February. Transforming: Bring a Higher Love

At the intersection of St. Valentine’s Day and Black History Month, this short month brings so many foundational elements of identity, relationships, and differences for families to explore. Love is a vital ingredient for all families but adoption and difference of race make it imperative the love moves beyond the transactional and into the transformational.

February Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

Transracial Journeys invites your family to experience the calendar in a whole new way. With the help of the June-in- April Calendar Conversation Cards, each month your family is invited to use the cards as a tool for more regular and intentional conversations about identity, family relationships, and differences of race and culture.

Each month has four cards with conversation starters. The prompts and questions are designed to spark reflection and ongoing dialogue within your family as well as with extended family and friends. There is no prescriptive way to use the cards, sometimes parents or grown-ups can take the lead and ask the questions and other times, children can go first.

February Pro-Tip for Parents: 

• Explore the calendar conversation cards on your own and think about the prompts/questions - maybe even write a few things down that come up.
• Have conversations with other trusted grown-ups first and anticipate any questions that may come from the children/ young people.
• Be sure you are centered and ready before diving into the conversations.
• If you already have these kinds of conversations with your children, challenge yourself to take it to the next level.
• Explain to children their role and how they will be able to ask questions to you as their parent/caregiver.
• Keep the cards handy so you can use them any time. Consider setting them near the family dinner table or place where you gather as a family.
• Challenge yourself and also give yourself grace - these conversations are necessary and can be difficult.

CARD ONE: IDENTITY

• What is one thing you love about yourself?
• What is one thing you love about me?
• What is one thing you love about someone else in our family?

CARD TWO: RELATIONSHIPS

• Who was the first person you loved?
• Do you think it can be hard to love people sometimes?

CARD THREE: EMBRACING AND FACING DIFFERENCES OF RACE AND CULTURE
• What makes us different?
• What makes us similar?
• What are some new ways we can honor and celebrate Black Excellence, Joy and Resilience?

This post is from our February, 2024, email newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe.  You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long.  And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp.


February Intersections: Love and Black History Month

With St. Valentine’s Day and Black History Month, this short month brings so many foundational elements of transracial adoption to explore.

February Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send our families conversation cues each month, from our Transracial Journeys card deck, given to all our families that attend Family Camp. The card deck contains three converstion cards for each month, designed for the children to ask their parents. Below are the questions for February. Before letting your child get started, prepare by reading the parent pro-tip, from the Parent Guide, each month.

February Pro-Tip for Parents: Be extremely honest with yourselves about what may be a real lack of knowledge and experience with differences of race/class/culture prior to parenting transracially. As you think about this, also think about ways you are addressing and will continue to address this lack.

CARD ONE: IDENTITY
• What is one thing you love about yourself?
• What is one thing you love about me?

CARD TWO: RELATIONSHIPS
• Who was the first person you loved?

CARD THREE: EMBRACING AND FACING DIFFERENCES OF RACE AND CULTURE
• What makes us different?
• What makes us similar?
• What are some new ways we can honor and celebrate Black Excellence, Joy, Resilience?

This post is from our February, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe.  You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long.  And lastly, you'll always be made aware of important dates for Transracial Journeys Family Camp.


February Featured Article

How Do We Balance Love, Black History and the Reality of Police Brutality?

author: Avril McInally

It’s February. Our chronologies and calendars feature both Black History Month and Valentine’s Day (read this month's parent conversation theme, February Intersections: Love and Black History Month). Fresh on our minds, is the recent murder of Tyre Nichols. As we attempt to process the pain and the confusion, we are reminded of how vital it is to the intricacies of the Black experience and celebrate Black excellence every single day of the year. As the world and our media shouts, “love, love, and more love” and “Black history is important and relevant,” we sit with the reality of how urgent it is for white people to be anti-racist and work to truly have empathy for what it means to be a Black person in the world today!

I began writing this column around the release of the deadly beating of Tyre Nichols’ video - January 27, 2023. While sorting out my own complicated thoughts and emotions on whether or not to “witness” the video, I held a twin reckoning of my children’s reactions to seeing the video. How do I do this? How do I hold my own fear and concern while making space for my children’s fears also? Then, my phone blew up with text messages from other parents, who were like me, worried not only about their children seeing the video but also their extended family members of adoption, their friends and the Black community at large. Like them, the concern snowballed quickly from my family, to my community to the more universal community of Black and brown folk living with these brutal conditions of race in America day in and day out! How to love? How to respect? How to protect? How to care? How to have compassion? How to make change? How to engage? These are all questions we can ask ourselves not only at times like this (when, absurdly, the media is celebrating February’s themes of love and Black beauty while simultaneously featuring assaults on Black people), but all year long.

