Next in our “Transracial Adoption ABCs” is the letter “B”.

Babies- Most people who decide to adopt want a baby. For some adoptive parents, choosing to adopt comes after battling infertility and the desire for a baby is very strong. For other adoptive parents, they decide to adopt to add to their existing family and want a baby because the attachment risks and other issues are minimal.

Babies are wonderful…they are small, soft, snuggly and they smell really good (most of the time). A baby that is adopted likely won’t have any true memories of his first life or family and his adoptive family will be the only family he really knows. A baby's adjustment issues after adoption are typically easier to overcome than those with older children (although even very young babies do grieve and have to adjust and attach to new parents.)

On the flip side, babies need to eat a lot, and newly adopted babies often do not sleep very well, because they are so busy catching up on their eating, adjusting to new surroundings, learning to trust that you aren’t going to disappear, etc.

The thing about babies is that with most adoptive parents wanting babies, and most of the millions of orphaned children in the world being older children, there is usually a significant wait for a young baby. There are many, many babies all over the world in need of loving and permanent families, but with so many adoptive parents requesting a baby “as young as possible”, adoptive parents must usually be prepared to wait for one.

As wonderful as babies are, older children are wonderful too, and there is a huge need for adoptive families open to older children.

Biracial

- Biracial is a term heard frequently in infant domestic adoptions. Biracial means that the child’s parents were of different races. While it often means that the child has one white parent and one black parent, it applies to any combination of races.

One of the issues surrounding “biracial adoptions,” is that many adoption agencies charge higher fees for biracial babies than they do for black babies, and many adoptive parents are open to biracial babies but not to babies that are “all black.” Any adoptive parents that are open to adopting a biracial baby but not a black baby, need to take a serious look at their desires, fears and choices. If you think that “lighter is better”, transracial adoption is likely not for you.

A biracial baby is going to be seen as a black child in our society. A biracial child will still deal with racism, will still need to learn about his African-American culture and could very well end up being just as dark-skinned as a black child. Here is a post I wrote about the “hierarchy” of races in adoption.

Birth parents- Birth parents, birth mother and birth father are all words used to label/describe the biological mother or father (or both) of a child. (Some parents choose to go by the term “first parents” instead of “birth parents”).

In some adoptions, the birth parents are known, their history is known and there is an open relationship between adoptive parents and birth parents (this is possible in both domestic, and occasionally, international adoptions). In other adoptions nothing whatsoever is known about the birth parents (these days this most often is true for international adoptions, because completely “closed” domestic adoptions are becoming more and more rare).

Some adoptive parents are intimidated or threatened at the thought of their child’s birth parents. Some adoptive parents even choose international adoption because they think that birth parents won’t be “an issue”. The truth is, no matter where you adopt from, whether they are known or not, your child’s birth parents are always going to be a reality. They are a part of the adoption triad, and cannot (and should not) be eliminated from the equation.

Even if nothing is known about your child’s birth parents, your child will wonder about them, imagine them, and someday may try to find them. This is not a negative reflection on the relationship between the child and the adoptive parents, it is common and ok.

Children who were adopted need to know whatever information is known about their birth parents (in age appropriate terms), they need to know that their adoptive parents honor and respect their birth parents, and they need to know that it is ok to love (and be loved) by two sets of parents.

*Photo from Easy Child Crafts.com