Two (or three?) people sent me this post: High School Haze « A Birth Project. I’ve had her on my bloglines for awhile now and when I read this post I was thinking of Jessica who grew up in a mostly white community and who’s experiences outside her home mirror this in some ways. I know that she has had to defend her blackness to other African American people before. At the same time, because she has black parents, she is able to take for granted her choices in a way that Madison can’t. This makes her the best resource for Madison because she is (obviously) Madison’s mother but also because she straddles two worlds and has most of her life.
It’s another plus for open adoption — I feel very fortunate that Jessica is available to answer my (sometimes stupid) questions and to be a part of our commitment to help Madison forge her African American identity.
But now I’m going to segue to something else I’d been thinking on that is about transracial adoption but isn’t related to the post linked to up there.
One thing I hadn’t understood is how adopting transracially would impact my extended family. When I thought about it, I thought about it in terms of how they would treat our child by adoption. But what I’ve discovered is that adopting transracially has changed the way our relatives think about black people and also how they relate to black people.
What I’m hearing from some relatives is that having Madison in the family has personalized racism for them in a way that’s making them more sensitive to injustice. I am thinking specifically of a relative who ran into an old friend, who is African American, and they were talking about high school (this is why the Birth Project post made me think of it) and when she was listening to the friend she realized in a way she hadn’t before what it must have been for this friend to be one of the only black students in that school. And this led to a discussion that probably wouldn’t have happened if Madison hadn’t been a part of her family.
Because our family has become more sensitive, they are understanding and encouraging when I talk about our struggles to create community for Madison. Because they love Madison, they are more likely to hear (for example) about a friend’s experience in high school and then bring that to us with concern about what they can do to help Madison not feel as alone. I hadn’t expected to find so many partners in our relative and it’s heartening.
Now I have to go shower so I can take Noah to religious school so I can’t write more like I wanted to. Rats.
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About Me
I have two kids and a delightfully odd husband, Brett. My children are Noah (born to us in 1997) and Madison (born to her first mom, Pennie, in 2004 and brought to our family through a domestic, open adoption). They are my inspiration and also the reason I don't get more done around here.
I'm a writer and sometimes I get published, which is a nice thing. I write for joy, I write for money and when I'm very lucky, both things happen at the same time. My work appears in national publications including Yoga Journal, Disney's Family.com, Utne, Wondertime, Brain Child and Salon. Currently I am working on a book about my daughter's adoption and seeking representation for the proposal. I also own Smart Cookie Communications with my husband.
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Jackie
September 10th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
My extended family has had similar experiences, especially my mother, a high school teacher, who has really thought differently about “diversity” and immigrant students since she’s had Hispanic members as a part of her family.
heidi durrow
September 14th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
it’s viral–i am the biracial daughter of a Danish woman and an African-American man. my Danish family, aunts and cousins were incredibly important to me growing up (and still are)– it was only as an adult i realized that they had a very different experience of race than they might have because of me and my brothers–because of my father’s presence as their uncle in their lives. black people (and at that time there were almost no brown people whatsoever in my mom’s hometown) were part of their family and in terms of justice –they should be treated as such –part of their family, part of the bigger danish family and country.