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I just checked on my two napping sweethearts and came down here to snag just one more brownie (a product of our baking creations from Saturday’s kitchen adventures); I’ve just settled in to check my online haunts one last time before submitting to the list of endless household chores at my fingertips. I’ve had a post on issues related to race in the context of a family brewing a bit in my head and recent recollections of a few past conversations got the proverbial ball rolling. Well, that and Bear’s drawing from this afternoon, but more on that at a later date—that’s another post entirely.
We are a family of now two-point-five races (counting our pending Ethiopian adoption). Three of us are white–really, really white. We are a very fair skinned bunch, especially me. I have long black hair and dark eyes and with a tan, I barely touch upon the color of milk. It’s something I have learned to live with and have even grown to appreciate, just so long as I have a bottle of no less than SPF 50 with me at all times in all seasons. Beauty, on the other hand, has beautiful caramel-colored skin—sure, she has “my” dark hair and eyes, but her warm, glorious skin tone makes it pretty apparent that she’s probably not a blend of her extremely fair-skinned parents. In our family, it’s not a big deal. In our neighborhood—a beautifully diverse community—it’s not a big deal. In our school district—again, not a big deal. But to relative strangers? This is sometimes a very big deal.
As any proud momma would, I show off pictures of my kids to pretty much anyone who will stand still for the two seconds it takes for me to whip them out. Over the years, I’ve made many adoptive mom friends via message boards, forums, blogs, and so forth. Last year a fellow adoptive mom hit me with a gem that knocked my proverbial socks off: “I don’t know how you, as a white woman, plan on raising your daughter to be a strong Latina woman. It’s not the same game.”
She’s right, you know. It’s not the same game. But I have to be honest—I was so shocked I could barely blink, let alone think of a reply. My knee jerk response was to feel a bit angry and put off, but then I really started thinking…
What does race mean to me in the context of my family? What about in the context of society? Can I raise Beauty to be a strong Latina woman? I gave all these questions some thought before coming up with the following answer: “I, as a mother, plan on raising my daughter to be a strong woman. Period. A strong woman is proud of her heritage, her culture, her life, her family. A strong woman handles herself with grace under pressure, with love in her heart, with faith and devotion, with respect for herself and others. If I can raise my daughter to embody such traits, to enjoy life’s beauty and triumph life’s challenges, I will then know I’ve done the best I could to raise my daughter into the strong woman I know she will one day become.”
So no, it’s not necessarily the same game, but then again, I’ve never claimed or expected that to be the case. But will I do everything in my power to live up to the previous paragraph? Most definitely. I feel the wants I have for my daughter transcend race without ignoring it—and if I can look back on this list once Beauty is an adult and cross off each and every characteristic, I will then feel I’ve succeeded in raising my daughter be a strong woman. Period.
