Despite my recent frustration with people commenting on Miss M and the stupid China doll thing, I have heard from a number of people who are walking the same path I am just beginning. It is such a relief to know I am not alone in trying to do the best I can for Miss M and the HFC (hypothetical future child/ren).
Most of the people I have heard from are adoptive families, and it makes me wonder where the multiracial families are? I found a small community online and was immediately confronted with an extremely hateful post about how adopting from Asia was racist and elitist (for rich white americans). It was basically supported by everyone who replied (30 posts). I won’t link to it because it was so hateful.
For the record, I will just say that people choose to build their families for reasons only they can know: Some people are comfortable with the uncertainty of foster-adopt; some people want their kids to look as much like them as possible; some people want the healthiest child possible; some people aren’t eligible to adopt in the US because of their age or family situation. The reasons go on and on.
We are adopting because I know I am supposed to. I know there is a child out there who will be waiting for me, so I have to find him/her. I know I have the capacity to love him/her, and we want to be parents to more than one child. China is an easy choice for us, because my husband is chinese american and we have more access to cultural resources to offer our child than we otherwise would (we still need to make an effort to find more though).
I firmly believe that people need to be in touch with their skills and limitations. Not everyone can handle an older child adoption. Not everyone can handle special needs, foster-adopt, open adoption, closed adoption or transracial adoption. So when people start criticizing a family’s choices it makes me really uncomfortable. Unless you are walking in their shoes, how can you know their reasons?
Anyway, it really skeeved me out about that community. I hope I can find a place where the diversity of families and family types can be respected and embraced. And a place where families who are just learning can go to learn from those that have already been there.
On that note, I wanted to link to The "China Doll" Syndrome:
When Excessive Attention Sets Children Apart which sums up what I was trying to say in a much better way than I could.
One last comment on a post you may have forgotten you wrote, before I stop and wait to hear from you.
You’ve helped me a lot by hammering at this even though my child escapes the China doll syndrome, she is still considered exotic. She definitely gets way too many compliments, far more than I believe she would if she looked like me. Here in white dominated Minnesota especially.
I also hear frequently how beautiful Indian people are. And I get asked. “what is she?” And I get asked “where she is from?” And the silliest question, is she adopted? Doink! I want her to be proud of being Indian and adopted so I fight against showing my anger (plus I am totally conflict averse), yet feel like she deserves to be allowed to just be, a privilege white kids in white families take for granted.
She truly hates the attention. The only people she is comfortable getting compliments from are her parents. Maybe that is natural shyness, but it is also an unnatural experience because she KNOWS she sticks out. She can see color, even if we claim we cannot and she feels totally exposed.
We had some school issues that are on my blog but I didn’t emphasize the part about JL feeling laughed at when people told her she was cute and even though she loves dresses, she started wanting to dress down to blend in more (this kid was FOUR, imagine her at FOURTEEN!)
The problem is there is no way for her ever to blend, other than to be part of a diverse enough community so that diversity is normalized. Dressing (and weight, body image etc) is the least useful of her defenses but may become paradigmatic for her at some point. I hope I can teach her to fight but I suck at fighting myself.
What do I do? I try to acknowledge her reality when she complains of feeling embarrassed and in public, I generally say thank you and avoid extended conversations, especially if she can hear them, but I am now working on my own version of “fish eye”.
And I am developing such an appreciation for people who have no questions about how she got into our family, and pay no more particular attention to her than they would to any rambunctious kid.
The one exception is the endearment she gets from some African Americans who find her beautiful in a way that doesn’t offend me. Hard to articulate why but it has something to do with a kinship between them that feels more natural to me, if that makes any sense at all.
And a quickie on the body of this post, we were basically railroaded into international adoption after being rejected on a domestic level, so I get ticked off at people who ask why we don’t want to “save” kids in our own back yard. We tried. And I hate to be cornered into saying that because finding JL was ultimately right for us and I hope hope hope for her.
OTOH, I do see the whole international adoption system as so rife with elitism an racism that it is hard to extricate myself from it, and a day seldom passes when I don’t question myself for doint this to her….usually after she falls asleep and looks SO innocent.
OK ‘nuf said. Thank you. You are doing good work inside and outside your head.