Whether they are African-American children in the U.S. foster care system, Chinese children abandoned due to the One-Child-Policy, or orphaned children from Ethiopia or Central America, most of the children in need of forever families are not white.  

This has led to more families considering transracial adoption as a means of beginning or growing their families.  But how do you know if you are up to the challenges of transracial adoption?  Consider these questions:

1. Why do we want to adopt?
It’s hard not to feel a tug at your heartstrings when hearing about the plight of children who have been orphaned, neglected or abused. Yet wanting to help a child alone will be insufficient for success as an adoptive parent. 

It is vital for you to identify a deeply held desire to be a parent and make a lifelong commitment to a child. Children need to know that while you are meeting their need for a family, they are also fulfilling your need to be parents.

2. Does race matter?
Some prospective parents say that they don’t see color and that the race of the child they adopt does not matter. If what these parents mean is that they can love a child of any color, then they are on the path to success.  

But the fact is, race does matter. To help a child begin to take pride in the heritage that God bestowed upon them, we first must see that color and not deny its existence. 

Children of color need to know that their adoption is not “Plan B,” and that their parents were purposeful in adopting them. One day your child will want to hear your reasons for adopting a child of color. 

3. Are we prepared to become and be seen as a multi-racial family?
If you are a Caucasian couple, once you adopt a child of color, you will no longer be a “white” family, but will become a multi-racial family. 

People will notice you.  They may stare, ask harmless questions or make hurtful comments. Can you become an advocate for your child of color without becoming defensive?  You may lose some of the white privilege to which you have become accustomed, without even realizing it existed.   You will need to be able to address racial remarks or bias—wherever they occur, perhaps even in your own extended family.

4. Can we offer children the environment and resources that they will need to embrace their race and deal with the racism that they will face in our society?
Look around you. Will your children see their ethnicity reflected in your world? 

Having friends, neighbors and role models who share their racial background will help children to have a sense of racial pride and belonging in their world. Some families have found a “cultural consultant,” someone who shares their child’s racial background, to be of great help in providing them guidance on everything from hair care to knowing how it feels to be a person of color. Transracial adoptees advise parents to make those racial and cultural connections before your child arrives.

Helpful Resources:
I’m Chocolate, You’re Vanilla, by Marguerite Wright
Dim Sum, Bagels, And Grits:  A Sourcebook for Multicultural Families, by Myra Alberson
Below the Surface, a self-assessment guide for families considering adoption across racial or cultural lines.  It can be ordered from PACT at:  http://www.pactadopt.org/store/Transracial-Adoption-Publications-by-Pact.html

Carol Demuth currently works with Buckner Children & Family Services in Dallas as Foster Care/Adoption Supervisor.  She is a licensed clinical social worker, a certified mediator and a licensed child placing administrator with the State of Texas.  She joined the Buckner staff in 1998.

1. Domestic infant adoption – adopting a newborn from a birth mom facing a crisis pregnancy.

2. Foster to Adopt – accepting placement of a child from the foster care system with hopes to adopt that child when and if he or she becomes available for adoption.  Typically for younger ages, but can be for children of all ages.

3. Waiting Child Adoption – adopting a child from the foster care system who is already legally available for adoption.  Typically for older children, sibling groups and those with special needs.

4. International Adoption – adopting a child from another country.  For children of all ages, including sibling groups and special needs.

So, how do you know which path to take?  It’s a personal decision, but here are some questions to ask yourself while you pray, educate yourself and prepare to decide:

1. How much risk can I tolerate? Though all adoption involves risk, each type involves different types of risk. Can I risk a birth mom choosing to parent? Can I risk an international government changing their laws? Can I risk parenting a child with challenging behaviors and a history of trauma?

2. How much can I afford? Some adoptions cost in the thousands of dollars while others cost very little. Certainly, financial aid is frequently available as well as tax credits for adoption costs.

3. What type of child can I best parent? Older or younger? Sibling group or single? Am I
open to a child of a different ethnicity than my own? What level of special needs can I meet?

4. What is my motivation? Why am I pursuing adoption, and what impact does that have on the specific avenue I choose for my adoption journey?

5. To what extent does my faith play a part in my decision? Do I feel compelled towards one type of adoption over another because of my spiritual beliefs? Has God called me to a particular choice for adoption?

