Transracial Adoption at its Best

Ah yes, hot topic still…and probably always will be. In the United States 140,000 children are adopted through agencies and 20,000 are adopted by parents of a different race. However, black children are less likely to be adopted into a family of another race and the laws are not helping.

When the Donaldson Adoption Institutes’s report on transracial adoption came out recently it state that non-black families should not be given first choice to adopt…that same race families should.

But, my opinion was that it left children in foster care because to find a same race family to adopt may not always work out. Should children really be prevented from being placed in a forever home because of their race or their potential parent’s race?

Instead, why not educate transracial parents on culture, send children to schools that are more mixed, or ask that children attend summer camps with children of the same race?

Sure, it is not ideal but it still provides children with part of their culture. Instead of growing up in the white suburbs with all white people they would at least have some background.

One such adoptive mother who has done a good job is Theresa Alden, a mother of two black children, Gavin and Graem. She has set up a support group for families who have adopted children of a different race as well changed her lifestyle.

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.