I say often on here that racism is "alive and well" in the United States of America, and in many other countries. While I do believe that things have gotten better in regards to racism and that people are slowly becoming more educated and accepting, it is still painfully obvious that there is a long way to go before we can say that people of all races are treated equally, and that no one is treated badly or judged by the color of their skin.

It is easy to fall in to a sense of false security in regards to racism. We live in a place that is fairly close-knit, and... more

The New York Magazine had a long and wonderful feature article yesterday on adoption, featuring several different families who adopted from Ethiopia. The name of the article is "The Nuclear Family, Exploded" and it was written by Emily Nussbaum.

The article looks at a wide variety of adoption issues, and addresses them by sharing the experiences of several different adoptive families. The question is asked, "Do parents really love adopted children differently than their own offspring?"

Some of the issues addressed in the article include:

- The unexpected challenges that can go along with bringing home a new child.... more

Today I was directed to an awesome essay on transracial adoption, written by an amazing eighth grader, who was adopted from Korea by a white family.

The essay can be found on the blog, the Transracial Korean Adoptee Nexus, and the direct link is here.

It is highly impressive that this essay was written by an eighth grade girl. It is well thought out, well researched, well expressed and well written. She also does a great job of being objective, and giving thought and credit to many different points of view. She did a better job on this than most adults would.

For transracial adoptive... more

National Public Radio (NPR) is doing a series on adoption this week, and today's story is one of a transracial adoptive family.

The story is titled "Mother and Son Offer Transracial Adoption Insights", and it shares the story of Judy and Bob Stigger, who adopted two biracial children in Chicago back in the 1970s.

In the article, Judy Stigger addresses some of the issues that transracial adoptive families often experience, such as the rude comments and prying questions that people feel that they have the right to ask, just because your family looks different than most.

She also discusses how... more

As soon as I saw the title of the article "I love my mixed race baby - but why does she feel so alien?", I had a feeling that the article was going to bug me. The article is written by a mom, and in it she shares her feelings about raising a biracial child after recently giving birth to a daughter. There are lessons to be learned from this article for transracial adoptive parents, however along with the thoughts on how it feels to raise a biracial child in a multiracial family, this article also has some pretty yucky adoption-related comments.

First off, this mom does a lot... more

Adoption has been getting a lot of attention in the media lately and the general public hears a lot about "the many" children that are getting adopted. However, we rarely hear any legitimate statistics on international adoption or domestic adoption. Today I am going to share a great article that takes a hard look at the statistics of international and domestic adoptions and the number of orphans worldwide.

The article is titled "How Many... more

I have one more article I wanted to share before I jump back into finishing my Transracial Adoption ABCs.

If you are involved at all in the Ethiopian adoption community, you have likely heard some of the discussions regarding the much-anticipated New York Times article on Ethiopian adoptions. There has been a lot of speculation by adoptive parents and agencies on yahoo groups and adoption forums, in regards to what the article would cover and how it would portray Ethiopian... more

Usually when I write on this blog about transracial parenting, I am looking at and addressing transracial adoption issues from the viewpoint of a white adoptive parent with Asian and black children. That is because that is my reality, and because most often when we hear about transracial adoption, it is referring to white parents adopting Asian, Hispanic, black or other non-white children.

Today, thanks to a reader, I have a really cool article to share about "typical" transracial adoption in reverse. This article, titled, "Love is Colorblind", which was recently featured in the Detroit News,... more

There are many articles in the media about transracial adoption. Often times I read some of these articles and feel that they have somehow fallen short of truly capturing the essence of transracial adoption.

This article, titled “My First Lesson in Motherhood”, from the New York Times, is different. I read this article and thought to myself, “that is what it is all about.”

The article tells the story of a young couple who have suffered through infertility and chosen to adopt to get the baby they so strongly desired. The decided... more

A reader recently pointed out an article to me from the New York Newsday newspaper titled, "Adoptive Couples Revel in the joys of big families brought together by love-and by will-if not by birth."

The article takes a look at several Long Island, NY couples that have created larger-than-normal families through multiple transracial adoptions.

The article discusses the declining number of biological children in typical households in the United States, as well as the increasing number of transracial adoptions and the impact that the increasing number of transracial... more