Ten Brothers

About two weeks ago Small Sun announced that he has a brother named Muddy. Shortly after that he informed us that actually he has ten brothers! They live in Kenya. Since then Muddy and his ten (in total) brothers have become a frequent part of our daily conversations.

According to Small Son, the ten brothers live in Kenya, and all have brown skin, like Small Sun. Small Sun and his sister, Sprout, have been on multiple trips to visit the ten brothers. The ten brothers have given presents to Finch, and they share toys with Small Sun.

The names of the ten brothers change frequently. Muddy stays the same, but the others can be called the names of Small Sun's preschool classmates, our family's real names, the names of church friends, letters of the alphabet, etc.

Small Sun includes the ten brothers in anything that he's excited about, or processing, or interested in. Like, Small Son might say "oh, we're going to the beach? (reality) My ten brothers love to go to the beach and once they gave me a bucket and shovel (wishful thinking) so that I could build a sand castle with them. (fantasy)" He combines reality with wishful thinking and fantasy.

Of course it does not escape my notice that these brothers have brown skin and live in Kenya. I am not sure if Small Sun has latched onto Kenya because his grandmother lived there and has told him a lot about it, and he knows about Barack Obama's connection to Kenya?

It's so interesting (and scary!) to try to help a (barely) four year old understand the concepts of ancestry, migration, and ethnicity. We've talked about how Small Son's birth father is African American and that means his ancestors come from Africa and his ancestors had dark skin, etc. But at this age it is all a bit difficult to sort out. Sometimes when he sees pictures of people with brown skin, Small Sun will say "those are my ancestors in Africa!" He doesn't get the concept of past and present to the extent that he can understand ancestry.  He does get that he is connected to Africa and that he is connected to people with brown skin.

I've always heard that play is one of the best ways to interact with your child on the subject of adoption. The emergence of Small Sun's ten brothers is making me think that he might be ready for some play-based adoption learning.

I hate the vagueness of "Africa". I imagine I join many Americans with African heritage in wishing that I had something more specific to tie him to. When we participated in a West African drum workshop I wondered "is this Small Sun's heritage?" Here in Sydney there is an African population, but not really a cohesive presence of African Americans,  so in looking for cultural connections, African cultures are present here, but I have no way of knowing what is specifically relevant to Small Sun. Now, with his current interest in Africa, I can only present information on a variety of countries and cultures and let his interest lead us.

Small Sun continues to express his desire that our skin match. He often plays with Sprout's hair making it "curly". And he explained several times that even though Finch was born with light skin, it would darken, and he is holding out for The Captain's skin to darken as well. Recently he tried to convince me that when he was born he had light skin, and he pulled out his birth story book to show me. I had to explain that while he was lighter, he did indeed have brown skin.

After keeping Small Sun's hair short for over a year, we are currently letting it grow into a mop of wonderful curls. At church a few weeks ago a friend of ours asked Small Sun "are you growing your hair out?" and he answered "no, because I have a chocolate face." In the car on the way home I asked him if he wanted to grow his hair out and he said "no". I realized, however, that he might not know what "growing it out" means. After I explained, I asked him again and he said that yes, he did want his hair to be longer so he could have long curls. He also wants me to cornrow his hair (I'll try!), and wished I would braid his hair like his sister's. I also don't know where he got "chocolate face" from, as we haven't used that as a descriptor.

In all of this, I don't know what else to do other than to continue to admire his features and admire similar traits in others, as well as emphasize all of the ways we are the same.

Now that he's in preschool I am sure that any day now we'll face a friend saying "that can't be your mommy, she doesn't look like you" or "that's not your real sister". I try to be ready for what's around the corner, but in the meantime I'm going to try to get to know the ten brothers and see where that leads us.

Comments

[Susan]

Oh, I wish you could bring him to Pact camp to meet his transracially adopted "brothers" and allies!!

We just finished another awesome one. http://bit.ly/3nB7uR

[lillianb]

"Here in Sydney there is an African population, but not really a cohesive presence of African Americans..."

I wonder about this term, "African Americans..."
There, are they called "African Australians?"
What is the culturally "accepted" terminology?
Just curious!

[Kohana]

Susan, I would love to come to Pact camp! We'll have to look into it. Do you have many families come from abroad to participate?

Lillian - what I mean is that there are African Americans who live here, but they tend to live scattered as opposed to immigrants from Africa who live here and maintain a community solidarity. African Americans would just be called Americans here and Australians with African heritage would just be called Australians. Australians don't tend to categorize groups of people like Americans do. They may refer to someone as Chinese, South African, French, etc, as a descriptor of that person, but they don't distinguish people groups within the population (from my experience). The exception would be distinguishing Aboriginal Australians. Again, just my experience.