Tag Archives: transracial adoption

Activities to Prevent Stereotypes in Young Children

My blog Combatting Stereotypes in Children: Part One discussed how children’s racial attitudes are largely formed by age nine. This blog largely focused on providing young children with an environment celebrating diversity via multiracial dolls, posters, food and clothing, music, etc. Combatting Stereotypes in Children: Part Two shared books and films that can help children in preschool, elementary school or secondary school appreciate the experiences of immigrants and people of different races. This blog will present some ideas for activities to help a group of young children—whether a preschool or kindergarten class, a homeschool group, a group of adoptive families, … Continue reading →

Book Review: Weaving a Family Untangling Race and Adoption

Barbara Katz Rothman is a sociologist. Much of her work has focused on the meaning of motherhood—ranging from studies of the modern midwifery movement, to the consumer pressure to buy for one’s offspring, to the Human Genome Project and the impact of genetics on identity and culture. These two interests– what it means to be a mother and what genes have to do with identity–merged when Rothman and her husband adopted an African-American infant. Rothman’s book Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption shares her insights, both professional and personal, on transracial adoption. Rothman’s title is inspired by the experience … Continue reading →

More Musings:

As we were leaving speech therapy last week, we mentioned our plans to have corned beef corned beef for dinner (for St. Patrick’s Day). Meg’s therapist said, “Are you all Irish?” “Sure. Every last one of us.” Except that, like most witty responses, this came to me after the fact. It’s probably a good thing anyway. Emphasizing the difference would have just made her feel different. She’s also getting to the age of being embarrassed in talking about herself and being adopted, although she seems much more ready to talk about being Korean since we had a Korean student stay … Continue reading →

Resources for Learning the History of Other Cultures

When I decided to adopt from Korea, I knew next to nothing about the culture. In what little mention of them there is in books, Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia are often presented as victim nations, poor and often governed by puppet regimes of other countries. This is not great for self-esteem. (Regarding self-esteem: I’ve always thought some women were too sensitive to non-inclusive language. I’ve always been fine assuming that “all men” included me. But as I get older I see subtle discrimination more than I ever thought I would, and I realize the power of hearing … Continue reading →

Our Holiday Too

Today, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday is observed by government agencies, public schools, and many private schools and offices. Some businesses, however, deal with holidays such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Veterans’ Day by remaining open (in a global economy, many of them must). Instead of these holidays, many give their employees two or more “personal holidays” that they can take throughout the year. I can appreciate the flexibility of this arrangement. I also admit that before there was this holiday, when I was in high school and college, our school day had assemblies, prayer services, speakers and … Continue reading →

Friday Funny: the Befuddled Santa

Our scrapbooking blogger Nicole had a series she called the Friday Funnies . In that spirit I offer this humorous holiday incident, wondering whether other adopted kids have had the same experience. My five-year-old and I were at a smaller shopping mall in our neighborhood. Santa wasn’t busy at the time. He saw my daughter looking at him and came closer to the picket fence of the space defined for photo-taking. “Nee How! Nee How!” he said leaning toward Regina. He waved vigorously. “Nee how!” I was wondering what was in Santa’s eggnog that day when I remembered that Ni … Continue reading →

Right Summer Safety Precaution, Wrong Reason. Now What?

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“I’m glad to see you’re remembering to use sunscreen,” I told my daughter. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “I always do because, you know, I don’t really like my skin. It gets really dark in summer.” HELLO? Haven’t we been over this already? (At least I think we have. I know I had a conversation with the four-year-old last year about skin. With this older one maybe the conversations were all about hair and about wanting wallpaper of blonde Barbies and Cinderellas. I can’t remember.) I didn’t know she’d noticed that her skin got darker in the summer. I hadn’t really … Continue reading →

A Caution About Introducing Children to Other Cultures

When I was a preschool teacher, I attended a workshop that challenged something I most loved to do. I was startled—someone was challenging something I believed was healthy and showed a commitment to diversity. As an adoptive parent, I now understand their point more than ever. I’ve always loved other cultures and try to show kids different customs, costumes and music from around the world. So I was very surprised when the workshop leaders criticized the “country of the week/month” held in many preschool and primary classes. The leaders pointed out that we often do this in a way which … Continue reading →

At Last: The Conclusion to the Heritage Report Odyssey!

Hooray! Meg did her Heritage Report on Korea! For those of you wondering what the big deal is, well, maybe it isn’t that big a deal…but I’m hoping her change of subject signals pride in being Korean and willingness to acknowledge her adoption. When I last wrote about this project, Meg said she was doing it on Canada. She began to draw the Canadian flag, but I put off helping her research the rest of the report in the hope she’d change her mind and do Korea. She changed her mind four days before the report was due, but in … Continue reading →

Never Underestimate the Power of a Role Model

Our family decided to hire a college exchange student from Korea through an au pair agency. I had initially been hesitant, longing for more cultural exchange with Koreans but fearing that I would be judged on my parenting skills, or that someone from another culture might be prejudiced against adoption in some way. Meg herself told us she didn’t want us to get a Korean au pair. (We’ve had two previous au pairs from Brazil, whom Meg loved.) But we thought that having a role model of a young Korean woman would be good for Meg’s self-esteem, so we took … Continue reading →