Transracial adoption

Along with all the other considerations adoption brings up that require great thought and more than a little self-examination are ideas about what your child will look like.

For some families, a resemblance running through the clan is a requirement, even if it is only skin deep. Others have no such thoughts, don’t consider race a factor at all and go on the assumption that the child that is meant to be theirs will be just the color he or she should be. There are many who rejoice in the differences and hope to have many colors of the world represented under their roof, and seek out children of different races to add to their family.

Your initial reaction may be something akin to a baby is a baby is a baby, but race can and does matter to many. Because it matters to many, it must matter to you, too.

It’s not all about rainbows

Transracial adoption is not the calm, rainbow-festooned playground the uninitiated may assume it to be. In fact, objections to children of color being adopted by Caucasian families can be vociferous … and although less common, the other way around gets attention, too.

While the first recorded case of a black child placed with a white family happened in 1948*, as recently as the late 1960s some states, Louisiana for one, banned transracial adoptions as part of an effort to maintain segregation and prevent mixed white/black families.

In 1972, it was the National Association of Black Social Workers taking issue with transracial adoption. The organization was fierce in its dedication to the cause against “the placement of black children in white homes for any reason.” So fierce, in fact, that its president insisted that temporary foster care, even institutionalization, was preferable to adoption by white families.

The Child Welfare League of America revised its standards to clarify that same-race placements were preferable, but no laws addressing transracial adoption have ever been passed**.

To this day adoption experts are known to disagree when asked for opinions on transracial adoption. Some feel strongly that children should always be placed in homes where their race is represented. Others, although feeling that same-race placements would be optimal, state race should not necessarily dictate placement. Still others don’t think race should be a consideration on any level, and that there are far more important parameters by which potential families should be gauged.

*This ground-breaking adoption happened in Minnesota where the Johnson family insisted on adopting the child they had parented in foster care from the age of six weeks. When the girl was nine years-old, the Johnsons rejected the advice of their social worker, who deemed the change a bad idea, and adopted their daughter.

**Minority group rights for children are legally enforceable only in the case of Native American children, and only after the 1978 passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

How do you feel?

You’ve examined your motivations for wanting a child and established that becoming a parent through adoption is every bit as wonderful as making a child from scratch. Good. Now, however, it’s time to turn inward again.

Even those who consider themselves to be virtually colorblind when it comes to skin tone may be subject to issues of race that run deep in our culture and may exert influence in ways we aren’t immediately aware of.

Are Asians better at math? Are Blacks better athletes?

Have you ever been aware of making assumptions about people based on their race or ethnic group?

Credits: Sandra Hanks Benoiton