Why would you adopt a child outside of your race?

[Namechangedtoday2022]

Hi. I'm a regular but have name changed. This post is NOT to cause offence to anyone but I need answers, particularly from other black people on here.

Okay. So I was fostered by white parents. I grew up in a very white middle class area, etc. While I am grateful for the love and time and care they put into looking after me, I suffered horrendous racism: verbally, physically, etc. Which, of course, was NOT my parent's fault.

But I still can't understand why they fostered me. There were no other black people in the school I attended, there were no black role models for me to look up to, talk to, about black issues and, I think, the most surprising thing that I noticed when I was around 14, was that my parents had no black friends . They never talked about any black issues or issues that I might be facing, and withheld information about my bio family, which really they shouldn't have done.

So, black mumsnetters, am I being unreasonable in thinking that them fostering me was more for their benefit/inquisitiveness that mine? Or should I just be grateful that they looked after me. I just find it strange. I have tried to talk to them about it before but I was very quickly shut down!

As a child, who was fostered, I believe that I should be able to give my side/opinions and not be dismissed. I know my foster parents gave a lot of opinions about me.

I love my parents to bits but I have to say, I think it was a very selfish move, given that I was surrounded by not an ounce of my culture. And there seemed no effort to try to.

For further context, they travelled over 300 miles to 'collect' me. And I also know that they seemed to love me more when I was "little and cute" and couldn't talk

I will repeat, this is not intended as a racist post. But I have been quietened so many times in the past that it just seems unfair. I don't question their love for me but, I have to be honest, I do question their motive.

I also don't like to think about the amount of middle aged middle class white couples who can't have biological children adopting babies/young children from vulnerable less fortunate families in order to give them 'a better life'- but that's a separate issue.

Genuinely curious- are you flatly against transracial arrangements? Because biological kids can be brought up without their parents culture, bio kids get racist bullying at school etc.

Care doesn't seem like a better option at all (nor does it solve those potential problems anyway, just creates other ones). Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

@accidentlygothereagain

I definitely believe that when fostering/adopting another race/culture- you should be educated entirely on the topic. Education around typical food, music, religious stances, politics, etc. so no child ever feels like an outcast.

It feels like as fostering/adoption is such an admirable thing to do, somebody can never question their parenting without sounding 'ungrateful'.

Your feelings are valid OP.

I also don't like to think about the amount of middle aged middle class white couples who can't have biological children adopting babies/young children from vulnerable less fortunate families in order to give them 'a better life'- but that's a separate issue.

Seems like a decent enough reason to me

Have you explored your feelings in counselling? I would suspect a significant part of your feelings is from the fostering process itself, which creates a huge number of identity issues before adding on any other dimensions. How those identity issues manifest depends a lot on the specific person. I know people who were adopted into the same culture but for whom the identity issues absolutely tore them apart, and also people who were adopted from another country and race but for whom identify also felt solid and totally unproblematic. Basically, is the fact they were white fostering you as a black child the key factor, or are there larger unexplored and undealt with issues at play?

I also think you have some anger here that is pointed in the wrong direction. Your birth family and the fostering system let you down, not a couple who welcomed you into their house with good intentions. Times have changed hugely since but you are looking back with the glasses of critiquing what you had, and are not looking at what many others in your situation faced. What they did was a net positive to your life, I wouldn’t be harming this relationship. There are people here that you have a total right to be angry with, but the foster parents are not them.

OP, I think you already have the answer. The fact that your parents don't feel able to talk about it in itself speaks volumes. I would imagine they know they could have done things differently. What reasonable explanation could there be as to why they adopted subsequent children but not you? Your strong desire to know is understandable...but would the truth of their past mistakes make you feel better? Perhaps it's best to leave it alone

Is it really to do with the inter racial adoption or the personality of the foster parents? Many foster parents are totally different to your foster parents and encourage continuing relationships with siblings and natural parents.

If your FP had done these things and talked openly about society, racism and matters important to you, would they have been doing the right thing by you, or would it have been preferable to remain in care?

@TheApexOfMyLife Children want to fit in, I expect it’ll change once he’s older. His sister, who’s more confident, isn’t bothered. Other kids have put on fake British accents and made fun of him before, that’s why he’s sensitive. That’s pretty low level teasing, though, I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for the OP.

@inheritancetrack

Is it really to do with the inter racial adoption or the personality of the foster parents? Many foster parents are totally different to your foster parents and encourage continuing relationships with siblings and natural parents.

If your FP had done these things and talked openly about society, racism and matters important to you, would they have been doing the right thing by you, or would it have been preferable to remain in care?

I suppose that white privilege is the No knowing about these things and not having the foresight about what could happen.

