TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION

When planning to adopt, many prospective parents say that the child’s race or ethnicity does not matter. They believe “that they could love a child unconditionally, regardless of whether they look like them or share their cultural heritage and traditions,” according to the adoption and foster care resource and support network AdoptUSKids. It’s wonderful that adoptive parents feel they can care for any child in need, but it’s a myth that race doesn’t matter. “Learning about and respecting a child’s culture —and finding ways to maintain their connections to it —are critical components to helping an adopted child thrive,” says AdoptUSKids.

Invariably, children of a different race or ethnicity will have questions their parents cannot answer. Though there’s no specific operating manual for how to raise children of a different race or ethnicity, experts advise that parents address the issue instead of ignoring it. To do so could cause long-lasting harm to the child. The multimedia journalist Kaylee Domzalski, who grew up as a transracial adoptee, recently wrote in Slate about how her parents failed to teach her about her Korean heritage or language: “That’s left me with a sense of loss, placelessness, and sometimes regret that I will grapple with for the rest of my life.”

Pepperdine University psychology professor Thema Bryant-Davis recommends that parents create a diverse environment, including identifying potential role models of the same race or ethnicity as their child. Additionally, she says that children must develop their own positive relationships with people of their race, see their parents interacting with people of their race as peers, and learn about the legacy of people who look like them.

Helping a child of another race cope with and respond to racism and discrimination is a hugely important aspect of transracial adoption, but doing so can be tricky for adoptive parents. White parents may be able to feel grief or sadness about incidents that cause racial trauma to their children, but they do not themselves feel vulnerable or targeted. Bryant-Davis believes the best approach is for parents to “honestly acknowledge that you cannot understand the incident in the same way, while also showing compassion.”

Lay the foundation for productive discussions about race by reading books and articles by authors who represent various communities of color and cultures, including Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (2006). Movies about the topic include Off and Running (2010) and Girl, Adopted (2013).