On Privilege and Responsibility

This is a post in response to the Anti-Racist Parent column, Is Privilege Offensive?

Privilege is absolutely not offensive. Scary to talk or think about? Yes, it can be. For many of us who have to talk to our kids about the high level of privilege our family experiences, it involves telling them about people who are just like them/us who do not have some of the basics that our kids often take for granted: food, shelter, parents, clothes, band-aids, heat, diapers, and the more complicated stuff like a fair trial, a fair chance in college admissions, or equal opportunities to create a livable existence for themselves and their families. If some people are underprivileged, that makes the rest of us overprivileged.

We talk about privilege in our family, with our children, all the time, although we don’t always use that exact word. We talk about my and my partner’s beliefs about the equality of all people, and also about the resources, choices, and opportunities our family (and our kids) have that are unfairly available to only a select a group of people. It can be hard to talk with children about the lack of privilege others are experiencing daily, especially when it manifests as extreme poverty, but I believe we as parents must do it anyway.

Imagine this: Three people are in a 100 meter race. The first person is standing relaxed at the starting line, stretching and waiting for the race to begin. One minute before the race begins, the second person arrives (panting) at the starting line. As the starting shot is fired, the third person runs up–and the three racers are off. The first (waiting, relaxed) person wins the 100 meter race–but not by much. Now, does it change anything to know that the second person had to run 100 meters directly before this race, and the third person had to run 400 meters right before the race? Is the first person the fastest runner? Is the first person truly the winner? Is it a ‘fair race’ if we only take into account that final 100 meter distance that all three runners were required to participate in? This story (that I’ve read in different forms many places) illustrates how privilege works. If you imagine the race from each runner’s perspective, this story also shows how difficult it can be to see (and understand) the other runners’ viewpoints.

I do not want my kids to grow up thinking they are simply ‘lucky’ and other kids are ‘unlucky’. It’s definitely not that simple. There are individual and institutional daily choices being made (as they have been for hundreds of years) that consistently privilege certain groups of people above others. People are privileged based on race (both perceived and actual), skin tone, gender, sexuality, religion, income, education, marital status, and physical ability, to name some of the most common factors.

I believe those of us who find ourselves more privileged in this world do owe something to those who are less privileged. I often wonder what would happen if we each did all we could for those who–for whatever reasons–have less privilege today than we do. What does true activism look like? Is it enough to speak out against offensive jokes and comments, to be an anti-racist parent, and to purchase a cartful of groceries for the food-shelf once a month? Can I expect the world to change if I am not working towards that change myself? Can I expect someone else to step up and do something I myself am unwilling to do?

Note on those ‘Got Privilege?’ t-shirts: I first saw one worn by a new friend I met at the Loving Conference last year (and yeah, I still want one). My friend is White. The majority of people I have met who have been to the White Privilege Conference are White. (I originally thought it was a conference for White people.) So my frame of reference for the shirts is a bit different because I initially met and pictured White people wearing them. I think those t-shirts are great, by the way. They are for anyone–of any race–to wear, anyone who is aware of their own privilege(s). I see these shirts as similar in message to the ‘Don’t assume I’m White’ t-shirts, worn by both PoC and White persons alike. The point is not whether the person wearing the shirt is or is not White–the point is to get people thinking about their racial assumptions. And the ‘Got Privilege?’ shirt is to get people thinking about privilege, hopefully about their own.

Reform the Whole System

There has been a lot of internet chatter, especially on the blogs I visit, about the newly recommended  changes to the MultiEthnic Placement Act (MEPA). The report, and the myriad of media articles and interviews that followed, have offered few new insights (for me)–but I was grateful to hear that the New York Times article really spoke to the parents in a family I know. They are now looking into moving to a racially diverse community for the sake of their transracially adopted children.

I received several phone calls last week from friends and family members letting me know that National Public Radio was holding a call-in show about transracial adoption. (I caught only a moment of one mother talking about ‘doing her tenth adoption,’ and how her kids were ‘voting on whether they should get a chocolate baby or a vanilla one, or one that was both’. Call-in shows are always dicey on what you’re going to hear, but I had to turn it off after that.) One of my family members listened to the whole show and then wanted to know what I thought about requiring additional training for transracially adopting parents (specifically White parents adopting Black kids out of foster care), since one of the ‘adoption experts’ on NPR said adding training requirements only left more Black kids in foster care longer. Let me be clear: I am all for special/additional training for potential transracially adoptive parents. Kids don’t just need to ‘get out of foster care into adoptive homes’; if they absolutely cannot be placed with anyone in their biological family, children in foster care need to move into permanent families with prepared parents.

