Transracial/cultural/religious adoptions
I've been thinking about the complexities surrounding adoption for some time. In the wake of the BLM protests and the greater awareness surrounding racial issues in the US, I heard a few really interesting stories about black Americans who had been raised in white families, and the way it shaped their perceptions of their own race, where (or if) they 'fit in' anywhere, and whether their white adoptive parents could understand the reality of being black in America, no matter how much they loved their children.
Then, in hubbub around abortion rights that started last year, I'm sure many of you are aware of the conservative Christian couple holding up a sign declaring their willingness to adopt babies that would otherwise be aborted - in my social circles, such offers were generally met with ridicule and memes (and reasonable points about how that wasn't a substitute for abortion rights), but it still got me thinking about some of the questions associated with adoption.
And most recently, of course, we have had the SCOTUS opinion on the Indian Child Welfare Act, which while perhaps not addressing the core point of the law, again raised the question about who should be adopting children and under what circumstances.
My instinct when anyone adopts a child is to view it as a selfless, praiseworthy act. After all, there are far too many 'unwanted' children in the world without stable, loving families, and it seems like an extraordinary act of love and compassion (and, perhaps, justice) for a family to welcome another child into their home and family in order to provide them with a better shot at life. And under such circumstances, I cannot see how the race or religion or culture of the adopting parents (and whether they differ from that of the child) should matter at all - certainly one might argue that such details are irrelevant in the face of a child in need. I think about specific classes of children who are unlikely to find homes in their own culture (e.g. baby girls in parts of Asia, disabled orphans in Russia, etc.) and cannot fault someone who opens their homes and hearts for these children.
And yet. I am also sympathetic to the view that non-biological children hailing from a different culture, or race, or religion, might lose out when they are adopted into another (generally white, Christian, and American) family. In cases like the ICWA, it's based on indisputable evidence of the widespread harm to entire generations of Native American children when huge numbers of them were adopted outside of their tribes, often forcibly. Even if the individual families felt they were providing these children a better life (and may indeed have provided loving homes), the aggregate effect on the continuity of tribal life and culture was incalculable - some estimates had as many as 1/3 of all Native children being adopted out of their culture prior to the ICWA.
But things get a bit more complex when you think about transracial adoption that is not likely to cause wholesale destruction of the originating culture. Is it wrong for a white couple to adopt a child of color? Are they depriving that child of their cultural heritage, and will they never be able to provide the child with the same innate understanding that might be possible in a family from the same cultural or racial background? Even if such families make an effort to expose the child to their culture of origin, we know that this will be limited at best. It's difficult for the child when they are judged in our society by how they look even if they do not have any of the cultural associations therein - and coming from both broader society and their own culture of origin! I'm thinking about stories about e.g. Chinese American adoptees who don't know any Mandarin and feel out of place in Asian cultural settings, or African American adoptees who are raised with a 'white' attitude towards law enforcement only to get a rude awakening when they grow up. That seems like the child is losing something out. On the flip side, if a white couple looking to adopt only wanted to consider white children, wouldn't we consider that a racist preference? On the face of it, their interest in adopting a child irrespective of the race or cultural background of the child should be lauded, no?
Finally, we get the thorny issue of religion. I think about that Christian couple at the anti-abortion rally a lot. Because there's a decent chance that someone they did adopt might not come from the same conservative Christian background, or might not even come from a Christian background at all! But it's quite likely that said child would be raised as a conservative Christian. In some ways, this smacks of creepy quiverfull theologies and broader critiques of Christian theology's need to 'save' as many people as possible. Even so, would it be reasonable to expect a devout family who is genuinely trying to provide a loving home for a child *not* to teach this child their beliefs?
I'm really curious to hear what you folks think about this. We all come from disparate cultures, religious backgrounds, and ethnic/racial makeup. Would you feel comfortable 'imposing' your own worldview and lifestyle on a child who does not come from the same background? What is the best approach that maximizes the number of children who find a good home but mitigates some of the above issues? I genuinely think that the vast majority of adoptive parents want to do what's best for their adoptive child, but it's not always clear that their understanding of the child's best interests are in line with what is actually best for them.
