The Salt Lake Tribune has been running a series of articles on transracial adoption that I have been enjoying, and wanted to share with you.

The first one is titled “Kids Find Homes but Search for Identity”.

This article talks about the increasing number of transracial and international adoptions in the United States every year and provides a lot of information on the number of adoptions happening, where children are being adopted from, average costs and waiting times for different programs, etc. Make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom of the article for the “Tips for Adoptive Parents”, and the graph showing how many kids have been adopted and from where in the state of Utah.

The article also gives a brief history of international adoption, describing it as a “Post World-War II Phenomenon,” and gives some basic information on the Hague Treaty and the changes that it is creating in international adoptions.

Information is given on one specific adoption agency, Wasatch International, and I was saddened by this quote…

The agency used to place older children, age 6 to 10, but no longer recommends it. After implementing follow-up surveys of clients years after they adopted older children, Kaiser discovered many were problematic. Many older children had suffered deprivation, abuse and inadequate schooling in orphanages that affected them deeply.
"Most of them [parents] . . . said they would not have adopted an older child knowing what they knew then," Kaiser said.

It is true that adopting older children can be challenging and is not right for everyone, but there is a HUGE need for families for older children, and I find it sad that this agency is not advocating for these kids, educating families and working to find homes for the kids that are harder to place.

I know from the experience of my own family and from many other adoptive families I know, that adopting older children is not without its struggles and difficulties, but for many families, including mine, it turns out wonderfully.

Another quote I found noteworthy (this time for good reasons) was this one…

Adoptive children bear what she calls a "narrative burden." Because their physical appearance is different from that of other family members, everyone wants to know their story.
"From the time our adoptive kiddos come, we are stopped in the grocery line and they are singled out," Ballard said. "A lot of times that is a beautiful thing we are proud of, but it also singles us out as different . . . you can never be just anonymous. That narrative burden is something parents need to be prepared to help their kids with."

I have written a lot about how being a transracial adoptive family makes you “conspicuous”, and shared tips on how to deal with that, as well as our personal experiences. I have never heard of the term “narrative burden” before, but it is definitely appropriate.

The article discusses tips for helping children decide how to share their story (or not), and also the importance of acknowledging the loss a child experiences when they are adopted. Other helpful information includes tips on addressing physical differences in transracial families and helping children connect with their birth culture and country.

This article jumps around a bit, but has a lot of good info. I will be writing about the rest of the articles in this series in my next few posts. Give them a read and let me know what you think.