Caucasian Siblings

DH and I are both CC and we have bio-daughter. The first time we adopted we were open to any race and was matched with our biracial son. When we decided to adopt the second time (3rd child) we said we prefered AA or biracial. We thought our youngest was biracial but he turned out to be full CC (long story). I have asked my son several times over the years if it bothers him that he is the only biracial family member, his answered has always stayed the same "NO". When he first joined our family he was almost 4 yrs, he often compared our differences. When has was around 5 he said he like being looking different then the rest of us because it made him feel special. When our youngest was a baby I asked T if he was o.k with little A being CC and he said " I love him because he is my baby brother I don't care what he looks like". He is now 9yrs and has never once said he wished he had a sibling that looks like him ( I have asked him several times). We are most likely done adopting but if we do adopt again I will be open to any race, but will prefer biracail or AA (just in case one day T changes his mind;) )Wanted to add our son is not the kind of person to over think things to him we are just a family plan and simple.

My sons didn't care at 9 either ... but it was really hard from around age 12 on. I would say, and the experts agree, that ideally if a child can have a same race sibling in the family it does provide some comfort and support for the child as they grow up. Remember, right around age 11 or 12 the child begins to be seen as a separate entity from the parents and they lose the protection of our "white privilege". That is a very difficult process - particularly in an all white family, in a very white school, in a predominately white community. Of course it doesn't change their connection to their family --- but that isn't much comfort at school etc.

I kind of follow this line of thinking. We adopted our son who is hispanic from foster care. We are both CC. Though we are open to any race this adoption we are hoping for another Hispanic child. Had our first child been AA we would want another AA child. I want our kids to have that in common with one another if we can't have that in common with them. I just don't want any of them to feel like the odd one out.

Just to add a slightly different perspective, we are white and we have one child who is Hispanic and our second child is AA. We knew about wait times having increased our second time around and did not want to limit race more than we absolutely had to. We said any race BUT CC. It was a 17 month wait. (We did have a failed match with a Hispanic child at 14 months.) We live in a very diverse neighborhood, with diverse representation in the schools. We have friends of a variety of races and the kids' godparents are Hispanic, AA, and Asian. On my side, the kids have two AA cousins, two CC cousins, and one Hispanic cousin. However, we do know that they will have different experiences based on race, gender and personality.And their feelings will change based on age. At 6 & 2 it is really mostly an awareness of skin tones and hair differences. I really don't know what we would do without a good community. It helps a lot -

We just finalized our first adoption of and AA little girl. We have 4 sons by birth, all CC like us. After the adoption hearing we asked our SW to leave our Foster Lisence open for another year. She said that was a good idea because it can be difficult to be the only one in the family who looks different. We have some diversity in our family and friends, but not much. H is one of only 3 AA children in her school. Adding another child would make things even more crazy around our house. We could be done with H, but we could also be open to another if it would mean H and the new AA sibling would have a better life with a similar looking sibling. What do you guys think?

We specifically want to adopt another AA baby. S has been VERY opinionated about having a brown baby just like her. Our last 2 failed adoptions were for CC boys. The first a relative her age, the 2nd a newborn who we matched with that was a friend of the family. S was very upset when we told her that he would be CC, we assured her we would adopt a AA baby the next time. For us we know if we have/adopt a CC child, we would definitely adopt AA the next time. As it stands now, we aren't sure what we are going to do. But should we continue our adoption journey we plan on specifying AA, it's very important to S at 2 & 3 yoa so it's important to us as a family. :)

We are CC, and our DDs are Hispanic. Our younger DD was adopted from foster care, and one of the main reasons we were chosen as her placement is because we already had a Hispanic daughter. Although our younger DD isn’t too cognizant of skin color differences yet, our older DD has said she is happy her younger sister is "brown like her". Best wishes with your decision.

Do you think race matters if a child "looks" like the rest of the family, even if he is biracial? We are CC, our 2 daughters are CC, our son is biracial (C and Hispanic). His birth mom was very fair skinned, so he really looks very similar to the rest of us. People that learn he is adopted are often surprised since he favors me with hair color etc. He is only a young toddler now and has no awareness of the fact yet that he is biracial. Any thoughts? Is it about looking different or more technically being a different ethnic heritage?

I do think it's best if a child is not the only person of color in his/her family but in our case it worked out that our son is the only person of color in our immediate family. I do worry about it. We do live in a very diverse area, have diverse friends, hire doctors and other professionals of color, his teachers are African-American and African, etc. He's only 2 now but we are constantly working on ways to keep him from feeling isolated because of our family make-up.

We feel that our family is complete and we have one CC child and one biracial AA/CC child. While I do anticipate some feelings about our family dynamic as J gets older, I believe that our family will overcome those feelings. We live in an area that is majority CC, but we frequent events and places that include all races. My best friend also has four biracial children and there is plenty of diversity in J's daycare and L's school.

My son (AA) is my only child at this point. He is 10 months old now, and I have begun to think about adopting again in the future specifically because I think it would be helpful for him to have a sibling who is also AA. We have AA and biracial friends, as well as friends where the adults are CC and the children are not. However, my immediate family (C's grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins) are all CC. We live in an town that is more diverse than the surrounding area, but not as diverse as some places. Also, since I am a single parent and C is fairly light-skinned, people sometimes think that I am his bio-mom. None of that feels like enough. I had thought about limiting my family to one child, but I don't want him to be the only child of color in our family.

when our STAS joined our family (all CC) we thought we were 'done'. well, 4 1/2 month later we received a call if we would be interested in adopting a newborn baby girl... I was like... ahhhm... ahhhmmm..... THEN they said, she is biracial, and I said 'YES'. all of a sudden I had visions of my son growing up with a sister that looks just like him, and both had a sibling they could count on, grow up with... AND look the same. so, yes, to us the sameness of our two children was what made us say 'yes' to this not always easy task of basically raising twins .