Mayhem and Magic

How Black Men Cope with Perceptions

Please read this article Black Men Quietly Combat Stereotypes from washingtonpost.com:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100462.html

For anyone raising Black children, especially boys, this is important.

The ability to manage your image and stay keenly in touch with how others percieve you is what I was talking about in this post, More About Raising Black Boys, and also a bit in the post that preceeded, Adoption FAQ: Can White Parents Successfully Raise Black Children in the US?

This is still an important discussion. 

Since I wrote that post, we've had the white director of our sons' school tell us that Sparkle was "violent" and "raging."  (A post about that crisis is here.)  (He was not, by the way.)

Since I wrote that post, the police officers who shot Sean Bell fifty times were acquitted on all charges.

Since I wrote that post, our whole county has been watching Barack Obama, waiting to see what it takes for a Black man to be accepted as a leader of our nation.

It's still important.

It's not just about having good manners.  It's not just about getting promotions.  

It's about safety, even survival. 

Being a Conspicuous Family in South Africa?

We're planning our trip to South Africa now, which is very exciting.  Someone else (a travel agent we know in South Africa) is going the nitty-gritty stuff for us, like making reservations at places where we'll stay, getting a car, and that kind of thing.  Nice... 

I've been thinking about what it will be like to be a conspicuous family in South Africa.  When we met Sparkle there, I occasionally felt surprised by reactions we got.  Looking back, I'm not sure if I was surprised by the responses themselves, or just surprised because being conspicuous was new to us. 

And actually, there really were not that many times when anyone seemed to care in the least.  No one congratulated us or thanked us (like I've heard adoptive parents with children from China talk about).  A few (Black) workers in a restaurant were curious about our story and asked us if we really loved Sparkle.  They made mildly disapproving noises about the idea of a mother placing a child for adoption.  Once an older white lady kind of hissed at us when she looked in our stroller and saw that our baby wasn't white.  Very weird. 

But overall, not that many people seemed to notice our family, which was fine with us.  Except that sometimes I could not believe that not every single person wanted to stop and coo over this baby who was clearly the most adorable infant ever.

Here in the U.S., I think we handle being a conspicuous family pretty well.  Mostly, we just...  act like a family.  I don't want to blow off the significance of being aware of surroundings and aware of trying to make sure our kids don't get the spotlight put on them, but sometimes (often, even) what works best is to refuse to be uncomfortable.  We mostly do our thing, expecting to be treated well and not be questioned.  If someone wants to act like our family is odd or whatever, we don't necessarily make it easy for them. 

When someone asks, for example,  "Are they brothers?"  we feel totally okay with giving them a long, confused, blank look...  (long enough for them to feel just a bit uncomfortable)  And then saying, "Yes!"

(Here's another post about that question in particular, from a mini-set of postings in the category Adoption FAQ.)

That's kind of a simplistic summary, but you get the drift. 

I'm not sure if that's how it will work in South Africa.  I'm not sure what to expect.  Here, I don't feel too much obligation to satisfy people's curiosity.  But maybe in South Africa we might need to plan on being "adoption ambassadors" just a bit more?  Maybe we should be more open, knowing that many people in South Africa need to see a positive picture of adoption?  I just don't know.

(Are they brothers?  Are you kidding me?  They're so darn brotherly I can hardly stand it!  I so wish this picture was clearer because I love it!  But it's fun anyway, even if it is blurry.)

I Did Not Settle

I desperately wanted both of my boys.  Before I met them, or saw their pictures, or even knew they existed I wanted them.  With all my heart. 

These boys.  These very boys.  More than anything else in the world, I wanted them.

We never truly considered pregnancy.  The thought of it made me sad.  I would have missed my boys. 

If we had been told we couldn't adopt unless we knew we couldn't get pregnant, I would have been heartbroken. I would have scheduled a tubal ligation.

The decisions each of us make about building our families are so complicated.  I don't really question other people's decision-making (unless they are clearly, you know, stupid), but sometimes I don't understand.  It doesn't matter that I don't understand; it's not my family or my decision anyway. 

It does frighten me to think that some people adopt without being sure adoption is what they want for themselves or their families.  I can understand being uncertain or fearful about specific things-- like whether you'll be "picked" by an expectant mom, or what challanges your potential child might face, or not knowing a child's full history. I can even understand wanting to adopt but choosing not to because of concerns about ethical problems in adoption, or finances, or whatever else. 

