Talking to Children: Adoption, Race, Alternative Family Forms

Every now and then in some corner of the Internet or even very occasionally in face-to-face life, I come across someone who defines a problem something along the lines of this "My three/five/nine-year old is adopted/a different race than me/has two moms/was conceived with donor gametes and I need to explain it, how do I start?"

I'll admit, my prefiltered answer is usually "why didn't you start from the beginning?" but the fact is, people don't always do that, and I think it makes it trickier later. So with that in mind, I present you with our strategies thus far on these types of topics and offer them to those out there with wee newborns who are wondering if or how to start these conversations right away.

First, my general take on topics adults sometimes claim are "confusing for children" is that no topics are confusing for children when introduced from the beginning as normal. Many topics are indeed confusing for adults. And that is what throws us in our attempts to explain. Kids are brand new people and thus, incredibly gullible. They were, after all, born yesterday and will pretty much take whatever we adults tell them as Gospel for a few lovely years until they encounter peers, television, adults who vote differently than their parents and sundry other spoilers of our unadulterated authority.

Adoption

Kids hear from adults on "difficult" topics all the time. We just talk about these topics in ways that normalize them such that kids don't realize the topics are difficult. Adoption, for example, is no weirder than birth. "Billy's mommy brought him a baby sister home from the hospital" we may say. Huh? But it's a daily occurrence, for parents to say things like this to toddlers or preschoolers. A two or three-year old may not fully understand all the details of where babies come from, but that simple sentence, repeated about a half-dozen friends and family members over a year or two gives a small child the basic vocabulary for exploring the topic in more detail as she becomes curious about it. "Where did the hospital get the baby?" a child might ask. To which we might easily say "oh no, Billy's mommy grew the baby in her body and the doctors at the hospital helped the baby come out." And that will hold the child until she grasps it well enough to ask phase three of the "where do babies come from" question.

There's no reason adoption can't be told in a similar way. In our family, adoption comes up naturally in multiple ways. Our kids' baby books have a basic outline of our adoption preparation process and their first mothers' pregnancy, birth and placement processes. We bless the first mothers first in our nightly bedtime prayers calling them "Mama" FirstName each. We talk about babies growing in pregnant friends' bodies and say, "like Nat grew in Mama Rose's body and Selina grew in Mama Fern's body before they came to live with Mama Shannon and Cole-Mom!" And of course we have contact and photos of our kids' moms. But even without an open adoption, even without knowing a first mother's name, an adoptive parent can tell a child she grew in a birth- or first- or mother-besides-the-adoptive-mother's body.

We have been doing these small things since both girls were tiny babies. "She's so beautiful! She looks a lot like her mother!" we cooed to each of them as newborns. Again, with an unknown first parent, an adoptive parent could certainly say "she's so beautiful! Her mother must have been beautiful too!"

I've heard people ask how to tell a child in an open adoption exactly who that person is who comes to visit and sends cards, when that person is in fact a first parent or other family member. In our case, we already have multiple mothers in our family, and since the moms need distinguishing modifiers anyway, calling our children's first mothers "Mama FirstName" was a no-brainer. I suppose there are adoptive parents who would be uncomfortable using parent names with first-parents, though I'd encourage them to sleep on it a while and mull it over and reconsider. If you don't use such a name, you will have to explain it later, because kids don't automatically know who is who, even if it's right in front of their face for years. The fact that the person whose body you grew in is some kind of mother (even with a "birth" or "first" or "biological" modifier) will need to be explained. So we find "Mama Rose" and "Mama Fern" a handy way to normalize it from the get-go.

A note on alternative reproduction: I obviously have no first-hand experience with talking to children about reproductive technologies, but I will say that Lisa's simple explanation to her boys struck me as just about perfect. She gave her anonymous sperm donor a fictional name so her boys can get a handle on him as a person, too.

