Friends

[rredhead]

 November is Adoption Awareness Month. I have totally NOT been doing my part. 
I belong to two Yahoo! groups for transracial adoption.  Discussions about diversity are always occurring. The current discussion asks: Should white parents of black children seek black friends?
At this point, mollyx  is my black friend. I had black friends in college, but none

Comments

[100ofme]

I'm no expert on this subject, but it seems to me that you are exposing him to a wide variety of cultures and that is good. When he starts elementary school he will be around black children and I'm sure will make friends with them. I don't think you are hurting him in anyway. I think if you sought out friendship for him based soley on skin color that would be offensive to the people you friended. I am going to assume that you teach him about his heritage and culture at home?

I wouldn't worry so much about it. I think it will fall into place on it it's own.

[rredhead]

I'm more concerned with him seeing that Mommy and Daddy have friends of all colors too. Almost all of my friends, I realized last night, are white and Jewish. And almost all of my friends come from theatre. (Max has biracial family members.)
Now that Jack has just noticed he's brown, he points out the brown kids in his books and goes "He has the same!". He's very big into "the same". We have a ton of multicultural books. Before Jack was born, Max went out and bought a ton of jazz, Motwon, and R&B CDs for Jack to listen too. Hence, Jack loves "boom boom bap" (jazz).
But yes, I've thought that others might be offended if I sought their friendship based primarily on their skin color (at least at first). That, I believe, is the point Max brought up when I asked him what he thought of me trying to join the Mocha Moms group.

[mollyx]

I'm *the* Black friend!? Dude, that is a lot of pressure.
Forcing other Black kids on him is not what you want to do.
Whatever friendships come along should be, as you believe, natural and organic.
Jack will make friends with anybody. I'm sure of it.

And no, it shouldn't be an issue and right now, it isn't.
I'd imagine right now, Jack doesn't really know the difference between him and Mommy and Daddy.
He doesn't notice and he doesn't care.
Should you actively seek? No. You'll all be better off that way.

[jayspec]

You have to go the parade all by yourself...

[mollyx]

You should edit this response, you know. Not everyone will get the joke.

[rredhead]

I'm talking more about black friends for me (well, for Max and me). Part of the reason I'm wondering about this now is because Jack just realized he's brown. When I asked him what color I am, first he said white, and then he said, No, brown. He's starting to notice when kids in his books have "the same" skin, hair, and eyes.
And yeah, I have to confess that we had at least 5 pictures of you and Jason in our adoption profile book. Of course, at the time, we foolishly thought we'd be going back East more often.

[donnajean2277]

Do you watch the new 90210? I know it's lame and all, but there's an adpoted black teenage character in it, who's being raised by a white family. And this issue sort of just came up for him...he just started having issues with being the odd one out and wondering about his heritage and whatnot. But I like they way they're handling it.

[rredhead]

I heard about this. Perhaps I should watch to see how adoption is handled.

[donnajean2277]

Perhaps. But I have to warn you the show is an addictive train wreck. I can't stop watching it, but I can't give you one good reason why!