CNN Article: Do whites need training before parenting black children?

I whole heartedly dissagree with this article. I do believe that white parents should be trained in ways in which to honor their black children's heritage and culture by incorporating it into their own, but I have always been and always will be against "preparing" my child to be racial discriminated and "teach" her to expect less out of life because of her skin tone and hair texture. Example, while my daugther is only two, she goes to a predominantly Latino preschool where there are a few black kids and fewer white ones. Her personality shines when she walks in the room and she is one of the most popular kids in school. She is one of the most popular kids because she is proud of who she is, she loves her hair and her skin. I didn't tell her "hey kiddo...see those other kids, they are different than you...I said, you have gorgeous hair, awsome skin a killer smile...knock um dead!" My being white has come up as a topic of conversation, but I have simply joined forces with the parents and opened up to them as a smiling proud mother to my daughter. One black mother, didn't think too highly of us, until she got to know us, and now she has befriended us, cause we (my kiddo and I) are not afraid of our difference, we embrace it and by making others more comfortable with it, we are helping them understand. That is what I'm teaching my daughter. I will raise her as I was raised, proud of herself and all that she is capable of becoming. I will tell her that life comes with many joys and many dissappointments and will prepare her to expect both.My "sister" who is black and her black husband just gave birth to a "white" baby. They have white genes on both sides and their kid came out with pale pink skin and stick straight hair. She is 5 months and is still pale and still has straight silky hair. She will be raised by black parents (her parents) but will be perceived in some cases as white. What if they have another child that looks more black??? What are they gonna do?? Raise one as a "white" kid and one as a "black" kid??? No they are both multiracial children in a multi-ethnic society being raised by black parents. As time marches forward we will have to accept the fact that we are all ONE RACE, whether by adoption, blended marriages, freak genes...whatever, there are no pure races of anything anymore, so to perpetuate a dying belief system is archaic in my eyes.I fear that if parents are trained in black parenting (What is that exactly??? my black friends are raising their kids the same way I am.) outside of understanding skin, hair and heritage, I fear that it will be a way of perpetuating racism and racial anger.Yes someone will say something awful to my child one day, but I would much rather my child be able to tell them to take a hike and feel great about herself than to say...."oh yeah, you said that cause I'm black right?"

I wholeheartedly disagree with article with every fiber of my being and actually think it is a huge step backwards in healing race issues in America. I wonder what the agenda is of the groups involved?????I agree that transracial parents should incorporate their child's heritage into their family, ie. become a part of the black community, celebrate heritage, get knowlegable about skin and hair....but training??? What kind of training would it be exactly???? Will it be training that solidifies the divide between whites and blacks??? Hmmm??? What about transracial marriages? Or my black "sister" who had a "white" baby? Don't you think that children are better served by having more diverisity in the world than less? Sorry but this just feels like "stay on your own side of the fence" to me. I agree that a parent needs to celebrate all that their child is, meaning really celebrate hair, skin and heritage, but seriously not adopt because of skin color....feels really 1960's to me.My daughter will be raised to love her skin and hair and her heritage (she already does and at 2 is one of the most popular kids in school). She is being raised as I was raised, to be proud of herself and all that she is capable of becoming. I will tell her that life comes with many joys and many dissappointments and will prepare her to expect both. This article makes me want to rush out and adopt my second kiddo (which is happening soon anyway) before something wonky happens in foster care.Right now my agency can't get families to adopt transracial kiddos, how is this article gonna help them??? Huh? This is just so sad :-( and feels a lot like more racism to me. Yes someone will say something awful to my child one day, but I would much rather my child be able to tell them to take a hike and feel great about herself than to say...."oh yeah, you said that cause I'm black right?"

Interesting... as a mother, I taught my children that it wasn't color of skin that mattered, but the person him or herself. That is how they've lived their lives. Should they have had special training as they were about to become parents of biracial children. Their children are considered by many to be "black." Does that mean my children can't/shouldn't parent their biological children?

