Not Just Like Me

My adopted children are not just like me. While we share the general culture of the United States middle class (California version), we have differences that need to be honored and respected. I cannot be the whole model for my children of how an adult life is lived.

I am white - my children are African American, Mexican, Salvadoran, and Native American (with some mixture probably present in each of them).

I am hard of hearing - my children are hearing, hard of hearing, deaf, CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder), and hyperacusis (hypersensitivity to everday sounds).

I learn academics easily - my children range from brighter than I am to PDD-NOS, with some specific learning disabilities thrown in.

I am a Midwesterner, raised all my childhood in the Midwest, and transplanted to California as an adult by a corporate transfer 20 years ago - my children were born and raised thus far in California and are about to be transplanted to the Midwest.

I was raised by my biological parents, knowing my genealogy for a dozen generations on both sides - mostly my children do not know anyone related to them by biology.

I am a lesbian - I do not know whether my children will be gay, straight, bisexual or asexual.

So, what do I do about all these differences? When I first adopted black children, I was given scare stories about how I, as a white parent, would not be able to give them what they needed. As a hearing person (sort of), I was told I could not enter the Deaf World of my deaf daughter. As a non-adopted person, I cannot know the loss they feel of their original families. Nevertheless, this is the life we have to lead, and I believe that they are better off being my children than they would be if they were not. Now, I need to make that as complete and nurturing as possible. I need to be sure they have all they need, whether it comes from me or not.

I surround my family with people that I truly want to be with, who also share characteristics of my children that I do not have. We have adult friends who are black, who are deaf, who are straight, who were adopted. I want my children to know a variety of types of adults and to see that I respect and value the lives of those people. Community for us means many overlapping circles of people. There are places where they will belong and I will only ever be a guest, but I hope to have found them a guide for the journey where I am unfamiliar.

Black babies are cute - black teenagers can be scary. Who will they take to the prom, who will they marry? Deaf preschoolers are sweet and amusing - nonspeaking, limited English young adults unable to hold a job due to poor education are an embarrassment. Adoption across a cultural difference requires a new way of defining family and community, in order to provide adult role models for our children who are LIKE THEM, in whatever way we are not. A deaf adult that I know believed, growing up in hearing culture, that deaf children died before adulthood, because she had never seen a deaf adult. Another deaf adult thought she would become hearing, like all the adults she knew, since the only deaf people she had ever seen were children.

Please, for anyone who adopts, share your family and your children so they can have a fuller sense of who they are and that they are precious to you, just the way they are.