Wanted

By: Lauren Heil

FORT COLLINS, Colo.-- There are not a whole lot of things on this earth more powerful than the love between parents and offspring. Whether biological, or brought together by circumstance, a family, is a family, is a family. Families brought together by adoption however, experience obstacles that are often overlooked or unacknowledged families considered “traditional” in the eyes of society.

For Sarah Bailey, a resident of Fort Collins and current student at Arizona State University, adoption continues to be an important factor in her life and component of her individuality. She conveys some of the struggles of growing up African American raised in an entirely white family and community.

Although not unusual, adoption represents a very small portion of families in the U.S. Those who choose to adopt across racial lines, like Sarah and her family, represent about 8% of all adoptive homes.

Whether it is due to infertility, personal preference, or any other reason, adoption in the U.S. remains to be a lifestyle choice both diverse and often times, a struggle.

I sat down with Sarah to try to get a better understanding of what life was like growing up in an adoptive home, and how she was received by the community.

“I always knew I was adopted. Well, since I was the age where I could
comprehend that a white mommy and a white daddy couldn’t really have a dark
daughter. It was never a secret in my family,” said Sarah.

Considering the years of applications, background checks, classes, and, of course, the waiting, no one would argue that adoption is a complicated and lengthy procedure. Progression after the adoption is complete, however, is quite an intricate process as well. Parents must decide whether or not to keep the birth parents in the lives of the children.

Although most parents decide to maintain a traditional closed adoption, wherein the doors are closed and no contact is sought, a few families, like Sarah’s, decide not to break ties.

“(My mom) doesn’t look like me; she’s heavier set and has pale skin, but we have
the same hair color.” Said Sarah, “She came to visit me a lot when I was younger, probably about five times a year and then always on Christmas and my birthday.”

I asked her what it was like knowing and seeing her birth mother while living with her adoptive family.

Bailey shrugged. “When I was young it made me feel special because a lot of adopted kids don’t know their birth mom. But as I grew up her visits became less and less, she ended up having another baby, whom she kept, and eventually she just stopped contacting me all together. Now I feel like I would have been a lot happier not knowing who my birth mom was.”

“It affected every part of my life. Whenever I was left out or rejected in any situation, I always related it to the fact that I was not wanted from the start; my own mother didn’t even want me.” She told me when asked how being adopted affected other aspects of her life growing up.

The struggles of raising a baby are numerous, but raising an adopted child adds an entirely new set of challenges for parents to overcome. Even though they are often times regarded as very selfless and giving individuals, conflicts become inevitable over time.

Dave and Lisa Bailey, Sarah’s adoptive parents, tell about the differences in raising an adopted child versus a biological child.

“We adopted Sarah because I am infertile, but we had so much love and so many resources to care for a child that it didn’t really matter if the child was our own.” Says Lisa Bailey, Sarah’s adoptive mother.

“Sometimes it felt that the responses from the black community and the white community were sort of lop-sided,” says Mrs. Bailey when asked about some of the community feedback. “I remember there was an older African American couple living a few houses down from us when Sarah was in elementary school. Although they never flat out told us that they disapproved of our living situation, they were very cold to us and gave us looks as if to say, ‘What do you know about raising a black child?’”

Wanted. The word Sarah used to describe herself.

“Maybe not by my own mother, but I was wanted by somebody. And honestly, even if adoption did have some negative impacts on my life, not being adopted would have resulted in a much worse situation. So, thanks mom.”