Op-Ed Columns

Children need loving homes, parental guidance, a feeling of security when they walk through the front door after school or when they awaken each morning. They deserve the stability that comes with discipline and well-placed expectations.

They don't need uncertainty. They shouldn't be asked — or expected — to thrive within an atmosphere beset with ambiguity, with questions about where they are going to live today, or where tomorrow may take them.

Anything that blurs those lines — lines between stability and unsteadiness — is a detriment to the children themselves.

Those facts aren't combative; It's easy to agree on the necessity of children's welfare. But what has become argumentative this summer is the appropriateness of trans-racial adoption, and whether the practice — usually, it's white parents adopting black children — hurts black kids more than it helps them.

Think of that for a minute.

It's no secret that trans-racial adoptions are historically laden with an extra level of public trauma in America. Bigots haven't been exterminated, and there are those who will always feel that blacks and whites should be permanently separated in matters of family relations. That's their right.

But it's also no secret that black children make up about a third of the adoption-eligible kids in America, and that white families — often because of attitudes and financial reasons — are usually more willing and more able to adopt. That alone creates a trans-racial conundrum among adoptees and adoptive parents.

This summer, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York has splayed open a tin of controversy by suggesting that trans-racial adoptions are hurting black children. Most damning among the institute's report is the belief that black children adopted into white families often struggle with their racial identity and sometimes experience more behavioral problems.

Thankfully, the institute is not calling for an end to trans-racial adoptions. But it is urging the reinforcing of adoption-related laws that "prioritize" a child's best interests — placing black children in black homes, for instance — and amending laws so they can legally consider race in the permanent placement of adoptees.

Let's get two things in the open. I'm an adoptive parent, so you may think my objectivity is tainted; if so, that's your prerogative. I also know several trans-racial adoptive families here in Calhoun County — white parents, black children — so I'm neither blind nor oblivious to the social realities that come with a mixed-race adoptive family in the Deep South. It's not an easy gig.

Most people look, and some people ask awkward questions. Lord knows what a few think but do not say.

In no way do I believe the Donaldson Institute — a reputable think tank — is trying to be anything but constructive with its report. Its statistics and studies have merit and scientific mettle. Some of its findings should not be summarily discounted simply because you are engrossed in the issue's emotional center.

But the fact remains that black families — either because they can't or won't — are not lining up to adopt the steady stream of black children, and that leaves kids needing permanent, stable homes. And delaying, or stopping, the adoption process because the prospective parents don't have the same skin color as the child doesn't seem like much of an option at all.

To me, that's a simple equation.

Look, if you've ever spent time around foster children or orphanages, either in this country or another, you keenly understand what's at stake: the children. There should be no other paramount concern. Forget the bureaucracy, lose the red tape. What matters is giving kids, regardless of the color of their skin or that of their adoptive parents, a loving home so they can seek opportunities and realize their inner potential. All other issues are manageable.

By definition, adoptive parents face a set of unique challenges; short of living an unmitigated lie, there's no way to avoid an adoptee's queries when they realize their stories are different than those of their chums. But parents of trans-racial adoptees have another critical obligation — helping their children embrace their backgrounds, their ethnicity and their cultures. They owe that to their kids.

The Donaldson Institute is right on one thing. Black adoptees should be placed in homes — either white or black — that will allow them to be proud of their heritage, just as international adoptees need parents willing to embrace their native culture. Trans-racial adoptive parents who minimize or discount their children's ethnicity are not doing them any favors. That level of acceptance should be part of the deal.

Everyone has a story, and no one should have it rewritten simply because it makes things easier in our bigoted, judgmental world.

That shouldn't be what modern-day adoption — minus the antiquated stigmas of yesteryear — is about. I pray that it's not.