Daddy, Daddy, somebody called me the name that rhymes with trigger.
Apr 26 '02
The Bottom Line There is a lot to learn about adoption, but racism has no place in it.
After a year of doing Child Abuse Investigations for the state of Georgia, I’m currently working at the other end of the spectrum attempting to put families together, in Foster Care and Adoptions.
Adoption is supposed to a joyous and yet an emotionally challenging process for families. However there are a lot of issues in adoption, and when it comes to “Transracial Adoption” that adoptive and foster parents, professionals and the children face many more challenges. Yet despite the challenges of Transracial adoption it can lead to a rewarding and eye opening experience for the entire family.
While in training I recently had the opportunity to watch two wonderful movies. The first film titled “Struggle For Identify, “Issues In Transracial Adoption” and the second by North Bay Adoption title “Visible Differences”.
If terms like “Transracial,” “Biracial,” “Multiethnic,” “Interethnic” are new to you then don’t be alarmed, although I personally hate labels, they are currently used in my profession to describe various classes of people. For example the term “Transracial Adoption” simply means the joining of racially different children and parents together into one adoptive family.
Both films I watched presented lots of information about “Transracial Adoption” and its affect on the family. It’s important that people understand the feelings of “Transracial Adoptions”. Not only did the films point out society’s prejudice against “Transracial Adoptions”, but it also showed how negative the general public could be when it comes to adopting children.
One of the worst things people can say to adoptive family is, “Oh, you are so wonderful for adopting those little bi-racial children.” Not only does this statement make the children feel awful, but also it often places the parent in a difficult position.
Children should not be the testing ground for people searching to resolve their own racial issues. Adoption in itself is already is a painful process, however when anyone adopts outside of their ethnic origin you can expect the children to ask difficult questions and go through some challenging stages.
One child in the film “Struggle For Identity, Issues In Transracial Adoption” stated, “I hated America for the longest time. I’ve grown to love it now…but if they had asked me as a kid, I would have told them that I wanted to go back to my country” another child stated, “Daddy, Daddy, somebody called me the name that rhymes with trigger.”
In the second film titled “Visible Differences” one bi-racial brown skinned child asked the following question of their adoptive mother, “You are white, why would you want to adopt a child who is not white?” plus the adoptive parents discussed how they handled their children when they went through what was titled and “anti-white” phase.
As a Social Worker I help children and families tackle the tough issues as the child struggles for their identity and the family works hard at battling society negative feelings about adoption. We all must be sensitive to the wide variety of personal, social, and economic and cultural differences that children and adoptive parents bring to the table.
Adoptive parents should try and balance their differences with their recognition of similarities, there is only one race and that’s the human race. Transracially adopted children should have exposure to people of various backgrounds so that the family as a whole can feel comfortable in their differences.
Bottom line: People who really want to parent realize race is not an issues; it’s about parenting a healthy child. Thanks to the 1994 legislation such as the Howard M. Metzenbaum Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA), which prohibits an agency or entity that receives Federal monies and is involved in adoptive or foster care placements from delaying or denying the placement of a child on the basis of the race, color, or national origin of the adoptive or foster parent, or the child involved.
Racism and other the other “ism’s” is something that should be addressed not only by the family and community but by society as a whole since it harms everyone, it has no place in adoptions.
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