Race

It is very important not to ignore the topic of race or encourage children to preserve their colorblindness beyond its natural developmental phase (which is longer or shorter depending on the diversity of a child's surroundings). In fact, I'm a big believer in teaching race awareness before children stumble into that phase of their development when they start noticing it on their own. This is because I don't want that stumble to be a nasty fall into something vicious. Somewhere between about two and about four, kids will begin to start noticing physical differences between people, including race and gender. It is no better for a child to be artificially encouraged "not to notice" the difference of race than it is to artificially keep a child confused about the difference between a boy and a girl (and I don't mean plumbing per se, I mean simply knowing that some people are boys and some people are girls).

We started talking about race right away with our kids too. Theirs, ours and other people's. At this point, Nat is finally starting to mimic me by pointing it out on her own. I have always praised her for her "pretty brown cheeks" and various other parts, which we name and kiss and tickle and admire in the mirror together, and while doing so, I have pointed out that my own skin is not as brown as hers, but pale because I am "white." Then we will name people in our lives who either have brown skin or white skin. And while I prefer the term "Black" to "African American," it's pretty confusing to praise brown skin and then call a person Black for a child with a new or shaky grasp on color, so we say African American for now. "Gwen has pretty brown skin just like Nat's! Gwen and Nat are both African American" we say every single night during the news (when we watch for the necklace).

But we also name whiteness, which I think is an often overlooked, but critical piece of this when it comes to transracial adoption. I hear too much about teaching children that they are Black (or Asian, Latina, etc.) in a way that makes the child the "problem"--the one whose presence in the family and the world in general requires some special explanation. It is important to me that Nat know that whiteness is not the default and that it is just as remarkable that Mama Shannon is white as it is that Nat is African American. When we read her new favorite book, D is for Drinking Gourd, and get to "R is for Roots" and those "roots" are Africa, I always say "African American people have roots in Africa; white people have roots in Europe; but many people have roots in both African and Europe." Becaue the fact is, even though she is dark, Nat certainly has some white ancestors, and even though I'm "white" in the very least, I have prehistoric African roots (as do all human beings) and it's not impossible, given U.S. history, that I have more recent ones, too. And of course, Nat's baby sister is biracial via her immediate biological parents.

We have yet to broach the topic of racism directly. But I think the aforementioned book is a great way to ease into this topic at an age-appropriate pace. I reviewed the book here, but since that's an archived post, I'll just tell you briefly that the book goes through the alphabet and touches on topics in African American history that are all real, but not all pretty. S is for slavery; L is for Little Rock Nine; X is for Malcolm X. Right now, when I read those parts to Nat, I say "S is for slavery, a very sad thing; see the sad, sad people on the boat?" Nat will ask me what slavery is when she is developmentally ready to wonder about it. For now she just knows it is a sad thing that affected African American people in the past. As for the Little Rock Nine, I say "this little girl is going to school in Little Rock and the police officer is protecting her." Again, she can ask what's the big deal when she is ready. (Malcolm X is a nice image of the man and I am simply teaching her to recognize him.) The book has a little rhyme for each topic, but also a paragraph or two in text geared to an older child. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for resources to introduce difficult topics in race and U.S. history with children. I am loving that Nat can "read" the book herself now, explaining, "A is for abolitionist! This is Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist!" We can polish up the details later (though, knowing Nat, later will be sooner than I think).

"Alternative" Family Forms

I don't really like the term "alternative family" because it presumes a norm and I am pretty skeptical that there is any such thing. But children's television certainly presumes and presents a norm, so let's just say "alternative to children's television norms of family structure" and go from there.

