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Hi,
My husband and I adopted our beautiful daughter from South Texas almost 9 years ago! She is fabulous in every way, very socially confident and fun loving. We have two older daughters who are now out of the house, (college, work etc.) We are white and our 9 year old is racially Mexican/American and African American.
We are older and I am considering retirement. Up to this point, she has been in a white community. She does very well in school and seems to have lots of friends. We are starting to discuss the future. She is bright and a hard worker and we would like to foster her education as best we can. We live in a rural area and have enjoyed relative safety, fresh air, quiet and being able to have animals. All of these things, she enjoys. We raised her older sisters here and they benefitted from these things as well as a good education at our local public schools. My husband and I have been discussing moving to a bigger city-Minneapolis/St. Paul, so that she may benefit from attending more diverse schools, once we retire. Likely, we would be moving so that she could attend high school there. We don't know many people there, however, and would likely move back once she has finished high school. Our family is closer to here, though, she doesn't have same aged cousins here.
I am wondering what people think or if anyone has done this. We are willing to do this, if it would foster her development and add to her enjoyment of school, but don't want to if there would be minimal benefit for her. Also, we have friends and family here, so would a diverse educational experience outweight that benefit?
I know that each child is different. She is quite adaptable and we openly discuss race. As I said, she has lots of friends now, but it has to be hard being the "only one" all the time. There are a few children of color in our district, but really, just a handful.
Any advice, thoughts, or similar experiences would be helpful!!