Jewish couple adopting AA baby?

[Anonymous]

We are a Jewish couple wrestling with secondary infertility. We have a 2.5 year old bio son, but after 3 subsequent miscarriages I've found out that I have immune and clotting issues that will make it impossible to carry another pregnancy to term without significant medical intervention (major drugs that should be fine for baby but could have long-term effects for me). These issues run in my family so it's not a huge surprise, but definitely an unwelcome development. We have enough money (about $40k) to pursue ART or adoption, but not both. And only enough to pursue a couple attempts at ART and maybe one attempt at adoption. So we have to make a choice and that choice will be binding.

We are certain we could love a non-bio child of any race. And it's my understanding that the majority of healthy infants placed for adoption are African American, which is fine with us in the abstract. But we are concerned that we'd be creating a lot of problems if we adopted an AA baby and raised him Jewish. We are not extremely observant -- just major holidays like Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, etc -- but we do intend to send our kid(s) to Hebrew school and give them a typical Conservative Jewish upbringing. Synagogues are not exactly known for their diversity, even Reform synagogues that tend to have higher intermarriage rates. Will we be dooming our child to always feel different and out of place? And conversely, since we are not willing to attend church, will we be cutting him off from his heritage culture? All my AA friends and colleagues attend church regularly and it's my understanding that church plays a huge role in the AA community and in identity formation. Is it fair to cut an AA child off from that, particularly when he also may feel out of place in his adopted community? We desperately want another child, but we are not willing to drastically alter our own identity or practices. Maybe we are selfish but that's how it is, so we have to make decisions within those confines.

DH is additionally concerned about adoption because the adoptees he's known anecdotally -- two of my cousins and some family friends of his parents -- have all had major issues. My cousins' issues are identity crises related to their adoptions. DH's family friend's kid just has issues generally. They are all older than we are and their adoptions were back in the day when adoptions were closed and records hard to obtain, but clearly there have been problems. And there weren't even any cross-racial or cross-religious factors. This obviously gives us pause as well.

I think I know the answer -- drugs/ART or nothing, particularly since DH is more leery of adoption than I -- but any words of advice or experience would be appreciated. Are there things we're not considering? Things we're blowing out of proportion or giving too much weight to? For various reasons we are not interested in international adoption; domestic only, and only an apparently healthy infant. (I know there may be special needs that become apparent down the road just as there could be for bio kids, but we are not open to special needs that are known from the start.)

[Anonymous]

I don't believe in adopting only one child of a different race from the rest of the entire family. He would look at every family member and none would look like him. That matters to a kid. A lot.

[Anonymous]

I am AA. My child (bio) is half-Jewish. Her dad is not observant (he waffles on whether he is an atheist), but has a strong Jewish cultural identity. Our child is a very active Catholic. For the most part, her dad's family's congregation has been welcoming of her attending events. There are a few other children of color in mixed marriages or transracially adoptive families at the shul and we know others socially. All of those kids are being raised Jewish. They seem quite accepted by that particular religious community. None seem to have a non-Jewish cultural identity, which may have been intentional on the parents' part in order to strengthen a sense of being Jewish. This is the divide that my child experiences, but she seems untroubled by it. Only recently has she begun to distinguish between Catholic culture and AA culture or Jewish culture and mainstream European American culture.

I think you'll be fine adopting an AA child. Most Jews in this area tend to be very committed to social justice. If that's true of you, you probably already plan to teach your children about racism, slavery, the Civil Rights movement, etc. this area has many resources for interracial and trans-racially adoptive families.

If you decide to raise your child religiously Jewish, there are many liberal and Reconstructivist communities with Jews of color.

[Anonymous]

I know a couple in Richmond who did exactly this. It worked out fine for their family. They are members of a more conservative sect but were welcomed. Their complaint was that AA were more likely to vocally question their choice of adoption. I think kids need love and honesty. People always try to shield a child, but a child is very observant and certainly not stupid. If you talk honestly with the child then you can help them process what they experience so that they do not come to the wrong conclusion. I would not hesitate to do this if it were my choice.

[Anonymous]

I know several AA Jews.

No big deal. Where do you live?

[Anonymous]

DH is additionally concerned about adoption because the adoptees he's known anecdotally.

Based on your husband's hesitations I would not adopt an AA baby. I know a Jewish couple who adopted two babies whose parents were not Jewish and are now raising them Jewish. Personally, I think that is wrong because they are denying their children's biological history. Almost as if you adopted from China and raised them to be Mormon.

