Someone like me
Julie, a white single parent, is planning to adopt. Her birth daughter, who is of mixed parentage, is keen that the new child should have the same kind of background as herself.
My local authority definitely wanted to make sure that I could properly develop the identity of a mixed ethnicity child,”says Julie. “One way was to see how I did that with my own birth child, Helena, who is 10 and white English and African. I don’t think they would have considered me for a mixed-ethnicity child if my daughter wasn’t also mixed.”
At first, Helena was worried about sharing her mum with another child, but she has grown used to the idea and is now positive about having a younger sibling in her life. She was also clear about who she wanted and told the social worker: “I want someone like me, someone with the same skin colour.”
Helena’s birth father is Tanzanian, of Maasai descent, and Julie and her daughter used to live in Tanzania when Helena was very small. They then moved to England, but travel back to visit Helena’s father and his extended family as often as possible. Julie feels that Helena is very positive about Africa, and Tanzania in particular, and understands that she is Maasai, not just Tanzanian. Although there are things about the country she’s not so keen on – the heat and dust, and being bothered by the flies – she is proud of that side of her life and identifies with it, and tells other children about her experiences, for example, how the waterbucks come and eat the vegetables in her dad’s garden!
Julie speaks fluent Swahili and tried to teach her daughter, but they found it hard. ”I would have liked to live in Tanzania for half a year, so Helena could have picked it up like a native speaker,” she says. “We have a couple of books and a CD about learning Swahili, and Helena likes to have a go. What I hope is that she’ll become more interested when she’s a teenager, and I’ll make sure that everything she’ll need is available.”
Their home also reflects Tanzanian culture, from curtains and wall hangings to low wooden Maasai stools. Helena has a variety of Maasai jewellery and various bits and pieces hanging over her bed, and there are also lots of photos of Helena and her dad together. “A child needs a clear sense of identity and to feel rooted,” says Julie. “Helena has been brought up with both British and Maasai values, but she is rooted in England and I don’t pretend that she would be the same as if she’d been raised in Tanzania. She just understands that it’s part of her identity.”
As a white person, Julie tries to help her daughter deal with racism through having strong self-esteem, and she will do the same for her new child. “You’re trying to create a positive identity for your child in a society that is fundamentally racist and where mixedparentage people can be a target,” she says.
Julie recalls how when Helena was little, she was asked by other children why her mum was white and she wasn’t, and she just told them that her daddy was black – and that was the skin colour you got! In this instance, Julie felt there was no judgement attached, but later, a black child at school called her daughter a racist, although Helena said she hadn’t said or done anything... Julie talked to a friend of hers who is Nigerian, but the friend could only give her reassurance, saying that racism is ignorance. “You don’t want to make things too big for a child,” Julie says. “You do need to make the child aware that it can happen, but you also don’t want them thinking that’s the way everyone is. It’s about focusing on the positives, not just the negatives.”
Julie has always been very keen to ensure that Helena’s environment reflects her mixed ethnicity, and this will be crucial in developing a new child’s sense of identity. During assessment, the adoption agency discussed her support network, as they wanted to check that there would be positive black and mixed-ethnicity role models in the family’s day-to-day lives. The city they live in is very mixed, as is the school that Helena attends. Julie’s Nigerian friend also plays a big role in Helena’s life: “She’s a young and very glamorous woman, and Helena loves doing girlie things with her!”
Other connections are a young black couple, one of Nigerian descent brought up in London, and the other born and raised in Martinique. One of Helena’s best friends has an Asian mum and an African- Caribbean dad, and she has a number of other mixed-ethnicity friends. Julie is also keen to stress that, for the new child, “the most important person will be Helena, who is so positive about her identity.”
Recently, Julie was matched to a girl of white English and Jamaican parentage, but sadly the link fell through shortly after introduction. Of course, she and Helena are very disappointed, but understand these things happen. Although Julie has close black links, she needed to look at ways of helping the child develop her African-Caribbean identity, and more specifically her Jamaican identity. Ways of doing this included getting to know local African-Caribbean mums, dads and children, choosing a school with African-Caribbean teachers, and welcoming contact with the child’s birth parents. Visits to Jamaica, possibly to get to know extended family, were also a possibility, money permitting, and here financial support from the agency would have been very helpful.
Julie is looking for another mixed-parentage child and she is continuing to find out more about how she can help the child develop a sense of herself, saying: “I see any adopted child as a gift, and our new child will bring a whole new richness for us to explore and learn from.”
Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in July 2004.
This article is published with the kind permission of the people involved. You may download it for your own reference but if you wish to use it for any other purpose, please contact Be My Parent for authorisation: Be My Parent, BAAF, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Telephone: 020 7421 2666/5/4.
Last updated: 10 September 07
