Complacency

Not too long ago (but long enough ago that I'm a wee bit ashamed this post was not written sooner) I attended a panel discussion on transracial adoption. Here is my big admission: I didn't want to go. I mean, I did, but it was a Saturday afternoon, the Buckeyes were playing in a really big game, kids were restless, hubs didn't want me to go either...etc. Thankfully the collective pull of my tribe forced me to change out of my stay-at-home-mom uniform, slap on some make-up, and head out the door to hear what two authors (themselves transracial adoptees) had to say.

I think a big part of my reluctance to attend was that I didn't want to hear that I wasn't doing enough as a transracial adoptive parent (and a part of me knew that's exactly what I would hear). L had been home for 3 years, B for 9 months and I was feeling happy and content with my kids and my mothering. I was right: a big part of the message I took home was that I was definitely not doing enough as a white parent to children of color. Yet I was also wrong: I expected to feel somehow shamed or scolded by the authors' message and I didn't AT ALL. Instead I left feeling inspired, motivated, and proud of the successes I have had in parenting my children of color.

Both Kevin Hoffman of Growing up In Black and White, and Rhonda Roorda of In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories spoke candidly and with surprising humor of their experience as children of color in a white family. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the I-can't-believe-that-actually-happened moments. I haven't the time to write about specifics (alas, naptime is fleeting), but will just speak to the thoughts that ran through my head in the hours/days following the event.

I had become complacent. I had convinced myself that I was not only doing all the right things, but that there was little left to do. L's hair always looked great, we talk frequently of Ethiopia, she has lots of "brown" friends (L's word for people of color), and so forth. When did I become so focused on her hair? Not sure, but somewhere along the line it became the way I made myself feel like I was doing it "right." Sure I was white, but have you seen my daughter's hair??? What I realized is that while her hair may in fact help her to not stick out from other brown girls as a transracial adoptee, I had completely neglected to provide her with the tools to relate to other brown kids. What happens after the kids look each other oven and decide they all look the same. When the kids start talking about their family life and L can't relate. Doesn't understand because her family is white. 

What became crystal clear to me is that surrounding L and B with other transracially adopted kids (mainly Ethiopian) is great in the sense of them having their own special community where they have friends "just like them,"  but it is certainly not a substitution for finding friends (their age and mine) that can help them to navigate through life as an African American. I simply cannot provide that for them. In the same way I can never help my son understand what it is to be a man, I can never give my children anecdotal advice on what it is to grow up as a person of color. I can empathize, but I cannot relate.

It sucks to realize that, as a parent, you can't provide everything your child needs. I hate the fact that I have to go outside our family to parent my kids. But this isn't about me. I came away from that weekend determined to work harder. Reevaluate often the needs of my kids as they grow older. And to never become complacent.