Shaun Groves
His skin dries more easily than mine, and when it does it turns an ashy gray. So after bath I ask him to bring me his lotion. He’s six now and old enough to put it on by himself but the touch still means so much to him. I wait for him to return with the brown tube.
But instead he lugs mom’s giant pump dispenser back to me, the white plastic rectangle the size of his head, straining under its weight. “I want this lotion,” he says.
And when I ask why, he answers, “I want to be white.”
I listen as, in almost perfect English now, Sambhaji explains that it’s the lotion from the white container that makes mommy white. And his lotion is squeezed from a brown tube so…
“I want to be white.”
A woman at church stops to talk to me in the lobby. Her hair is blonde and straight. Her eyes are green. Her nose is slender and her lips thin. But her skin is freshly browned from a trip to the beach.
Sambhaji tilts his head and runs his stare across her arms, legs, face.
At bedtime he asks why the lady at church is turning brown. And my answer forms a new question. “Can my friends play inside with me?”
Over some Olive Garden breadsticks – his favorite – Sambhaji announces that he will marry the little girl next door, and that they will have two brown kids, two peach kids and two peach-brown kids.
This isn’t surprising. He doesn’t dislike “brown people.” His kindergarten classroom looks like a gathering of the United Nations. His favorite cousin is hands down Yeneneh – the gentle giant from Ethiopia. Our house is bustling with neighborhood kids of all backgrounds every afternoon. And now he talks of fathering brown alongside peach.
He doesn’t dislike “brown people.” He just doesn’t want to be one sometimes. He doesn’t want to be different in his own home.
Luke had Yoda and I’ve got Mary Ostyn. Because parenting an adopted child is a gift always but can sometimes seem as impossible as lifting a ten-ton spacecraft from a swamp using only mind powers. I need more than a little encouragement and instruction.
Mary, mother of ten, wrote recently about “Raising Black Kids In A White State” and linked to three very helpful articles at the end. If you’ve adopted transracially I highly recommend reading Mary’s post and the others she linked to. And if you’ve found other resources that have helped you and yours, please tell us about them!
And if your family is monochromatic? Could you pause for a minute and say a prayer for the parents and kids of multiracial families?
Thank you.
Barbara says:
Beautiful. And enlightening. Thanks so much. I will pray….
Beth says:
This reminds me of the story Wes Stafford tells in his book “Too Small To Ignore.” He was raised in Africa (The Ivory Coast) by missionary parents, and he and his sister were the only white kids for miles around. He said he prayed to God every night to “make him black,” like all his friends. He wondered why he woke up each morning, still white.
Misty says:
Praying!
Scott says:
Each question and conversation is an opportunity to build a Kingdom mindset for him. I would take the questions all the way to the throne-room and answer them from the reality of our creator. God is infinitely creative and expanding. It would serve him well to understand that God loves differences and that each person carries a unique mixture of the characteristics of Father God. He looks and thinks the way He does because God KNEW that the world, in 2013, would need JUST what your son carries. How he looks, how he moves, thinks, and approaches life. This will instill a sense of identity and value that you can build everything on.
Kelli says:
Love this insight into the challenges of raising an adopted child. I am praying for you all!
Michael Patterson says:
My daughter from Haiti is very conscious of her skin color. Recently we went to the local father-daughter dance. She was wearing a beautiful white dress and white tights. She said, ‘look daddy now I’m white like my sisters.’ We get her hair in a great salon in Seattle so she can see beautiful women that look like her. It’s heartbreaking when she says, ‘I wish I had hair like my sisters.’ I hope some day she know how beautiful she is.
Ally says:
Parenting a multiracial family as I have for over 20 yrs, the best thing we did for our child/children was adopted another child with “brown” skin. It helps them tremendously to not be the only one in the family that doesn’t “match” Nowadays, our brown kids outnumber our white kids, and our white kids have often lamented their skin that burns so easily!
Karen says:
Super insightful!! Thanks for opening my eyes a bit more!
Kit says:
Boy, parenting my kids is hard enough because they are each different even though they look all the same… I can’t imagine the extra challenges that even more differences would add. I do love seeing adoptive families, and I wish to learn how to be as supportive as I can. Also, I will always think of your family every time I hear this song on the radio: http://shaungroves.com/2011/10/sambhaji-to-love/
Lindsay says:
Praying for you all!
Claire says:
Wow, what an interesting and insightful piece. I’ll certainly keep you all in my prayers.
Heart and Haven says:
“S” has beautiful tanned brown skin and an even more beautiful heart and spirit. God certainly knew what he was doing when He formed him. You and Becky are certainly lucky to be his parents here on Earth, and “S” is equally lucky to have you as well.
Ruby M. says:
I am the only child in a multiracial family living in a primarily Caucasian neighborhood. Having grown up here, I’m very used to people thinking that I’m Hispanic (I’m Asian) and looking down on me for so. To top it off, the girls tend to be very pale-skinned and pretty. Thank you for posting such a powerful article that reflects the true lives of multiracial families and what the children feel like.