Continued...

I wanted to share these experiences because often you hear transracial families (including myself!) complaining about the downside of being what I call a “highly visible family”. If you join any email list about transracial adoption, you will quickly run into parents complaining and lamenting about the nosey, insensitive, prying, thoughtless, bizarre and down right rude questions/comments that all transracial adoptive families seem doomed to get every once in a while when out in public.

I have written about how to “deal” with the attention, the worst comments we have ever gotten and strategies for responding to awkward or rude comments or questions.

While there are times that I wish we could go out for a meal or a shopping trip without being grilled for our entire life story, I have also come to embrace the fact that being a walking billboard for adoption can also be a good thing. Whether we inspire someone to adopt or even just change someone’s opinions or ideas about adoption or race, we are walking advocates, even when I don’t have the time to stop and say a word.

Obviously not everyone agrees with our family make up and not every experience or comment we have is going to be positive, but that is just the way it is, and I can only hope that the good will outweigh the bad (and thus far that is true by far...an overwhelming percent of our experiences in public are good ones).

My friend’s family has a gorgeous little girl that they adopted a few years ago, but unlike my family, they don’t get any extra stares, comments, questions, etc. Why? Their daughter was adopted from Russia. They have the luxury of thinking and talking about adoption when they choose to, and with whom they choose to share with.

There are times that I envy them and wish we could “blend” in, but that isn't going to happen, and in the spirit of making the best of things, I have decided that it’s ok to “stick out”, and that some of the extra attention is even a good thing.

It’s a good thing if it helps even one person to see that love goes way deeper than the color of our skin, and there are much more important things that bind a family together than merely looking a like.

It’s a good thing if it gets people to think about the world beyond their own little “bubble.”

It's a good thing when it leads to a quality conversation about adoption.

It’s a good thing…not for our sake, but for all of the other children out there...children of every color... waiting for someone to decide that they are willing to open their heart and their home to a child.