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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 she and her husband had to separate themselves from a close family member, who could not accept the idea of transracial adoption and having the children in her home and family.
Aaron Stigger, one of the biracial children that Bob and Judy adopted, shares his feelings on being transracially adopted and growing up with white parents. He talks about noticing the physical differences between himself and his parents at a young age, of letting his friends assume (when they saw his mom) that his dad was black and how his parents made efforts to keep him connected to African American culture.
Aaron comes across as a very well-adjusted man, and says that his “mom was always his mom, and (his) dad was always his dad.”
The article also talks about Aaron reconnecting with his birth mother at the age of 12, and I love the quote from Judy, regarding her feelings with seeing Aaron with his birth mother for the first time.
From the article:
“They just sort of had the same swing to their walk,” she says. “It affected me much more than I thought,” Judy says. “I thought, that’s part of who he is. I realized that I still had all these images in my head about my right to be his mom that I needed to get worked out …. and that he was fine, and he was mine, and it was OK that he got his walk from somebody else.”
At the end of the article, Judy Stigger, who works in adoption and helped form the educational group “Adoption Learning Partners”, shares some great tips for transracial adoptive families on how to deal with being a “conspicuous family”. Her tips include protecting your child, empowering your child and observing your child before responding to questions and comments.
It was great to read an article that not only took a realistic look at transracial adoption, but also had a happy, well-adjusted adult adoptee, an adoptive mother who supported her child reconnecting with his birth mother and some really good advice for today’s transracial adoptive parents. Give it a read!
I live in the suburbs of Chicago & for adoption education credit took an all day class led by Judy Stigger. She was absolutely a phenomonal teacher & had so much to share. I was glad I took the class & both her kids sound really geat!
Kathy
I loved the story about the Stigger family. It was hopeful and heartening. In particular, I loved their sense of humor. My husband and I have recently become parents of twin daughters, now toddlers, born in Ethiopia. We are an interracial couple (I am black and he is white), and we both identify with the issues the Stiggers discussed. In my case, race is not the issue exactly, but culture. In some ways, the divide between Americans and Africans is as big as that between black and white. At the same time, I am finding, the pleasures of discovering similarities as well as differences is just as joyous.
http://motheronearth.blogspot.com/