"Adoption is not an event. Adoption is not a snapshot in time. It is a moving picture that goes on through this life and into the ones that follow." (Joyce Maguiro Pavao, adoptee and author of The Family of Adoption)
I am trying to focus on that thought. As we are waiting for our adoption certification (see my newly added timeline to the right); as we have been waiting as a couple for over three years to add more children to our family; and as I've personally waited five years to have this dream fulfilled, this is such a good reminder for me. Just like when you are engaged and planning a wedding, or pregnant and looking forward to the birth day of your child, you tend to focus on the event itself. But marriage and parenthood, as most of us know, is a life-long journey. We get so focused on the event that we lose sight of the significance of the decision we are making. As I read more and more books on the subjects of transracial adoption and racial identity, I am forced to face fears and trepidation that I didn't even realize I had. This adoption thing is a BIG DEAL! It is a BIG DEAL that we are adopting a child or children of a different race. It is a BIG DEAL to be African American in a mostly white culture. We will have an enormous responsibility to our adopted children to help them to retain their cultural and racial identity. We must be their biggest advocate. And most of all, we must realize that race is a BIG DEAL.
I have to admit that I really didn't think about race too much. Being white, in a predominately white community, I didn't really have to. If I were any other race, I know I would think about it. I also never thought I had racial biases. To be honest, I am starting to realize how ignorant I really am on the subject of race. My biggest prayer is that what I am learning about the importance of race will also be learned by those around me. I feel like my eyes are slowly being opened; I am just embarrased and ashamed that it has taken 37 years to happen. But all I can do is move forward from here, and pray that my family, friends, and readers of this blog will move forward with me.
White privilege. I have to admit that I kind of scoffed at that term before, as maybe some of you have. But then I realized that I never really looked closely at what it meant. "A system of societal benefits received simply because one is white, which one may not have asked for or realize that one has...Whiteness can be a difficult concept for whites to grasp because the benefits are secured without taking action." (Inside Transracial Adoption by Steinberg and Hall.) I think when I allowed my pride to take a step back and the blinders to fall away, I saw how true that term is, and how prevalant white privelege is here in the United States.
I'm trying to be honest with what I am discovering. I feel so led to share what God is revealing to me, and I don't want any of these lessons to be wasted. Selfishly, I want myself, my family, and my friends to learn these things initially for our future adopted Ethiopian children, because we will be the ones helping them to fight their battles. Of course, new attitudes and outlooks on race should--and hopefully, will--also spill over to other people of color around us.
I have learned that there is no such thing as being color-blind. True, we should not treat someone differently or as less because of the color of their skin, but we also should not ignore it:
"...when I was a child my life wasn't 'colorless.' It was white. And colorbindness is a luxury black children can't afford. Love does not prepare an African American child for the society we live in. And love does not replace the importance of knowing your own ethnicity and culture." (Rachel Nordlinger, transracial adoptee)
I am learning that for the benefit of our adopted children, we must remember that love is not enough. Of course God's love can overcome anything, and a parent's love for their child conquers a lot, but we can't be blind to the struggles they are sure to have regarding their racial identity. The love we have for them must be the force that drives us to do all we can to provide them with multi-cultural experiences and friends and adult role models of their race as they are growing up.
Maybe this next quote will resonate even more with you. I know it kind of hit me over the head when I realized I could have been that "white person" she was talking about:
"When a white person says to me, 'It doesn't matter if they're black, white, brown or green...' or 'there's only one race, the human race,' a shudder goes down my spine. Those sentences erase a history of oppression and survival against enormous odds, as well as a legacy of courageous resistance and struggle. They also set us up to fail. As we grown into our teens, transracially-adopted children discover that being 'human' is simply not enough."(Julia Sudbury-Oparah, transracial adoptee)
So these are just some heavy things I have been thinking about while we are in our first waiting period. I hope they've made you think a little, too. I have read several books and I currently have a few others started at the moment. They either have to do with transracial adoption, adoption in general, Ethiopia, or racial issues. I've listed them under the timeline in case you'd like to read some of them for yourself. At some point I will need to stop and start reading about "attachment" because that could be a big issue, especially if we adopt slightly older children.
Prayer requests:
1) Please pray for our future children. We don't know if they are born yet or not, with their families or not, in an orphanage or foster care or not, healthy and safe or not. That's a lot of "or not"'s! So much is unknown right now. I long for the day when we'll hold them for the first time and know that they are safe. Please also pray for all the orphan children in Ethiopia and around the world. Remember, God commands us to help them in any way that we can. Prayer really does make a difference.
2) As always, please pray for patience. I can't wait until that is no longer such a huge prayer request for me! We've been in this for over 5 months now, and we still have a ways to go.
3) Pray that the courts will approve us to adopt very soon, that applying to immigration and fingerprinting will go quickly and smoothly, and that we'll be officially on the waiting list for Ethiopia by no later than November.
Thank you and God bless!
