My husband and I have been adopting transracially for 9 years and have almost forgotten that our large multi-racial family is still an anomaly in the United States. On Christmas Day, our local paper ran an interview and published an internet slideshow about who we are and how we are living. I was amazed at the outpouring of support that the article has generated and saddened as I received the negative as well. But out of those negative comments much good has come. Here are a few of the benefits that I am praying over today.
- It has been so good for me to hear from the people who think it is wrong for us to adopt Black kids, because it reminds me to pray that God will raise up more Black families who are willing to adopt.
- It is good for me to be accused of adopting simply for the income generated through adoption subsidies, because it is a common fallacy that profit can be made through adoption, and I need to speak truth about it.
- It is good for me to be accused of neglecting the children in my home, simply due to the number there are, because it reminds me to look into each one’s eyes every day and affirm them that they are precious and not a burden — that there is not one I would rather not have in my home.
- It is good for me to be accused of seeking public recognition because I must in all things give Glory and Praise to God who sustains our every breath. What a blessing it was that both the article and slideshow ended with the name of God.
- It is good for me to have strange men in my house, men of the press, and have nothing to hide. No need to diminish or lessen what we believe. No need to pretend we are living this life for any other reason than obedience.
- It is good for me to be publically criticized for the obedience of adoption — for it is a criticism not of me but of God who builds our families to reflect His own perfect plan. In the big picture of my life I would rather take the world’s rebuke and God’s praise on any day.
This is actually a question I have posed to myself — tongue in cheek — because we have had five of our children placed with us during the days immediately before Christmas and have wrestled with the same dilemma each time. The problem isn’t whether we should celebrate the birth of Christ, but whether we should invest in the economic side of how we do it in America. Tree, gifts, spiral ham and sparkling cider — we are not talking about gross excess here, but the simple things that are a traditional part of our culture. It’s the question of spending money that does not absolutely have to be spent while we are facing the inevitable reality of significant bills related to adoption.
Adoption number seven: it seems like I should be able to manage it in my sleep. Unfortunately, the truth is that I have spent more time researching grants, evaluating state statutes and exchanging emails with agencies on this adoption that I have on any of the other six. Naively, I would have assumed that things would have gotten easier with this many successful transracial adoptions under our belt, but in fact, now we just have enough experience to see the larger picture rather than the limited one we had with our first adoption — so it’s still an exhausting process.
I also know that if I had set those expectations up in my heart, it would have been much harder to experience the growth I needed in order to mother my Black kids well.
Not everyone was actually against us adopting, but there were sure a lot of concerns being voiced and it made me sad and unsure for a season.
answer to the problems we experience. Thankfully, my kids are not wholly defined by the fact that they were adopted, it is just one part of who they are, and just like their racial identity it isn’t the whole.