Monthly Archives: September 2020

“Adoptees, Mental Health, and Suicide Awareness”

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The role of suicide and mental health in adoption are topics most people don’t want to hear about. As an adoptive parent, I’ve been writing and speaking out about it for years, and I know how painful and difficult it can be. That said, we need to talk and learn, and work toward suicide prevention and better mental health.

This Saturday September 12, Adoption Mosaic will host a panel called “Adoptees, Mental Health, and Suicide Awareness: Breaking the Silence, Breaking the Stigma, as part of their “We The Experts” series. The experts are adoptees, who share their lived experiences, as well as professional expertise. If as an adoptive parent you ever wished you could be a fly on the wall for discussions like this one, here’s your chance to listen to and learn from adoptees. I want to give credit and respect to the adoptees who will participate: they will be helping so many others with their courage and experience.

The focus on the “We the Experts” events is adoptees. Please share this event (and others in the We The Expert series) with adopted adults and others who may be interested. Non-adopted folx are welcome to attend: as listeners, as learners, as supporters of adoptees. Not as experts, not as authorities, not as dominating voices.

As an adoptive parent, I learned a lot about adoption as my kids were growing up. My sons were babies from the US when they were adopted; my twin daughters were 6 years old when they arrived from Ethiopia. All my children identify as Black; their adoptive dad and I are White. My children are all now adults in their 30’s. 

Over the years, we have had a lot of conversations about adoption. My four children’s perspectives on adoption vary greatly, around wanting or needing to search for birth family, around how they react to friends asking about their birth parents or why they were adopted, around trust, grief, Mother’s Day, and fairness. As children, they participated in adoptee camps and workshops, more or less willingly depending on age and mood. They dealt with memories or the lack of them, with baby photos or lack of them, with family tree assignments (never lacked them). As adults, they have settled into their identities, on their own terms, subject to change.

Questions and issues around adoption don’t end magically when adoptees turn 18. Children grow up. They seek out partners and relationships, and adoption can influence both. They have children themselves, who are not adopted and whose parents were. Those biological connections are powerful. As a mom, a grandmother, and the parent of adoptees, I continue to see the impact of adoption, and to learn.

One of the best ways I’ve been learning recently is through Adoption Mosaic’s “We the Experts” series. Depending on the topic, we get to listen to adopted adults talk about their experiences as parents, and how being adopted has affected their relationships with their children. We can learn why or why they chose to search for their birth family, how they have retained or rejected the religion they grew up in, what their relationships with their fathers have been like, and most recently, how they view DNA testing. In August, there was a great conversation about LGBTQ+ folx and adoption. The panelists talked about coming out to adoptive families, sexual orientation and how it can affect reunion, how dating and adoption can intersect (among other intersectionalities), and more. There was so much to say they held another session the following Saturday, and I have no doubts many conversations are still going on.

The panelists are consistently amazing and insightful. The adoptees attending the events ask great questions and share thoughtful comments. Astrid Castro, a Colombian transracial adoptee and thought leader in adoption, is the founder of Adoption Mosaic, and she facilitates the discussions. I especially urge adoptive parents, whatever age your adopted child is, to take advantage of the opportunity that is Adoption Mosaic’s We The Experts series. 

Adoption Mosaic has several resources about adoption and suicide posted on their facebook page as resources for the September 12 panel.

I want to also note a few other resources, by and for adoptees. One is Stop Adoptee Suicide, an Facebook page that provides resources. Another is this post from Intercountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV), “Dealing With Adoptee Suicide.”

Another important event will be Adoptee Remembrance Day, October 30, 2020. “Adoptee Remembrance Day is a day to recognize all of our brothers & sisters who are adopted, that didn’t survive adoption. It’s also a day that signifies an acknowledgement of loss for adoptees because before we’re ever adopted we experience the biggest loss of our lives that’s continuously ignored by our world today. Over the years, the adoptee community has had multiple conversations on creating a day set aside for adoptees, but we’re ready to bring this to life as a way to raise awareness and honor those adoptees who are no longer with us. It’s important that we don’t forget them and after all we’ve lost, adoptees deserve a day just for them.” – Pamela Karanova. Pamela is the force behind Adoptees Connect, whose goal is to “focus on putting adoptee voices first by creating a safe and valuable adoptee-centric space, created by and for adoptees, where their voices can meet and be heard.”