Lately Nat is all about quoting snippets of television (hence a recent 72 hour t.v. fast, as her performances were beginning to get on my nerves). She will sometimes say "my mommy blah-blah-blah" or "my daddy blah-blah-blah" in the annoying Caillou voice (can we get a petition to either get that whiney kid off the air or at least hire a new voice for him???). Nobody in our family is called "mommy" so as far as Nat is concerned, that character is as irrelevant as "daddy" to her life. Nevertheless, I always take the opportunity to tell her that rather than a mommy and a daddy, she has two moms. (She has three, see above. But in the immediate family there are two, so we stick to that, since the question is really having two moms at home versus having one of each gender parent at home.) Recently, Nat started experimenting a little and pointing to me and saying, "my mom!" then pointing to Cole and saying "my dad!" We were somewhat tickled. "At least she got the gender right" I said. But in the moment, we stopped and said "no, two moms!"

So popular culture and a handful of peers with a mommy and daddy each have managed to socialize her to look for a daddy. She has no particular feelings about daddies, she simply seems to wonder if one of us is one.

My step son did a similar thing when he became verbal. He had known his mother since birth and been taught to call her mommy. He knew I wasn't her. He had friends with a mommy and a daddy each and so he decided that I must be his daddy, since I wasn't his mommy, but was another parent (as far as he was concerned). He called me daddy for about a year until he got a better grasp on gender and realized that A) daddies are always male and B) I was always female. Then he called me mommy and said he had "two mommies." Seeing as I never encouraged him to call me parent names at all, and always corrected him to call me Shannon, it is clear that he figured this all out on his own and it made good sense to him.

Something similar seems to be going on with Nat now, as she hits about the age when my stepson figured out the two-mom idea on his own. And this brings me to another important, but often overlooked point.

I came across this issue in Families Like Mine before Nat was born. Often enough, people with atypical (for kids' television) families have different types of names for the parents in the family than the typical mom or dad names. We have Mama Shannon and Cole-Mom. Both of those are a little unusual in our circle. Most people we know are "Mommy" or "Mom" to their kids. I think the fact that we have different names adds to Nat's need to figure out if we are "mom and dad" like other families have. So we have been underscoring that "Cole-Mom and Mama Shannon are your moms." Moms can have names besides just "mom." I imagine lesbian families with Babas or other atypical parent names need to do this too. Believe it or not, kids don't know unless we tell them directly that we are their parents--that the language other people will use to talk about parents applies to us. Sure, they know we care for them daily and they love us but they don't know how the names fit unless we explain it. The book mentions this as a problem if, for example a child is on a playground and an adult says "where's your mommy?" and the child's "mommy" is at work while the child's "mama" (or "baba") is on the playground. To that child mommy and mama are not interchangeable names and they need to know the answer for a stranger is "right here!"

Ditto for daddies, custodial grandparents, etc. etc.

The same holds true (again, according to Families Like Mine) for sexual orientation itself. It would seem that a child can grow up with two same-sex parents for years and never realize that the term "lesbian" or "gay" applies to those parents. This can be especially confusing when the only time a kid hears those terms is in a derogatory slur from peers. So while it might seem like overkill, half the time, when telling Nat she has two moms, I add that her moms are lesbians, love each other and are married. When some kid tells her girls can't marry girls, she will know just how to refute it.

These are some of the things we do. I am a firm believer in giving people as much information as they can absorb at any given moment and then just a teensy bit more to grow on. After all, I'm a teacher. Ignorance may be bliss for a while and some folks may think children should be kept "innocent" of life as long as possible, but that flies in the face of human nature to be curious, grow and learn. I want my children armed with the information they need to stand up for themselves and their families in a world that devalues both.

Comments

[Allie]

Before our children were born we thought about all kinds of strategies we'd have for explaining things such as the fact they have two mums. What we have learned over the years, our eldest is now eleven, is that our children's understanding is organic and probably more cyclical than linear in its development. They will 'discover' a concept such as family structure, learn something about it and then go through a period of showing little or no interest, before returning to it again on a whole new level.v And they are unique, of course, so they learn differently from each other.

Like you, we have always discussed the 'big issues' and our own children's lives in context. Children want to learn about the world, that's their mission, and I think that as parents we have to make sure that we don't give out any sense of 'awkwardness' or reluctance to engage. Sometimes that is hard, especially when they are young, but it does pay off. Just this morning I have shared a long conversation with my son about his plans to adopt as a single man, and how babies can be fed without 'booby milk'. My daughter was watching a comedy news show and paused it briefly to ask what an orgy was! But questions are good, always good.

