Something that has always irked me is when adoptees speak out about racism and microaggressions (or really any not-rainbows-and-unicorns experience) and it is met with comments from adoptive parents along the lines of, \u201cWell my adoptee has never spoken to me about this so they don\u2019t experience it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or worse\u2026 \u201cMy adoptee hasn\u2019t spoken to me about this so it doesn\u2019t happen to anyone.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My first question to parents would be\u2026 did you tell your parents everything? I didn\u2019t. For various reasons. But I\u2019m naturally a private person who doesn\u2019t like having difficult face-to-face conversations. It took me 22 years to open up about racism, microaggressions, and general adoption challenges and it started as writing\/blog posts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My next question would be\u2026 do you expect your young adoptee to come to you with a fully developed concern about racism and microaggressions if they are confused about what they are experiencing? If they are confused about who they are how can they be sure what they are experiencing is an attack against their identity. If race and racism is not something discussed in the household, how are they supposed to formulate the questions and conversations? That should be the job of the educated parent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Especially in elementary school, when kids were experimenting with what they could say and what would gain them popularity, I had no clue that the jokes said to me were racist\u2026 that puling your eyes into slits and singing the \u2018Chinese, Japanese, Dirty Knees\u2019 song was extremely offensive. What I saw was everyone laughing and the people doing it saying, \u201cAw Lilly we are just joking, we love you, you\u2019re our best friend!\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is extremely confusing to a young kid. And as I got older and realized what was happening, I kept my mouth shut because society was just going to tell me the same thing\u2026 \u201cBe proud of who you are. Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Parents, I get it. We don\u2019t know what we don\u2019t know. But as a parent, it\u2019s your job to be educated and aware of everything that comes with adoption and transracial adoption. When you are shown \u2018negative\u2019 experiences that you\u2019ve never heard of before, do not just write them off because your adoptee hasn\u2019t come to you about it. Do not start listing Examples X, Y, and Z of why the perspective is incorrect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take the opportunity to learn that this new thing could be something your adoptee experiences or will experience. Then, use that knowledge to foster a safe environment to have discussions and promote questions. Best case scenario, your adoptee honestly tells you they don\u2019t experience racism. Worst case scenario, they do\u2026 but now you are aware and you can work to protect them and teach them to protect themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
P.S. Be careful with the leading questions: \u201cYou don\u2019t experience racism right?\u201d. Whenever I am asked something like this, I immediately want to say the \u2018correct\u2019 answer and agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Something that has always irked me is when adoptees speak out about racism and microaggressions (or really any not-rainbows-and-unicorns experience) and it is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[452,453,665],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adoption","tag-national-adoption-awareness-month","tag-national-adoption-month","tag-transracial-adoption"],"yoast_head":"\n