But to be uncertain about the very first decision--whether you desire to adopt a child at all, or not-- I don't quite get it.  I can totally understand not adopting because you're not sure it's the right decision, but I don't understand going ahead with it if you're not sure, hoping that you'll become sure at some point along the way. 

Children who need adoptive placements deserve the unreserved love of their eventual parents.  To think that a child just as precious as my own sons may not be 100% loved by their adoptive parents is so sad.  What if my boys had been placed with a parent who didn't love them wholeheartedly?  Oh, God...  to imagine it makes me nauseated, even more than the thought that they would not have been mine...  If they weren't mine, I could possibly survive if I knew they were unreservedly adored... thank God for sparing my sons from that situation.

So, just in case I have not been clear: These are my children.  My sons.  They could not be more loved and wanted.

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Here are some links, for background on why I'm thinking about this now:

http://incarcerateduterus.typepad.com/chicagomama/

http://www.alittlepregnant.com/alittlepregnant/

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(As a short post-script: As much as we wanted to adopt, we would never participate in deliberately coercing an expectant mom to place.  You know that, right?  And we realize that the boys were not ours until they were fully relinquished by their first parents.  And as strongly and emphatically as we claim them as ours, it is okay for them to think of their first families as true family as well.  Did I miss anything?)

Siblings in Adoption

This isn't really an Adoption FAQ, but it's something I think about a lot, so I'm going to blog about it.

Most children who are adopted either already have or eventually will have genetic siblings. 

One of my kids has siblings who are being raised by their (original and only) mom.  This isn't secret information, by any means, and my sons both know that there are "brothers" in another family.  They just accept it, at this point, without question. 

I wonder, though, how I will explain why she could raise those children, but couldn't raise my son.  I worry that he will feel less than acceptable, that he was "given away" because of some fault of his own, that he was not as lovable.

I'm trying not to talk about it in a way that implies that she unquestionably made the right or wrong decision. Hopefully, he'll be able to think about his relinquishment and his first family and decide on his own what his opinions are.  And I fully expect that his opinions will change over time.

So that part is all about my kids and their first families...  Here's the part that's all about me (me, me, me!):

I'm happy that my son's first mom is able to raise her children.  Really, very very happy.  But...  It really freaks me out to think of any of my son's siblings being raised by another adoptive family.  I don't have any indication that this is currently the case, or that it is likely to happen, yet I worry about it.  If for whatever reason, any of my son's first parents found themselves in a situation of needing someone else to parent one of their children...  I would move heaven and earth to either help them parent or to parent that child myself.

Of course, those decisions (should the situation ever occur) are not mine to make.

And then there is the "Possible Third Child" question.  If you've been around here for a while you may remember that Beloved and I put off that decision, and decided to re-open discussion sometime late this spring.  (Links to those posts here and here.)  Which, you may have noticed, is coming up.  And causing some anxiety on my part.  Which I may blog about later, but my brain is too scattered to write about at this point. 

Part of me is feeling really cautious about planning for a third kiddo.  (Third Child would very likely be our last.)  Though I know it doesn't really make sense, I want to make sure that if we need to, we can make room in our family for one of the boy's siblings.  It's so, so silly.  It makes it sound like their first moms are unpredictable or irresponsible, and I'm just waiting for them to "mess up," which is totally not the case. 

It's just my own anxiety.  I'm trying to get over it, but I'm not quite there yet.

Adoption FAQ: Talking About First Parents

Long ago, I told you I was hoping to discuss how we talk about our children's first parents to others. (Here is a link to that post.)  I've been kind of stalling on that, because I'm not sure how to talk about it without sharing too much private information.

I think I'll just go for it, write whatever, be it short or long, cohesive or scattered, and see what happens...

So the major stereotypes about first mothers are that they are all young, poor, and single.  At least, from my perspective, that's what I hear most.  Some other assumptions are that first mothers are first-time moms (adopted children resulted from mom's first pregnancy, and women never place a child if they are already parenting), they are drug users, they are irresponsible, they are uneducated, they have bipolar disorder or ADHD or some other condition (the idea is that the disorder makes them too impulsive and that's why they had an unplanned pregnancy, or else the disorder is what makes them incapable of parenting), and that they do not have an ongoing relationship with the father of the child they place.

Without sharing specifics about the first parents of our kids, I'll just say with confidence that these assumptions are not valid.  Life was not going perfectly for either of our children's first moms at the time they chose to place their sons.  But both of them are physically and mentally healthy, sober (and not sober as in recovering from addiction, but completely-clean-never-used-anything-what-does-a-bong-look-like-anyway sober), responsible, intelligent, and admirable women.