[beate]

Great essay, as usual. The reminder about being explicit on all things is helpful. It's an approach I've embraced wholeheartedly for questions related to reproduction and plumbing. But when my then 2-yo daughter commented, after a friend's visit, that "he's brown", I was shocked and didn't quite know how to address it in my non-transracial family. Likewise when she started talking about a kid from daycare as "a brown kind of kid," I had no idea where she got the vocabulary and had the odd feeling that this was discussed at daycare as a departure from the default, never mind that the teachers also come in different hues. My daughter's awareness of race seems to be partial/unpredictable and the issue is not particularly salient to her yet. Anyway, it's a good idea to include the sort of literature you suggest in our repertoire.

[GforU]

I enjoy reading your posts. My husband and I have 3 children - 1 bio and 2 adopted. We are a multi-racial family with a bit of openness to our domestic adoptions. I too am surprised about parents not talking about these issues right from the start. In our case it's obvious that adoption is part of our family, so it's not like we can "pretend" it's not. Conversations are not easy, but important. And what has surprised me and what I think is an unmet need in the world of adoption is the issues of our bio son in relation to his brothers and us. There is all this focus on the kids who are adopted and yet the bio kids in a family also have to adjust to all this stuff too - and comments from peers, teachers, etc. Plus his own feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy, etc. Some of which would occur with any sibling regardless of how they joined the family but which are complicated by issues of race and adoption.

Anyway - keep the conversation going and thanks for your effort in writing these posts.

[Rachel H.]

I LOVE your honesty and simplicity. The "non-standard" things in my family are different from yours, but I've handled them similarly -- being forthright and to-the-point.

For example -- my husband's cousin died suddenly in a car wreck. Her four kids (ages 3 to 8) survived, but her baby (7m gesgation) did not. Because I wasn't close to their mom, I was able to have some hard conversations with them about death and loss that other family members wanted to skip over. (Initially they didn't plan on taking the kids to the hospital to "say goodbye" or have them at the funeral, but this plan was (thankfully) changed.)

My husband and I helped out by watching the kids before and after school so they could stay together. The bio father of one of the kids felt a tie to all four, and wanted to be their parent. What was difficult was the conversation about fathers. The four kids had 3-4 different bio fathers, but the kids had been told many different stories about their fathers. One was still in their lives (in a good way), but another was gone for 8+ years and another was in prison for hurting their mom. I really didn't know how to start ... and, since I was "just an auntie" I didn't say anything.

The topic of "daddy" made me curious ... do you have any contact with the children's birth dads? How do you talk about that part of their heritage?

[Tamra]

This is a great article! This is exactly how I talk to my dd about her adoption/race and I agree with you 100%. We also have a little ritual we do every year on her birthday. (it's also her gotcha day but I detest that term) I tell her the whole long story of how we decided to adopt because we wanted a little girl so much, how we found her, all about the trip and how she reacted to us, complete to how she settled in at home. Then we paint our feet red, India style, put on bangles and bindis and take pictures. She looks forward to it every year and it's a really special bonding time for both of us.

[Mirah Riben]

Kudos! Honesty is always the best policy. Simple honesty at first. What is age appropriate and always leaving the door open for further OPEN discussions. Giving them "permission" to talk about their feelings about all of these issues that affect their lives. Silence = secrecy and computes to SHAME in a growing adolescent. Something wrong with THEM that is not spoken of or spoken of with DISCOMFORT. And, trust me - they can TELL!

I deal with adult adoptees all the time who say that they just "knew" it was a taboo subject and lived with their pain. Not good.

As a mother who lost a child to adoption, I greatly appreciate your language sensitivity, honesty and respect.

