Seeing in Color: Two Takes on Race and Adoption

By Lisa at Pack of Three for Adopt-a-tude


This past September, I attended a viewing of the Point Made Films' documentary "Adopted." The showing was organized by a Korean adoptive parenting group (Korea Focus) and our local FCC (Families with Children from China) organization. The film, produced in 2003, has proven controversial.

The majority of the footage focuses on an adult adoptee, Jen Fero, a 32-year-old Korean-born woman who was adopted and raised in a small Oregon town in the late '70s and '80s by a loving Euro American family. Jen describes in painful detail her long struggles with the loss of her birth family, her connection with her adoptive family, her tenuous sense of belonging.

She raises a number of blunt, difficult questions not only for her own adoptive parents but for all adoptive parents, particularly those with children of differing racial backgrounds:

• Do white adoptive parents really understand the issues and challenges involved in transracial adoption?

• Can white adoptive parents overcome their own losses and vulnerabilities in order to acknowledge and embrace the whole child—her race, her birth country, her birth family—including the painful loss of that first family?

• Are white adoptive parents willing to stretch beyond their comfort zones and help children of color navigate life as minorities in a predominantly white world?

The trailer shows Jen trying to explain her struggles to her mother, who in the film battles a terminal illness.

Jen's story is enough to keep any parent of a transracially adopted child awake—long into the night. To be fair, I’m guessing Jen's parents followed the accepted beliefs of their generation. Once you adopted, you treated your child as if she or he were—and had always been—your own. Love and acceptance trumped dislocation or difference. To acknowledge the rift or difference threatened the fantasy that the bond could be re-made, perfect and whole.

Thirty years ago, families didn’t discuss abandonment, adoption, or race. Korean adult adoptees like Jen continue to teach us the price of this denial.

As difficult as it was to watch, "Adopted" heightened my own awareness. As an adoptive parent to a child of a different race—my daughter was born in China—an essential part of my job is to acknowledge and address the challenges that come with being a mixed-race family.

Thankfully, in my wanderings and search to learn more, I've also come across another video that offers both insight and inspiration. Judy and Aaron Stigger's story is a different take on the transracial conundrum, one with a far happier outcome. That's not to discount Jen Fero's story. But Aaron Stigger's perspective on his dual identity makes me smile and gives me hope.

This four-minute video was originally aired on MSNBC in October 2008 as part of "Growing Up Black in a White Family." [Correction made 10/26/09.] It was then posted by Adoption Learning Partners (ALP), an educational organization whose primary goal is to have a "positive measurable impact on adoption outcomes." ALP offers a variety of web-based courses for adoptive parents and professionals, but there's also a wealth of free information and other resources if you dig about on its site and "Community" page.

I love the message that adoptive mother and son offer in this video. Perhaps just as important as what they say is their body language, which reveals the clear, easy affection between Judy and Aaron Stigger.

Judy, by the way, was one of ALP's founders (which officially makes me a fan.)

Judy and Aaron also did an earlier interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, back in July 2007, sharing their experiences and insights on transracial adoption. There's a great summary of the interview on the NPR website. Better still, you can listen to the interview or read the transcript. (NPR has done a number of pieces on transracial adoptions, and there are several terrific links on this site.)

In the on-air interview, Judy shares one of the ways she used to respond to the classically intrusive comments adoptive families so often encounter: "People would say, 'Do you have any real children?'" She'd turn to Aaron and say, "No, I just have this plastic one."

Aaron, playing along, would hold out his arms and sing, "Ta-da!"

Judy taught her son by example, defusing an otherwise potentially awkward moment with humor while also communicating the idiocy of the question. Aaron describes his memories of growing up, of not wanting to stick out, not wanting to be different. He says he appreciated the opportunities he had to make friends with other kids and people of color.

This prompts Steve Inskeep to turn to Judy and ask how much thought she put into transracial parenting. Judy credits one experience with her daughter (also adopted, also biracial) as being an ah-ha moment:

"When she was about eight, we spread across the bed all the congratulations cards we'd gotten when we adopted her, because now she could read them. And then she looked at me and just got this pain wash across her face [sic], and said, 'Mom, was I supposed to be white?' And I looked at the cards and realized every one of them had a little white baby face on it. And it struck me that this parenting business wasn't going to be about not being prejudiced. It was going to be about being inclusive."

