Roddy and Alex, Angelina, Segun and Seyi , Robert and Marilyn, and Oona mention heritage
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 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 ”
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! ”