What if every dollar you spend this year...meant something

What if
every dollar
that you take from your wallet
or transfer from your online account
was spent in line with what you value most
what if every dollar you spent was from your heart as well as your hand
what if you thought first
what if you realized you are wealthy
and then you spread that wealth in a way that those that are not would feel the comfort of it
what if you started today

you need shoes

buy Tom's.

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.

tagged

I have been tagged by C. at http://www.habeshahouse.blogspot.com/ I did not know what this meant so I went back to her site and it says:





Here's who I am tagging:

Who I am today

http://www.trlw.blogspot.com/



An Ethiopian Adoption Blessing

http://www.tami-borninmyheart.blogspot.com/



http://www.straightmagic.blogspot.com/



http://www.bluecollaradoption.com/



http://www.singlemomodyssey.blogspot.com/



http://www.adoptioncubed.com/

http://www.eshururu.wordpress.com/



Random Weird:



1. I do not sleep well and I have never slept well. The problem stems from the fact that my favorite hours in the day are 8 PM - 2 AM and then 5 AM to about 9 AM. Those are my most creative hours. When I was very young I would wake up so that I could hear the first bird begin to chirp. So it's always been there and I know it will always be. I do not nor will I ever sleep well.

2. I drive fast. I like to drive fast. I drive 120 miles a day and I DRIVE. While I drive I listen to really loud music until I worry about my hearing or the soon to be loss of it. Then I turn on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman until the things she reports on make me so mad/sad that I turn back on my really loud rock music and no longer worry about my hearing loss because there are many more things to worry about than that.

3. When I was 19 and she was 23 I traveled with my best girlfriend (more the big sister I always wanted and never had) Tracy Brooks for three months. She chose the itinerary; we would follow spring as it arrived in Europe. We started in Greece in March and ended in Ireland in May. We saw the Forum in Rome covered in wisteria vine. Everywhere we went people were throwing off their winter blues and heading outside to stroll in the sun. One's first visit to Europe should be in the spring when the air is clean and the locals are so so happy to have the tourists back. Before we set out on our voyage Tracy told me to buy all my clothes one size too big because we were going to eat our way through from the South to the North. We did. When we got off the plane in NY more than 3 1/2 months after we had left Tra's mom shouted out from behind the rope barrier in JFK "Well, I can see you enjoyed the food!" She was right. We did.

4. My favorite birthday was when I turned 20 and I was back on Nantucket for the summer. Tracy said we were going to a restaurant with friends but in reality she made me a spectacular spring meal. There were peony petals on the table and the herb bread was baked in flower pots that were tied with a ribbon. It was wonderful to have someone work so hard just to make a meal special and memorable. Men get this treatment rather regularly but woman not so much. The colors, tastes, scents and even the texture of the air of that evening remain vivid in my memory.

5. During a low point in my romantic life when I had had a couple of dates with men I found homely in face as well as spirit I vowed to my best friend over a few glasses of wine that I was going to ask the next good looking guy that I saw out on a date. My theory was that even if I didn't like the guy at least he wouldn't be bad to look at and I would get out of the house. A few minutes later a good looking man walked into the cafe and put on an apron to start his bartending shift. I couldn't ask him out right away because the only way to speak with him in the busy cafe was to take our bill up to him in order to pay it. When we finally finished our wine I went, paid the bill and with a few people waiting behind me to pay their bills I asked him out. August 12th 2008 was the 20th anniversary of that meeting. Being shallow can pay off. Never forget it.

6. Once for this handsome bartender's birthday I made his favorite pie (lemon merangue) in a heart shaped pan and then put the pie in a box lined with tin foil and wrapped with wrapping paper and ribbon and we drove out into the country for a late fall picnic. We laid out our blanket and I filmed him on an old super 8 film camera as he took out the birthday box and tilted it up for the camera to see how nice the bow was. When it came time to open his present he was shocked and delighted that it was his favorite pie. He took the knife, cut through the merangue and began to laugh. Not what I was expecting. "What?" I said. "That's so sweet. You put it in a heart shape pan and the merangue looks so perfect but you forgot the lemon filling!" I grabbed the box to investigate and sure enough - pie crust and merangue but no filling! "I put filling in!" I said. "Where is it then?" He said. This was not turning out the way I planned. Finally we tore apart the box and there was the filling, between the box and the tin foil lining. The car ride had warmed up the lemon into a kind of lemon soup and when he tilted the box to show the camera it literally gurgled down to the little point of the heart an into the lining of the box. Truly. It did. All was not lost. We scooped up all the lemon, drippled it on top of the lemon and sliced it all up into pieces. Yum.

7. One summer morning, 12 years after our trip to Europe, in a house on Nantucket surrounded by lavendar plants I sat awake with my dear friend Tracy and 5 other friends. It was just before dawn when the first birds began to sing and a soft breeze brought the scent of lavender to us. In those moments between the restful dark quiet of the night and the busy light warmth of the new day Tracy's soul finally was freed from the body it had been tethered too. It was a sweet and terrible thing and remains along with me becoming a mom the most important event of my life. We are rarely granted the privilage of being with our dear ones at the moment of their passing. It is one of life's greatest blessings. The morning she died Tracy was 35 and she is forever in my heart 35. I think of her every single day and cry more often than I will say here. I cannot believe she does not know my wonderful Q. He, however, experiences her love all of the time. As we work, Q and I in the kitchen baking and creating recipes. As we eat each and every meal with lit candles set on the table. As we walk in gardens of lavendar and I tell him that one day when he graduates college I will give him as a present a trip to Europe and he will not make his itineray based on monuments and museums but rather on a season and on the timing of the blooming of flowers and the spring song of birds. Of all the things to know about me, this last one is the only one that matters.

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

*** Parenting Tips

"Parenting Tips for White Parents with Adopted Children of Color" by Sun Yung Shin in the Summer 2007 issue of MN ASAP Family Voices newlsetter.

I found this on the Harlow's Monkey Website. The tips are straightforward and helpul.

http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/harlows_monkey/2007/10/parenting-tips-.html