It doesn't talk about what the training would be but I have to say if I were a foster-mom-to-be I would probably welcome a class on the cultural differences. I am white and was raised in a white household in a white neighborhood. I have no idea if parenting an AA/BR child is different from a CC child from a cultural standpoint. I already know (from reading here) that there are strong opinions about hair care. I can only assume there are other differences. I embrace "celebrating diversity". I love experiencing other sub-cultures living within a 5 mile radius of my house. Multiple cultures have (IMO) become the culture of America. I worry that with color-blindness comes cultural integration - meaning we lose bits and pieces of culture through integration instead of accepting/embracing the differences. I'm not saying CC parents cant raise an AA child at all. I'm just saying that a little education from the AA community couldn't hurt. Isn't that what the article was saying or am I missing something?

As a mother raising black boys, now teens I would whole heartedly say YES. I agree with the article completely and fully. And here in Canada this is absolutely required before being homestudy approved. Raising children transracially (ESPECIALLY after the preschool years) is NOT the same as raising same race children. Add the long history of racism and prejudice against Blacks in Canada and the USA and ABSOLUTELY most white parents/people do NOT have a clue. Now would I have agreeed with this when my boys were preschoolers? I am not so sure. But I am ADAMANT now that it IS different and our kids require us to be the BEST parents we can be -- and if taking a course helps me be a better mom, I am ALLLLLLLLL for it. :)

Wanted to say that it is INSANE to me that they arent even ALLOWED to offer special training as its against the law. To me that is unfathomable. For someone to think that special skills arent needed has their head buried deep deep in the sand. Canada, Australia, UK already require special training for adopting transracially and I think its a VERY GOOD THING.

Ah Jen, I thought of you when I read this thread! Glad you responded. I believe that there should be training (education?) for all parents who are raising children of a different race and/or culture. Heck, I'll take that further and state that there should be training for ALL parents, lol, but perhaps that's for another thread...

As with most news articles, it's a pretty one sided view and does not present an entirely accurate picture of things. Every parent adopting from foster care in the US has to go through training. My state required 20 hours and most states require around the same number I believe. In addition to the 20 hours, we also had to do another 8 hours of reading, watching videos, talking to approved "experts" etc. via our agency. In our training classes, the racial/cultural aspect was indeed discussed. We watched 2 documentary type videos - one was an adoptee from Korea and the other was an adoptee from foster care who is black. Both were raised in white families and they discussed how they grew up etc. We also had 2 presentations in one of the classes - one an adoptee and one a sw discussing the racial/cultural elements. There were several parents to be in the class that were given materials and resources to read/view if they were open to different races than their own - just like they did on attachment, drug exposed, kids in foster care from disrupted international adoptions etc. So to me, that article is not really all that accurate, imo. Plus...where does it cover anything BUT black children being adopted by white parents? That's a bit racist imo...to single this out? What about non cc parents adopting outside their race? Or any other race being adopted by a cc? Again...the article is lacking in many ways. Now..if there's something the agencies should offer to parents adopting new borns? I think info is good and if agencies are not providing info on so many different things that can stem from adoption, (and we know they don't) then that is something they should do. But in this article, it focused on foster care and it's not accurately portrayed.

To Crick's point. My response to this article came as an adopting foster mother who did recieve training about transracially adopting children.I assumed that the training they were speaking of in this article was just for white parents adopting black children (and even though my kiddo is bi-racial...meaning we have her Latino culture to consider as well, she would be considered a black child) and only for the purpose that my "white" parenting skills are somehow not appropriate for my black child. I already understand the importance of being a part of the black and Latino communities in our neighborhood as well as having friends and family around her who look like her and have a simular cultural heritage.That being said, I would probably love to be a part of an open discussion/training program developed and taught by transracially adopted adults.

