today I visited an infants school (Kindy through Grade 2) that people RAVE about. Today was an open day for family of students and I went with a new friend and her son, who is six months older than Small Sun.

When we got there the Grade 2 class was putting on a dance display in the courtyard. As I began to look around and take in the surroundings, I began to notice the song the children were dancing to: Jump Jim Crow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_Jim_Crow (sorry, my hyperlink insert isn't working) Wikipedia says "Jump Jim Crow is a song and dance from 1828 that was done in blackface by white comedian Thomas Dartmouth (T.D.) "Daddy" Rice." Great... Just what I wanted to welcome us to the school!

I also noticed, rather quickly, that the percentage of children of color in the class was quite low and that no children seemed to share Small Sun's ethnicity.

We continued on our school tour, and the woman guiding us was extremely kind and helpful. At the conclusion of our tour I asked her if she knew the percentage that ethnic minority children represented in the school. She became visibly ruffled and explained that she wouldn't know that figure, as it would not be important to the school. She asked whether it would be important to me?

I explained that yes, it was important to me that my child was not one of a very few childed of color in his class. She explained, still flustered, that in Australia, all children are educated equally and that race is not something that they consider relevant in education. She assured me that they learn about different culture and religions and have a multi-cultural curriculum as part of government regulations.

I noted that in a class with a high percentage of children from varying backgrounds, children are less likely to be teased for being different. Finding her footing, she told me with gusto that I needn't worry about that! In their school they are extremely strict and no teasing of any kind is tolerated.

I walked home dissapointed. I have had strangers tell me, glowingly, how they loved this school, including a mother in a interracial relationship with biracial children. I had gotten my hopes up.

There are two things that I'm walking away thinking about: one is how we use this term "multiculturalism" like a big blanket. We throw it over anything we want to bring into our lives to "enrich" us without going to the trouble to understand the history or context. Like the Jump Jim Crow song. I can just imagine it being listed on a children's cd here as "African American Folk Tune" or something, and how teachers here might consider it a multicultural contribution to their curriculum, completely unaware that it is a racist stereotype from inception. I'm sure the teachers haven't done research on each song they played so judge whether or not it was appropriate. Nor have I done so with the "World Playground" cd my children love to listen to. We dance around to songs in other languages, enjoying their rythm and style without ever looking deeper to know what we are treating lightly.

Secondly, I am so tired of the polically correct position of "colorblindness". In efforts to avoid being racist or innapropriate we say "I don't see you as Indian, I just see you as a person", or "when I look at you I don't see brown skin, I just see a human being." We would never say to a colleague "oh, are you female? I hadn't even noticed! I'm so into gender-equality, I didn't realize you were a woman!" We wouldn't say "oh, you're wearing this clothing as part of your religious beliefs? I thought it was just a new fashion!" We don't ignore, or pretend not to see, gender, religious dress, age, etc, but we are trained that it is impolite to notice ethnicity.

Noticing difference is not descrimination. A child's ethnicity is one part of the many parts that make them unique. We recognize differences in learning styles in regards to gender. We are sensitive to teaching students from different religous backgrounds. Yet we deny that ethnicity should be seen in education.

On one hand, I think it is more true here when people say "where you come from doesn't matter, being Australian is what matters." There seems to be less of a divide between "us" and "them" (unless you are Aborigine: the media coverage of Aborigine issues seems very negative to me). There's just so much to sort out here.

Too Close to Home

You know, I've been thinking about the conversations I mentioned and I've been trying to work out what our strategy should be here. How we can preserve our "family culture" that values our children's privacy, as Amy said.

I think that the difficult thing in regards to sharing information about ethnicity, when your child is transracially adopted, is that information about ethnicity is completely linked to first family reality. It is difficult to respond to people's inquiries about your child's ethnicity without introducing the fact that your child is adopted. Then, inevitably, people want to ask lots of questions about adoption in general or your child's adoption circumstances in particular. We do not share the particulars of Small Sun's adoption story with strangers and are conservative with how we share his story, even with family and close friends. It is his story to learn first.

The line of questioning seems to follow this pattern, phrased in a number of different ways:

What is your son's ethnicity?
What is your partner's race?
Why is your son a different color than your daughter?
Where did he come from?
How old was he when you got him?
Who was black, his mother or his father?
And on into his mother's situation that led her to place him.

Of course, the conversation never goes that far...but that is the direction people try to go in.

Sometimes I am dishonest by omission. If a person asks me if my children have two different fathers, depending on the person, I might say "yes" and leave it at that, or I might say yes and introduce adoption into the conversation.  Technically it is true so I just leave it be.

I find myself wanting to explain our family, epecially to churchy people, so that people don't think I have two children by two fathers in two years.

Anyway, I don't respond with as much aggravation as I used to when people want to know Small Sun's ethnicity. I don't think it is an inherently rude question. I do, however, think it is rude for people to continue that line of inquiry into his birth history. So that is what I need to flesh out - how to answer one question while closing the door to further questions.

