(For example, learning how to care for and style hair if your child is Black.) This means learning what is valued in your child’s racial culture and implementing those things in your home. This means knowing your child’s racial history and how history impacts the future. This means reading blogs, books, and articles written by those who share your child’s race. Third, you need to stay abreast issues that are important to your child’s racial community. This is most easily done when you choose to live, work, worship, and play in diverse communities. Second, you need to engage in the child’s racial community. Your friends can teach you, encourage you, and advise you. The first and foremost way is to have a diverse group of friends which includes people who share your child’s race.įriends provide the necessary support system you will need to parent transracially. There are several ways adoptive parents can prepare themselves to understand their child’s culture. Too many adoptive parents work to stay personally comfortable rather than make the necessary changes for the benefit of their child’s well-being.Ģ: Understand your child’s racial culture. Many transracial adult adoptees have shared that the best way a parent can mess up a child is by ignoring racial differences, the child’s individual needs, and refuse to adapt to the realities of the adoption situation. You may need to have some serious heart-to-heart conversations with family members who might not been keen on your adoption announcement. You might need to choose a new place of worship. You might need to move neighborhoods or towns or even states. This might mean making many changes and even big changes. Not only is the child wonderful as-is, but the family is adapting and evolving to embrace and incorporate the child’s racial heritage and culture in the home. The parent’s job is to step up the proverbial plate and demonstrate to the child that he or she is wonderful as-is. Your child didn’t choose you or your race, culture, and environment. If you are considering adopting a child whose race is different from yours, here are five things you need to consider:ġ: Adapt to your child, not make your child adapt to you. One needs an incredible amount of patience, empathy, drive, and education. One thing is for certain, parenting transracially isn’t for the faint at heart. I shared the many intricacies and possibilities in my book Come Rain or Come Shine: A White Parent’s Guide to Adopting and Parenting Black Children. Six years of transracial, adoptive parenting has taught me a thing or two about the interesting, complex, and joyful situations that can arise along this journey. I know you’ll enjoy this! Take it away, Rachel… She writes with lots of wit and humor – and you’ll see her passion for transracial adoption. This is a guest post from Rachel Garlinghouse – an author and adoptive mom of three shares from her experience about the 5 things you need to consider before adopting transracially.
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