Any experiences of adopting a child from a different ethnic background?

[Chocogoingcuckoo]

Does anyone have any experience of adopting a kid from a mixed ethnic background?

I'm more wondering what this would mean for the child growing up? I know we would love this lo unconditionally.

I am the white mother of a mixed race adopted child - but my dp is her ethnic match, so a bit different but not completely. Can I assume you are white and prospective child is not? I think it's a big issue - not so big as to be insurmountable, but needs lots of thought and proactive work. I would think super-carefully if you live in a very white area and have white family and friends, to be honest - again, it's not insurmountable, but I do think children who already have fractured identities can really struggle with looking different from their families. For my dd it was a very big deal when she was around 4, though seems to be more settled now that her best friend looks just like her, and of course that is also true of many of her cousins.

But of course all children are individuals, and this seems to be a bigger issue for some than others. Just prepare yourself that it might be huge.

We were told that as a white family we would be unable to adopt a mixed race child as we would not be able to promote their cultural identity.
Have you already been matched with a mixed race child or are you planning on expressing interest?

My ds is mixed race and we are both white.
We discuss his back round with him and birth fathers religious preferences. (Without saying they're birth fathers at the mo)
We live in quite a multicultural area but ds ethnicity is one that is very frowned upon by lots (although visually not obvious and looks exceptionally like my husband) so to get him an accurate match would have been v difficult.
We had to explain how we would support him through his ethnicity and when he understands it more but it's not an issue so far.

Thanks, the info is all good food for thought.

We are indeed white and were told we wouldn't be matched with a child that looked completely different but because of my dh colourings we may be considered for mixed race (I'm sure my dh great great great granny had a night with a sailor from the Spanish Armada).

This LO is half white, they don't have a western name which would make them stand out amongst family and friends and we are aware it's important for these kids to feel like they fit in.

We seen LO on linkmaker and thought they sounded great but living in a predominantly white area we wanted to do some research before expressing an interest.

Gosh, what a sensible way of looking at things. I really hope it works out for you and whatever DC ends up in your home.

Thanks Jakeballardswife. Loving the name by the way!

This is a good outline:
adoptioncouncil.org/images/stories/documents/ncfa_adoption_advocate_no38.pdf

With suggestions on page 3 for those thinking about trans-racial adoption.

And this about microaggressions - how would you support your child to cope, as well as with more obvious abuse?

tv.fusion.net/video/354460/how-microaggressions-are-like-mosquito-bites/

I have adopted trans-racially (overseas). She's actually from the majority population. Drawbacks are:

• it is totally obvious DD is not my daughter by birth, and a lot of random strangers think it's OK to ask incredibly personal questions

• I have to support her to deal with prejudice I haven't experienced, and to live in a world where many people will assume the worst of her but the best of me (even though she's part of the majority)

• she desperately wants to be 'like Mum' - we focus on the habits and personality traits that are similar, but we'll never be able to look at family photos and spot who has 'grandpa's nose'/ whatever. Which is distancing. She has also absorbed the mass media prejudices that beauty is pale skin and long straight hair. She wanted a doll that was pink, not brown, because it was 'prettier' - luckily this is now changing, but it takes a deliberate approach of discussing and highlighting black history and hero/ines.

• Although she's from the majority, it's still difficult to find mirrors and role models in daily life, due to a history of spatial segregation. As much as possible I put us in situations (where we live, school, go to Church etc) which are diverse, but without living in a shack. So we are mostly in spaces with a majority of people are from a different race to both of us. Again, a conscious effort needed.

I adore her and wouldn't change anything (except other people . But do some reading about trans-racial adoption, there's lots about it on American adoption forums as it's fairly common there.

Thanks for the links Allington. The paper is really interesting and just as in depth and complex as I expected.

I liked how the micro-aggressions were demonstrated. It's good questions you pose that I don't know how to answer. It would be a massive learning curve for us. I hadn't even thought about moving to a more diverse community for school etc.

It must be difficult as a mum to hear your lo say she wants pale skin and long straight hair when I'm sure she is lovely exactly as she is.

Recently a couple of her friends have been envious of her curls (washed and styled once a week, theirs brushed daily!) which has helped a lot - plus Michaela de prince & Simone Biles as adopted black girls

It just needs to be more of a conscious effort to make sure she has positive images to aspire to, when so much is white-by-default. But yes, heart breaking when other children say 'brown skinned girls can't play' to your 5 year old...

Our two youngest our mixed race. Birth mother was white and birth fathers unknown but must have been black or mixed race. We were told that adopting a black child would not be appropriate but mixed race is not such an issue. We are both white.

To be honest we had assumed we would adopt white children but mixed race children are considered hard to place which in my opinion is awful! We did have to assure social workers that we could support their heritage (although this is actually unknown), we live in a pretty culturally diverse area and our group of friends reflect pretty much every skin colour and ethnic origin.

Ours are still young though

Harder to place, I'm quite surprised at that. Your situation of living in a culturally diverse area and having your group of friends must have stood you in good stead for a match.