Ask yourself these questions, and if you’re ready to learn more, attend a “Be a Family” meeting in your area. At these meetings, you’ll meet other interested families and will connect with professional Buckner staff who can talk you through the different options.

And after all of that, be flexible. At Buckner, we believe that if you’re interested in adoption, then God will lead you through to the best option for your family. He will provide throughout the journey, with all of its stops and starts, lows and highs. Are you ready?

Greg Eubanks is the Buckner Area Vice President for National Operations. As an adoptive parent and an adoptive uncle, he is passionate about how Buckner ministries throughout the U.S. help to build strong families, whether through foster care, adoption or a host of other services that prevent families from ever having to separate. He has been with Buckner since 1994.

(MELISSA, Texas) — In Reyna and Daniel’s world, there were no bugs, no guinea pigs and definitely no horses.

What they knew was a strict schedule: bunk beds with several children to a room and night lights that went across the edge of the floor like fire flies in the dark. There were no permanent moms or dads. There was only the hope of them.

One day, someone pulled Reyna, 7 and Daniel, 8, aside to tell them that a family wanted to take them home, forever.

“They were given this album with pictures of us and all the animals,” said Chris McKlein, their mother of three years, lifting up the book. “One week later, they moved in.”

The children had been in the foster care system for two years and moved from house to house so often that it took them a while to understand the concept of a permanent home.

“We lived in three houses before this,” Daniel said, raising his arms in the air. “It was hard to go, go, go, drive and go, go go. … I was scared at first. We had never slept alone in a dark room. And I thought we (Reyna and I) would have to move again, but they kept telling us we’d stay until we grew up.”

Reyna was scared, too.

“She was afraid of the dogs,” said Dan Bray, her father. “Now she’ll run up to them and play with them.”

The family lives in a house off a gravel road, with four horses, a guinea pig, three fish aquariums, a frog, chickens and so many cats and dogs it’s hard to keep track of them all.

“(The children) didn’t know you could run barefoot,” Chris said. “Now I’ll come home and Dan has them working on the roof or riding on the horses and doing things they never would have done.

“I think the adjustment was greater for us than for the kids,” Chris added. “You have two kids suddenly. We had a week from the time we met them to the time they came to our house. We were shell shocked. We had been waiting for months and then it was all finalized suddenly.

“I took their schedule and worked on teaching the kids what to do and what not to do. They didn’t know what leftovers were, or Tupperware. And they didn’t know you could make chocolate milk because when you’re feeding a bunch of kids, any chocolate milk will be coming from a bottle. We also had to explain what TV shows were and commercials.”

But Dan said the children were ready to move in with them from the beginning. “We were introduced to them as mommy and daddy and that’s what we were.”

The Bray-McKlein family isn’t perfect, but they tried to reach perfection before allowing themselves to adopt, Chris said. “We thought it’d be easier to go through the process, that we’d just get the stamp of approval. But we realized that we were never going to get things perfect.”

The couple had been married for 15 years before they started looking into adoption because they wanted the perfect house, perfect health and all bills paid off. But they learned perfection wasn’t obtainable and decided to begin the process.

They started with a small adoption agency that ended up folding before they turned to Buckner.

“Buckner had so many more resources,” McKlein said. “We got a lot of personalized attention. We ended up with Buckner through a referral and it was so much more than we expected. Even though it’s a large agency, it’s very personal.”

Bray and McKlein informed Buckner that they were open to adopting children of any racial background. Reyna and Daniel are Hispanic

“In some situations, adopting across racial lines can be hard if the community wouldn’t be willing to accept the child,” McKlein said. “Adoption isn’t just for you. It’s about the impact it has on your child. But it’s never been an issue for us. We never got negative comments.”

Chris said they don’t talk to their children a lot about race. “The question is, ‘Do you want to introduce that concept when they are colorblind. I mean, I see good and bad points of both.”

Despite the difference in heritage, the children are as much Bray’s and McKlein’s as they can be.

“They are ours,” Dan said. “We have quirky things that we do and then they pick up on it and you say, ‘That’s me.’”

Four-year-old Kellie Hodson loves to twirl in her pink dress. She makes faces with her big brother Jonathan, shares secrets with her Mom and rides the four-wheeler with her dad whenever she gets the chance.

Though Kellie just joined her family six months ago, it’s clear she was born to be a Hodson.

