Persuasive Essay On Transracial Adoption

In an interview with ABC News, Leigh Ann Tuohy, white mother of black football player Michael Oher, stated “Families don’t have to match. You don’t have to look like someone else to love them.” Transracial adoption is “defined as the adoption of any child from a different race or ethnicity than the adoptive parent” (Lindsey 55). Although white parents may not always be completely prepared to teach their black or Asian children the skills they will need to live as minorities in a sometimes racist culture, race should not be a barrier to adoption. For a child, the most important thing they can have is a lifelong home where they are accepted and cared for and loved unconditionally. If the child is adopted from outside the country they were born

The 1988 edition of Standards for Adoption Service stated, “Children in need of adoption have a right to be placed into a family that reflects their ethnic or cultural heritage” (qtd in Silverman 106). The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit that studies and provides education on adoption, did a study on African-American children who had been adopted by parents of a different race. They found that if the parents minimized the importance of racial identity, the children hesitated to identify themselves racially (Lee-St. John 2008). Another study found no differences in self-concept and self-esteem between transracially black teens and those adopted by black parents. However, it was in the area of racial identity that there were differences (Silverman 110). According to registered nurse Brandi Lindsey, who has adopted two Ethiopian children, “Parents must not enter into the transracial adoption thinking that race will not be an issue for their child” (Lindsey