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Transracial Adoption Camp

November Nourishment: Sustaining Strong and Healthy Families

Thanksgiving can be one of the more complicated historical holidays, and for many in the United States, one of the more family and food-centric holidays. Whether you are a family that chooses not to mark Thanksgiving in a traditional way, or your family goes all out with a big Thanksgiving celebration, this month we are thinking about the family table and what might be true when there are differences of race and culture with transracial adoption. November also brings National Adoption Awareness Month, (NAAM) which can be challenging for some adopted persons. This month prompts on your activity deck include questions for both areas of discussion.

November Pro-Tip to Foster Conversations About Transracial Adoptions

At Transracial Journeys we send out cues for conversations each month. Our Transracial Journeys card deck contains 3 cards for each month that the children use to ask their parents questions. Below are the questions for November. Before getting started, read the parent pro-tip each month.

November Pro-Tip for Parents: Talking about family and complicated history can activate deep-seated emotions and feelings. Make sure you have the support you need to process your feelings before and after the conversations you may have with your children.

November Transracial Journeys Cards

CARD ONE: IDENTITY
The Family Table: Describe your family table when you were growing up.  What was the food like?  Who was around the table? What were the best parts of family dinner-time? What were some of the harder parts?
NAAM: When did you first learn of NAAM?

CARD TWO: RELATIONSHIPS
The Family Table: Who were the people sitting around your family table?
NAAM: What does NAAM mean to you?

CARD THREE: EMBRACING AND FACING DIFFERENCES OF RACE AND CULTURE
The Family Table: Were there ever people of different races around your family table?
NAAM: How can we find our own unique ways to honor and mark NAAM?

This post is from our November, 2023, newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe.

Fathers' Day

Fathers’ Day, Making Space for Fathers Absent and Fathers Present

by Avril McInally

A few years ago, while writing about Mothers’ Day for our monthly TRJ newsletter, I made the decision to move the apostrophe over to commemorate my child’s reality of having two mothers. This is no accident and not an error in punctuation. It’s my way of elucidating that my child has more than one mother, as well as my way of making space for and acknowledging my child’s mother of origin. I choose to move the apostrophe over for fathers too.

If only it were as simple as moving an apostrophe to signal these intentions in conversation. It can be exhausting and intrusive having to explain my family's makeup. It’s an exhausting, repetitive experience for all of the members of our family. When I do choose to have “the talk”, I’ve come to think about the people in my extended family of adoption as being present to hear what I’m saying, and to speak as if my child is listening too. How do I honor my child’s story and her right to privacy? How do I honor her birth parents' same rights?

The adoption journey and its coinciding conversations don’t get any easier as our children age. They continue to be complex in new ways. Should I attend that funeral service for Grandma or Uncle? If I do go, where do I sit and where do my kids sit? Am I a painful reminder of a painful separation? Is our daughter a painful reminder of a painful separation? Do the visiting family members even know an adoption in the family happened? I have to keep coming back to ask myself the most important question which is “am I being a healthy support to my daughter”? The answer begins with me asking her the question, “Darling, you’ve got to let me know, should I stay or should I go?”. A little of the Clash’s lyrics can go a long way ;).

Moving the apostrophe is simple, these crucial conversation usually aren’t. It’s my way of saying I recognize all of the parents who helped bring our child into and raise her up in the world. So, maybe someday, instead of asking me all of the usual, mundane questions about race or adoption, ask me about my punctuation.

As June is the month which holds our national holiday for celebrating Fathers’ Day, I’d like to invite you to move the apostrophe over in consideration of all of your children’s fathers and father figures. In order to make that space for more than one father, April’s conversation prompts for June are a good place to start not just on Fathers’ Day but whenever you or your children feel the need. Happy Fathers’ Day from me and from everyone on the TRJ board!

This post is from our June, 2023, 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.

Holiday Traditions for Transracial Adoption

Creating New Traditions to Reflect Our Families and Celebrate Their Identities

author: Avril McInally

For many of us, holidays can be a combination of many emotions and elements. Do we have all the candles we need for our Menorah or for our Kinara? Have we gotten our holiday lights and decorations up? How are we managing our budgets? Is the house tidy and clean enough for our house guests? Do we have enough food? Speaking of food, what about those special recipes we need to prepare? Do we have all of the proper ingredients? And the gifts? Did we purchase enough gifts to make sure no one is left out or one child gets more than another? These are the scenarios for many families at Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or Yule, yet what of our families? Our families manage these aforementioned holiday traditions of hosting, eating and gifting as well as creating space for our adopted children, their race, the family they were born into, their culture, their religion and more!Read our previous post: ‘Tis the Season to Reminiscence

Because our families represent multiple aspects of identity, heritage, and culture, we visit the idea or concept of intersectionality. Some intersectionalities that help to describe our families include race, gender, sexuality, adoption, age and religion. We have several aspects of intersectionality to honor, celebrate, foster and sometimes protect. There’s a little more “juggling” for us to do to manage these precious aspects of our children’s and family’s identities. One way to celebrate “us” is to create new traditions that reflect our families and honor their identities. Read our post about the conversation cards this month December - Reflections: Making and Breaking Traditions 

Traditions can be a way for families to connect and memorialize important life events. To adoptive families, creating traditions is more than a way to bond, but it can also be a great way to commemorate each family member’s roots. By incorporating activities that celebrate birth culture, adopted children can develop a strong sense of identity.

This year, I’m going to work on creating a holiday card for our family with my family. I’ll make a list of our intersectionalities with my adult daughters. Black, White, Adopted, Not Adopted, Atheist, Immigrant, American, Cisgender, Female, Male….. You get the picture. Then, we’ll draw a Venn diagram of our family’s identity and decorate it. Heck yeah, “This is Us”! This is who we are with some holly on top! This could be a new holiday tradition for us. If you start this tradition now with young children, you can save your cards every year and watch how your lists morph or mature.

In addition to creating and honoring traditions, it’s important to make time to honor our extended family of adoption as we gather to eat a special meal, to light a candle, to build a fire on one of the longest nights of the year or simply when we tuck our children into bed at night. Remember it’s important to honor and/or acknowledge the family members absent from your home. It’s the “most wonderful time of the year,” yet at the height of festivities and anniversaries, our children may be experiencing loss and sadness. Make space for children who are processing these emotions and thoughts and love on ‘em a little more and give them space to talk about their feelings. And last but not least, you may also have emotions surrounding losses or complexities that can come up as well.  Building a tradition of inclusion, empathy and love starts with tending to ourselves!

This post is from our December, 2022, newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe.