@#$% people say to transracial families
Last year, one of my favorite YouTube videos was Chescaleigh’s hilarious @#$% White Girls Say to Black Girls. After watching it, my friend Jillian and I offhandedly said how fun it would be to do one about what people say to adoptive families. Then I posted about it, and you guys gave me even more ideas, and Jillian and I got to work. We enlisted her friend Deb, who is biracial and married to a Jewish guy, and therefore subjected to all kinds of crazy comments herself. We spent a Sunday filming . . .
alerting teachers to adoption-related issues: how much do you divulge, and when?
I don’t talk very much about some of the attachment-related issues that our family deals with. I’m intentionally vague about it, but at the same time I’m not trying to sugar-coat anything. I don’t think it’s honoring to go into detail about all of the ways my child struggles with attachment, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s helpful to other adoptive families who read here to pretend like it isn’t a factor. So I will preface this post by making a sweeping generalization: kids who . . .
parents, please educate your kids about adoption so mine don’t have to
I took the kids to the park the other day, and I was seated just close enough to the play structure that I could faintly overhear a conversation that occurred between Kembe and several older kids. At first, I had a hard time understanding what was being said, but something about Kembe’s posture caught my attention. Typically, he’s a relatively cocky over-confident kid with a lot of swagger., even around older kids. But in this setting he looked . . . almost cornered. He . . .
why are so many celebrities adopting black babies?
In the last month, both Charlize Theron and Jillian Michaels went public with the news of adding to their family through adoption. In both cases, their new additions are black children, which has sparked a flurry of internet commenters to question the “trend” of white celebrities adopting black babies. This conversation has become a predictable subject every time a celebrity adopts a child of color, from the comments section of every blog from People to Huffington Post. It usually . . .
an open letter to circle of moms: adoptive families are not controversial
Last week, there was a bit of an internet kerfuffle over at a website called Circle of Moms. In case you aren’t familiar, Circle of Moms is a website that derives most of its traffic and influence by running contests for “Top 25 Blogger” lists. I’ve been on their lists a few times . . . though after this post I’m guessing I may not be again. Blogging contests are a common way for start-up sites to garner traffic, and it works a little something like this: Circle of Moms . . .
transracial adoption isn’t a big deal. until it is.
One of the questions I’m often asked by prospective adoptive parents is . . . how hard is it to raise a child of another race? This is such a tricky question, because it many ways, it really isn’t hard at all. Race isn’t something I think about in our day-to-day routine. By and large, parenting my boys is no different than parenting my girls. I still have the same hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities as a mom . . . I’m still largely concerned with the day-to-day minutiae that . . .
our documentary debut, the alliance for the study of adoption and culture, and the dramatic debate that wasn’t
About a year ago I was contacted by a graduate film student at USC who was working on a documentary for her final thesis. Her chosen subject was transracial adoption, and she wanted to know if they could follow our family around for a few days and interview us. I was a little uncertain at first . . . with the working title “Color Blind”, I was apprehensive as to how we might be portrayed. (You can read about my issue with the concept of colorblindness here). At the same . . .
it okay to ask if someone’s kids are adopted?
I recently had someone ask me the following on facebook, and I thought it was a good question that I would share here as well: Is it ok to ask if someone adopted, if it appears to be the case? ( example: redhead, fair skinned mom with a black little boy at the dentist the other day.) If so, is it ok to ask questions like where they are from? I am a total question asker by nature.. I love to ask questions. AND I'm interested in adoption personally. So there are times that I'd like to . . .
what I want you to know: being an adopted child
What I Want You to Know is a series of reader submissions. It is an attempt to allow people to tell their personal stories, in the hopes of bringing greater compassion to the unique issues each of us face. If you would like to submit a story to this series, click here. This guest post is by Val. I was adopted right after I was born. My birth mother was young and decided she could not care for me, so I was brought to my family that I know now. I had a wonderful childhood, great parents, and . . .
what I want you to know: adopting a child with down syndrome.
What I Want You to Know is a series of reader submissions. It is an attempt to allow people to tell their personal stories, in the hopes of bringing greater compassion to the unique issues each of us face. (If you are new to this blog, regularly schedule programming will resume after the holidays, but you can check out the “Best Of” section in the meantime). If you would like to submit a story to this series, click here. This guest post is by Ursula.. I want you to know that I am madly . . .
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