The Pros And Cons Of Transracial Adoption

Trans-Racial Adoption
Transracial adoption is as simple as it sounds, just like adoption you have a married couple looking to have a child of their own, and it is also when a couple adopts a child from a completely different ethnic or racial group from their own. As easy as it sound, transracial adoption is no easy task and is usually seen as a complicated process due to the variety of obstacles it brings not to just the family who is adopting a child who’s background is different from their own, but also issues for the child itself. Even though transracial adoption is plagued with problems it should not be frowned upon and discouraged as many of these problems can be fixed and taken care of as long as it is handled correctly.
The most infamous
issue of transracial adoption is loss of identity. To start off, the loss of identity is the process in which everything that has to do with the adoptees background that ranges from who their birth parents to their cultural heritage are stored away and never revealed to them through out their life. This problem also varies depending on the age of the adoptee, for example if the adoptee is around the age of 10 or older might face culture shock and needing to adopt into a new way of life that is different from the one they grew up in before being adopted.
Now if the adoptee was to be a baby this won’t be much of a problem as they are too young to know the difference in change, but this doesn’t save for the fact that as they get older with age they might start questioning a few things, such as a African American child who’s adoptive parents are Caucasian might ask why their skin color is black when their parents are white. Usually to counteract this issue it is highly suggested that parents look for a child to adopt that closely fits their ethnicity and race, but even this fails at times as not every parent will be able to adopt the right child that meets these demands, leading them to either adopt a child different from their own race and ethnicity or to not adopting at all. Some parents who do get the child that matches their background also tend to try to give off the appearance that the child, especially if it is a baby, was born within the family, not outside, families like this are usually known as “as if” families, a topic which was brought up in Mary Lyndon Stanley’s book Making Babies Making Families, in this book she discusses the various topics about adoption, one of them being the loss of identity through the method that is used by “as if” families, in which the family who is adopting ends up sealing away the birth records and anything else that has to do with the original birthparents of the child, giving off the illusion that they were born within the family and not outside of it. These “as if” families and the solution used by them is still quite the controversial one, many tend to argue that doing this only makes the damage of loss even more severe for the child.
One other struggle of transracial adoption, if not obvious is race, as mentioned earlier it is usually suggested to adoptive parents to adopt a child of their same race, though not all parents mind what race their adopted child should be, but this does have its drawbacks.
Besides living in modern times racism is still a big issue as it was years ago, such as discrimination. Adoptive parents usually face this issue not from within the family from outside and do not realize this problem until later on. One account is from Carrie Goldman, “I was beginning to see how rampant racism was. The news was terrifying: story after story that broke my heart and unnerved me. The lack of books, movies, even greeting cards featuring people of color was disheartening. And the slew of questions and comments we faced as a transracial, adoptive family continued. I began to take everything to heart, and it all boiled down to a few key questions: Am I enough parent for my child? Is she going to be ok?”(Transracial Adoption: Eating Humble Pie without Dropping Crumbs). Many of these parents who usually feel the same way like this are also those who have adopted African Americans, with this they tend to attract the attention of others from the same race as their adopted child and are at times mocked, made a fool of and question by some even telling them that they should have just adopted someone that was their race. The attack on race does not stop there as the adopted child also tends to get the same results, giving them the feeling that they are unwelcomed amount society due to being different and ultimately leading to the feeling of being singled out amongst the other normal children who have normal parents and were not adopted. While all this seems to be another negative outcome of transracial adoption it does have a solution just like the other problems. Adoptive parents should let the child know, specifically when they reach a age of understanding, that some people in society will
simply not accept their way of life, and though it feels as if the entire world is against they should keep a leveled head and not be brought down and not only that but not feel left out as there are many others just like them around the world that face this issue of discrimination.
At the end transracial adoption should be highly encouraged and never looked down upon as race should never matter when it comes to adoption, sure it might bring in difficulties in the life of both the parents and the child, but even these issues have a way around just as long as it is handled properly, after all this is a child’s life that deserves to be raised and treated like one, not kept in secrecy as no matter what is kept from them they will in time realize that something is not right, and when they do they deserve to know the truth.