TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION
Transracial adoption was legalised in South Africa in 1991. Before this, it was prohibited, so parents were not allowed to adopt a child from a different race group.
But this is no longer the case, and many parents now have the chance to adopt children from any cultural group. However, there are challenges that add to the already extensive adoption process that prospective parents have to go through.
A Stellenbosch University scholar and researcher from the faculty of arts and social sciences, Sandra Jackson, outlines some of the challenges of transracial adoptions in her Masters’ thesis. She highlights the adoptive parents’ preparedness to raise a child outside
of their own culture, dealing with racial prejudice, and helping the child develop a cultural identity, as some of the issues to be dealt with.
Jackson also notes that while many adoptive parents adopt in the belief that love is enough to see them through, in reality this is not the case. Unlike the situation in most other families, they become tasked with redefining their own traditional family, and creating a multicultural family that embraces the adopted child’s own culture.
In addition, there is an absence of racial resemblance for the adoptee, as they will not physically look like their immediate family. “A racialised physical resemblance marks one’s membership in a racial-ethnic community, whereas absence
thereof, neglects this association,” writes Jackson.
“Often, parents do not discuss racism in advance of the child’s experience of it. Discussions about race, ethnicity or racism occur only when it is a problem that the children bring to the attention of the parents.
“Because some adoptive parents do not know how to deal with the acknowledgment thereof, they could find this challenging.”
Despite this, when prospective adoptive parents attend support groups, they equip themselves with the tools they need for successful transracial parenting, discussing their challenges and society’s barriers to their child, and navigating difficult conversations.