If you are going to adopt at all you need to discuss this with your husband and perhaps a counselor to work out all the feelings you both have. Perhaps there are Jewish babies/young children available that you are unaware of? Perhaps you can talk to people in your community?

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I knew at least one AA who was Jewish. I'm black and thought it was unique and funny (in friendly since I had never met any AA who were Jewish). I'd say go for it. There are too many kids that need good homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am AA. My child (bio) is half-Jewish. Her dad is not observant (he waffles on whether he is an atheist), but has a strong Jewish cultural identity. Our child is a very active Catholic. For the most part, her dad's family's congregation has been welcoming of her attending events. There are a few other children of color in mixed marriages or transracially adoptive families at the shul and we know others socially. All of those kids are being raised Jewish. They seem quite accepted by that particular religious community. None seem to have a non-Jewish cultural identity, which may have been intentional on the parents' part in order to strengthen a sense of being Jewish. This is the divide that my child experiences, but she seems untroubled by it. Only recently has she begun to distinguish between Catholic culture and AA culture or Jewish culture and mainstream European American culture.

I think you'll be fine adopting an AA child. Most Jews in this area tend to be very committed to social justice. If that's true of you, you probably already plan to teach your children about racism, slavery, the Civil Rights movement, etc. this area has many resources for interracial and trans-racially adoptive families.

If you decide to raise your child religiously Jewish, there are many liberal and Reconstructivist communities with Jews of color.

OP here. Thanks for this perspective. To be clear, I am not worried about overt rejection by the Jewish community. More that the child would feel isolated because the difference would be obvious even though no one mentioned it. I was one of the few Jewish kids at a Christian day school as a kid, and I was always aware of the difference. I also did not quite fit in at Hebrew school because most of those kids went to Jewish day schools and camps and socialized with other Jews. I had no Jewish friends until I went to college, and it was a big factor in choosing a college -- I wanted one with a strong Jewish community, to see what I was missing. (Not much, as it turned out; I still am a bit turned off by people who spend all their time dropping Yiddish code words and traveling to Israel.) One of my good friends from high school chose Spelman for similar reasons -- she was tired of being one of the few AA kids in our school and wanted to connect with the larger community. I would not change my childhood or do anything differently; I think it made me stronger and more interested in maintaining my Jewish identity because it wasn't just an easy default. But another child or another personality might feel differently or might be more concerned with "fitting in."

We are committed to social justice, yes, and also see parallels between the AA experience in this country and Jewish experience in pre-WWII Europe. Maybe I'm overthinking things. But learning about racism and slavery and the Civil Rights movement isn't the same as knowing that in a different family, in a different era, that would have been your experience. Like, I read Toni Morrison or James Baldwin and it's like peering through a window into a vastly different culture that's separated by more than just skin color. Maybe it's like that for anyone, AA or not, because those books are generally set well before the Civil Rights era and the whole world was different. But when I read Chaim Potok, even though that super-religious upbringing was not mine, it's familiar to me in a visceral way. The values and the heritage is the same even though the expression of it is not. I don't know if this makes any sense. Like I said, I tend to over-analyze things, and I've read a fair number of dismal stories from adult adoptees, which probably colors my perspective. I just worry that a kid who does not share bio heritage with either parent could feel that we plucked him away from his heritage and that he'll never quite fit in anywhere. Then again, that's how one of my cousins feels and he was born to Jewish birthparents, so race may have nothing to do with it at all ...

[Anonymous]

OP, do you know any black people? Do you have any black friends or is there anyone in your life that your child would look like? Are you willing to make an effort--not talking going to church--to cultivate more relationships with black people and go places where your child will see black people in order to make them more comfortable in life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH is additionally concerned about adoption because the adoptees he's known anecdotally.

Based on your husband's hesitations I would not adopt an AA baby. I know a Jewish couple who adopted two babies whose parents were not Jewish and are now raising them Jewish. Personally, I think that is wrong because they are denying their children's biological history. Almost as if you adopted from China and raised them to be Mormon.

If you are going to adopt at all you need to discuss this with your husband and perhaps a counselor to work out all the feelings you both have. Perhaps there are Jewish babies/young children available that you are unaware of? Perhaps you can talk to people in your community?

Good luck!

