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Tag: perspective of transracial adoptee

Feeling Excluded as Transracial Adoptee

Sharp Edges of Exclusion that Come with Adoption, Family Separation and Differences of Race

by TRJ Executive Director, April Dinwoodie

“Where is she from?”

“Does she look like her dad?”

“Do you know who her real parents are?” 

These and other questions came hard and fast at my mom and me when we were out in a world that wants us to match and did not understand the realities of adoption, family separation, and the impact of trauma that comes with both.  

As a kid, I never quite understood why folks were so interested in my family, why my mom would get kind of mad when these things would happen, and why I felt so weird when it did. Why did anyone care what we looked like, why I was brown, or how we came together as a family?  Also, what were “real parents” anyway?  None of it made sense and over time, unwanted attention based on how I looked and where I “fit” within the family that surrounded me was constant. In a majority white community where families matched, I was singled out and often wondered if I belonged anywhere.  

In addition to the comments about how our family looked there were comments about how lucky I was or how lucky our family was.  Lucky? Why was I lucky to have what everyone else had, a family?  It did not make sense and it made me feel uncomfortable.  We rarely unpacked these things as a family so I was left to wonder why my family was so different, why I was different and why I should feel the least bit lucky about any of it?  

Sitting next to all of this were my complex feelings of sadness and confusion about my family of origin and looking so different from the people around me.  While I truly loved my family and  these feelings were not all-consuming, they were serious distractions as I navigated the world.  I simply wanted to fit in, to be like everyone else and to feel like I belonged.  

There was no bright or easy path to true belonging because those closest to me did not realize the weight of my reality and most others were too busy expecting me to be grateful.  I needed a community like TRJ to help my parents know and do better and I needed to be around other children and families.  

This year TRJ’s camp theme centers on inclusivity and belonging.  As always, we will create space for deep learning and development as well as moments for joy and community.   Together, we will work to soften the sharp edges of exclusion that come with adoption, family separation and differences of race.  Together, we will co-created the brightest path to belonging for the children entrusted to you through adoption.  

This post is from our March, 2024, 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.

Helping Our Adoptees Navigate Mothers' Day

Mother, May I?

 - authored by April Dinwoodie,
Part-time Executive Director of Transracial Journeys

As a Black/Bi-racial transracially adopted person, do I need permission to love more than one mother? This May, I am once again faced with the “mother” of all holidays. It is a big one that warrants attention because of the complicated emotions that come up for so many adopted persons and members of the extended family of adoption. On top of the emotions that may already be present, there are the marketing messages that flood in from brands reminding us to celebrate the women in our lives that care for us.

As a kid, Mother's Day, was about my mom Sandi, the only mom I really knew. I was usually caught up in creating the PERFECT gift for her -- something to honor her, make her feel special and something I thought she’d really love. At some point though during the time leading up to Mother's Day, or on the actual day itself, thoughts of my biological mother crept in. I did not have the language to articulate them, so they came and went, or so I thought. What happened in reality is that my pain, grief, and loss, stayed present and unaccounted for, creating deep emotional confusion that would take years to unravel.

While I knew that I was adopted and there was another woman that I was connected to, there was no open door for me to consider or have a conversation about what that all actually meant and how I was to hold that information factually or emotionally. No one around me at the time had two mothers. It made sense for me to have only one, Sandi was a great mother, did I really need another one? Did I need another one that did not keep me? To be clear, my mom did not ever try to deny there was another woman that I was born to but she never encouraged me to think about her and we never really talked about her until I was a young adult and started to search.

Helping Adoptees on Mothers' Day

Throughout my search I never thought about being mothered by anyone else but my mom, Sandi. I was not looking to replace my mom but I did have a deep desire to know and create some kind of connection to the woman who gave birth to me. At one point, early in my search, someone close to me asked me if my searching for my birth mom was weird for my adoptive mom and would I then have two mothers? While I was not looking for the two women to co-mother me, I did immediately wonder why having two moms under any circumstances would be a problem. At this point in my life, I had many examples of two families where two women were caretaking children so why is it that in adoption, there is often the either or versus the both/and?

After years of personal healing work, running a research institute for adoption and foster care, working in schools, and being part of a community where I am connected to thousands of members of the extended family of adoption, I have come up with a few things for adoptive parents to consider and actions to take when navigating the both/and of Mothers’ Day.

● As a starting place, think about how you hold Mothers’ Day and how you were mothered. For some, these are not easy reflections to have. For others, there is only joy and beautiful feelings. And likely for many, there is both love and joy, and complexity and pain. If these mix of emotions around mothers can be true for you it stands to reason that a mix of emotions can be present for the child you parent through adoption. Start with you and investigate how you truly hold this most sacred relationship.

● Once you have a sense of how you feel about your connections to mother, think about your holding of your child’s mother of origin. Are you in touch? Do you know her name, birthday, what she is good at? Do you know about her medical history? Do you know if she held your child? These are all things for you to think about and act where you can to gather up some of this information. You don’t have to jump in and do the most, but even taking a few minutes out over the next week or so to have some quiet time to reflect could go a long way. And remember to even mark your calendar to give yourself time to think about your emotions connected to this throughout the year. Make sure you are not tucking your thoughts, feelings, and emotions away. Demonstrate that you can be open with all that comes with adoption and understand this can be a gateway to important healing.