The ways we talk about their first families with the boys are different than the ways to talk to other people, of course.

But when we are asked about their first moms, we speak positively about them, their accomplishments and their families, and not just in a "she's-so-noble-she-gave-us-her-baby" way. 

Here is something I'd like input on, however.  I'm happy to dispell whatever negative stereotype another person holds, within the bounds of my child's privacy.  But sometimes I've wondered how to do that--how to point out the many ways the stereotypes are incorrect-- without sounding like I'm saying, "Oh, but my boys didn't come from any of that nasty stuff.  We got some good ones.  No drugs or anything!" 

Does that make sense?  I want talk about my children's first parents and about ALL first parents in a way that is respectful.  (Not because I'm a goody two shoes adoptive parent, but for the selfish reason that I believe the stereotypes are directly harmful to my own children.)  I want to make the point that the stereotypes are misleading, not just that my boys or their first parents are exceptions to the rule. 

For example, when someone says, "Your kids are adopted?  My sister adopted a little Black baby.  He was a crack baby, you know, so we thought he would be really delayed.  But he's perfectly fine!  And so cute!  It's so sad how those women care more about drugs than about their babies."

What's the best way to respond? 

(Aside from addressing the crack baby myth, which is too much to tackle.)

I need a stock answer that is short, polite, clear, and communicates that assuming the worst of first parents does both adopted children and first parents a disservice.  Suggestions?

This post turned out to be long and scattered, so thanks for hanging in there.  I also realized I have not addressed maintaining privacy in adoption without making first families or adoption seem like a big, scary secret.  Perhaps there will be a Part 3.  Yikes.

Adoption FAQ: So, was his birthmother really young?

"So, was his birthmother really young or something?"

This question is definitely the most frequently asked regarding the first families of our children.

I was prepared to be asked about the boys' histories, but the wording of the question surprised me.  Within a few months of bringing Sparkle home, we heard this question several times, phrased almost exactly in this way.

We think that those who ask are really wanting to know, "What's the story?  Why was he available for adoption?"  Perhaps it occurs to them that it might not be an entirely appropriate question, or they don't know how to ask.  Their assumptions about first mothers are that they are all young, poor, and single.  So they ask, "Was she really young?" assuming that we will confirm what they are already guessing about the women who gave birth to the boys.

We never answer that question, by the way. 

(I'm hoping to get to how we do respond later.)

Part of the reason why we don't tell anyone (even close family) much detail about why our boys were relinquished is that it's none of their business.  Why do they want to know?  Curiosity?  Will it change how they treat the boys?  Will it change what they think of them, or of us?

Aside from the fact that no one else really needs to know why the boys were available for adoption, we want the boys to be the first ones to understand and express their own stories.  We want them to know more about their first families than anyone else.  We want them to be able to work through their own feelings about their relinquishments without the baggage of other people's opinions. 

How can adopted children think about their relinquishements or first families objectively if all their lives they've heard from others that they are AIDS orphans, or crack babies, or illegitimate children, or a hinderance to their first mother's life and education, or unwanted by their country because of their gender? 

(You realize that I'm just listing several stereotypes, none of which are specific to my children in particular.)

As we were preparing to adopt, I read a story from an adoptive mom that really shaped our decision about keeping the boys' stories private.

Here's what happened: 

A family adopted a five-year-old little girl who was relinquished for adoption because her mother had died and the rest of her family was unable to care for her.  Before their daughter came home, the adoptive parents were so excited about their lovely daughter and the whole experience of adoption that they told a lot of people why their daughter had been relinquished. 

Because her English was not great yet, the family did not realize right away that the little girl didn't know that her mother had died.  And I guess, apparently, they didn't really communicate her story to her very fully.

After she had been home for a while, a neighbor child asked the little girl, "Why did your mother die?"  The little girl said something like, "She didn't die, she lives in Haiti."  And her playmate told her, "Yes she did.  Your mom told my mom that she got sick and died, so you had to go to the orphanage."

So that was a pretty horrible experience for the little girl, of course.  She grieved for her mother, felt terrified of what might have happened to other relatives and friends she had assumed where alive and well, was angry with her adoptive family for hiding the information, and totally didn't trust her adoptive parents for a long time.

