Parents' Challenges with Transracially and Internationally Adopted Children: Implications for Rehoming and Unregulated Custody Transfers

Background and Purpose: Rehoming or the unregulated custody transfer of adopted children exposed in the 2013 Reuter’s report has raised concerns that parents who are adopting internationally are not receiving adequate support services to help their families avoid disruptions (Reuter, 2013). While research has explored the needs and supports of families who have adopted domestically (Grotevant, et.al., 2013) and are transracial (McRoy, 2016), limited research has been done on families whose children are internationally adopted and live in transracial families. This study fills the gap in determining the problems facing families who have adopted internationally and are transracial so they can receive sufficient post adoption services necessary to prevent disruptions and rehoming.

Methods: The study objectives are to understand the how families who have adopted internationally perceived themselves as being transracial and whether this perception contributes to problems in the family. Research was conducted with thirteen families who had adopted children from China.  Respondents were mostly female (92.3%), married (76.9%), highly educated (100% had a college or graduate studies) and Caucasian (100%). Families were recruited through a Chinese Culture Camp for adopted children. Respondents were asked open ended questions related to being transracial families, including their perception of being a transracial family, problems they faced as a transracial family, and advantages or disadvantages associated with being a transracial family. The qualitative data were analyzed using NVivo, version 10.0, focusing on thematic coding using an inductive approach to qualitative analysis and guided by Grounded Theory principles.

Findings: The analysis found emerging issues.  Many parents considered their families to be transracial; whereas some had never considered their family being transracial until they were asked in this study. Parents reported their adopted children to have problems with abandonment, attachment disorders, and mental health problems as challenges and disadvantages being  encountered in their transracial families. However, some parents attributed positive characteristics to their child’s adopted status, such as having a unique identity and being proud of their child’s cultural heritage as advantages in transracial families. Most of the respondents recognized a change in their family’s transracial identity after the adoption of their child from China; all had participated in cultural activities and/or events. Finally, issues at the community-level such as interacting with other diverse families, having support services and experiencing acceptance were considered important for transracial families with children adopted internationally.

Conclusion and Implications: The findings highlight the importance of parents grappling and accepting that they are a transracial family.  This acceptance helps the Chinese children to feel less stressed about being physically different from their Caucasian adoptive parents and family members.  Furthermore, support at all levels—from extended family to school and agency support—is perceived as crucial by these parents of children adopted from China, as a means of facilitating a new family transracial identity as well as navigating any challenges that may arise. Promoting culturally responsive social work practices, transracial family policies in adoption agencies, and  culturally responsive qualitative research methods are all implications in future work with this population.