Roddy and Alex, Angelina, Segun and Seyi , Kerry and Amerjeet, Amerjeet, Robert and Marilyn, and Oona mention ethnicity
“if, say for instance there had been a Thai child waiting in… in our area, for adopting, we would never have been allowed to adopt that child. Now, that seems a little but crazy to us”
What is the difference between domestic and inter-country adoption?
“you’re not just adopting a child you’re adopting a country. You’re adopting that culture. And it’s up to you to keep that child in contact with that country, with their culture, to make them feel that they have ownership of that”
Have you decided to look for your birth family?
“And I have real issues with having to write ‘unknown, adopted, unknown adopted’ on every piece.”
What are the unanswered questions you have to deal with when you’re adopted?
“I was told I couldn’t have children, so it was gonna be, o.k. so, not only am I adopted so it’s almost like I’ve got no past, now it’s gonna be that I’ve got no, kind of, link to the future either in that sense”
Was your heritage taken in to the account when you were adopted?
“But it was quite apparent to everybody, living in a very small town in Devon, that… I wasn’t, sort of, purely Caucasian, and I did look a bit different”
What has changed in cultural heritage matching?
“I’m just grateful to have been adopted at all, and to have a loving home and a loving family, really. To me, skin colour has always been kind of an envelope that a letter arrives in, and you discard the envelope and just hold on to what’s in the lette”
Why was your child matched with you?
“...we are not exactly from the same part as Africa so I think he was matched with us because of his circumstances and his looks and there is quite a lot of things that relate to us ”
How did you find the process of being approved?
“ Because there are so many mixed race children waiting for adoption once we were sort of approved as adopters, the child had already been chosen”
Why was your child matched with you?
“I was very insistent that the children would look like us as well because I didn’t sort of want the child growing up and people at school saying is that your dad or your mum because you don’t look like them…”
Did you always know you were adopted?
“...bearing in mind I’m half Indian half Nigerian, I was adopted by an Indian family”
What were the hardest things for you about being adopted?
“ ...there’s a mine of information available to kids nowadays but back then there wasn’t that much so I didn’t really know who I was or where I came from…”
Why was your child matched with you?
“We are all white. And she says things like ‘I don’t fit in’. And ‘I’m not the same as everyone else’. And we deal with this by talking to her and trying… trying to make her proud of her ethnicity”
As your child gets older how will you deal with his heritage?
“...I hope it will be a really positive experience for our family to bring out all the different cultures and heritage with all our kids …”
“I am not one of those at all that says that you should not under any circumstances have a transracial adoption because I think that would be patently absurd”
Why was your child matched with you?
“...you might want to consider this little boy was because he was black/British mixed race and white/Italian and my husband is white Italian and so it was adoption Bingo! ”