My Family of Color

My family has grown by the way of interracial adoption.   Interracial adoption is when you adopt a child from a different race other than your own.   My husband and I realized there would be difficulties raising African American children.   We were unprepared for the depths of these problems.



My husband and I have four children.   Elizabeth is our oldest daughter.   She resembles her dad with his light skin and light brown hair.   She is a caring and loving young lady.   She does get a bit to bossy with her younger siblings.   David is our oldest son and his skin is lighter than his younger siblings.   His gross motor skills are extraordinary. He plays soccer, basketball, baseball and hockey.   He excels at every one of them.   He is soft spoken and shuts down easily when he thinks you are upset with him.   Deanna is our youngest daughter.   Her skin is a bit darker than David’s. She is known as our “girlie girl”.   She loves shoes, makeup, clothes, Bratz dolls and shopping.   She can be stubborn in some areas, which tends to get her in trouble.   Daniel is our youngest son and is the darkest of our three African American children.   He is not afraid of anyone or anything.   He will tell you how to do it and how fast it should get done.   He also has been the most challenging child to parent.   His stubbornness and temper tantrums can be overwhelming at times.



Our first bit of racism came from our daughter Elizabeth before we adopted David, Deana and Daniel.   When Elizabeth was 7 we were going through the adoption process.   The social worker asked her “What do you think about having a brother and a sister who will be black?”   She thought for a moment and said, “I don’t think I will like it”.   I could not believe what I just heard.   My husband and I had talked and talked about adopting African American children with her, she never said anything negative about it.   The social worker asked her another question “Why”?   She said “It won’t be fair when we play...