In time, Judy began sending holiday cards to family and friends featuring people of color. One day, her daughter received an Easter card from Judy's mother. Her daughter took the card up to her room to read it in private—but returned, flying down the stairs, holding the card out in front of her for her mother to see. The card showed a risen Christ, black, muscled, with dreadlocks. Judy's daughter declared, "My grandma loves me!"

Further on in the interview, Judy describes another moment of heightened awareness. She’d gone to attend one of Aaron's performances when he was part of a black theater group his freshman year in college. Walking into the theater, Judy realized she was one of the few white people in the audience. She realized how she stuck out, how exposed she felt—and then she thought this is how her children must feel, as minorities, living, moving, and breathing in a predominantly white world.

At this point in the interview, Aaron can't jump in fast enough. He explains, eagerly, emphatically, that this is an issue for all transracially adopted kids—for that matter, for all minorities.

"Thank you! Thank you!" He exhales. "That right there needs to be on every program nationwide!"

The message from both Judy and Aaron is that no child growing up likes or wants to be different. Children of color need friends, neighbors, and role models of color, both in their immediate world and in the imagery that surrounds them. As white parents with children of color, we need to support them, to be as inclusive as we can. We can't limit ourselves to the world of white privilege.

As Judy Stigger puts it: "You need to see the world in color."

So, I'm curious: If you're reading this, and you're a white adoptive parent with a child of color—what things do you do to support your child and see the world in color?

This post was adapted from several pieces that originally appeared on the blog Pack of Three.

Introducing a Lucky One

By David Biddle for Adopt-a-tude

I'd like to introduce myself. My name is David Biddle and I will be posting occasionally to Adopt-a-tude. At one time in my life I had a different name. My original name was Anthony Tobias Black. I had that name for about two weeks. It's a great name, but I also like the name David Biddle.

My perspective on adoption will hopefully be somewhat unique here at Adopt-a-tude. I was adopted back in 1958 in Richmond, Indiana. I've got a lot of experience thinking about this adoption thing. For the first 20 years or so of my life I tried to ignore what it meant to me. But beginning in college, gradually, piece by piece, issues and questions that I'd refused to think about began to surface that I couldn't ignore.

My adoption situation was made all the more interesting and poignant because I have tan skin. When I was born, so-called white families weren't interested in me because I was too dark, and so-called black families felt I was too light. The story was that I was mixed race, but no one could tell me the mix or my heritage. Folks don't talk about this kind of thing very much even today, but there are many of us out there who grew up without a clue what our DNA is composed of. In the end I wasn't adopted by white or black people. I was adopted by nice people. I love my parents Bruce and Ellen Biddle. And they loved me.

Finally, I am one of those lucky ones you read about every so often. At the age of 45 and with the help of my wife and kids, we went looking for my birth mother. I needed to know what my heritage is. Most importantly, I needed my sons to know what their heritage is. By luck, I was born in Ohio, a state that allows adoptees to petition for their original birth certificate. Once I received that I at least had my birth mother's maiden name -- and my first name, Anthony Tobias Black.

We left our home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in August of 2002, found our way to Richmond, Indiana where I'd been adopted, and did the classic town hall research thing looking at marriage records, birth records, divorce records.

I am one of the lucky ones because I found my birth mother. She is successful in life, happy, and above all was overjoyed to finally meet me. At the age of 18 she'd been forced to give me up for adoption. We have had a growing relationship now for more than seven years. I've visited for extended periods with my family twice now and I know my story. It's good enough to be a book, that story, which I've written and am now trying to get published. I have three half-brothers as well. The oldest of them and I get along like, well, brothers. It's very weird.

