"How to Human"
I remember the very first night home with Biruk and thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I am a mom.” As I stared down at his little chubby face, thinking about the many miles we had crossed over the ocean to bring him home, it felt surreal. After many months of hoping, praying, and wishing that we would have a child, we were now officially parents. Fast forward 13 years, and I’m not sure that I fully understood the weight I would feel being a white mom of a black child. I had read the books and articles our adoption agency had required us to read and had talked to numerous adoptive parents who were raising children whose skin color did not match them, but I’m not sure than any of them could fully prepare you for the world in which we raise our kids. Over the years we’ve experienced our share of looks, questions, and even ignorant comments, but nothing could prepare me for the first time that my son came home after a classmate, in his anger, had called hi...