In the podcast that I recently wrote about, the speaker makes an analogy of children adopted transracially to the story of the “Ugly Duckling”.

My first reaction was a bit of displeasure at the idea of my children being “ugly ducklings”, but as I listened to her expand her thoughts, I did really like what she had to say and appreciated the idea of using this well-known story to make a point.

Most people know the story of the ugly duckling. It was written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1844. In the story, a mother duck hatches her eggs and has several cute little yellow ducklings, and one large, “funny looking” gray-colored baby. Although at first she is alarmed, the mother duck quickly grows to love the gray bird and to be proud of his swimming abilities and other talents and doesn’t care what he looks like.

The gray baby bird is raised with the ducklings but the family faces discrimination on the farm when other animals treat the different-looking bird badly. Eventually the bird is picked on and pecked at and run off of the farm and left all alone.

Off on his own, the gray bird befriends some other “ugly birds”, the wild ducks. He lives for a while with an old woman and a cat, but his new friends do not understand him. After many struggles, he ends up in a pond in the springtime and is surprised by his reflection. He sees a swan’s image shining back at him. He meets other swans like himself and learns that he wasn’t an ugly duckling after all, but a beautiful swan.

In the story the mother duck loves the swan and wants to raise him as her own, but she doesn’t know “what” or who he really is, and isn’t’ able to help him be proud of himself. They don’t know how to handle the cruelty of others. The swan is left feeling alone, ashamed and very sad about himself. It takes the experience of meeting other birds like him, for the swan to identify himself and to see himself as more than just “different than ducks”, but as the beautiful swan he is. Different, but just as good. In the podcast the speaker says that the mother duck could teach the baby swan how to be a bird. She teaches him to swim and to find food and lots of other things, but only other swans could teach him how to be a swan.

This story was used to show how important it is for our children to have mentors and role models of their same race. Exposure to other children, other adults and other families that look like them help them to build self esteem and understanding in who they are. As their mother, I can teach my children almost everything they need. I teach them the importance of family, of love, of education, of happiness and of hard work. I teach them values and morals and right from wrong. And while I embrace their cultures and work hard to make their heritages a big part of our family, I know that they will need more than what I can give them when it comes to building a positive self image. They will need African American role models and Asian role models in their life so that they can see that they aren’t just different, they are their own beautiful kind of bird.