There are similar issues that mothers who lost a child to adoption have to face if they had any children prior to the placement or subsequebtly.

I - like you - chose to be honest from the day my subsequent children were born. (Or almost). My first born SON always knew he was my firstborn SON, but not my oldest child, as he had a sister who "lives with another fmaily." Being children, the first reaction many mothers who have approached the situation in this mannner hear is: "Well, let's go get her!"

Mothers like myself who wait until their raised children are teens or older then fear being judged as having not exactly practiced what she preached. More prevalent is an inability to understand how times and situations were different and HOW she could have given away a child when their peers keep their children all the time.

Occasionally there is resentment between children lost to adoption and reunited and those "kept" and raised by the same mother.

But the biggest concern, the one that keeps mothers afraid to reveal the truth - I have never heard happen in speaking with thousands of mothers. The fear is that a small child might fear being given away as well.

THE BOTTOM LINE FOR ME for those planning to adopt and anyone considering placing a child for adoption is not just to tell as soon as possible...but to think about these issues and really try as hard as you can to put yourself in your child's shoes *before* you even enter into such a situation and if it can be avoided, avoid it.

If you do not feel comfortable telling your child that you used a sperm bank, perhaps that option is not the right one for you. If you cannot bear the thought of telling your child you chose to place him for adoption in order to continue your education... Don't just ignore your feelings of discomfort with the idea of having your child know, or deciding he doesn't have to know - or believing that love will solve everything - or that you will be able to face it when it needs to be faced, or when he asks.

If you feel discomfort FACE IT head on and rehthink your decision BEFORE you get into something that you will feel discomfort telling your child about HIS LIFE!! What you are doing affects not only you and the way YOU feel about it - but think how he or she will feel about it! Is it FAIR to put that much on another human being without them having any choice in the matter? How would you feel it was done to you? Felling out of control of their lives is a rather common feeling for adoptees because of decisions made about them that they were not party to. They fantasize of what their "other" life may have been like, as do mothers who lost children to adoption.

If large amounts of money are involved, how will he/she feel about that? Should they know about such details? I have had adoptes tell m their parents told them and it made them feel like a piece of furniture or it made them feel they had to live up to some expectation.

How would YOU feel???

You might want to read the numerous blogs written by adoptees that explain their feelings.

One set of VERY TELLING comments were those to a recent blog of mine:

http://tinyurl.com/69lbz9

Search out other adoptees reactions and THINK BEFORE YOU DECIDE!

Mirah Riben, Board of Directors, Origins-USA

Author, "The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Agency."

[ina]

Recently my 6 year old AA adopted daughter told me she didn't want to go to the (overwhelmingly) white Jewish day camp she's been going to for 3 years. She had a racist incident (from another kid) there last year which I felt the camp handled properly. I told her that the camps I thought would be best for her had more white kids than brown and she said Why? I was stumped & didn't know how to answer her, not wanting to utter the words that even in our mixed-race, mixed income town, white people tend to have more money - and are better able to afford more expensive camps - and brown people less. How will you deal with issues of class?

[Maia]

What a great posting! My parents use similar techniques when talking to my sibs about ... well, anything that some people might think is "too confusing" for kids. I was two when I started learning about "where babies come from" as I was there when my little brother was born (but unfortunately slept through it). It was presented to me in a way that was not at all scary or confusing, and I think that can be true of any of the things you've written about here. Thanks for sharing.

[AlisonG]

I really like your thoughts about introducing the topic of race early on. I've found myself a little tongue-tied about this, not knowing what words to use to describe the colour of my daughter's Asian skin, or the shape of her eyes. Obviously I don't want to use terms that have negative associations (yellow, slanted, almond, for example) but how else to talk about them? I guess I need to ask some Asians ... :-)

[Margie (Third Mom)]

The advice in this post can be applied to every single area of parenting.

Be honest. Thing of what your kids will encounter in the world. Arm them to handle those things. Love them like crazy.

Terrific advice in a terrific post - thank you!!