Crash Course for transracial parents

Obtain a kid from overseas recently? Or still fantasizing about rescuing somebody’s orphan? Perhaps you are in the process of saving one of those less expensive kids from foster care?

Slow down, partner! While transracial adoption may be all the rage, most agencies still don’t provide a parenting manual for every white adopter of children of color. No matter how Rich or Famous the parent might happen to be!

But you’re in luck. Here, free of charge, is a Crash Course for transracial adoptive parents. Think of it as your guide to getting the education that you will absolutely need in order to effectively and ethically raise an adopted child of color in the United States (and possibly in comparable white settler nations, such as Canada and Australia).

The unabashed assumption and unapologetic bias behind this Crash Course is that the best teachers of adoptive parents are adult transracial adoptees who have lived through the experiment, especially those adoptees who are also adoptive parents. The second best teachers are experienced transracial adoptive parents who, even though they may not be adoptees or people of color, nevertheless have figured out how to become conscious anti-racist advocates and allies.

Allies, you ask, in what struggles? In the joint struggles against racism and on behalf of adoption reform.

Yes, friends, in order for parents to be able to take full advantage of their teachers’ offerings, new transracial APs need help cultivating the dispositions that will allow them to hear and understand information and suggestions that may be unfamiliar–even if it makes them uncomfortable.

In recognition of this unmet need, our Crash Course is guaranteed to develop the necessary dispositions, attitudes, and orientations that help transracial parents succeed.

So… buckle up. It promises to be a bumpy ride! Ready? Here we go!

Phase 1: These preparatory activities can be done at home alone.

Suggested Timeline: 1-3 months

1. Invest in boxes of tissues or soft cotton handkerchiefs to keep on hand while you proceed through Phase 1. You will find yourself weeping. (No pain, no gain!)
2. Buy or borrow all the books on the Reading List (see below).
3. Read all of them.
4. Subscribe to the blog list (see below).
5. Read these blogs regularly (at least once a month).
6. Rent or buy the films on the Movie List.
7. Watch them all.
8. Keep an Emotional Journal of your feelings as you read books and blogs and watch films that share the perspectives of adult adoptees. Take notes: What makes you feel anxious? What makes you feel comfortable? What makes you angry? Sad? Inspired? Motivated to be the best parent you can be?

Reading List

Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (Trenka, Oparah, & Shin, editors)

The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism (Van Ausdale & Feagin)

In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories (Simon & Roorda)

The Family of Adoption (Pavao)

Real Parents, Real Children: Parenting the Adopted Child (Van Gulden & Bartels-Rabb)

Once They Hear My Name: Korean Adoptees and Their Journeys Toward Identity (Lee, Lammert, & Hess)

Transracial Parenting in Foster Care and Adoption: Strengthening Your Bicultural Family (Iowa Foster & Adoptive Parents Association)

Inside Transracial Adoption (Steinberg & Hall)

Blog List

Harlow’s Monkey

Yoon’s Blur

안녕습니다 Annyeong Seumnida

John Raible Online

Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus

Twice the Rice

Movies List

Adopted: A Film by Barb Lee

Outside Looking In: Transracial Adoption In America

First Person Plural

In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee

Struggle For Identity: Issues in Transracial Adoption

Struggle For Identity: A Conversation 10 Years Later

Phase 2: These interactive activities are best accomplished in a group setting.

Suggested Timeline: 1-3 months

1. Join a group of other adoptive parents, preferably one filled with parents who are more experienced than you (as parents, as members of interracial social networks, as anti-racist allies).
2. Suggest sharing your Emotional Journals at your parent group meetings.
3. Attend adoption conferences where adult adoptees are featured as presenters, organizers, and keynote speakers.

Phase 3: These Ally activities can be done in person in face-to-face dyads, online, at conferences and other events:

Suggested Timeline: Ongoing.

1. Comment on blog posts by adult adoptees. Now that Phases 1 and 2 are behind you, you have become better prepared to engage in relatively painless dialogue with adult transracial adoptees. This is because you now know more about transracial adoption than most people, including your average adoptive parent. You will now be able to speak from an informed perspective, instead of merely talking from an idealized or romanticized narrative of how you wanted transracial adoption to work out for your family. This new orientation puts less of a burden on adult adoptees to educate you from scratch, and relieves them from having to sit through the predictable misinformed and misguided assumptions that adoptees are subjected to, time and time again. It levels the discursive playing field, and allows you, as an aware and informed AP, to begin to engage with adult adoptees as equals, and to hear adoptee voices conveying valid perspectives. It also allows you to resist the preferred view of adult adoptees that is cultivated through the sly positioning accomplished within the adoption industry, that encourages APs to see adoptees only as forever half-formed, under-developed, perpetual children. Instead, you will be able to recognize and appreciate adult adoptee perspectives as valuable gifts of cumulative wisdom that will actually inform your parenting strategies and decision-making. Congratulations on making it this far!
2. On evaluations at adoption conferences, request that more speakers be scheduled who are adult adoptees, especially as keynotes and workshop presenters.
3. Email radio show hosts that do segments on transracial adoption. Ask why they don’t schedule more adult adoptees as guests. Why so many adoptive parent voices?
4. Email cable news networks and hosts of talk shows. Ask why they don’t invite adult adoptees to appear on their shows.
5. Email or write letters to the New York Times, the New Yorker, and other periodicals that have done stories about transracial adoption. Ask why they rarely feature the writing of adult adoptees or birth parents, and why they continue to privilege the perspectives of adoptive parents.
6. Challenge the misinformed biases of other adoptive parents, especially when they attack and chide adult adoptee writers, bloggers, and speakers, for example, for sounding too “angry,” “negative,” “ungrateful,” or “emotional.”
7. Take responsibility for educating other adoptive parents, and encourage them to take this Crash Course themselves.
8. Follow the leadership of adult adoptee activists, social justice workers, and educators when they call for specific actions for adoption reform and racial justice.
9. Speak out. Refuse to be silent, which only perpetuates the status quo within the global adoption industry. Support adult adoptee voices. Support birth families. Support ethical adoption reform now. Fight racism and classism on every front!
10. Listen to adoptees, young and old. Listen to birth parents, especially those from marginalized groups. Listen with an open mind and an open heart.
11. Conspire — literally,  breathe with the adoptees in your life, and with other Crash Course alums and ally APs. Each one, teach one. Now go be an Ally! And thanks for your participation!