Long story...  Obviously, that was NOT the experience I wanted for my kids, whatever circumstances led them to be placed for adoption.  At that point we hadn't even started the adoption process, but we made the decision that we were not sharing our children's stories until they were ready to share them on their own.

This is getting really long (I can't believe anyone will really read all of this!), so I'm going to split the rest of this into another post.  In Part 2, I'd like to write about 1) How we keep their stories private without making first families seem like a big, scary secret, and 2)What we do say about their first families to the boys and to other people.

(Whew!) 

Adoption FAQ: Are They Twins?/Are They Brothers?

Question #1:  The Frequently Asked Question that far and away tops the list for our family is, "Are they twins?"  Every time we step out the door at least one person asks this.

(I wrote a bit about why this question bothers me about a year ago.  Here is a link to that post.) 

Interestingly, the questioners are 100% white.  We've been asked this hundreds of times, and yet never once has a person of color asked if they are twins.  Hmmm... 

There is a lot of interest, particularly in the China adoption community it seems, in finding siblings or twins of children who have been adopted.  I'm pretty skeptical of the whole undertaking, partly because based on this "are they twins" experience with our boys, I don't trust the ability of white people to objectively evaluate whether people of color look alike or not.

Question #2: A second very common question is, "Are they brothers?"  I invariably answer, "Yes." 

Adoptive parents have a number of strategies for handling intrusive questions.  Some parents might feel OK with saying, "They are brothers now, but Sparkle was born in South Africa and Pumpkin was born in Indiana."  Some parents might respond with a question like, "Why do you ask?"

For our family, we invariably just answer the question, "Are they brothers?" with a polite but simple, "Yes."

I know that the questioner really wants to know if the boys are biologically related, but we decided that it doesn't matter what the questioner wants to know.  What matters is what the boys hear in our reply. 

If we allow the questioner to become the most important person in the exchange and answer every question of their idle curiosity, I think the boys will hear that we agree with the questioner that their connection to each other and to our family is open to interpretation.

We have some other ways of trying to strengthen the bond and connection between everyone in our family.

We really emphasize physically and verbally the connection between the four of us as family.

Probably every single day in our home, either Beloved or I will comment, "Oh, look!  Our whole family is here in the kitchen!"  (Or, "Our whole family is here in the bathroom!" which I'm sure any parent with toddlers can testify happens way too often!)

We hold hands around the table for dinner time prayer, deliberately to create a visual and physical connection to each other.

If Beloved and I are talking without the boys, and absolutely certainly if we are sitting together or hugging, the boys want to be a part of that.  (Sometimes Beloved will actually say, "Let's see how long we can sit on the couch together by ourselves."  I don't think it's ever been more than about 30 seconds before at least one of the boys joins us.)  If one kid comes to join the hug, we'll make a point to say, "Oh no!  We're missing one person in our family!  Where is Sparkle?" and make a really big, happy deal of it once we are all together.

When Beloved arrives home and the boys come running, he lifts them both up, one in each arm and yells, "How many boys do I have?"  And both the kids yell, "Two boys!!"  They repeat this several times, and it is one of the greatest father/son exchanges I've ever seen.

Some of these things may seem really obvious.  But you know, I think it should be obvious that the boys are brothers, and yet that gets questioned all the time.  Maybe it's not so over the top to be deliberate about giving the boys the message that they belong together, they are brothers, and that our whole family belongs to one another.

(I'm hoping to do a bit of an "Adoption FAQ" series here over the next few weeks, starting with "Can white parents successfully raise Black children in the U.S?"  If you'd like to suggest questions that you have yourself, or questions your family hears often, please let me know in the comments.  And if you'd like to answer the same questions on your own blog, put a link to your answers in the comments.)

Adoption FAQ: Can white parents successfully raise Black children in the U.S?

Can white parents successfully raise Black children in the U.S?

Here's the short answer:  I sure hope so. 

Here's the longer answer:  I do think it's possible, but I also think it takes more work than many white parents realize. 

Honestly, there are things I know I should be working on, but I put them off because of the effort or time required.

We do really well making sure there are books, music, art, and educational toys that bring African American history and culture (hmm, culture, really?  I'm not sure.) into our home.  We like toys and music and art!  Once we find them and buy them and put them in our home, they are just there.  We read the books, we play with the toys, we listen to the music...  Those things are easy! 

The more important part is working on bringing actual African American people into our social, professional, and faith communities.  Or, often, bringing our family into African American communities.  We want to provide lots of opportunities for the boys to feel comfortable and accepted among African Americans, and eventually to be able to establish their own friendships without having to try to "figure out" African American culture as older kids or adults.