I hope, then, to bring to this web log a lifelong practitioner's perspective on what it's like to be adopted. You're adopted all your life, not just when you're living with your parents. And the idea of adoption and being adopted changes and morphs over time. I don't think I had an intellectual thought about my adoption until I had my own kids (see the photo). One has red hair and green eyes; another brown hair and brown eyes; and the youngest is blond with blue eyes. I think I felt like an orphan in the world until these three guys came along. I think a lot of adoptees feel like orphans in one way or another, but we work hard to ignore this. It's cool to be an orphan though these days. Harry Potter is an orphan. So was Batman, Superman, Cinderella, and Tom Sawyer. (If you have any other examples of orphans, let us know in the comments section).

The story of moving from being an orphan to being loved and part of a family can make every adoptee strong, well-adjusted, and a force to be reckoned with in the world. Each of us is different of course. I can only give you my experience and my perspective. Hopefully it will be useful or at least entertaining. If you're curious about anything, don't be afraid to ask. I love answering people's questions. I don't think I belong there, but I really believe there should be an Adoption Hall of Fame. I'd put my birth mother in there for sure. I'd put my mom in too. She was absolutely the greatest mom anyone could ever have. If any of you are interested in this concept, get back to me. I've got no money, but a lot of ideas.

Thanks for reading.

"Who Here's from Vietnam?"

By Martha Nichols for Adopt-a-tude


This past summer, my seven-year-old son told me he asked one of his day-camp counselors when the Vietnam War started.

“Who here’s from Vietnam?” another camper jumped in. The girl and her twin sister carefully studied his face. “No one!”

My son reported that they all laughed. When I asked him why it was funny, he shrugged. “Mom. Obviously I’m from Vietnam.”

“They didn’t understand that," I said. "Or were they just kidding?”

“No. But it’s obvious I’m from Vietnam.”

He seemed perplexed. Silly Mom. She's always getting stuff wrong.

Two months later, I'm still wondering about the best way to direct these conversations with children. It's an opportunity to reflect on another person's perspective—in this case, two girls who probably didn't know that my son was adopted—which, in turn, helps children to see that not everybody believes the same things they do. This is great for encouraging moral development. But it can take on interesting twists if your adoptive child was born in another country and is of another race, as mine is.

Should parents just step back and listen?

As always, it depends on the situation, but I have no ready answers. In this case, I was pretty certain the girls thought Vietnam was too exotic for a fellow camper. They'd likely already stuck my son in a descriptive box: "little Chinese kid." It may have been the first time they'd heard of Vietnam and made the connection with the "Vietnam War," a phrase they might have picked up from adult conversation.

But of course I don't know any of this for certain. I may be bringing my own biases to the story. Once my son dismissed all my earnest questioning as irrelevant, I stopped pushing.

It's heartening that he believes his Vietnamese heritage is so obvious. It's a basic part of who he is. But at seven, he's just beginning to grapple with how people judge one another. He and the twins—who must also feel constantly judged by their identical faces—are on a long road to understanding that not everybody understands.

Attachment: “Love Is Just a Starting Point”

By Martha Nichols for Adopt-a-tude


Attachment disorder is a big bugaboo in the adoption community. In one post on Adoption.com, a writer wonders what the difference is between “attachment disorder” and “reactive attachment disorder”:

“I have seen this on several different discussion groups,” she writes, “and it’s been bothering me. Parents are willing to accept that their child has attachment issues, but when it is diagnosed as “full blown RAD”, then they panic.”

Sometimes there's no reason for the panic. The first night I spent with our son in Vietnam, he was strangely quiet for a five-month-old baby. My husband and I managed to coax a few smiles from him, but we also videoed his difficulties rolling over to show to doctors back home. Two months later, by the time we were on an airplane heading to the United States, he'd perked up and started crawling.

He wasn't a crier—such a good baby! the uninitiated would coo—but our little guy let loose a wail when we first stepped into the foggy cold outside the San Francisco Airport. A friend with us, an experienced dad, reassured me there was nothing wrong: "He's just pissed." Looking back, I can see that my boy's angry sobs were a very good sign.

Still, after our first weeks together, I only felt like his favorite nanny. I was not yet mom. I arranged for a social worker from the Early Intervention Program to come for a visit in order to evaluate our "attachment issues." Within moments of observing us together in our house, she laughed. "Every time you talk or move, his eyes follow you," she said. "His attachment is fine."