“A lot of people are very surprised to find out that our children aren’t biological,” said her mother Amy. They’re especially surprised, she said, that Kellie hasn’t been with them since day one.

Phil and Amy Hodson decided to adopt early in their marriage after several years of attempting to have a child failed.

“We always said we would stop trying to conceive and adopt when we reached three criteria: it became painful, money ran out and our only option left was en vitro [fertilization],” Phil said.

“It all happened at the same time,” Amy added.

They adopted their oldest son Jonathan, 8, through an adoption agency in Oklahoma while Phil attending seminary in Philadelphia. They still maintain contact with Jonathan’s birth mother on a yearly basis.

Once the couple moved back to Longview, where Amy grew up, finances were different, she explained. “Adoption is so costly.” So they looked into foster care and adoption of a child living in the state’s custody. That’s when they came across Buckner.

“We called and talked with Elisabeth [Sabella, foster care caseworker],” Amy said. “We prayed for something to happen soon if it was meant to be. Within the next two weeks, they were starting foster parenting classes. We knew that was our confirmation.”

The Hodsons entered into foster care with the intention of wanting a more permanent relationship with a child, Phil explained. “But [Buckner staff] was careful to make sure they didn’t paint a picture that wasn’t realistic. You could tell they were experienced at dealing with many different situations.”

“There is a natural fear factor when adopting children through CPS,” Amy said. “You know that they are some children who come with some baggage, whether that means abuse or neglect or other siblings. As a mother that worried me.”

Buckner helped to educate the couple and alleviate any worries or fears.

“They were professional and organized,” Phil said. “Doing what they said they would do. We were thankful that Buckner is a Christian agency not just in name, but in deed.”

The couple finished their classes and home inspections in September, not knowing how long it would be before they would called upon to consider placement. December came quick enough.

“We went to a Christmas party at Buckner and that was when we saw Kellie for the first time,” Amy said, with tears in her eyes. “They had told us there was a really sweet little girl who was coming up for adoption. So when we saw her we knew.”

Jonathan wasn’t so sure.

“I was thinking about a boy, not a girl,” he said, in typical 8-year-old fashion. “I was afraid to think a sister would be annoying.”

“We talked in the car on the way home from the party,” Amy explained. “We had been praying for a baby, so we asked Jonathan if he would be OK with it. He said he would.”

Kellie had been living with a foster family for almost a year and a half. Her parents’ rights had been terminated due to neglect. The Hodsons called Sabella the next day to tell her they were interested in adopting Kellie. She told them they were one of many families up for consideration, Amy said. So they waited.

One Dec. 20, 2007 Amy remembers standing in the kitchen making sausage balls when the telephone rang.

“It was Elisabeth,” she said. “She told me, ‘I get to tell you that you got picked for Kellie!’”

While the family celebrated, they were forced to face a sobering reality: adopting a child in the state’s custody is not simple.

“We had to wait until the second week in January before we could meet Kellie for the first time,” Amy said. “That was so hard.”

“It’s frustrating when you’re ready to meet your child, that there is all this red tape,” Phil added.

They spent time with Kellie in stages. Their first meeting was at her foster mother’s house. The second meeting was a little longer. Eventually she was allowed to stay the night at the Hodson’s home, and later she stayed a weekend.

“Her foster mother did a really good job at preparing Kellie for a family,” Amy said. “For a 3 and a half year old, she was well schooled.”

Phil said they had to spend a lot of time explaining to Kellie in the two-week transition period that they were coming back for her. “It was hard for her, too,” he said.

The day Kellie came home with the Hodsons was one of the best days of Kellie’s life, they said.

Throughout her transition period, she wasn’t allowed to ride on the Hodson’s four-wheeler. The day she came home, she took the four-wheeler for her first spin.

“It was yellow!” Kellie chimed in. Yellow is her favorite color.
“From the beginning, Kellie has been very ready to talk to people,” Phil said. “She’s gregarious. Never met a stranger.”

The Hodsons tell their adoption story frequently, using it as their “platform” to encourage others to consider adoption, he said.

“People always have an impression of adoption … wonder if it will be the same as having a child biologically. To me it’s more. You get the additional blessing of being able to tell people how God has provided for us and planned our family for us all along.

“You get the picture that God has adopted us all into His family,” he continued. “So when Kellie was adopted she was baptized into the family that we’re all a part of. It’s amazing how God works.”