There were a few things however that are still on my mind, things I wish I would have said, things I wish I could change. And since I didn't say them and this is my outlet, you get to read them so click out if you don't want to read on!
There were a few comments by adoptive parents that just rubbed me the wrong way... and not just me a few of the other families brought it up to me to see what I thought as well. And some of you may not get it or may not appreciate my thoughts on the subject and thats just fine as well. I'm not here to judge other peoples parenting but to reflect on my own and try to make sense of it all.
So example 1: We watched a video about 6 grown adult adoptees who were adopted transracially and their thoughts, examples, issues, etc from growing up in white families, many of which had zero other non-white people in their lives. We had about 2 minutes after the video to just briefly share our feelings/thoughts on the video. One member of our table spent the two minutes telling us how, "they need to understand that everyone gets teased over something like if you have glasses and get called 4 eyes or have braces and how its the same thing"....ugh, after he finished it was already time to reconvene and discuss things as a big group so none of us had a chance to nicely share our views on how it is different (camp is supposed to be a safe place to share your feelings, learn etc, so obviously a response needs to be appropriately worded)... I'm pretty sure though that most people would agree that racism is completely different from being called 4 eyes. My question then is how do you help these parents realize the difference in a respectful manner when they probably won't get it anyway and their black children need them to get it. One of the things discussed was how you need to acknowledge the racism that your child brings to you and not dismiss it as "its not that bad" and not to attempt to brush it off by saying things like the previously mentioned conversation. So maybe my question then is how do you help the kids who are having race issues and don't have the same level of support. Obviously I am white and am no where near an expert in racism or responding to it but if you've read some of my posts where I've shared some of our issues, I at least am fully aware of its existence. We see it every day even though some may be passive, its always there and how you respond will affect your kids self awareness and self worth.
2-We had a soul food brunch the last day. One of the kids asked their parent what kind of food it was, "black people food" is the response from the mom. No explanation, significance, discussion, background etc. I didn't witness this one first hand but another mom who sat with us asked us if we thought that was an appropriate response or not. One simple response. For some reason these single line responses bother me but probably because I am someone who wants details. Dont tell me to make a project to make a project but tell me the significance. We had ginger beer the last day.... What is it? Why is it significant? Who drinks it? Why? The deeper meaning is what I am interested in not just that Ginger Beer has something to do with Kwanzaa or Africa or something... I still need to google it!
3-We did an AMAZING exercise with mirroring, sculpting people, etc (sounds weird but it was super cool) and the last one was a group sculpture of the perfect relinquishment scene. It was amazing, painful, and emotional all at the same time. During the discussion, one parent made a comment that I thought was very judgmental toward a birthmom, a birthmom that could represent any birth mom. I believe it was out of pain and anger that they made this comment but it saddened me as I have the utter most respect for the painful decision our birth moms made and although ours have different stories than the one shared, I would hate for people to pass such judgement on our birthmoms. The comment was also very much about adoptive parent entitlement to a baby which I completely disagree with. We are not entitled to any baby, ever, regardless of the situation. Birthmoms can change their minds, can choose another family, can choose to parent. And really, I would much rather a birth mom choose to parent than to place a baby and regret it her whole life. We were very well aware that any birth mom who chose us or any baby who came home with us may not be the one that we parent and although painful, we knew that it was the birth moms best interest that needed to come first. Anyway, I couldnt see who had made the comment, and I'm hoping that it was a recent issue and that they were just still hurting. I know that every bump in our adoption road is what led us to the two kids and two birth moms that we have now and I cannot imagine anything else.
So enough of my soapbox....I just feel a sense of responsibility to all of these kids. Being black and raised in a white family is not easy, and its not always going to be an easy road to navigate but I feel like we are doing everything that we can to be as prepared as we can be and to have supportive black role models in our childrens life. It's the path we chose and we need to remember that we chose this, our kids didn't. We need to support them in our family unit as best we can and ensure our lives are as diverse as possible.
Tomorrows post: The fun and pictures from camp!
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