Buying a dollhouse for my daughter’s third birthday was a cinch. Finding the right family to live in it was a bit more difficult.
Age-by-Age Ways to Celebrate Birth Culture
An age-by-age guide to cultural activities that help our children take pride in their identity.
Ask AF: Teen Friendships
Answers to your parenting questions.
Finding Role Models of Your Child’s Race
Answers to your parenting questions.
“I Can’t Give My Daughter China. I Can Only Give Her Chinatown.”
Jin Yu is seven now, and lately she’s been telling me she wants to go and visit her nannies, the women who cared for her at the orphanage in China. Not so much for herself, she says, but for them. Because she is sure they must miss her and wonder how she’s doing. I promise we will try to go. “They are going to be so surprised!” she tells me.
Dealing with Stereotypes
When our children get hit with negative — or positive — labels, it robs them of who they really are.
Building Identity: “Who Can I Be?”
From workshops and playshops to heritage travel and adoptee camps — there are tons of way to teach your kid about their culture!
“Braiding Barbara’s Hair”
As the white mother of an African American daughter, I learned more than I ever could’ve imagined about hair.
“Honoring My Ethiopian Daughters’ Heritage”
My daughters have caramel brown skin, dark brown eyes, and tightly curled black hair. They are African by birth, American by citizenship, but have always self-identified as Habesha (the Amharic word for Ethiopian).
[Book Review] In Their Parents’ Voices: Reflections on Raising Transracial Adoptees
In this sequel to In Their Own Voices, by Rita J. Simon and Rhonda Roorda, we meet the parents of transracial adoptees, and hear firsthand what it was like raising children across racial and cultural lines.
When to Let Kids Handle Racism On their Own
Answers to your parenting questions.
[Book Review] In Their Own Voices
In this collection of candid interviews, adoptees shed light on the complex and controversial topic of transracial adoption by sharing their own experiences.
Celebrating Diversity: Great Reads Featuring Multiracial Families
Children’s books featuring kids and adults of diverse backgrounds and ethnicity serve two purposes: They show kids that families “come in all sizes and colors,” and they are self-affirming for children of multiracial families. Here are some of our favorites, age by age.
[Book Review] Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White
A review of a noteworthy book about the changing landscape of race relations in the United States, an important read for anyone parenting a child of Asian descent.
[Book Review] Does Anybody Else Look Like Me?
“Donna Jackson Nakazawa’s book offers advice from both parents of children with multiracial or transracial adoption backgrounds, and from the children themselves.”
The “China Doll” Syndrome
When excessive attention sets children apart.
[Book Review] Raising Nuestros Niños: Bringing Up Latino Children in a Bicultural World
Beth Hall reviews, Raising Nuestros Niños: Bringing Up Latino Children in a Bicultural World, a resource for parenting to preserve cultural traditions and values.
[Book Review] Inside Transracial Adoption
Jana Wolff, part of a transracial family formed through adoption, reviews Inside Transracial Adoption, a comprehensive guide for families that don’t match.
[Book Review] Birthmarks: Transracial Adoption in Contemporary America
Birthmarks: Transracial Adoption in Contemporary America, by Sandra Patton, is a multilayered synthesis of interviews conducted with 22 transracial adoptees. Read more!
Dealing with Differences
Our culture isn’t always compassionate toward those who fall outside the “norm.” But we can help our children embrace their uniqueness — and become more tolerant, too.