Working on relationships with people of color can be hard at times, because Beloved and I feel out of place (poor us, huh?), we're nervous about intruding in a established community, or whatever.  I'm not trying to say, "But it's so haaarrrd!" because it's not.  And we are honored and blessed by these new relationships.  But relationships take lots of time and emotional/personal investment.

I could list some things were are pleased about, but it annoys me a little when white parents say, "Hey, we have diversity in our lives!  We have a Black dentist!" or whatever.  So I don't want to make a list of our successes, as if I'm justifying our ability to raise Black kids.  I'll just say that in some ways we are doing well with this, and in others not so much.

I should also say that just because we are making a special effort to help the boys connect with other African Americans doesn't mean that we assume they will always feel comfortable being around white people.  They will have a lot of practice at it, because the culture of white folks is the default culture in the US.  (Some people might wonder, "Culture of white folks?  There is no "white culture."  And that's the point.  It's so assumed that we don't even recognize it.)

I have read that sometimes Black people feel like they need to be Extra Super Cheerful! and Social! around white people to avoid getting labeled as having "attitude" or to avoid being thought of as stuck up or overly sensitive.

Of course I don't know, but I wonder if that might be correct.  My siblings who were adopted seem to have had this experience as children.  My brother (Black) is naturally very outgoing and social.  He never seemed to have a problem making friends or being included in his mostly white town.  My sister (Korean American) is more naturally shy and not likely to be open to a real friendship until she trusts the other person.  Lots of people are like this, and I don't think she is significantly out of the ordinary as far as her personality.  But she did have trouble making friends and being included.  If she were white, I wonder if more of the white people around her might be more "forgiving" of her shyness. 

Even now, I think my brother and sister (or any people of color) are likely to be quickly judged by white people to be "stuck up" or "full of attitude" or "over sensitive." But as adults they have more confidence and have learned how to manage the image they project to other people.  It might be partly because they are both living in more racially diverse areas now.  I'm not sure...

So here's part of my point: I can't assume that just because white culture is the default culture in the U.S., and because my boys will grow up mostly in that culture because their parents are white, that they will certainly feel comfortable here.  To be accepted, they may need to develop the skills of charisma and emotional/personal sensitivity to how they are perceived.

Sometimes I feel completely overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising my boys.  Sometimes just parenting in general has me baffled.  Sometimes it's the worry of raising boys in a world that seems more and more to be telling them that men are stupid, ineffective, and predatory.  (I could write a whole different post about that.)  Sometimes it's the job of raising my boys ultimately to be confident, articulate, kind, compassionate, and strong Black men.

It seems like so much could possibly go so wrong, and I might not know what mistakes I'm making until it's too late.

Shannon at Peter's Cross Station wrote something a while back (November 10, 2005) that stuck with me and gave me comfort.  A commenter asked about whether Nat might resent Shannon and Cole as she got older.  After listing the multiple things Nat might resent (as any kid might resent her parents), Shannon said:

"Sometimes I read these things and the kids talk about how they didn't really understand what being black was all about until they went to college or something like that. They had sort of a racial awakening. Hopefully, we'll be able to raise Nat with a clear, happy and complete sense of the many facets of her identity including race, but if the worst-case scenario is that she has a racial coming-out experience in college, I'm not worried.

... families of origin can do better and worse jobs of supporting children through coming out experiences. I do run "worst-case" scenarios through my head sometimes and if Nat comes home from college all Black Nationalist radical and calling white people devils, that's okay. If she doesn't come home for a while because she's sorting it out, that's okay. We'll love her enough to let her do what and be whom she need to when she needs to. It may not always be easy, but that's parenting, right? I think when people are parented well, they come "home" to the good values their parents gave them. Sometimes those values take a radically different form or expression than their parents' did, but there's a bottom line shared. So who know what Nat will do and who she will be? But I trust she will do it well and be a good person. Maybe even that is an unfair expectation, but it seems like a reasonable enough one."

Well said, isn't it? 

We will do our best to raise our boys.  We will do well at some things and inadequately at others.  We hope and pray that we will give our kids a good foundation in essential values, and a good beginning experience as members of the Black community.  Even though we are not perfect, we have faith in God's grace and work in their lives.  (This is our own faith, which obviously not everyone shares.)    

If the worst that happens is that my sons have a "coming out" experience as Black American men, they'll be okay.

They will be alright.