Arguments Against Transracial Adoption

Henry Ford once said, “ At that point, a child is eligible for adoption and can be placed with a family that can love the child and raise the child.” What this quote says is that a child should be placed with any family that can love it and raise it. If race was not so significant, a higher percentage people would be eligible to adopt, meaning that more kids will be adopted. The happiness of the children should also be of greater importance that the race of the future parents. Despite this, there will always be people who are against transracial adoption. A few of them say that a child with adoptive parents who are of a different race are more likely to suffer an identity crisis. Overall, transracial, or interracial, adoption is better for children in orphanages or the foster care system.

Others state that “race should be no barrier to finding a child a loving family and adoptive family”. One in five children waiting to be adopted are from an ethnic minority. Last year around 2,300 children were approved for adoption. Of those children 500 of them were either black or asian. Some adopted children state that growing up in a family you weren’t born into was more difficult than they thought. You never knew your ethnic background. It also always raises questions for a child about where they fit in or who they are. It becomes very pointed out if you are visually different from your

Cross-culture adoption, and adoption in general, is an alternate way for couples to have a child. It helps that child find a loving home, and the adoptees in many cases treat their adoptive parents as their real parents. It is a responsibility of the parents to be aware of their own privilege and understanding the concepts of race. By stifling their child’s questions about their own racial identity this can lead to an increase in depressive symptoms within that child (Lee, Grotevant, Hellerstedt, Gunnar, 2006). By promoting Enculturation as “[A] practice of promoting ethnicity-specific experiences that encourage the development of a positive ethnic identity” (Lee, et. Al., 2006,

One of Beverly Tatum's major topics of discussion is racial identity. Racial identity is the meaning each of us has constructed or is constructing about what it means to be a white person or a person of color in a race-conscious society. (Tatum, pp Xvii) She talks about how many parents

Since the 1960’s, interracial adoption has been on the rise, although it was looked down upon until the 1990’s. Many kids sit and wait to be adopted for most of their childhood. So, instead of adoption agencies waiting to find what they call “the perfect match,” which is referring to a family who is of the same race as the child they intend to adopt, they started allowing interracial adoption as a part of hoping every child finds a family that loves them beyond the color of their skin. Proponents argue that children grow up to not care that they aren’t the same color as their parents, their kids are more open to learning about their culture, and that kids of different races, other than caucasian, are more available in foster homes and overseas. While cons argue that family acceptance is a problem, the kid might feel uncomfortable about being a different race than their parents, and that parents might not like to stand out.

The intense opposition of transracial adoption is evidenced in a multitude of different ways. During the initial phase of the adoption process prospective parents are discouraged from proceeding by the intake worker. They are constantly bombarded with the alleged difficulties involved in transracial adoptions and questioned about their motives for adopting (Adoption 85). Parents are accused of

Trans-racial adoption- Is defined as placing a child who belongs to a particular race or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another race or ethnic group. The motivation to adopt has been altered by changing family demographics,

Have you ever felt unwanted? Well, many children who wait in foster care often times feel this way. Transracial adoption can help them find a loving home. I believe that race should not be a factor in adoption.

Thesis: Transracial adoptees family situation affects many aspects of the adopted child’s life. Do these children have identity formation difficulties during adolescence and are there any significant differences between adoptees and birth children?

Many people worry that black children adopted by white families could pose an issue with black culture. "Many question whether Whites are truly up to the challenge. Will the child be exposed to Black culture?" (Dunham). Dunham goes on to explain that "For decades the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) remained "vehemently opposed" to transracial adoptions." (Dunham). Some people take the opposite position on the issue. Many believe that race does not matter as long as the children have a loving family. Also, refusing to allow families to adopt a child of a different race can be unconstitutional. "Valuable as a cultural heritage might be, it is wrong for the government to deny them the legal protections accorded to all other children" (Dynar, Aditya, and Timothy

In a 1987 study, conducted by Simon and Alstein, an Indian adopted child stated, “It bothers me that I’m Indian. People don’t look up to Indians. The whites always fought the Indians and the Indians got beat. We aren’t looked up to. There is nothing special about being Indian” (Sindelar, 2004). This clearly indicates that the native adoptee feels inferior to his White adoptive parents; therefore, the child was obviously unable to fully integrate into the White culture without feeling inferior. In the case of Baby Girl v. Adoptive Couple, she may have been at risk to feeling the same inferiority due to the extreme exposure of the White culture and the lack of exposure and pride towards her own ethnicity; therefore, causing possibilities of distress and discomfort in her own skin.

