Transracial Adoption | this woman's work

I'm sick of celebrity adoption

Apr 282010

I don’t even want to talk about it. One blog, that’s it. (Oh and a couple of facebook comments. Whatever.)

So Sandra Bullock has a baby now and somehow she was approved for a transracial adoption with a then-husband who had some kind of Nazi fetish.*

Ok, so social workers aren’t psychic but if Sandra had an inkling about her husband’s Nazi memorabilia at his office (and his dad knew about it, says reports, so I believe Sandra did, too) then what the hell was she thinking.

Now I’m wondering if it’s an open adoption and what the first mom thinks about how it’s all gone down. Did she choose the family? She’s got to know who has her kid now if she didn’t seeing as how he’s on the cover of People magazine.

Argh.

* Not that I think Nazi-fetishists should have access to white babies either but Nazi-fetishists raising children who were once killed by Nazis, well, that’s a special kind of screwed up.

More on Madison's conversation

Adoption 14 Responses »

Nov 222009

Maybe said (referring to how Madison thinks Pennie is prettier than I am):

Another thought I had – it’s positive that Madison sees a woman of color as being petty – this will help her identify with with other woman of color as she matures and not try to trick herself into thinking she is “white.” I’ve read so many stories about TRAs believing themselves to be white and rejecting all aspects of their natural heritage while they are young, only to be forced to face it upon adulthood (or when trying to forge bonds with a community of similar heritage, ie. a Korean student group at college, etc.)

That is nice, true but the very next part of the conversation was this:

Me: You look a lot like Pennie.

Madison: Yes, I’m pretty like Pennie, too.

Me: Pennie has a gorgeous smile and you have a gorgeous smile, too.

Madison: Yes, but I still wish I was white!

Me: Why?

Madison: Because … because … it’s just easier. You don’t know how it feels to be adopted!

Madison’s racial identity is very tied up in her adoption, which makes perfect sense. I’m not sure how that will impact her adult racial identity because I haven’t read any memoirs, research, etc. that are about transracial OPEN adoptions. I think most of the issues in closed adoptions are there but I think they ring differently. I used to naively think that openness would make up for a lot of the problems in transracial adoption but five years into it, I think it’s just a different way of experiencing them.

Madison’s interest in IFIF (the support group for all multiracial families that actually caters most to black adopted kids with white parents) is that most of the children there also have birth mothers. She is very intrigued that there are other people who don’t match their families AND who have birth mothers.

I don’t know how it would be if our adoption weren’t open. I’m not sure how her racial identity would be forming differently (if it would be forming differently). Sometimes she says she wishes we were black and sometimes she says she wishes she were white. I think this is another way of saying she wishes she weren’t adopted. (She doesn’t know any children who were adopted who DO match their parents — she knows adults but not kids. So to her, adoption is not matching.)

If there was less or no openness, she might be less forthcoming with her feelings (I’m not sure about that but I think her experiences give her something to hang her processing on so I think much of her discussion would be happening more internally if she didn’t have the language around her experiences in openess to make sense of her feelings.) If she were not trancially adopted, I also think her adoption processing might be less because it would be easier for her not to think about it and she would also be able to keep her adoption closeted if she chose. I think that both the openness and the transracialness of her adoption are part of what makes her so cognizant of her experience and so articulate about it.

Here’s another thing she said recently that I thought was interesting.

Brett and I were driving and she was in the backseat and I was teasing Brett. I said, “If you knew that the road led to HERE [we were having a glamorous day of cleaning out the basement and we were running errands beforehand], would you have had second thoughts about getting down on one knee to ask me to marry you?”

And Madison pipes up, “But Mommy! If you didn’t say yes, I wouldn’t exist!” then she corrected herself. “If you didn’t say yes, who would Pennie have found to give her baby to?”

You see, it’s very concrete for her.

Just to be clear

Uncategorized 7 Responses »

Jul 302009

That last post? I’m not looking for any pats on my head and I’m also not beating myself up. I haven’t worked hard enough at this. I’ve made half-assed attempts (including preschool) and when those didn’t get her the community I felt like she needed (she wasn’t expressing it yet), I quit looking (again because she wasn’t expressing it yet). I never did get her in dance class last year because I ended up getting a job and my schedule went to hell. I mean, I have plenty of excuses but Madison is not interested in hearing my excuses.

But there are resources here and we can avail ourselves of them.

I wrote that post for two reasons:

First because I love Madison’s self-assured, straight forwardness. I love that she has told me this explicitly. I love that she can verbalize her feelings about being the only black person in our family. I love that. I love her. She is awesome.
Second because I think if I only write about when I get it then I am a big liar and nobody should read a big liar. I (with Pennie’s help and Madison’s big mouth) kick ass on the adoption stuff (usually) but clearly need to work on the transracial stuff. It’s not like Madison gets to compartmentalize her reality but I know that I am prone to do this. (Dealing with adoption can wear me out emotionally and then I drop the ball on the transracial stuff ‘cuz that wears me out, too. But you know, Madison doesn’t get to pick and choose so I really need to get big picture really quickly.)

