Ask the Transracial Parenting Expert: Findings Role Modelsby Deborah Johnson
 Q: "We’ve been told we should diversify our family’s friends, now that we’re parenting a 10-year-old son from Ethiopia. How do we begin?"
A: Broadening your circle of friends can be a daunting task, but it is important if you’re parenting a child of a different race (or even if you’re not). Cross-cultural friendships will reassure your son, perhaps more so than anything you could say to him, that he belongs both in your family and in a larger African community. The "how to" will be challenging. As adults, most of us are not actively seeking new friends—let alone stepping outside of our community to do so.
It may be difficult to find a community of Ethiopian adults in your city. This is OK. What’s important is for your son to see you forming and enjoying relationships that cross racial and cultural barriers. Your example will give him permission to explore his ethnicity, and will encourage him to befriend a diverse group, as well. So, how do you get started?
Meeting multicultural families
Begin by exploring activities that reflect your family’s interests, rather than by searching for an organization based on racial or cultural similarities. This will ensure that you’ll have something to talk about, and the basis for a genuine friendship, from the start. But, instead of looking within your neighborhood, find a group in a different area of town, or a nearby city, where the population may be more diverse. For example, do you regularly work out at a health club? Visit some fitness centers in an area with a greater mix of families and cultures.
One of the YWCAs in my town holds a monthly swimming event for multiracial families. It is a social event that, depending on the time of year, may include a picnic or an art activity. When I took my then five-year-old biracial son to his first event, he liked the fact that all the kids there were brown, like him.
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One of my clients enrolled her son in a cub scout troop that is affiliated with an African-American church. All of the troop leaders are fathers from that congregation. It has been a wonderful mentoring experience for her son, particularly since she is a single mother. These "Dads" have played a critical role in the boy’s life. Volunteering your time with such organizations will provide you and your child with some great new friends.
You may be able to find a mentoring program designed specifically for multicultural youth—it’s becoming common for adoption agencies, community centers, and colleges to offer such programs. Even programs that are not adoption- or country-specific can make a positive difference for your son. If you find a mentoring program close by, however, this should not preclude you from finding a diverse group of friends for yourself!
Forming firm friendships
As you explore these events or join a new group, remember that this is just the beginning. The next step is to work at building relationships. Don’t assume that, because you want to befriend someone, he or she wants to hang out with you and your son.
Years ago, a movie called The Tic Code featured a young character with Tourette syndrome. His well-meaning mother dates a man who also has the disorder. She pursues him with the idea that he will be her son’s role model—but the man is in denial about his diagnosis and is offended by her motivation. Do not pursue a "token" friend to turn into a mentor for your son.
Cultivate relationships that will be mutually beneficial and that are based on more than cultural curiosity. And, even with the best of intentions, prepare yourself to occasionally be made to feel like an outsider. Consider your pursuit an empathy exercise. Your goal is to help your son to feel more at home in his own skin, but this may require you, at times, to feel less comfortable in yours.
Deborah Johnson is an adoptee from South Korea and a Minneapolis-based social worker with 25 years of experience working with adoptive families. Back To Home Page ©2013 Adoptive Families. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited. | 
Comments
I am a single mom and have 2 sons ~ as we explain to others we are "an adoptive family" ~ the boys needed a mom and I needed to be a mom ~ my younger son is mixed race. When we decided to move to Laramie, Wyoming I had no idea what the environment would be like racially or culturally ~ just stepping out and finding people to work and support myself and my son has been amazing! As we explore and meet people in our community we have unofficially adopted several University sports people (football, basketball, etc) into our relationships as well as learning more about the Native culture prevalent in our community. I worried that my son would not feel accepted at first, but now not only are they many children of mixed race here we have landed in a huge area of adopted families. Our therapist we found is also a biracial male and has brought much insight to me and the boys. We are blessed. I believe that just exposing kids to other families and being open to diversity allows it to come into your life. Blessings, vicki
Posted by: Vicki Martin at 11:25am May 1
We decided the best way for our family to diversify our circle of friends, neighbors and acquaintances was to move out of mostly white suburbia and move into a diverse neighborhood in the city. Wow, what a great idea that turned out to be! My girls now have doctors, dentists, babysitters, neighbors, friends and teachers of different races/religions/cultures. We reached out to other adoptive families in our area and have made some wonderful friends. Connecting with the local Haitian (our daughters' birth culture) community was a blessing and our daughters can enjoy activities through the Haitian cultural group in our city. As an added bonus, it has been widely beneficial for us, the parents, in meeting wonderful people and working through the initial feelings of not belonging.
Posted by: Amy B. at 2:27pm May 5
We adopted our son from Guatemala and he just started kindergarten. We belong to a listserv of bilingual families (we're raising our son bilingually in Spanish) and through the listserv, we connected with a couple of Latin American-American-Jewish families with whom we celebrate a lot of Jewish holidays, en espanol. Because we're raising him bilingually, we made the decision long ago to send him to a dual-immersion school. Best decision we made, quite apart from the language issue. The school is truly diverse (principal is African-American, obviously lots of Hispanic teachers). In contrast, had he gone to our neighborhood school, he would've been the only Latino kid (possibly the only child of color) in his class. Likewise, for soccer, we signed him up for the team of which is school is a part, rather than our neighborhood team. We hope through the school to cultivate more diverse friendships as well.
Posted by: Lee at 8:26am Sep 23
Our 2.5 year old daughter was adopted from Guatemala last year. I struggle with the idea of particularly seeking out a friend on the basis of skin color - it seems disengenuous. Instead, we focus on participating in activities in the Latino community which is 5 minutes from our town. We take our daughter to the playland at the local fast food restaurant on Saturday mornings. She loves it and we get to practice our Spanish! We joined the YMCA in this community as well, and we are hoping to find a soccer team for our daughter to join when she's a bit older. While I feel like an outsider at these venues, my partner loves chatting with everyone and seems right at home. I also remind myself that as a caucasion I am rarely an outsider and being one at these activities helps me understand what my daughter experiences as a brown person in a white world.
Posted by: Lisa at 10:52am Sep 23
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