This article sheds light on social and cultural factors and the reasons for controversy about transracial adoption option. The first section describes the demographics of children in the foster care system. Which is followed by the needed requirements for approval as foster and adoptive parents in Massachusetts and information about the laws governing transracial adoption. The race-blind and race-matching positions are explained in order to understand the controversy over transracial adoption. The last section focuses on the growth of multinational population and how it will contribute to transracial adoption. We don’t realize that race shapes peoples’ perception, which needs to be addressed. There needs to be a balance to ensure that the

Child Adoption has been around for centuries. According to The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, the most recent number of national adoptions was last collected in 1992 and has not been collected since. The reason for this is that it is not legally required. In 1992, the number of adoptions that occurred in the U.S. was around 127,000. In total, there are 1.5 million children that are adopted in the U.S., which accounts for over 2% of all U.S. children (Donaldson, 2008). My sister’s adoption is considered to be transracial. That is when children are placed into a household that is of a different race. Only 8% of the total amounts of adoptions are transracial, which is pretty shocking to me. The website also offered the percentages of the most common ages that children are usually adopted. The most common age that children are adopted is under 1 year old, which is about 46%. Next are ages 1-4 at 43%, 5-9 years old at 8%, and over 9 years old which is only 3% (Donaldson, 2008). After reading these statistics, I decided to further research how the children of these varying ages may adapt as they are adopted at different ages.

With the statistics being what they are pertaining to children who need to be adopted one would think that we should be more lenient when it comes to homosexual or interracial adoption. However, they do not take into consideration the emotional toll it has on the adoptive child. Many people argue that the homosexual group is being greatly overlooked as somewhere to seek adoptive parents, but what they don’t tell you is how negatively the child is affected when they grow up in a homosexual family. Studies have proven that a child who does not have both a mother and father figure present is bound to be emotionally and mentally deprived. Interracial adoption has become more popular in the past years because of international adoption. However, in the US the issue of transracial adoption still caused controversy in 2010. A few groups asserted that embraced kids should be raised by guardians of their own race. They shielded this perspective by saying that guardians needed to make their kids mindful of their own race to create in them faculties of self-identity. Different groups guaranteed that race did not make a difference in abortion cases, for they felt as long as kids had adoring guardians, race was insignificant. While it is beneficial to have loving parents whatever their race, the first group seemed to understand that it is more difficult to raise a child of a

During the adoption process how does interracial adoption influence the decision of adoptive parents. There was a time where studying these concepts were difficult due to parents inability to tell their children they were adopted. The desire to adopt has increased over time for heterosexual, same-sex couples along with single mothers as well as other countries such as China, Korea and Guatemala have placed large amount of children up for adoption (Biblarz, 2010). Interestingly, China favors heterosexual couples to adopt children from China as oppose to single moms and same-sex couples. To an extent that heterosexual couples can adopt healthy infants whereas single parent and same-sex couple have to adopt from a special needs program (U.S Department of State 2011b). Looking through the adoption dynamics many influences of interracial and cultural adoption includes policies that are discriminate towards the single parent and same-sex couples. The family structure is not even a decision making option for non- heterosexual adoptive parents because of the restrictions that enables same-sex couples and single parent individuals to pursue more options of adopting from a more diverse population of children. According to the findings of Raleigh, white children are in higher demand than non-whites and married heterosexual couples are in higher demand then single parent or same-sex couples, however due to constraints, non- heterosexual and non- married couples are more likely to adopt