Back to Ask the Experts Page Back to NYSCCC Home Page
An Adoptive Parent Writes:We are searching for a more diverse school environment for our 5 year-old son who is bi-racial. We adopted our son when he was 3 weeks old. We have 3 biological children ages 14, 12, and 10 who are Caucasian. We have been looking at a private school that has a ratio of 96% African-American and 4% other. The one hold-up we have with this environment is that it offers cultural diversity that is completely the opposite of our home life. Do you think that this situation is too confusing for a child?
I have asked our county to provide us with a variance to move our son to a school that has more diversity, especially African-American, than our local elementary and they have refused us. He will be attending our local school (to start off) and he will be one of six African-American children in a grade with approximately 80 students. They have placed him in a class of 20 students total including 2 African-American children, my son, and 1 Hispanic child. I do not know the other minority percentages for his grade/class.
We started attending a more diverse church this summer and he is almost old enough to start after-school activities where we can find more diversity. Our pediatrician is African-American which has been a tremendous blessing for our family.
We have been open with him since he was old enough to understand why he is special in our family. We want the best for him. I hope that we are on the right track. We would appreciate your input.
John Raible Answers:
As the only adoptee in the family, I can well imagine your biracial son wondering why he "has" to go to a special school when his brothers and sisters "get to" go to a "normal" school. He already feels different (or special, as you put it). If the 96% black school is good enough for your adopted son, it had better be good enough for your other children, too. We can predict that he WILL wonder why he was given different treatment.
Especially if he gets singled out as the biracial kid, when most of his classmates are African American, he will have lots of questions about race and color-based privilege and interracial dynamics. If he's lucky, he will find people he feels comfortable talking to about the complicated nature of his social experiences. Expect that he won't want to talk to you about this, especially as he matures, and make sure there are people around whom you trust to guide him on this leg of his journey. Hopefully, these adult role models will include lots of people who look like your son.
To put it another way, how about considering a school or neighborhood where ALL your kids get to experience the wonders of diversity? In my view, in transracial adoptive families, everyone should become transracialized. As a family, by adopting this boy, you all have taken on the challenges of living with diversity. Make sure your son doesn't feel like he's carrying the burden alone. That can easily lead to resentment
To share your experience or thoughts on this topic, or to submit another question, please click here.
Back to Ask the Experts Page Back to NYSCCC Home Page
08/31/2007