Op were you open with your FC about any racism you experienced. Do you know if they experienced any for having you in the family?

Just thought I’d mention that bbc 4extra have a show on Friday (and presumably available on iplayer) which discusses adoption.

One of the interviewees is a black woman who was fostered and then adopted by a white family. Thought it might interest people on this thread

Thanks for that @Gribbit987, I'll be watching.
I see Lemn Sissay is contributing also.

Looks interesting, I'll try and catch that. I read Lemn Sissay's book, which was not dissimilar to OP's experience, when he was with his foster parents.

@DaddyPiglet

I also don't like to think about the amount of middle aged middle class white couples who can't have biological children adopting babies/young children from vulnerable less fortunate families in order to give them 'a better life'- but that's a separate issue.

Genuinely curious- are you flatly against transracial arrangements? Because biological kids can be brought up without their parents culture, bio kids get racist bullying at school etc.

Care doesn't seem like a better option at all (nor does it solve those potential problems anyway, just creates other ones). Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I’ve met hundreds of adopters over the years and have to say that

1. I’ve never met anyone middle aged who adopted a baby. There are rules about the maximum age between the child and parents.

1. I’ve never met anyone who adopted to give a child a better life. They all adopted for the same reason as most other people - because they wanted to parent a child.

1. Not all adopters are middle class . They come from all social backgrounds. If anything, those who adopt a baby are more likely to be working class.

1. Not everyone who adopts is a couple.

1. Not everyone who adopts “ can’t have biological children “.

1. I’ve never met anyone who actively chose to adopt a child from a “vulnerable less fortunate family “. They simply adopted a child from those waiting for a family. It’s not like they rejected all the children waiting from non vulnerable fortunate families.

So I’d not worry too much about how many of these adopters that you describe are about - because the answer is very few. I’m not saying none of course and I completely accept that you personally know dozens of them.

And of course if you are not happy about the age / ethnicity /social class/ motives of the existing pool of adopters, the way to improve that is to step forward yourself.

As many posters have said, there are many many black children in the system waiting for black families to come forward for them. If enough of these families came forward, there would be very few trans racial placements.

As many posters have said, there are many many black children in the system waiting for black families to come forward for them. If enough of these families came forward, there would be very few trans racial placements.

Yup.

Won’t go into detail about my own experience because it’s too outing however I was disappointed albeit it not surprised to see the grateful term mentioned pretty quickly. Black adoptees experience this so often- no one ever told my white boyfriend he should be grateful to have been born into a pleasant white middle class family, possibly rendering him in the top 1% in the world in terms of luck stakes so why is this a refrain so often levelled at adoptees, who have experienced loss through the severing of a bio relationship (for good or bad) I do not know.
And it’s been articulated far better than me above but experiencing racism when you do not have black role models mirroring yourself within your own family or network, I feel makes it far more difficult to navigate.

I absolutely remember being taught that we should not see skin colour at school in the 80s and 90s. There was no political support for multiculturalism then as it was seen as segregation, and "not seeing colour" was seen as the most right-on way to think, very similar to how the kids say they "don't assign gender" now. Most of us living in completely white towns, including our parents, only learned about black culture through TV- even in the early 90s it was Michael Jacksons "Black or White" pumping out of MTV and The Fresh Prince showing a rich black family living in a predominantly white neighbourhood. With the benefit of hindsight it's very cringey, but at the time very few of us knew any better - no insta, youtube, Google, Wikipedia, Facebook or any of the tools we have now to learn about other cultures. Frankly in the 80s race relations were terrible (e.g. Toxteth riots) so it's unlikely our parents would have taken us out for a day trip to hang out in black-owned businesses.

None of this excuses your feelings in the slightest though, and I'm sorry you've been left with more questions than answers by your bio and Foster families.

(Sorry, I meant none of these are excuses for how you were made to feel, not that you need your feelings to be excused, if that makes any sense at all)

Hi op, I'm really sorry you suffered all the horrible abuse( physically, mentally and emotionally).. being a white person and a mum to 3 bi racial children I have had many people(black and white) come up to me and ask if the children are mine as they are to dark and don't look like me.. personally I turn a blind eye as I birthed them.. personally I think your parents fell in love with you and adored you that's why they adopted you. They didn't look at race and obviously didn't know what would come with adopting a black women..

Op I would say you are a strong women and your parents are very strong and fighters because you have to understand there was a lot of racism back then(providing you are older then I think)... don't see it as they adopted you to benefit from that. I think they actually loved and cared for you.

As for not being around the same culture I suppose it wasn't something they intentionally did.

If you don't mind me asking how old are your parents roughly?

Forgot to answer the initial question, yes I would.

