Raising a Super Hero

These past few weeks have been challenging. I work in the financial field. In New York. Nuf said.

Meanwhile, these past few weeks have been glorious. To watch a wee preschooler turn into a young boy "I am not a little boy!" And this past week I realized he is correct. He is not a little boy. He is a boy. The painting above was done by our dear friend Rick Price. Q is 2 1/2 years old in the painting. When I asked Rick to paint Q's portrait I was thinking of the classic portrait. We had a baby blue sweater with a peter pan color that Q never wore but that I loved. However, I believe in letting the artist follow his instincts so when Rick asked what I was thinking I left it to him. "I'm thinking, Spiderman" said Rick. Rick worked at our local cafe and almost on a daily basis Q and I would stroll in, me wearing exaustion with as much grace as I could muster (Q is not a sleeper) and Q wearing - almost every day - his spiderman costume. He was not allowed to wear it the two days he was at daycare (against the rules) but every other day he had it on. Q wasn't pretending anything in those days, he WAS spiderman. You can see it in this portrait, can't you? Spiderman going over his accomplishments at the end of a long day. Relishing the fame. And he was/is famous. "Hey" casual passerbys would say "it's Spiderman. Nice to see you!" And Q would nod usually. Sometimes give a small wave with his little hand. Those little hands in the portrait, Rick got the hands perfectly. They are Q's hands. No one elses.

After Spiderman there was Batman. Same thing - about a year. One day soon I'll write about our adventures out in costume. Those days were magical. I often think about the fact that I am not raising a boy, I am raising a man. Well, lately I have begun to think I am raising a super hero.

We are conservative people. So during challenging times, we pull back a bit and prepare ourselves for anything. Last year Q took drum lessons until the summer. We were going to take the summer off and start in the fall again. He was excited. In truth we have the money. And some to spare. But like I said, we are conservative and so we are slowing down on some of our 'wants' in order to never have to worry about our needs. I explained to Q that while we did have the money we thought it best to keep it. Things are uncertain and that we could practise the drum at home in the meantime. He smiled at me and said OK. "I think that is smart mom."

Meanwhile he has been actively petitioning for a new pet (we have 5 fish in two tanks) which are his responsibility and now he wants a guinnie pig. We had pretty much said it was a possibility for Christmas. But last week we decided again that while we had the cash, we didn't feel it was a great example for Q that during uncertain times we take on more responsibility with bringing another, living, breathing, eating animal in our home. And so I sat him down and said exactly that. Not in any kind of heavy way at all, in fact hopefully with a happiness about it. I explained that we liked to live simply in general but especially now. I said the reason that we did was so that our worries were always very small and that we never had anything bigger to think about than maybe are we eating too much dessert? Or what color are we going to paint the bedroom? Simple stuff. Again, he looked at me and said "OK, I understand. We'll have a new pet one day." Yes, we will. And we hugged. And I was amazed.

A few days ago, I came home from work and we were getting ready to read stories. He was sitting in his rocker and said "I'm just going to rock for a moment and think. You can sit on the bed and talk to me if you like." "OK" I said and I sat down on his bed. We talked for a couple of minutes and then he said "I think you are a great Mom." Wow. It's the best thing in the world. Then he got up from his chair and got into bed and told me to sit forward a little bit. I did and I felt his little hands rubbing my shoulders. Although rubbing is too strong a word because in reality his touch was so gentle I could barely feel it. "Q, are you giving me a massage?" "Yes, I know you've had a hard day." About one minute later he got down and went into the bathroom and came back with an absolutely soaking wet warm washcloth." He had me rest my head on a pillow and put the cloth on my forehead (his father does this for him if Q says he has a headache.) While I layed there he rubbed my feet for a minute. "There, do you feel more relaxed?" Yes, I told him but did he think I wasn't relaxed? Do I look when I come home like I'm not relaxed. "No, you look happy" he said (whew - I was beginning to get worried.) "I just thought that after a long day you could use a little extra relaxation."

Obviously, we have been giving Q massages since he was a baby. He is a wound up kind of guy and it always helped him go to sleep. And now this week I see we were giving him more than a massage. We were teaching him how to take care of the ones he loves. And what else is a super hero but someone who knows how to look inside the heart of the people they love and respond with kindness and love.

Are we raising a superhero? I think our little superhero is raising us.