I've posted this same response on the transracial forum. I'm posting it again here. Ohhh, I think this could be a very scary trend. I completely agree that ALL families, wanting to adopt across racial lines, should have to undergo more training. I think this is essential to having a healthier family. BUT...if it has to be conducted, I also think that training should be done by more than just the foster care system. The foster care system is NOTORIOUS for poor trainings in many ways. (not all ways...but too many). Also, who's to decide (based on one group doing the training) WHAT'S the more important stuff to educate famlies on? There're a LOT of misconceptions to transracial families and what's really important...so I know I sure wouldnt' want to depend on just one group doing the training here, KWIM? Next, some of you may not remember....but back in the 70's (or sooner?).....one group (and I believe it was one of the groups who's recommending this) was ridiculously adamant that only AA families should be allowed to adopt AA babies. They felt anything other than that, meant the CC folks were committing 'cultural genocide' to the AA race. I sure don't want to go back to that way of thinking in any way. Certainly, there are families who promote 'color-blindness' in raising their children of color. (I've seen and known of a few.) BUT.......there are also a lot of families who shouldn't be adopting children with behavioral disorders, or any other consideration....and the foster care system has allowed them to adopt, too. None of those situations are correct, but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think there ARE agencies....even today, who choose to place any children of color, with only families of color...though those agencies deny this practice....it's only a smoke screen to say 'they're waiting for the right family'...when sometimes, it's only because of color. Do I think families need to be more educated. Absolutely. Do I think some agencies place AA babies in families who'd really prefer a CC baby...given the chance to do so? Sure do...and I find that sickening. But, anytime there's a sweeping generalization and policy is tailored to that generalization...there's too often a bigger problem than there was in the first place. In that case, it's the children who'll suffer...while the adults will feel better about it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........ I hope this isn't a signal for what's to come... Sincerely, Linny PS....Momma to two Asian babies...now grown and on their own....and three AA babies...still at home. (Everyone was adopted.)

Some people just don't know when it is a good thing not to be PC. As long as the white foster or adopted parents treat the kid well feeds them, sends them to school and takes care of them I see no problem. However, the white foster or adopted parents should learn some of the culture of the foster or adopted child.

I adopted from the foster care system and agree 100% with the article. I had 30 hours of training and our transracial part was about 5 minutes when the facilitator told us that you don't wash AA kids hair everyday and you may need to fix special foods for Hispanic kids... that was it. So does that sound like adequate training for people who probably have no interaction with people of color? The facilitator who was a foster parent told us that she was given no information on parenting transracially when she was trained and had to learn the hard way by experimenting on the child. After a series of bad placements the county had brought in a hair dresser to teach how to care for AA hair. By the time I went through training those classes where gone mainly because there were very few people interested in transracial placements. The state had basically set them up for failure. You will find that agencies will be reluctant to dedicate too much of the training time to transracial parenting education because of the time factor... they feel like the abuse, neglect or drug exposure issues are higher priority. When raising a child from the foster care system I think everything is a high priority including race and having a parent who will know how to protect them from racism. If you have no experience... what do you tell you child to do if someone calls them a racist name? What if you child is treated in a different manner because of his/her race? Will you recognize it? How do you handle it if you recognize it? How do you handle friends and family who have negative things to say and treat your child as different or an outsider? This is all valid training material... you can just look at the forums to figure out what people need training on. I seriously scratch my head when I see some questions asked on the forums that should have been answered looooong before a child was placed in the home. I think some people are embarassed to admit they don't know everything or just arrogant enough to think they do know everything. I do not know everything. I'm black and my kids are black... I can help with that. My kids are adopted and I am not... I will need help addressing that aspect of their lives because I'm not living it or breathing it. My DH and I have taken every class we could take and thoroughly enjoyed them because it help us become better parents to our kids.

I read the synopsis of the actual study. As usual, the press got it all wrong, and/or used sensational quotes to take the study out of context.[url=http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/research/2008_05_mepa.php]Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute[/url]We talked about this on the Yahoo! group African American Domestic Adoption. First, the study was only done on families who adopted via foster care. On our group, we found that some families who had done foster-adopt had received training, as part of the normal training, on parenting children of other races. However, many said that they had not.Most of the people who responded that they used private agencies said that their agencies recommended or required training, reading, and/or seminars.

I really don't want to see training aimed at one race specifically I do think that the training we recieved Did Not come close to giving us enough info on things like attachment, dealing with bio family issues, drug exposure, race, etc I think many things need to be case by case. My girls are bi-racial, but the only AA homes they ever lived in were foster care.