We're going to chat with our sw. Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences, it's much appreciated.

Our son is mixed race (BM white British, BF British/Pakistani).

You wouldn't' necessarily notice from his colouring and we live in a multi-cultural area so he doesn't 'stand out' as it were.

However we had a lot of questions at matching panel and before as to how we would teach and reflect his cultural identity and also the religion of his BF's family.

This did lead to a number of points when we got dangerously close to the "some of our best friends are..." stereotype which was frankly embarrassing for all concerned

It is something that we will explore with him as he gets older (so far we are still at the early stages of exploring his early life with his birth family) and we are lucky that he is at a school that reflects diverse identities, languages and religion.

We did think hard about it though when first matched but felt that we could and also wanted to explore his heritage with him

We are two white parents who adopted a black child internationally. He is still a toddler so I can't share our experiences of him growing up. Interestingly our LA has quite a few transracial adopters where it is obvious they are not biologically related.

There is lots of good advice above. We had a lot of prep on transracial adoption in the UK. The evidence we were quoted is that about 10% are left with identity problems. Many of the children have a rough ride with identity esp in the teen years - but they can get there if you support them in the right way. Other transracially adopted adults have told me it was really important for them to know other transracial adopters.

Society has changed a lot and there are a lot more multiracial families around. I noted someone at toddler group who is trying up teach their birth child 4 languages and that still omitted one language from the parent's heritage.

I found our visibility as a family a hard gig identity wise (for me) at first. Once I took ownership of it and walked the walk, we got less comments and looks. I also got better at responding. This is important for your child to see.

The other thing is that nothing is black and white (scuse pun). We get more questions in our highly diverse area than a white middle class one where people are too polite to ask or else maybe they're more familiar with adoption. I wonder sometimes if our area is too black and all the black kids are just gonna hang with those of other black families. My friend's biracial kids live in a very white area in the middle of nowhere and go to an ultra expensive private school but there are kids of Nigerian heritage there.

This is very early days for us but my sense is it is about finding what is right for your child. If it means moving in the future for his wellbeing then we will do it. We have lived in his birth country and can educate him about his culture - but we can't make him BE from that country. I think we can only show him his culture so he can help himself if he wishes to when he is older.

Incidentally, my son has a very unusual name. I found it very awkward at first but did not want to change it because it is part of his identity. Again, I have learned just to embrace and say it confidently and without any kind of apology that it's hard to spell or whatever. TBH I have heard some names from the young trendy brigade around here that I find it hard to get my head around.

Our son gets lots of positive attention from strangers saying he is cute. As for hair patting, he pats them right back! If the match feels right in other ways, then do some reading about what you are getting into but it can be done.

Lots of great advise so far.

I found this thought provoking:

There is a lot more on youtube and some of it is very interesting.

My husband and I are white and my children are brown. I think it helps them that there are two of them. They sometimes say they would prefer us to be brown. At the same time they feel special and they enjoy that. It is all very complex and at times contradictory. I would say their ethnic and cultury identity is blurry, but so far it has not been an issue. It is an ongoing conversation and we are working at it.

You definitely have to walk an extra 10 miles. We have lots of films and books with ethnic minority characters, we have travelled to places abroad to help them develop their sense of identity, we found a mentor, we have look-alike dolls, artwork, tons of books on their ethnic background, music - you name it. All that takes a lot of time to research, because you need to "upgrade" as they get older. A lot of it is tokenism, but I think every little bit helps. I would read up on white privilige, in case you haven't yet.

Thanks everyone for such detailed replies. We really appreciate the time you've taken to do so, it's been both helpful and educational.

We decided not to note interest in this particular child at the moment because a few sw have noted interest in us and one of the LO's is a child we expressed interest in at an exchange day months ago so we are going to explore this first.

Thanks again.

I'll throw in my 2p worth even though you've decided against just in case my experience is helpful to anyone else.

Single white adopter, ethnically different DS now 11

Being a single adopter helps as most people just assume that I have an asian partner, the one thing your child loses when you have two parents of the same ethnicity and children of an obviously different one is privacy. Some children don't mind the questions but very many of them do. DS really objects to the (relatively few) strangers who publicly make comments about how different he looks to me.

I make as big an effort as I can to normalise different ethnicities of all sorts (not just his), we are lucky that we live in a relatively diverse area and I deliberately picked the most ethnically diverse primary and secondary schools I could. We have done a birth country revisit recently which was hugely beneficial for him.

The thing which took me by surprise was that I did not adopt a child of a different race, I became part of a multi-racial family. Dealing with racists comments and preparing my child for them etc has been an eye opener.

It isn't ideal for a child to be transracially adopted and you do have to work much harder to help them with their identity but sometimes ideal isn;t available and you just get on with doing the best that you can.

DS would most likely still be living in an institution if the authorities had held out for an ethnic match, but love is not enough, planning and determination and awareness can however (along with love!) be a pretty close approximation to "enough".

But I'll ask DS in 10 years what he thinks...