Why Transracial?

I've been thinking about answering the question "Why transracial?" for a long time. I just haven't broached the subject yet, because there are so many answers - some simple and some not so simple. So here goes.

The simple answer is: why not? But it took us awhile to get to that. When we decided to adopt domestically rather than internationally (as many people assumed we would), the reasons included that we wanted a newborn baby, it would cost less money to adopt domestically, and a lot of countries require that you be at least 30 years old and married for about 10 years before they'll let you adopt. Plus, China has a 5-year wait list right now, and we weren't ready to wait that long. So, once we had settled on a domestic adoption, we had to start choosing what we were "okay" with: What if the mother drank alcohol? What if there is a disability? What if you have to travel across the country to get the baby? And the big one: What race are you willing to accept?

If we had been asked 3 years ago if we would be willing to adopt an African American child, I don't know if we would have said yes. But God definitely orchestrated the circumstances to open our eyes to the possibilities. By teaching in Hampton, at a school that is approximately 90% AA, I started to fall in love with my students. They were hilarious and kind and fun and smart. I don't think I could imagine teaching at an all white school as I had the previous three years. I loved these kids, and Aaron did too. We went to wrestling matches where we were the only white fans in the stands (with Aaron yelling at the refs along with all of the other parents). I called my students, "my kids" and would have done just about anything for them. Some of the kids even referred to me as "mom." So, when the social worker asked us what races we were willing to adopt, AA seemed like it might be a possibility.

But we were still scared. We both come from Missouri, Aaron from rural MO, where there are approximately 0 AA people. Racism has been a part of both of our families (if not immediate, then grandparents), and we were worried about how our families would accept an AA child. So we told the social worker that we would be willing to take a biracial child, but probably not an AA child yet. We were hoping to "ease" our families into the whole transracial adoption thing, thinking that maybe a biracial, lighter skinned child would help pave the way. (Yes, this does sound a little ridiculous to me now.) But when the social worker called and said there was an AA baby being born in the next month, and they really didn't have any other families at the time, we looked at each other, said, "why not?" and went to meet Ashley (Malachi's birthmom). We still had some reservations about it, but once we met her and saw how amazing she was, we couldn't imagine not taking this child. The funny thing is, when Malachi was born, he was about as white as any child I've seen. His pigment has now darkened and he's definitely an AA baby, but he is absolutely gorgeous. I cannot imagine having a white child (I've even thought that if I were to get pregnant, I'd feel bad for our baby because there's no way it could possibly be as cool as Malachi is).

So, were our fears from our family realized? To our surprise (and joy), our families accepted Malachi as just another part of the family. There didn't seem to be any issues at all with his race. People in the community, both black and white, just think it's cool that we adopted him. Little AA kids come up to me and ask me if Mac is from Haiti. My students just told me to make sure I didn't turn him into a geeky white kid (come on, really? Don't they know me better than that?!). We can hardly wait to adopt another child. Will we adopt another AA baby? I hope so. But Aaron and I have said we don't really care what the race is. Why does it matter? An Asian, white, Hispanic, brown ... it doesn't matter. We're all made equally by God, right? Though I really want at least one other AA baby. But a rainbow family would be pretty cool too.