When Theresa Alden adopted two black boys from an agency in
Philadelphia, she changed her lifestyle for them and they changed
her outlook on race.
Alden, who is 50 and white, started attending a black church near
her home in Lancaster, established a network of black friends and
acquaintances, began listening to more black music and buying
children's books by black authors.
"My boys will be in a minority here. How do you face the issues
that go along with that?" she said when asked about her attempts to
give them role models and points of reference.
Alden's children, Gavin and Graem, are two of around 140,000
adopted in the United States each year. Of those, around 20,000 are
adopted by adults of a different race.
But black children in foster care are less likely to be adopted
into a family than children from other races and US laws governing
adoption are failing, according to a major new report.
One of those laws requires state agencies to seek adoptive homes
with people of the same ethnic background but prevent a child from
not being placed in a home on the basis of race or ethnicity.
There are many reasons for the imbalance that gives a vulnerable
group - black children in foster care - an added disadvantage, said
Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B Donaldson Adoption
Institute, which published the report.
Some parents say children adopted from foster care will be harder
to bring up, while others are nervous about bureaucracy surrounding
the process of adopting from foster care or reluctant to deal with
the complexity surrounding race when it comes to adopting black
children.
The trend worries social workers, not least because black children,
who represent 15% of all children in the country, make up 32% of
those waiting for adoption - more than any other group.
"The system is not getting them into the homes at the rate they are
supposed to," Pertman said.
We'll miss you
Transracial adoption, particularly of black children by non-black
parents, raises complex issues in a country with a history of
discrimination and a struggle to overcome it.
The process was illegal in many states before the 1960s because it
violated laws about racial mixing.
Some people challenge whether it is appropriate for white parents
to bring up a black child, fearing that the child's black cultural
heritage will be lost.
In one example, Betsy Hyder, who with her husband adopted two black
children in Georgia, said people regularly affirmed her decision to
adopt transracially but not all.
Once at a hospital, a black man told her boy "We'll miss you, young
man" as though she had stolen a child from its race, said Hyder,
who now lives in California.
"What's weird is that in my (family) life we feel so normal. I
can't imagine us being together any other way but I know that's not
how we are perceived (by all)," she said.
Children brought up by parents of a different race can feel
inferior to people from their own race but also superior or just
isolated from them, said Joseph Crumbley, a consultant, family
therapist and author of books on transracial adoption.
Acceptance
One finding of the Donaldson report said parents seeking to adopt a
child from another race should get more help in dealing with the
complexities of the decision.
The laws require training for parents adopting from another country
but offer no similar help for parents adopting an American child
transracially on the grounds it would conflict with the ideal of a
"colour-blind" society that does not take race into account.
But the debate over how to make transracial adoption serve a
colour-blind ideal, while reasonable, should be framed around the
best interests of the child, according to Pertman.
Since adopting Gavin and Graem in 2002 and 2003, Alden has set up a
support group for families who have adopted children of a different
race.
While settled about her family and confident about her children's
ability to form a positive racial identity, she said her own views
on race had been altered by her experience.
"As soon as someone sees our family we look different and the
questions that come up are out of ignorance. It's not that people
are trying to be unkind, it's just that they are just not aware,"
said Alden.
"If you adopt a girl from China then you are high on the acceptance level of the population around you ... As the (child's) colour gets darker, it's less accepted by your community, your church, your city, your people."
