Another difficult issue involved in deciding to adopt transracially, is when your extended family does not approve. Sometimes families have racial issues, sometimes they worry about loving an adopted child, sometimes they have worries about the child’s health, sometimes they think you already have enough children and sometimes they have seen one too many “adoption go wrong” stories on the news, and are worried about you getting hurt. There are many reasons that an extended family may not be supportive of a transracial adoption.

It is important to remember that while you have (hopefully) put a lot of time, thought, research and education into deciding to adopt, your extended family has not had that luxury, and will most likely not know much about adoption when you initially share your news with them.

Share your excitement with your family members, and as they are willing to take it, share the information you have learned on your adoption journey. Let your family members express their worries and concerns to you, so you can discuss them together and hopefully alleviate some of them.

I have also heard from quite a few families in the process of adopting transracially that have concerns regarding the racist jokes, language and sometimes even true racist feelings of their extended family members.

Families pursuing transracial adoption have usually become more sensitive to racial jokes, words, etc. than they were before they chose to adopt transracially (which is a good thing), and have educated themselves at least a little on racism, prejudice and other issues. For white families who have never had a family member of another race, these sorts of things have probably never been an issue. They may not realize that their jokes, words and actions are hurtful and wrong. Oftentimes, people are willing to change their ways if they know they are being offensive to you and your child.

I have heard stories of even the most “anti-transracial adoption” families doing complete turnarounds when the new child came home and joined the family. I have heard of grandparents, who had always expressed racist sentiments, changing their ways quickly after a new black grandson joined the family. The love of a child can do a lot, and be a big motivation for change.

Occasionally though, I do hear about situations where the decision to adopt transracially causes true divides in families, and the issues are not easily resolved. Having a child that is not loved and accepted by your extended family is an extremely difficult position to be in, and for perspective adoptive parents facing such reactions from their extended family, choosing to move forward with their adoption can be extra-difficult.

On one hand, deciding to have children in any way is a decision that parents have the right to make on their own, without the approval of their extended family. But on the other hand, putting yourself in the position to be at odds with your extended family is also one not to be made lightly.

Parents must be willing to put the needs of their children above the needs of their extended families, and if interaction with disapproving extended family members could be harmful to their children, parents would have to be willing to limit contact with those family members. Again, this would be a very difficult situation to be in.

How close your extended family members live, how big of a role they play in your daily life, how strongly they disapprove of your adoption and many other factors can go in to deciding how to handle a family's disapproval.

We have personally faced disapproval, sometimes mild, sometimes very strong, from varying family members during our different adoptions. In the end, the commitment that Josh and I have to each other and to our kids, our true desire for more children and our faith and trust that we were making the right decisions for our family, far outweighed the disapproval we got from our extended family.

Although it was difficult at times, we do still have close relationships with those family members. If we didn't, it would be sad and hurtful, but our children would still come first and we would not have changed our minds about adopting. We chose to do what we knew in our minds and hearts was right for us, and that was the most important thing.

For more advice and information on dealing with a lack of support from your extended family, you can read this post.

Here is a great article from Adoption.com on “Preparing for a Transracial Adoption.”