In part 5 of April’s, “How to Love a Transracially Adopted Person”, she writes, “I can’t help but wonder if all of these losses of our Black and Brown brothers and sisters are actually my Black and Brown brothers and sisters. I wonder if I will lose members of my family of origin before I find them. I wonder if they are ok and as I am worrying about them I realize I need people to worry about me and wonder if I am ok. I need my loved ones around me to recognize that these heartbreaking losses hit me different and I am losing part of myself.”

How are you checking in with your children right now? How are you supporting them and listening to them? How are you checking in with the Black and Brown community and showing them support and love too? This awareness and diligence is my forever Valentine to my children and to the people who share their race.

In the words of Nikki Giovanni, remember:

"Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us."

This post is from our February, 2023, e-newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe.  You will get invitations to our Parent Meet-Up each month, a virtual meeting to act as a transracial adoption support group - sharing issues, ideas and strategies for creating a culture of communication and curiosity in your home, as well as monthly card prompt to keep the conversations about race, adoption, family, love and relationships front and center all year long.


Who Do You Love?

In February, we honor Black History and it’s also the month lean into love.  In April’s February card for identity, she opens the door for children to ask parents: “What is one thing you love about yourself?” and “What is one thing you love about me?”  Let’s break those questions down a bit more….

Whether you sit down with your children or not, ask yourself, what do I love about my child? Write down your answer. I know there’s loads to love about our kids. I bet your list is really long. Once you’ve written down some things, come back to this article.

Black History and love come into play for families specifically like ours, families that are Black and White. In your list, did you write anything about loving your child’s Black culture, their Black heritage, skin or hair? How are you expressing your love of your child’s racial identity?

Our Relationship With Black History, Black Friends and Racial Identity

Black History and love come into play for families specifically like ours, families that are Black and White. In your list, did you write anything about loving your child’s Black culture, their Black heritage or even their Blackness? How are you expressing your love of your child’s racial identity?

A friend once asked how to help his child form friendships with other Black children. I asked him, do you have any Black friends yourself? Does your child see you loving Black people in addition to them?  This dad had no Black friends, so it wasn’t any wonder that his child didn’t have any either. How can our kids be or achieve something they’re rarely exposed to?

Ask yourself, do I just love my Black child or do I go further and have relationships with people that are Black? In working to build these relationships, we’re not only availing ourselves of the joys of new friendship but we’re also showing our children we don’t just love one Black person, but many. And remember, children are often noticing and internalizing things even when they don’t always have the words to articulate how they feel about things.

Sometimes, walking this path can be lonely. My Black child didn’t want to participate much in reading about Black history or literature. My Black child didn’t want to attend marches with me for Tamir Rice. Tamir was shot and killed by police outside the very city recreation center we attended for swim meets and family art classes. My Black child didn’t want to attend Black museum exhibits with me much either.

Some White friends and family members thought I was crazy for raising my kids in the middle of the city. It was alienating for me and I didn’t have the support of Transracial Journeys families because some of this happened before our small transracial adoption support network existed. I walked, I cried, I attended, I viewed, and I listened for years often alone. If either of my children came along with me to these events, it was more often my White daughter.

I didn’t realize until recently that doing these things was an act of love and support for my Black child and her racial identity. All along this journey, she was really watching me with big eyes. I know now that doing all of these things not only contributed to the growth of my child’s racial identity, but as she grew, it set down more of an ease to have conversations about race that were initiated often by her. I know it made her feel much more certain of my love for her because I worked for relationship and community with other people like her.

If I could go back in time and ask advice from “future Avril”, I’d love to have heard,

 “love your child, love her culture, love her family of origin… just love her people and in turn, you love your child and your child will have a better chance to truly love themselves””...

This post is from our February, 2022, newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, as well as information about our annual Transracial Journeys Family Camp and our monthly Zoom call to provide support for our transracial adoption parents please subscribe.