If I ask you to imagine a transracial adoptive family, what image comes to your mind? What race is the parent? What race is the child?

This month’s guest is a transracial adoptive mom (or “interracial,” a term that previous guest Tony Hynes told me he prefers in Ep307). Lynn Brown‘s two daughters were placed with her through the foster care system with the intent of reunification with the girls’ birth family, but it turned out that wasn’t possible. Eventually, the adoptions were finalized. 

Now compare my guest’s reality with the image I asked you to conjure of a transracial family. Lynn Brown is Black. Her daughters are white.

I admit it. When I think of a transracial adoptive family, I think of white parents. I think about the extra things these parents need to do to bring their children’s heritage to them and to try to better understand their children’s culture themselves. Clearly, I hold some assumptions about who adopts and who gets adopted. So when I met Lynn at an adoption camp recently, I wanted to know more about her story.

Here to talk about transracial parenting in general and her situation in particular, is Lynn Brown.

I would hear: “Are you the nanny?”
I used to justify and overshare.

Now I have this resting bitch face and people don’t approach and question me as much.

Lynn Brown in Ep 308 of Adoption: The Long View

Ep 308: Lynn Brown, Mom in an Interracial Adoptive Family

Lynn Brown is mom to a newly teen daughter, a pre-teen daughter, both white, and a toddler son, who is Black. The family was formed in Nashville, TN, but moved to Houston last year, for reasons revealed in this episode. As a single mother by choice, Lynn started the process to become a foster parent in 2012. The girls were placed with her in 2013 and their adoptions were finalized in 2015.

Lynn works for a healthcare insurance company and has an MBA in Healthcare Management.

Show Notes: Resources for the Transracial Adoptive Family

• Facebook Group for Non-White Transracial Adoptive Parents: start here to find access to a group that is hidden.
• Heritage Camps for Adoptive Families
• Pact Family Camp
• Facebook Group for Adoptive Parents of Children of Color in Transracial Adoptions
• Adoption: The Long View Ep 301 on setting boundaries around our stories.
• Adoption: The Long View Ep 307 with Interracial Adoptee Tony Hynes
• The Adoptee Next Door: podcast on transracial adoption by Angela Tucker 
• Episode for the Transracial Adoptive Family from Creating A Family

How to Tune In Regularly

You can find us on Adopting.com, and on these and other platforms.

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Amazon Podcasts
• Castbox
• Search for “Adoption Long View” on your preferred podcast platform.

A new episode comes out the first Friday of the month. Thank you for sharing, subscribing, and rating this episode!

Prefer to read? Here’s a transcript (but listening is so much better!).