ADOPTION IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY

Time to talk about something I don’t hear much about in the media: adoption in the Black community. 

I ask what’s the process of adopting a child? And find out what it’s like to find out you were adopted through a Facebook message… This episode was so interesting to make and I’m extremely grateful to all my contributors who were so open and honest with me. Have a read of the blog and listen to the full episode of Bringing it Black.

Didi & Priscilla - life as adoptive parents

Sharing their experience from the parents perspective are Didi and Priscilla, an amazing example of adoptive parents who are in the LGBTQ+ community. Didi and Priscilla adopted their daughter Ava in 2014 and share everything from raising a young daughter, to the reasoning behind matching children with parents that share their heritage. 

Explaining some of the steps in their adoption process, the couple explained “you create a video of yourself so the child can watch your mannerisms and hear your voice and you buy a toy and sleep with it in your bed so it carries your smell. They also print A4 pictures of your face and place them in places the child can see.”

“When we first went to meet Ava she was sleeping, and turned around, looked at us and smiled because she felt like she knew us as she’s seen our faces so much, and if you pick her up she feels like she’s smelt you before because of the toys. We went to build a bear and put our voice inside the bear so when she presses it she can hear our voices saying your a name. It allows her to build a picture up.”

When explaining their motivations to adopt, they shared that they “spent two years looking at different ways of having children, and went to what now is called ‘the modern family show’ which is about different ways of having children, including fostering, IVF, surrogacy and various options. 

“We went to an adoption seminar and felt much more emotionally connected to the process. We felt we have a lot of love to give and could give a child a good loving home.

“ For us we felt if our goal is to have a child and also break the generational cycle, and layered on top of that the limited number of Black adopters, it seemed like the obvious choice.”

Joy’s story - an adoptee’s perspective

Looking at adoption from the opposite perspective is comedian, speaker, actor and campaigner Joy Carter, who was adopted in Nigeria.  She is the founder of Adoption Arena - a resource for advocacy, training and community for those in the adoption field.

“I was born into the Biafran war in the 1970s in Nigeria and I was found next my dead twin and taken to a local hospital. The couple that went on to adopt me, met fell in love and worked out there. They went to the hospital to offer some support, were handed a baby and asked to please look after this child. My parents never set out to adopt, but they fell into it by chance and felt they wanted to adopt me.”

“Over 2 years the war got worse, we were evacuated to the UK and went to live in Leicester where I was really happy. The challenges started when we moved to Lincolnshire as my parents are white and my brothers are white and I was the only Black child in a white family. There was a lot of discrimination and I suffered a lot of bullying and racism, and it’s not until I was 30 I felt I could even speak about my adoption.”

“I really do believe it is important to find your voice, push through the challenges, get counselling and take charge to say ‘I can overcome this’ and then its exciting as you can help other people that need to hear your specific story.”

“You never know what cards life will deal you, and with all the will in the world they found a love connection but they didn’t have the support they needed. The adoption system is finally starting to be spoken about and updated, which is really exciting. Go to the Adoption UK site as they’ve just published their adoption barometer and you can adopt and read for yourself what’s happening in the UK.”

Joy goes on to share her experiences with transracial adoption and the importance of having a positive community. 

Jordyn’s journey of finding out she was adopted

Contributing to the show from the US are adoptees Jordyn and Mia, TikTokers creating communities and sharing their stories with millions of people online. 

Jordyn shares the incredible story of the moment she found out she was adopted two days after her 21st birthday, after a message with baby pictures from her biological father. “I was sad, I was irritated, I was happy. It was a lot of overwhelming emotion”

She shares her story, her reaction and how she’s navigating the news. 

Mia’s mission for family preservation

Mia was adopted from Haiti when she was 3 and is now a key figure in adoption TikTok, where she shades advice and stories from her experience on adoption trauma. “It makes more sense to educate yourself and be somewhat prepared that to hope you get an easy kid and know what to do. This is one of the main reasons that adoptive children gets rehomed or the adopted child cuts contact with their adoptive family because people are not prepared to us.”

Listen to the show to hear the stories of these incredible women, I promise that you’ll have a new perspective on adoption and learn something in the process.