I need to find a way to say "that is personal information" without putting people off. After all, we are trying to settle in and make friends here and I don't want to sequester us simply because people are ignorant on adoption.

In Nashville, I never sought out connecting with other adoptive families. I developed some natural relationships but my focus was more on trying to find a way to connect with the African American community. I think here I might need to do some work to connect with other adoptive families. I don't want Small Sun to be alone in experiencing adoption. I didn't really think that through before we moved.

Culture shock comes in many shapes and forms!

Drie Jaar Geleden (Three Years Ago)

It seems like it was a Thursday when I got the call at work that Small Sun was being born. I ran around, doing my best to close up cases, knowing I wouldn't come back after my pseudo maternity-leave finished. What an adrenaline rush, knowing that the child that might be your baby is in the process of being born.

It was false labor. However, after announcing to all my colleagues that the child I was adopting was being born, I didn't feel like going back for another day or two of work. I stayed home and waited. There was another false alarm.

Small Sun waited until the Captain was in Memphis, sitting for his test to qualify him for U.S. citizenship. Then I got the call. Labor time, get in the car and go! The plan was for us to be there during labor and delivery. With the Captain in our good car in Memphis, I called up my mom, who has helped us through every major transition yet, she rushed to my house, we threw the bags that I had packed, and repacked, and packed again, into our tired little Honda and off we raced.

Racing is hard to maintain on a ten hour car ride. It was when we were winding through the Smoky Mountains, right after seeing a tractor trailer with a load of sheet metal, tipped all over the highway, that I got the news: "you are a mother". Really, the social worker had no right to say that to me and I was a bit miffed at her for declaring my motherhood while it was not yet rightfully mine. We did our best to keep up our pace and our spirits as we drove through the winding mountain roads that eventually emptied out into the highway that carried us to the sea.

Charleston. City of magic and sweet breezes.

I met Small Sun when he was five hours old. Walking into the hospital after ten hours of driving, tired, excited, apprehensive, eager, I was first turned away by the nurses until a few phone calls clarified that I was "supposed" to be there.

He was tiny. Born by emergency c-section because of complications, his skin was scratched in a couples places, presumably during surgery. His mother extended him to me and I held him, quiet, focused, wanting to know him, but more wanting to support her in her opportunity to know him. His fingers were long and when I lifted his tiny hospital cap, at his mother's instruction, my breath caught at the sight of his hair, like black corn silk, thick on his head.

I took pictures with my cell phone and late that night, trying to fall asleep in the hotel room with my mother, I tried to text the photos to the Captain as he drove through a storm to meet his son. His cellphone died. I couldn't sleep. He arrived at about five in the morning and we lay, whispering in the dark, staring at the cellphone pictures, shivering with the enormity of it all.

That was three years ago today. I still sneak into his room every night to watch him sleep. Not many days pass without me marveling at the wonder of parenting this boy. He really is my Small Sun.

Say It Loud

A lot of transracial parenting is just simple parenting. Then there are these moments that are just kind of...odd.

Today we were having a dance party in the living room (ahem), lounge, like we often do. Even Sprouty is starting to wiggle and twist these days. So Small Sun and I are dancing hard to James Brown and we're singing "Say it loud, I'm black, I'm proud!"

Now we love James Brown at our house. But what am I supposed to say? "Say it loud, he's black, I'm proud!"? And what about the little Sprout when she gets old enough to sing along?

I've made a new acquaintance here. She is also an American expatriate, married to a European, raising a biracial child. She is black.  I don't know if I should attribute it to us both being outside of American culture, or the common bond of raising biracial boys, but we have talked a lot about race and what surrounds it in the couple hours we've spent together.

The other day she asked me what I tell Small Sun when he asks me "what he is." She said that even though there are other children of color and other mixed-race children at her son's preschool, his peers ask her son what he is and so he comes home and asks her.  He's 3 1/2.

I told her I haven't told Small Sun anything. He hasn't asked me anything.

We read affirming books about being black. Like  Shades of Black, that shows lots of children with African heritage, all with different skin tones, hair textures and eye colors. But honestly, I haven't spoken to Small Sun about his ethnicity hardly at all. I tell him I love his curly hair or his beautiful brown skin, but that's about it.

The reason I haven't is that I don't want to draw his attention to the difference between us prematurely. I am ready to discuss it when he notices or when he says something about it, but it doesn't make sense to me to say "did you ever notice that you're brown and mommy is tan?" In my mind, I can't really figure out where that conversation would go. We talk about adoption, and we talk about his mother, and he sees her picture frequently, but talking about her wouldn't really lead to any explanation for his ethnicity.

About two months ago Small Sun was looking at his foot and he said "hey mom! My foot, it's brown!" and I said something like "yes, good job!" because he still can't tell his colors with any consistency.

So to wander around this topic, I guess I'm saying that I'm trying to affirm the idea of being black, in hopes that when Small Sun starts to realize he is black, he'll know it's a good thing. At this point, I think I'll continue to wait until he's asking before I start explaining why we don't "match". I guess I'll just have to start singing "Say it loud, he's black, I'm proud" next time we're grooving with James Brown.