And she was right. But bonding with a child is a process, not a button-push.

How often do adoptees or foster children end up with a clinical diagnosis of attachment disorder, reactive or otherwise? Traditional psychiatric sources cite its prevalence as 1% of the general population of kids under five but claim that attachment disorder is far more common among orphaned children. How common is the question.

Available government statistics about adoption disruptions and dissolutions—one measure, theoretically, of attachment problems—put the rate at anywhere in the United States from 25% among older children at the time of adoption to 5% of planned adoptions from foster care. But sampling varies widely from state to state, as do the populations studied. In any case, little research has been carried out to determine how well adoptees with this diagnosis ultimately adjust.

Like so many aspects of adoption, there's scant evidence to clarify what's going on. Adoption industry experts offer soothing claims about the infrequency of attachment problems, but most parents can tell tales, often in hushed tones, about some kid who's emotionally checked out, unresponsive to touch, or prone to violent outbursts.

These anecdotes are scary. Add a highly charged piece about a terminated adoption like Anita Tedaldi’s “My Adopted Son” in a recent New York Times’s blog, and fear and loathing tend to rule the debate. Tedaldi bravely details her own inability to bond with her son, but she leaves hanging the question of whether this might not have happened, even with all his manifold problems, if he'd been her biological child (she already had five biological daughters at the time of the adoption).

Sometimes personal stories are the only things that convey a complicated set of decisions or events. Yet the knee-jerk response to attachment disorder can obscure the ways families actually live with it. The media misrepresents the fear, too, because attachment disorder is not only suffered by adoptees in Chinese or Romanian orphanages or said “orphans” in Hollywood movies. Children raised in their biological families can also suffer from it, especially in traumatic circumstances.

I’m grateful to a former student of mine, Fran Cronin, for allowing me to tell a piece of her family’s story. I believe a more complex view of attachment disorder—and an honest discussion of the challenges faced by adoptees with this diagnosis—are more helpful for children than the overly rosy version promoted by the adoption industry.

Cronin, a widowed single mother in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with two kids—one a teenage biological daughter, the other an eleven-year-old son adopted from Russia—says she began the adoption process by thinking, “if I love my child enough, all will be right with his world.” As she’s since discovered, “the love is just a starting point.”

Cronin’s son was only five months old when he joined her family, but he made no sounds until a whimper at seven months. More weeks passed before he finally cried. She describes a testing process now with her son, who has been diagnosed with attachment issues, learning disabilities, and a shifting series of labels that indicates how hard it is to pin down what's due to post-traumatic stress and what's organic.

Whenever he throws things or swears at her, she thinks he’s actually asking, “If I’m really bad, are you going to give me up, too?”

For Cronin, getting professional help with her son—and for herself—has been a life-saver. She’s had to learn to stay calm and to not argue back. Otherwise, she kept getting “sucked into his same angry world,” she says.

Yet this same “tough child” has also learned empathy. His grandmother, Paula Cronin, says she believes much of his bad behavior is driven by fear. It’s an emotion he knows so well that when she herself has felt “seriously frightened…, [he] was instantly at my side, holding me tight, staying with me and talking to me until I calmed down.”

Perhaps attachment disorder isn’t a single, monolithic diagnosis but a state of being for children. Such a child might feel too frightened at times to reach out to anybody; at others, his empathy might fill an ocean. That doesn’t make it easy. But a son like Fran Cronin’s isn’t lost to human society or a victim of circumstance or stuck with a label.

“I didn’t raise you to go to jail!” She admits to yelling at him in heated moments. Yet such emotional engagement—offering backrubs and screaming frustration, as Cronin does—probably seems more genuine to her son than pretending sweet perfection.

So here are some questions for readers: What do you think about attachment disorder? How do you feel about the challenges for adoptive families—and the misperceptions about attachment disorder in the adoption community and media? Most especially, do you have a complex family story of your own to share?

For those struggling with these issues, check out the website for ATTACh, the Association for Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children.