I would like to call your attention to an excellent article by Joseph Crumbley, DSW. It is called, Transracial Adoption: Love Is Not Enough.
Check it out at http://library.adoption.com/Interracial-Multicultural-Adoption/Transracial-A
doption-Love-Is-Not-Enough/article/3054/1.html.
Well said, Dr. Crumbley, and my 37 plus years of raising my multi-cultural family has shown all of this to be ultra important! I strongly agree with the contents of this article. The adoption agency I founded and directed for more than 27 years now, has always taken extremely seriously our role to prepare and educate prospective parents for the complex undertaking of adopting a child, and particularly one of a different race or ethnicity. Adoption is a lifelong process, as the article points out and no, love is not enough.
Following is an excerpt from the article:
“Desirable capabilities for transracial parents include:
Understanding of their own personal history and how it helped to form their values and attitudes about racial, cultural and religious similarities and differences
Understanding of racism, how it works and how to minimize its effects
Empathy with children’s birth families regardless of cultural, lifestyle or socioeconomic differences
Ability and commitment to provide for their child racial and cultural experiences as well as information and knowledge about his or her race and culture
Availability of a strong support system
Ability and willingness to make available to their child same race adult and peer role models and relationships
Acknowledgement that interracial adoption will make their family part of a minority group AND that they will experience discrimination as do other minorities
Interest in and ability to learn skills to care for the child’s skin, hair and health
Appreciation of the child’s uniqueness while instilling a sense of belonging and full family membership
It is true that love is not enough to make any adoptive placement successful. However, without unconditional commitment and the development of love, a placement will not succeed. One of the best things parents can do for children is simply enjoy them, to treasure and celebrate likenesses and differences and to let them know that they are wonderful people.”