Statistics show that the least likely children to be adopted in this country are African American. Most people looking to adopt are white. One of the reasons given by people who reject these children is that they are concerned about whether their extended family members would accept them.
Four of our five adopted children are African American. My wife and I are in the racial minority in our household. We would not have it any other way.
Our grown children were not at all surprised. As a family, we had been doing church work that targeted disadvantaged people of color for many years. We had talked of adopting frequently. One of my grown sons admits that it felt a little strange to him the first time he called the house and asked for me and the child called me Daddy.
I guess the only time that our grown children were concerned was when we told them that we had received a fifth child, when it was obvious that we were overloaded with four. We knew in our hearts the moment that we heard another brother was available that he was ours. They were thinking in terms of practicality.
The only family member that I worried about was my mother. I think that her main concern was that we had worked for many years and that it was our turn to relax. My mother is like a lot of elderly moms. Her main job now is to worry about her children and she did worry, for a few days.
My mother came down and stayed with us for a few days. She became very attached to Walter, our oldest. The boys had never had a grandparent. Mom put up with our most curious child pulling on her wrinkles to see if they were real. She never complained about the noise. It is an advantage when you can turn off your hearing aid. She was the perfect grandmother.
I will show you how quickly Mom got into the swing of things. She was transported from the gate at the airport in a golf cart type vehicle. She made friends with the lady sitting beside her. When the cart arrived, Walter jumped into the cart and hugged her. I didn’t notice anything else going on, but Mom told me that the lady she was riding with decided that she didn’t like her so much when she saw that she had black grandchildren.
My daughter and her husband have volunteered that they want to raise the boys in the unlikely event that anything ever happens to us. Our five boys have parents and an extended family that love them very much.
I would be interested if anyone would like to share how their adopted children have been accepted by their extended family.
Related Blog:
Not the Acceptance that Was Expected