In recent years, the number of adopted adults who are speaking out about adoption has increased greatly. Each one has an important perspective to share, and I am glad to see their wisdom being acknowledged. Discussions around mental health and suicide remain challenging, in and outside of adoption, and each of us feels a terrible sorrow at the news of an adoptee dying by suicide. September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Let’s keep learning, together.

A crisis text line is available 24/7. That link will take you to text lines in other countries as well. In the US, you can talk to a counselor right away by texting HOME to 741741. If you or someone you know is in an emergency, in the US call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or call 911 (or your country’s emergency number) immediately.

Transracial Adoptive Parents: Will You Fight Racism, or Will You Ignore It?

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Transracial adoption is essentially built on racial inequity. The vast majority of transracial adoptive parents, especially those who adopted internationally, are White, and the children they adopt are often placed for adoption due to the pervasive economic disparities that are a result of race. I wonder if there are any White adoptive parents who have not been told that they have given their adopted Black or Brown children a better life. That usually means better schools, safer neighborhoods, and higher standard of living.

It would be so wonderful, a privilege really, if we could just stop talking about racism. Imagine if there were genuine equity in our society, in education, health care, employment, income, housing, and more. No voter suppression. No laws needed about discrimination based on Black natural hair. No teaching Black sons where to put their hands when Driving While Black. No Asians being harassed or worse for the “China flu.” No verified, well-researched reporting of income disparities among races.

That would be great. And we aren’t there yet by any means. In the wake of George Floyd’s death, we Americans seemed poised to take a look at our history as a country, understand the legacy of racism, and genuinely begin to heal. As the White adoptive parent of Black children, I’ve seen personally how racism has affected my children, in overt and covert ways. They are strong, successful people. They and other Black people have dealt with racism every day, individually or systemically. We White adoptive parents who have raised and are raising Black and Brown children know we hold economic and other power by virtue of our race. We cannot bury our heads in the sand. We must continue to learn, and to prepare our children for the world that is not racism-free.

Yesterday, President Trump issued an order pertaining to anti-racism trainings for federal government agencies and workers. It seeks essentially to bury the history and current entrenched system of racism in America, and to deny the reality that Black and Brown people live through in terms of inequities in health care, education, housing, environmental justice and more. 

Under the President’s new order, trainings for federal workers that mention white privilege or assert that racism is part of our country’s foundation “engender division and resentment” and “undercut” the federal government’s “core values.”

Who feels resentment? The White people who are not and never have been affected by racist policies in the U.S., and don’t want to hear about it.

Racism—via slavery, segregation, redlining, denial of voting rights and more—is indeed part of our country’s foundation. We are at a pivotal time to face that reality and make positive changes to end systemic racism. 

However, our current leadership calls anti-racism trainings “anti-American.”

The President has instructed the OMB Director to ensure that “federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions.” 

Federal agencies are to list all government contracts related to trainings about critical race theory and the idea of white privilege, and then do anything they can to cancel the contracts. 

Black scholars like Dr. Derrick Bell and Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw are among those who developed critical race theory. White privilege is real, and disrupting it is part of anti-racist work, so that we live in a genuine anti-racist society. 

This may be one of our President’s most disturbing decisions yet. Watch who supports it, and who opposes it.

It would be nice to wish racism away, but that’s not what 400 years of American history tell us. That’s not what Black scholars, PhDs, and highly skilled researchers tell us. That’s not what Black friends and family tell us. That’s not what many transracially adopted adults have said here, here, here, and here. (There are lots more examples, if you want to look.) That’s not what Harvard Business Review tells us. That’s not what Doc Rivers tells us. It may be what some White men tell us, the White men that have traditionally held power in the U.S.

As the White parent of Black children whom I love beyond words, I will continue to acknowledge racism, to learn how it affects me and them, and to work to end racism and inequity. It’s the least I can do, with eyes wide open.