I think something is being missed here.. both 20 years ago and today, it is very very hard for the average black person/family to become adoptive/foster parents. The national statistics for black people being successful at panel is shocking and contributes greatly to the lack of racial/ethnic matches in placement. It is not a small issue.

Also, so many pp are minimising the experiences of the OP and the negatives of her foster placement. To suggest, well its better than staying in care, is cruel and dismisses the significant impact our cultural and ethnic identity has on who we are. It is valid and important. Transracial placements can work however they are complicated and require skilled and attentive carers. It is not something that should be ignored as a secondary issue!

@Loveinacandle

I think something is being missed here.. both 20 years ago and today, it is very very hard for the average black person/family to become adoptive/foster parents. The national statistics for black people being successful at panel is shocking and contributes greatly to the lack of racial/ethnic matches in placement. It is not a small issue.

Also, so many pp are minimising the experiences of the OP and the negatives of her foster placement. To suggest, well its better than staying in care, is cruel and dismisses the significant impact our cultural and ethnic identity has on who we are. It is valid and important. Transracial placements can work however they are complicated and require skilled and attentive carers. It is not something that should be ignored as a secondary issue!

Why are they unsu

Why are they unsuccessful?

I’m a white adoptive mum to a mixed race 17 year old young man.

I think the whole issue of trans racial adoption and fostering is fraught with difficulties, its still relatively rare. I think that’s right. But in certain circumstances it can work.
I never set out to adopt a child with a different ethnicity. He was the child that stood out to me as being the one whose overall needs I could meet. I never thought the social workers would allow it. But when I came along he had been in foster care for nearly 4 years, and was 7 years old. It was me or long term foster care.
We live in a large, diverse city. I made sure he went to schools with very mixed student populations. He has access to books, art, music from his fathers country, most of his heroes are black or mixed race. We have maintained some contact with his black birth family. We have travelled to African countries, though sadly not his father’s home country as it has not been a particularly easy or safe place to travel as a visitor in recent years but we hope to do so soon. We can talk and do talk about issues affecting young black people.

I believe that the ideal for any child is to live happily and safely with their birth family. A child in the care sysyem has already lost that ideal. So then its a case of finding the best option from the pool of adopters.
Nothing will persuade me that it would have been better for my son to stay in foster care rather than be adopted by me just because I am white. I only have to look at his brother, who is in residential care, who at 14 has never had anyone to call mum, and who faces a very uncertain future. I fought for 4 years to foster him and was refused.

Having said that I do see many prospective white adopters who proclaim they just want a child, and they don’t care about ethnicity, but who clearly have given no thought to the issues and implications. It just hasnt occurre to them. I also still see some with a white saviour complex. Hopefully they get filtered out before they got anywhere near a black or aisian child.

no one ever told my white boyfriend he should be grateful to have been born into a pleasant white middle class family, possibly rendering him in the top 1% in the world in terms of luck stakes…

@Nefelibata86. I’m not sure that this is universally true among younger generations, perhaps due to SM as teens today share their lives with their peers worldwide- hence a greater awareness of how other people live? My DD (16) has often expressed how lucky she is to have been born into the circumstances she’s in and definitely recognizes her privilege. I didn’t at her age (I’m late 40’s), she’s far more aware than I was.

Interesting thread OP. To answer your question I think you should be grateful if you was well looked after and happy.

I think you around my mother's age... I can see why you have questions and I would too. That era was tough it's funny because I remember asking my white nana what BOTH her own parents thought when she was pregnant to a black man. Her fathers comments... I will not repeat vile man. My white nanas mother though didn't bat an eye lid and she also looked after children of all races. So we cannot tar all people with the same brush OP.

Maybe your parents were undecated cultrally and genuinely didn't know certain things. I rember my own mum saying she used baby oil often as a hair product... kids were quite racists to my mum and her sis growing up. It sounds quite grim.... my nan also raised her kids in a white area.

mummykel16 · 14/02/2022 19:47
I must be a minority of one, I don't believe race or colour is the be all and end all when it comes to adoption or fostering, that would be love - time - ability.

I'm not looking for a fight but, are you white?

This subject is very triggering for me.
I was adopted by white parents. I'm not white , I'm not actually black either. My birth sister tracked me down, I am now sixty she is seventy.
I was brought home by my birth mother, her husband was not my father.My father wasn't white . Her husband agreed to bring me up as his daughter. But after a few weeks it was obvious that I wasn't white. I was sent back to social services.
I wasn't told about this. Without being dramatic this knowledge has been impossible to deal with.
If I posted this on the other side I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be believed and it would be taken down.
I double dare any white ladies to defend this .
I'm not being aggressive, I'm giving an actual account of being a brown baby here in the UK.