But Columbus has resources and those resources aren’t really all that hard to utilize, especially now that she’s schoolage. Given that she refused preschool (oh our delightful affirmative action preschool with a black teacher and black kids!) I just let it go for awhile especially once the constraints of my job kicked in. But now we’re more in our work-a-day groove and come fall there will be stuff to do. And we need to get to IFIF, no excuses. Well, except for the plethora of bar/bat mitzvahs coming up. (sigh) Well, we’ll just split it up then — one parent to one and the other parent to the other. We’ll figure it out because we HAVE to.

And next year? If the budget allows (please god, make the budget allow!): Pact Camp!!!!

Madison is mad (and she should be)

Adoption 24 Responses »

Jul 292009

Madison is mad at me because a few weeks ago I told her we were going to go meet some other black kids who are adopted and have white parents. Only the playgroup got rained out.

We went last year but hadn’t been back since. You know how it is — Saturdays get busy what with soccer and playdates and family dates and, well, they get busy.

Like that’s an excuse.

Madison is still mad and she has every right to be.

“I don’t like being the only black person in this family!” she’s been saying. “It is LONELY!”

She’s tired of not matching us. She’s tired of being the only brown person and not just in our family.

“At the pool?” she told Noah after a trip to the swim club in Clintonville. “There were NO OTHER BLACK KIDS!”

Then the other day while playing with her Fisher-Price people she suddenly came over and thrust one into my face.

“There are no black people in here,” she told me. “Get some!”

We’ve been driving to a park where there are only other black kids and Hispanic kids and she has been in heaven. It’s not as close as the track but it’s near enough and Brett and I can take turns running on the trails while the other one watches Maddie plays tag and hide-and-seek.

The last time we were there I pointed out to Noah that he was the only white kid on the playground.

“Well, that feels weird now that you said that,” he said. “But I hadn’t noticed it before.”

“Madison notices,” I told him. “Imagine how it feels to be her.”

He grimaced.

I emailed the Daisy Scouts people and asked about troops in the neighborhood over the way where my sister lives and where her white family is in the minority. They said they’d get back to me as we got closer to fall. Madison doesn’t want to wait.

“I want some black friends now!”

But she really wants black friends with white parents because she needs other people who get it.

Which is why we’re writing the next IFIF meeting in ink on our calendar. I think five years is a long enough time to fail her, right?

List post! Because I'm busy

Adoption, Race, The Story of My Life, work work work 6 Responses »

Jun 302009

1. The other day Madison told us that sometimes she wishes we (her family) were all black. Noah and I were talking about this book, (which was excellent). It’s a slim middle reader about a white boy confronting his own racism and Noah asked me to read it. So we were talking about it and I said something like, “I bet Madison gets sick of being the only black person in the room almost all the time” in the context of talking about Daisy scouts next year (we’re looking at a couple of troops where most of the girls are black) and Madison, “Oh yeah I do!” and then she said, “I get tired of being the only black person in this FAMILY! Sometimes I wish you were ALL black!” Then she posited that we adopt a baby sister to be black with her but Noah told her she’d have to share her room so she decided Daisy Scouts was good enough IF they serve snack.

2. I am not surprised that Madison gets tired of being the only black person in our family and I’m freaking proud as hell of her for being able to say it and say it without hesitating. I want her to OWN her feelings because lord knows she has a right to them. I told her that sometimes I wish we were all black, too, and I’m sorry that sometimes it feels lonely in the family. People don’t think she notices but she does. I can see her noticing at every family BBQ. I can’t fix this for her (because I don’t have the emotional fortitude to adopt again even if I could scrape up the money) but I can hear her and believe her and affirm her feelings.

3. I thought of this affirmation bit when I was watching the trailer to this documentary: Off and Running. There are several parts that broke my heart (I can’t wait to see it) but there are two bits that really stayed with me. One was where her mom says, “I’m going to tell you who you are…” and then proceeds to define her daughter only within the context of her adoptive family. Now I don’t know what she said before or after so I’m not talking about this particular mom here but I was thinking about how so many of us adoptive parents don’t see our kids in the context of their whole lives including their beyond-adoption existence. I mean, we don’t see them beyond the context of us. The other part that got to me was when the interviewer asks the young woman if she feels black and she says, “I don’t know what that means.” I want Madison to know what that means.

4. We’re out of coffee but I found a lone diet coke in the ‘fridge. It’s totally not the same but it’ll get me through the morning before I can head to the grocery store. I mention this in case there are embarrassing typos here. It’s the weakness of the diet coke caffeine.