● With some of your emotions in check, you can work to be in even better conversation and connection with your child centered on the topic of mothers. Too often I hear parents transactionally asking their child “do you think about your birth mom? Do you ever want to try to meet her?”. Those big questions can be too much to negotiate with some children and youth. I love it when parents that have grounded themselves and have a sense of how they feel. They can open up a healthy conversation with the child they are parenting by first sharing their thoughts and feelings. Something like…”Today I thought about XX/your birth mom, I wondered how she was and I was sad that we don’t know more about her. Do you ever wonder about her too? Do you want to sit down and talk with me about that?” Remember, you know your child better than anyone so use your personal style to communicate, just don’t miss an opportunity to communicate and keep a door open.

● As you create the conditions at home for open and healthy dialogue and connection to mothers of origin and extended birth family, remember outside of the home your child can be challenged by having more than one mom to consider. This is the time of year when school projects in celebration of Mother’s Day are happening. If you’ve had the conversations about your child’s birth mother and they wanted to create art for them too, teachers and caregivers need to know that your child may need some extra time. If you are not there yet and your child does not want to share their family structure for a school project, you can create something together at home. Even if you are not in touch with the birth mom, you can create something special for the time you might have a connection. There are usually complex circumstances at the root of adoption. There will be a lot of work that will go into creating and keeping connections to family of origin but it does not mean you can’t keep an open conversation especially when the world around us is reminding us of the special people of our lives.

Who says we can’t have more than one mom? Why can’t we have love for two significant women in our lives and be connected to them in different ways? Do we have to ask for permission to love the people we care about? As mothers and as parents today entrusted with children through adoption, you have the amazing opportunity to actively expand your hearts to the people connected to your child. Even when it’s highly complex, there are ways to have open and caring conversations about and real connections to extended family.

For this Mothers’ Day, I wish for a celebration of all the moms connected to adoption seen and unseen. A special wish for all of the TRJ moms I know and love, thank you for being brave, for doing the work, and for the love you show me as a member of your extended families.

Don’t forget to use May’s conversation cards if you have them. The prompts will help you as you explore this month.

Adoption: A Three-Sided Coin

The following post is from our November, 2021, newsletter. If you would like to get our newsletter in your inbox each month, please subscribe.

It’s November. I’m processing the lengthening darkness of our days and basking more in the sun as it makes its daily, silvery appearances briefer and briefer. This processing is followed by the slight confusion brought upon by daylight savings. Does that extra hour really work for me and my schedule when I set my clock back on Sunday? Ahh, I get an extra hour of sleep in the morning - glorious! Crap, less daylight hours to move around my urban village freely as I don’t walk outside alone at night. Do I really need to change the clock on the stove and in my car, or can I just live with that one hour time difference until spring? The old phrase “there are two sides to every coin” comes to mind.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM)

The heads and tails of our anniversaries, conversations, or experiences aren’t always easy to process. If we could have a special coin for the experience of adoption, it would have three sides, a side for each member of the extended family of adoption. Historically, the media we have consumed around adoption has been one-sided and voiced from the perspective of and generally, in high appreciation of the adoptive parent. I’m thinking about this perspective now especially, as this is National Adoption Awareness Month (NAAM), and the narrative is out in full force.

Implications of "Rescue Language" for Adopted Persons

Much of the messaging surrounding adoption is and has been focused on the goodness of the adoptive parent(s) because we’ve supposedly done a heroic thing in adopting a child. Some of the commentary goes so far to speak about how we’ve rescued our children. Who and what were our adopted children rescued from, who are the good and bad members of the extended family of adoption, and what does the use of this language imply? How might this message rest with parents of origin and with adopted persons? What if the others had a louder, more empowered voice not just during this month, but throughout the year? What words could we use to describe the lived experience of adoption in lieu of the “rescue language”?

Making Room for Perspectives of Transracial Adoptees

The language and narrative of adoption has, in general, been uncomfortable and/ or harmful to our children and to their families of origin. Nicole Chung a transracially adopted person and author of the book “All You Can Ever Know” writes, “We must listen to transracial adoptees and make room for their perspectives, including the ones that make us uncomfortable - because when it comes to the wellbeing of adopted people and their families, the truth will serve far better than even the most comforting of lies.”

It’s time to flip the script from an adoptive parent focus and focus the conversation on the narrative of the adoptee. Someday soon, we can flip the script even further to focus on families of origin. Please watch this Flip the Script video made for NAAM and listen to the voices of several adult adoptees. Consider including some of their valuable suggestions into your own family’s script and go ahead… flip it!

Experiencing Thanksgiving When Multiple Worlds Combine

It’s November and Thanksgiving is nearly here. Former foster youth and founder of Think of Us (a research and development lab for child welfare), Sixto Cancel, brings forward his experience of Thanksgiving and how multiple worlds come together in an interview with April. For him, bringing these multiple worlds together can be emotional. Sixto asks for us to be ok with the ups and downs that happen when families are recombined, and April wonders what Thanksgiving is like for members of her family of origin.

Before stepping into the holiday season, let’s ask ourselves to be ok with the ups, the downs and the beautiful collisions of our own multiple worlds. There’s a lot on the table for us to internalize and digest literally and otherwise. Let’s, belly up to the smorgasbord, undo that pesky top button on our jeans, take a deep breath, and recognize the beauty of our multiple worlds. One last thing, before you make the potato salad take a peek at Chadwick Boseman’s what not to do recipe on an old SNL Black Jeopardy sketch.