Lessons from Q

Q & J 3 years old


Y and I were together for 14 years before we became parents. White woman, black man living in the US. In those 14 years race rarely entered our conversations. There were many ‘incidents’ but they didn’t cause much angst or need for conversation. We work hard to change what we can and don’t waste much time on what we cannot. When I became pregnant I was thrilled. It was a long, medically intense time and Q is alive because of the amazing doctors and hospital staff that cared for us. During that time I never considered how having a child would bring race into our lives in a way it had never been while we were a couple. I look back now and wonder at my innocence. There are some lessons, however, that we cannot learn from books, movies, or seminars. There are some lessons that come only on the backs of our children. This, I was unprepared for.

The photo above is of Q and J at the time everything began to change. Look at them. Look at how small, how innocent. Q and J started as infants in the same daycare class two days a week. They loved each other almost from the first. Before they could speak they were friends. J would arrive first, grab two fire trucks and sit next to the door until Q showed up. He would then hand a fire truck to Q who might have said thank-you if only he could speak, but he was about a year old and J a year and a half so instead they giggled and played and squabbled all day long, no words necessary.

When we would show up at the end of the day neither of them were ready to come home. One look at us and they would run laughing in the other direction. On the five days Q didn’t go to daycare he would wake up and say the name of the daycare hopefully and when I would say brightly “no, it’s a mommy/daddy & Q day!” he would look faintly disappointed but always try to cover it up with a shy smile as though he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

One day when they were three years old (as they are in the photo,) Y arrived to pick up Q. They were running in circles when J ran up to Y and said “Y, how come your skin is brown?” Y looked at him and said, “J, how come your skin isn’t?” J raised his little eyebrows, smiled and went back to running in circles with Q. J had already internalized the fact that in his world, white was the ‘norm’ and brown was ‘different.’ Q began to feel this too and began to talk about it. He was three years old when he first told me that he wanted to have my color skin. Once he said he was angry at God for giving him brown skin.

One afternoon as we drove home from the daycare I noticed he was unusually quiet and had a serious look on his face. He was 3 ½ at the time. When I asked what he was thinking about he said that one of the children had asked something about why Q’s skin was brown and that one of the teachers had said because we were all made different to make the world a more beautiful place (or something like that. I cannot remember exactly but it was a very positive message.) “Oh that’s nice sweetheart.” I said. He turned away from the window he had been looking out of and with real frustration he said as he looked at me in the rear view mirror “No it’s not Mommy. It’s stupid. I’m different, they’re all the same.”

That was my different/same turning point. I realized in that moment that being white and never having suffered from being ‘different’ I always looked at it as a positive. But if you are a young preschooler and all you want to do is fit in or feel at home when you are with your friends or in school or your place of worship and you are the one that stands out, then different is not nice. Different is something you want to shed so that others can begin to look at you just for you. You want to belong and be noticed for something like singing or building blocks, something you can feel proud of because you can control it. You want to feel as comfortable in your own skin when you leave home as you do when you are home. Positive messages of difference are lost on you.

I understood that I was oblivious to what he was experiencing and that I would have to catch up very quickly. I knew too that it would be our responsibility to help his current and future preschool teachers learn some of the lessons that Q was teaching us. There is a time and a place for learning about what makes us individuals and unique but I now believe that in the early years we need to start building on a foundation of what we have in common. We are all family to each other, we are all related. That’s lesson number one.

For Parents Considering a Transracial Adoption

****Please Note*****Parts of this post contain information from a 10 year old report that uses the term 'oriental' which is considered offensive by many people. The correct word should be Asian. At the moment I am not going to change it - although I am considering this. I don't know if I have time or if it is even right of me to change old text to reflect new understanding. I think it negates the hard work that has been done in the past and might make someone read it and assume the past was easier than it was. Please leave a comment if you disagree, I would love opinions on this topic. Thanks! Thanks Andrew for bringing this to my attention!
Thanks go to Casper Anderson at http://casperanderson.wordpress.com/ for posting this and for offering so much needed insight into the world of transracial adoption.

