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We live in a predominately African American area (70%). My husband and I are both Caucasian and youth leaders at our church. Our teenagers and kiddos at church are African American. We have many activities with kids in the community and most of the time it is African American kids that show up or hang around us. We share a lot of cultural interests and enjoy any culture, it just happens to be this way. We love kids no matter. However, we are kind of anxious about a child if we adopt that isn't from the area. If we adopt a child (Caucasian) that isn't used to being around many African Americans or raised with prejudice they will be out of place. If we have an African American child the child will be the only African American child in either of our families. No matter they would be accepted at our church and our family! We have discussed the possibility with both of our families and even extended families and our church family and they have no problem.
Just wondering thoughts about this.
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I know there's a lot of literature on transracial adoption. I'm sure others will have suggestions on books and articles and personal experience. The number one suggestion I've heard is make sure children have others they can identify with in the family and community. Whether that means adopting a sibling group or regularly associating with close friends of the same racial background, there are things you can do to help your children identify with others around them. It sounds like you have a great foundation with your church! I also think it's important to talk about it and let children know that kids are going to ask questions like, "why is your mom and dad white?" and have them prepare answers so they are comfortable and feel prepped.
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One of the big issues transracial adopters seem to face is the fact that they do not have any people of color in their lives that the child would be exposed to. The child would be the only person of color in the family or neighborhood and they feel that may be unfair to the child. From your post it sounds like this is not really a problem for you--your families are White however your church is majority AA. IMO I say go for it. Whatever the child's race is whether they are Caucasian, AA, biracial, whatever they will have contact with their own race either at family functions or church functions. And depending on the child's age they may not notice the difference in races or ethnicities for some time--and they will first learn friendship and become comfortable in their atmosphere before being uncomfortable because of differing races has a chance to happen.