One aspect of this adoption that we realized we hadn’t mentioned on the blog is how it will create a transracial aspect to our family, which we are simply thrilled about. Our precious little one is African-American and Caucasian!
While filling out mountains of paperwork, we had to answer quite a few very challenging questions, one of which was what racial and ethnic backgrounds would we be receptive to. Our first response was that of course, we’d accept any baby that was given to us, but we realized we needed to do a lot of praying to be sure that was the right answer for us. We knew that we had to consider the additional challenges we would encounter raising a child of a different race and ethnicity and be prepared to raise our child with an educated, intentional plan to ensure she would grow up confident and comfortable with all aspects of her racial/ethnic makeup. We also knew that our lack of experiencing prejudice would require us to readjust our views of the world and strive to understand things we may not have even considered before.
There are lots of resources out there to help but don't get too caught up in what others say you should do. Every kid is so different. Each of mine have handled being in a multi-cultural family differently, although your sweet little girl will know who her birth mom is and that will probably be important. Both of my kids so wanted to know who their parents were. Of course, now we are getting to start all over again with Caleb, who is actually bi-racial, and we're adding yet another culture to our family mix.
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