Transracial adoption, debates and decisions

transracial adoption

transracial-adoptionSouth Africa is so tremendously mixed, both culturally and racially, and with a history of great racial prejudice, it is not surprising that we have so many issues surrounding transracial adoption. Parents are faced with a huge decision often affected by friends and family opinions. For some parents the decision on transracial adoption is easy.  For others its the most difficult they will ever make.

Many parents are desperate to adopt but only want to adopt a child of the same race as themselves. Parents argue that transracial adoption will make the child’s life more difficult. The child will have to deal with many tough issues that other children won’t. When adopting a child from another race and culture, parents have to consider teaching the child about his or her own culture and language. The child may get bullied in school and sometimes, due to the fact that they are noticeably adopted, they feel excluded within the family. During teenage years many issues may boil up and explode if they haven’t been dealt with properly during childhood. Pro transracial adoption activists argue that that a child’s perception of a situation and how they then react to the situation is shaped by the parents. They argue that a life with loving parents dealing with transracial adoption is better than spending a life in an orphanage. Adoption is about sharing love and giving the priceless gift of family to the adoptee as well as new parents .

In South Africa there are far more babies of colour than white babies available. This means that parents who are waiting for a transracial-adoptionwhite baby could wait many years before a child is available. Some adoption agencies receive about 10 white babies a year if they are lucky and many, many, many more black babies. These black babies are now suffering the backlash of a failed Antiretoviral role out system well before their time and a current HIV crisis sweeping the country. According to the Health Systems Trust, 5,7 million babies could be orphans by 2015. This is a scary, scary figure. There are so many parents desperately seeking a child that it almost seems impossible to not adopt a baby of colour in the next few years and it seems as though transracial adoption will be on the rise whether people like it or not.

What are your thoughts on transracial adoption? Have you ever transracially adopted or are you planning to? Do you know someone going through something like this? Have your say and comment below. 

Trinity Heart’s blog post on this topic and Someones Daughter book are two great reads. Written by women who adopted transracially, the issues they dealt with personally and socially and the hardships and joys of adoption.

Contact me by clicking on this link for more information and any questions you may have on adoption.