I’m Black. My Son Is White. Here’s What We Deal With When We Leave The House.
It’s funny to me that people react to that article on the “let this family live their lives” basis as if families existed outside society. They don’t.
Families go out and deal with the rest of the world everyday. It is unavoidable. Bubbles are ephemeral. This kid will be on his own at some point.
So fellas, you need to understand how complex and manifolded the world, your son’s world view and how he’ll fit in will be to him. I have experience in this and thinking about this kid becoming a young adult makes me feel really anxious.
Adoption is always easy when we’re talking about babies because we’re talking about the parents having to deal with looks and emotions. That’s nothing compared to the adoptee, the baby that becomes a whole person, who will not have to face this as a phase for a little while, a few years. It will be for life, forever.
That’s a staggering difference.
Brace yourself for when shit hits the fan –when you’re an adult and that you have to navigate the society that we have. That’s when I hope this kid doesn’t implode. It’s going to be that hard for him, yes. Have you seen the world we have out there? They are banning books “challenging” society as I write this. Do you think an adopted white man with an interracial gay couple as parents is going to not feel anything out there? Not being targeted? Not being crushed by how vile and vapid things can be? He sure will. And it’s going to be overwhelming.
He will wonder why we keep striving for goals on paper and with our mouths while not doing the work at all. At first he will think that it’s normal, things take time. Then he will realized —by reading about the past that progress is so slow and incremental on empathy, understanding and society that he’ll think that there’s actually no progress at all. We should make progress in those areas as fast as Moore’s law does with silicon but we don’t.
I know the feeling. You’ll have to keep going, my friend. And build the world you want and need.