Thanks. It's kind of ironic; we aren't really that connected to the Jewish community except religiously -- we don't go to synagogue except for major holidays, we don't ever interact with clergy, we have Jewish friends but most of them are even more secular than we are -- but we do strongly feel that we could never leave the community. My husband's hesitations are more toward adoption generally; mine are more toward the potential trans-racial aspects given our desire to raise children Jewish. So I'm trying to work through that first. I don't really think we're going to pursue this route given my husband's feelings. But I want to make a fully informed decision, or at least as informed as such a decision can be. My main concern is any issue for the child. There would not be any real barrier from our perspective or from our families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I knew at least one AA who was Jewish. I'm black and thought it was unique and funny (in friendly since I had never met any AA who were Jewish). I'd say go for it. There are too many kids that need good homes.

Did you feel like it was weird though? Or like there was a cultural barrier that wouldn't have been there otherwise?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know several AA Jews.

No big deal. Where do you live?

Close-in Bethesda, near BCC high school, in a crappy 1050 sq foot colonial. The area is not completely lily-white but far from diverse, not many AA that I see out and about. We really wanted the schools, the proximity to metro, and the relatively short commute. There is nowhere else we can afford that has all three (Rockville too long a commute, Silver Spring or Takoma Park we can't afford anything close enough to metro, not willing to consider PG county schools, can't afford the neighborhoods in DC proper we like, don't want to move to VA and probably couldn't afford the areas we would want if we did).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know a couple in Richmond who did exactly this. It worked out fine for their family. They are members of a more conservative sect but were welcomed. Their complaint was that AA were more likely to vocally question their choice of adoption. I think kids need love and honesty. People always try to shield a child, but a child is very observant and certainly not stupid. If you talk honestly with the child then you can help them process what they experience so that they do not come to the wrong conclusion. I would not hesitate to do this if it were my choice.

Thank you, we will consider this perspective.

[Anonymous]

OP we are white and DD is adopted and AA. Her birth mother identifies as Muslim but we are raising DD as an Episcopalian. I dont think she is missing out on any heritage or culture she knows nothing about.
On that front I think you are fine.

Having said that, when we went for our first adoption meeting we had to play a game where we had diff colored beads and a cup. The adoption counselor person asked us a bunch of questions and we had to put the coralating bead in the cup. Example questions:
what color is your doctor
what color is your dentist
what color is your hair stylist
what color are 'most' of the people in your neighborhood
what color are 'most' of the people at your place of worship
what color were 'most' of the people in your elem and high school

There were about 10 questions, I cant remember all the others. I am sad to say I had 2 black beads and the other 8 were white.
I wasnt as diverse as I thought I was and how my kid would see her world.
I made a conscious effort to change that, We have a black female doctor, She went to a predominantly black daycare and her public school is majority black. her swimming teacher is black. I now seek out these things for our family and for her.

If you decide to adopt a black child you may need to take a hard look at your own color 'beads" and see if you would be willing to change those if you need to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, do you know any black people? Do you have any black friends or is there anyone in your life that your child would look like? Are you willing to make an effort--not talking going to church--to cultivate more relationships with black people and go places where your child will see black people in order to make them more comfortable in life?

We don't have any close AA friends. I did when I was growing up, but we gradually drifted apart after college when we all wound up in different cities. I have a number of AA colleagues and am close with one, but in a close work colleague way, and she is my mother's age. I'm not sure DH has ever had a close black friend; he grew up in a Jewish and Italian enclave in NY. We have close friends of other races but not AA, as it happens. Honestly we are both introverts and don't have a ton of close friends anyway, and most of them aren't even in this area.

There are a couple other people of color in my family; my sister's husband is half Puerto Rican (was raised sort-of Jewish and sort-of nothing), and one of my cousins married a Japanese woman and they have bio kids; but other than that we're a pretty typical Ashkenazi Jewish family with the lack of diversity that implies.

Maybe it's because I'm an introvert but I'm not sure how I would "cultivate more relationships with black people" unless they approached me if I had a black child. I can't really see myself walking up to someone I didn't know and trying to strike up a conversation just because they were black. I could see this being relatively easy if we joined a black church. But we're not going to do that. I see black people all the time, just like I see white people and Asian people and Hispanic people and gay people all the time. There's plenty of visual exposure. But that's not the same as actually knowing people. Maybe it's a failure of imagination on my part.