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 | Bridging the Gap Between Parent and Adoptee
by Kim Phagan-Hansel |
Settling myself under a warm blanket to fight off the Colorado cold, I make myself comfortable, arrange my books so I’m prepared to take notes, and I dial the phone. As I click into the line a voice welcomes me, “Hi Kim, this is Michelle Hughes at the Bridge Communications class . . .” After a round of introductions by everyone participating in the class, Hughes begins the first two-hour session of the class on transracial adoption.
Most of the people participating are prospective adoptive parents hoping to adopt a child of a race different from their own. For the next two hours each participant is asked for input and viewpoints as we work through several exercises designed to make us more aware of our connections to racial communities.
As the time passes on, the participants from around the world share their thoughts on the exercises and are often surprised at what they learn about themselves and their communities around them. When the time is over, Hughes directs everyone to their homework assignments and encourages them to take a closer look at their lives before the next session.
“I want to help parents and prepare parents to be a strong multiracial family,” Hughes said. “I want them to help their children have a strong identity, both in their cultural background and family.”
For these reasons, Hughes, a biracial adoption attorney, co-founded Bridge Communications in 1994. While doing legal counseling at an adoption agency, Hughes fell into her mission of helping pre-adoptive families prepare to become transracial families. After presenting about transracial adoption at a seminar, Hughes was inundated with phone calls from people wanting her to present.
At the same time, in her personal life Hughes was connected with various multiracial people and groups, where she met a lot of transracial adoptees. As she began speaking with these adoptees she realized that there was a lot of pain and anguish for them because of their transracial adoption.
“A lot of them had parents who ignored the race issues,” Hughes said. “There are some transracial adoptees in pain because their parents didn’t help them as a child.”
So, as Hughes’ personal and professional life collided, she recognized there needed to be more education for prospective adoptive parents so they could raise their children in a more racially conscious environment. Co-founded with Antoinette DuBois, Bridge Communications continues to prepare parents to be strong multiracial families through a course in transracial adoption. The course is divided into three individual sessions that can be taken as an in-person class or a tele-training class over the phone. The two-hour sessions are designed to give parents information in an interactive setting.
Through exercises, role-play and transracial adoptee panels, parents learn how to deal with the issues of race in their families.
“People think it’s not an issue, but race is a big issue,” Hughes said. “If you deal with the race issue it’s such a small issue and you can move on to the parenting issues.”
Hughes makes people aware of the race issue through exercises that first look at you as a person, then widens the circle to include your community, society and world. She encourages parents to look through the eyes of their child instead of the views they are comfortable with. The class gives the participants the opportunity to share their viewpoints without being criticized.
“We’re not your agency and we’re a completely separate entity,” Hughes shares with the participants. “We’re not making the decision to place a child with you.”
The class serves as a safe place to discuss difficult issues concerning transracial adoption without the fear of any repercussions. Questions asked vary from how to style my black child’s hair to what if someone makes a racial comment about my child? The role-playing helps parents know how to deal with certain situations that may occur.
“We’re providing a resource that’s interactive and it’s helping the parents have a better relationship with their child,” Hughes said.
The relationship with the parents and the self-esteem of the child are key in transracial adoptions. If parents do the groundwork as they go, every aspect of the child’s life should go much smoother.
“Why should these people be dealing with these issues between the ages of 18 to 40, when their parents should have dealt with it between 0 to 18?” Hughes asked.
To justify her point, Hughes puts together an adoptee panel for each class. Each adoptee has the opportunity to share his or her story and offer advice to adoptive parents. This exercise serves as an eye-opening experience for most parents because the adoptees have strong feelings and emotions connected to their transracial adoption.
For Cathy and Jim Hinckley, the class gave them the opportunity to see the world through a different perspective. As required by their agencies, the Hinckleys reluctantly took the in-class course expecting it to be just one more thing to do before getting their child. However, they were pleasantly surprised to come away with a new perspective on their adoption.
“We’ve learned to look more broadly at our community and resources available in our area,” Cathy said. “It taught us to be better teachers for our child and better hosts to the world around us.”
Now, with their 7-month-old Pakistani daughter, the Hinckleys are exploring more about her ethnic culture through foods and friends who share her ethnic heritage. Through the class, they have learned to be more open and aware of the various cultures in their lives.
“It taught us to reach out to the world around us instead of being so insular,” Cathy said.
Like the Hinckleys, Lisa and David Galloway first thought the class would not be beneficial, but after completing the tele-class they wished they would have taken the class before adopting their first biracial child eight years prior. Required by their agency with the second adoption, they learned valuable lessons they could apply immediately with their children.
“It not only helped us with our current son, but it also helped us with our older son who is also a biracial adoptee,” Lisa said.
Prior to the class, the Galloways focused a lot on the similarities, rather than addressing the differences. Now, they make it a point to address both the differences and similarities.
“We didn’t focus too much on how people are different and to embrace the aspect that that’s what makes us all unique,” Lisa said. “It’s so much easier right now because they’re small, but we need to be prepared for issues as they get older. It has given us a stepping stone for when they’re older.”
The Galloways also enjoyed hearing the opinions of the other participants from throughout the world. Through the tele-class the participants were from various places who had varying viewpoints on race and adoption.
Both the Hinckleys and Galloways would encourage prospective adoptive parents to take the class. The class let them view the issues of transracial adoption in a new light and provided an opportunity to share with others addressing the same issues.
“You’re talking with people and weaving through problems other people are going through at the same time,” Lisa said.
Bridge Communications offers classes on a regular basis. The tele-class is $125 and the in-person class is $150. Material for the classes is provided with the class fee. For more information about Bridge Communications or to register, visit www.bridgecommunications.org or call 312-377-2748.
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