5. Running has improved except that the last time I ran I ended up with a really bad shin splint that was swollen and throbbing. I’ve been icing it for two days and hoping that I don’t have to stop. The thing is with shin splints is that you have to rest but also your legs won’t get stronger if you don’t work them so it’s a balancing act. (I hear shin splints a’re caused by weak ankles, which makes sense to me.) Running has improved my mood, insomnia and occasional headaches. I only noticed the headache part last night when I was taking an ibuprofen for the shin splints and realized I hadn’t hit that bottle for a headache in awhile. But see I just typed that and I have a headache now. I think that’s the diet coke.

6. Last time I ran I was thinking about how I would decorate the waiting room in my office when I have a counseling practice one day. I was thinking about how I wouldn’t want to have glossy magazines because I think glossy magazines do more harm than good so I was thinking about what reading material I would have. It was very pleasant. Until my shin splints started acting up.

7. I get so excited when I think about this new career path! It has so many possibilities and so many different directions. I’m also really grateful for the time I spent full-time freelancing for helping me understand where my strengths lie and what kind of work environment best suits me. Honestly, even with the networking and the late-paying clients, that time spent full-time freelancing was the happiest I’ve ever been work-wise. Seeing a way to getting back to the great parts of it makes me really happy.

8. I’d love to dip my toe back in the freelance waters but can’t figure out the time to find work (it’d have to be really the right kind of projects because I’m so busy) and also what exactly I’d do. I keep doing these speaking engagements and speaking is the best way to find clients, right? (It really is the best way to drum up business.) I do the speaking because I love it but then I have nothing to offer to anyone who wants more after. I don’t have a business, I don’t have a product. So I’ve been thinking about very small consulting — what would that look like? Nothing too big because I don’t want to get back into the whole mess but just something where I could say, “Yes, I could do this for you” because generally after I talk people approach me looking for something and I have nothing to share. It’s too lazy of me. But I have time to think on it because I don’t have any speaking engagements coming up.

9. I recently gave a very touchie-feelie talk about blog narrative that I enjoyed even though the audience was slow to start. I had no idea what to expect (it was at PodCamp Ohio) and we were rushing through my presentation so I kept stopping to try to egg people into volunteering info. When they did I was impressed by how much people shared — it was a really brave audience. I’m getting in touch with my touchie-feelie side professionally. Now that I don’t have to be all selling and stuff. I’d much rather ask how people are feeling than ask about their expected ROI (return on investment). I hate talking in acronyms and jargon.

10. So they cut Brett’s hours at work yesterday. It’s a temporary thing (probably — unless it isn’t) and I’m worried but not just for us. It’s a family business; we know and love the family. I’m worried for all of us. It means we can save on childcare, which is good but things are tight around here and we don’t have a whole lot of wriggle room.

11. It shouldn’t but for me it adds some tension in our open adoption. Pennie honestly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about money as long as her daughter is fed and clothed decently. We were both raised by single parents and we have a similar class background and our values around money are also very similar. But I still feel like I’ve let her down when we can’t whisk her off to dinner when she comes over. She would never expect it. Never ever. And she’s made us dinner tons and tons of time, too, so it’s not like being the blustering big shots is even a dynamic in our open adoption but still I feel it. I want to shower her new baby with gifts and spoil her rotten and I hate that I can’t. Even though I know she understands, I still hate it. I just hate being broke and I hate being ashamed of being broke because I know (theoretically) that there’s no shame in it — we’re working as hard as we can and then a little bit harder (because not only is our A/C broken but so is our dishwasher). And it’s not like we’re alone in our current economic struggles but still.

12. Again with the plus side — I keep thinking about this. See, if I’m a counselor than all of these trials and tribulations? It’s a good thing because it breeds compassion. If I get a client in an economic crisis or struggling with career choices? I’m there, full of empathy.

13. Not that I mean to end on unlucky 13 but looks like I have one more thing to add. I’m short-term pessimistic (very worried about hanging in there until the economy creeps back — did I mention the severe state funding woes that make me a touch nervous about the state of my own job???) but I’m long-term optimistic. The reality is that Brett and I could both lose our jobs and there’s not a whole lot out there to replace them. That’s just facts. But other than keeping my eye on the big picture and trying to keep a lot of crazy-ass balls in the air, what can I do? We know our jobs want to keep us around and that the powers that be there will do what they can to keep things going so we’ll just keep doing the best we can and keep cutting costs (although there aren’t a whole lot left to cut really — we’ve always been frugal and there comes a point where there aren’t really many extras to go) and hold on to each other when we get scared. At least we’re paying our bills.

14. Ok, I’ll end on 14. I’ll end on an up note. I have great kids. I have a great husband. I have fabulous, fabulous friends in real life and through the magic of the computer. I’ve got a job I like with co-workers I adore and long-term plans that make me giddy. And I’ve gone from not being able to jog one lap around the track to running a mile plus without stopping. (Ok, PLODDING a mile plus but still!) I just had to mention the money stuff because the anxiety is an underlying hum in our lives right now and it’s a blog of my life, right? Right. So there you go.

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