Questions on Intercountry AdoptionReprinted from the report on Intercountry Adoption: 1995

COAC Collection” Mar/Apr 1999 Knoxville, TN Council on Adoptable Children

We cannot overemphasize the importance of your being involved with a parent group before, during, and after your adoption. Parent groups provide education and support that will greatly benefit both you and your child.
Transracial adoption is not for every family, just as adoption is not for every family. Some very nice people are not necessarily good parents. Many good parents cannot really accept someone else’s child and love it as their own. Many adoptive parents are excellent parents to a child of their own race, but not to a child of another race or background. It takes parents with a certain sensitivity and understanding to parent a child of a different race in our race-conscious society.
Adopting a child of a different race: What is involved for the parent and the child?
1. From the parent’s point of view: Your family will now be interracial for generations. It is not just the question of an appealing little baby. How do you think and feel about interracial marriage? How does your family think and feel when people assume that you are married to someone of a different race? How do you feel about getting some public attention - positive or negative stares, comments? A possible problem could be that the child gets too much attention and others in the family tend to get “left out”. What are your thoughts about race? What characteristics do you think people of other races have? Do you expect your child to have them? The children get Americanized. Do you raise him to have the same identity as you or your other children? Do you help him to develop his own identity? Should he have a foreign name? What relationship will his name have to his sense of who he is?
Imagine a child you know and love being sent to a foreign country to be adopted. How would you want him to be raised? As an American in a foreign country or as a native in that country? How can you learn what it is to be non-white or non-black, and growing up in a white or black society? You don’t know this from your own experience, so you’ll have to find out to teach yourself to become sensitive to your child’s world.
Discrimination against Asians, Indians, Mestizos is more subtle than against blacks, so it is less obvious to a Caucasian or Black, and will require more sensitivity to subtleties.
2. From the child’s point of view:
Preschool years- The people he loves best look different from him. It will be natural for him to want to resemble those he loves, or else understand why he looks different, and learn that difference is not a bad thing.
Latency Stage- The child will need help in understanding his heritage and background so he can explain and feel comfortable about his status with his friends. He needs to be able to answer the question from other children, “What are you?”
Teenage Years- This is the time where he tries to figure out, ” Who am I?” Curiosity about his birthparents or background may become stronger. Questions about dating arise, and you should look at your community. Try to guess how many of your friends and neighbors would wholeheartedly accept their child dating yours. How would you feel if your child developed a special interest in his native country, and identified himself as a foreigner, involved himself with a group of Oriental, Indian, or Latin American teens, wanted to visit his native land? Hopefully you would have kept alive his interest in , and knowledge of his original country’s culture and progress and not feel in the least threatened by his wanting to identify himself with such others.
On to Adulthood- “Whom will I marry?” is a rather different question from “Whom will I date?” Do you have any idea now that your child might marry a Caucasian, an Oriental, a Mestizo, a Black? Would you recommend for or against interracial marriage for your child?
Summary: In addition to your qualities, thought, and feelings as parents, it is important to understand your motive for this kind of adoption. Do you feel you are doing a good deed for a poor homeless child? Do you feel that you’d be acquiring a status symbol, a conversation piece? In her book Adoptions Advisor, Joan McNamara on p. 41 bluntly and accurately remarks, “You are adopting a child, not a tropical house plant to put in your living room.” It is important that you respect the child’s country and culture.
If you feel that your own values and culture are superior to those of your child, or if you feel your primary orientation is to help this child become absorbed into your culture at the expense of his own, you might find transracial adoption is difficult for both you and your child.
It is important to keep in mind that children are removed from their own country ONLY because they essentially have no future in that country, and no possibility of being cared for by permanent nurturing parents, either by adoption within that country, or strong long term foster care. Their only alternative to intercountry adoption would be institutionalization until they reach maturity.
LINK
Posted in Adoption

White Kids in Transracial Families

http://johnraible.wordpress.com/real-brothers-real-sisters-white-kids-in-transracial-families/

Wonderful summary of study done by John Raible. Very positive in some ways especially when discussing the experiences of children who grew up in families with parents who educated themselves and were prepared.

Creating Success

This is taken from the A Childs Waiting website:

Adoptive families that are working towards or currently possess the following characteristics are more likely to have a successful adoption experience.
Families with emotional support from their family and friends.
Families who did not care what the “Jones” think.
Membership in an adoption support group (families share common problems which normalizes their own family transitional problems)
Family engages in family leisure activities as a whole throughout the week
Involvement in a religious practice
Lower to middle income, high school or two or less years of college education
Children who have been able to maintain past relationships in their new placements
Adoptive Families who remain active within their adoption agency
Children who have been able to have closure with past caregivers
Families with some child care or parenting experiences
Families who continue to education themselves about adoption issues as well as any special needs of the child
Families with a strong marriage or partnership
Patience
Families that are more empathic towards a child and the past issues that they have had to face rather than blaming them for the family problems
Adoptive families who put the needs of the child before their own-ALWAYS
Easy assess to post-adoption services
Resolved infertility issues
Women who do not need to feel “appreciated” everyday and do not take child rejection or behavioral concerns personally