Adoptive parenting is more complex than parenting birth children. Transracially adoptive parenting is an additional layer of complexity. White people/parents in particular have not often considered many of the race and racism-related issues that will be crucial to the growth and development of a child of color. If White potential adoptive parents balk at additional training before a Black child is even in their home, is there any reason to believe these same parents will be willing or able to rise to the multiple unforeseen challenges (both related and unrelated to race) that their family will face after their child is home?

Adults who become parents completely on purpose (which includes all non-relative adoptive parents) hold total responsibility to do everything they can upfront (before a child arrives in their family) to prepare for the new experiences this particular child will bring with them. This includes everything about the child, especially things the parent is unfamiliar with: medical conditions, abuse history, health issues, physical or educational disabilities, cultural practices, and–yes–racial differences. Growing up Black in the United States is not the same as growing up White, and White potential adoptive parents must realize that an additional session of training is the very least they can do to begin to educate themselves about the experiences of their soon-to-be child.

The articles I’ve been reading that most interest me speak to the larger issue of why there are so many children in foster care and in need of adoptive families. These articles begin to tackle the huge sticky overlapping topics of racism and poverty–specifically as they relate to adoption and to foster care. Check out the articles and blog posts linked below. There are lot of great thinkers writing right now on all aspects of transracial adoption. I’ve included a key paragraph or two from each piece.

• Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute Policy Brief on Finding Families for African American Children: The Role of Race and Law in Adoption from Foster Care:

While transracial adoptions can provide much-needed homes for boys and girls who may not otherwise have them, it is important to address the potential challenges in this growing practice in order to best serve everyone involved, especially the children.

In order for children of color to be placed with families who can meet their long-term needs, consideration must be given to needs arising from racial/ethnic differences. Consequently, when workers choose permanent families for children, and when they seek to prepare and support them in addressing the children’s needs, race must be one consideration - such as promoting connection of the child to adults and children from their own racial/ethnic group, developing a positive racial/ethnic identity, and learning to deal with discrimination they may experience. Sound social work practice to accomplish these goals is severely impeded under current federal law and policy.

• New York Times article De-Emphasis on Race in Adoption is Criticized:

Minority children adopted into white households face special challenges and white parents need preparation and training for what might lie ahead.

Transracial adoption itself does not produce psychological or other social problems in children, but these children often face major challenges as the only person of color in an all-white environment, trying to cope with being different.

• Peter’s Cross Station post Asking the Wrong Question:

Ironically, one of the most important things white parents of Black children need to understand is the racism that put their children in their arms. To parent a Black child, you must look that racism square in the face, see that you have profited incalculably from it and swear to fight it with all your strength for the rest of your life; to do everything in your power to create a world in which a child such as yours would never again need to end up in arms such as yours.

• Resist Racism post Considerations of Race & comment (#10, by panracial on May 28):

I encourage all people adopting from foster care to adopt the least adoptable children that they could love unconditionally - children with real special needs, sibling groups (including half siblings), teen children (including very old teens), children with behavioral problems, complex histories, or who have been abused or neglected (even severely), and black boys who are the least picked (regardless of other factors and especially if their complexions are dark) are most in need of homes. I encourage people not to automatically adopt a five year old biracial girls - chances are, if you don’t adopt them someone else will, but the teen black brothers may never get picked if you don’t offer them a home.

• Feministe post Too Poor to Parent (emphasis is mine):

All of my white-girl middle-class solutions don’t work across the board. Yes, contraception access is crucial - but it’s not going to stop a teenage girl who wants to get pregnant because for her, it’s the best option. Yes, it’s better for everyone to have health care, wholesome food, and a good education with every opportunity in the world available to them - but that isn’t reality, and until it is, we can’t be blaming individuals who are doing the best they can with all the odds stacked against them.

Children are not objects of privilege that only the rich are entitled to. Women who are good, loving moms but who can’t afford certain luxuries - or even certain basics - don’t deserve to suffer the burden of our societal failures.

• Harlow’s Monkey post What I Was Trying to Say:

We/they/all of us need to look at the underlying reasons why children are parent-less and maybe that preventative part makes us overwhelmed. We might feel we can’t eliminate poverty, or war. We can’t control natural disasters. We aren’t able to cure AIDS. We haven’t gotten rid of chemical dependency or mental illnesses. But we can take in a child - that much we can do.

• Multi-Ethnic Placement Act(MEPA): full text, including the InterEthnic provision of 1996, MEPA Internal Evaluation Instrument, and Protection from Racial Discrimination in Adoption and Foster Care

First Blogiversary

One year ago today, I began My Sky ~ Multiracial Family Life with the post Kindergarten, documenting the beginning of our search for a school (a community, really) where our multiracial children could blossom. We are now nearing the end of our first year of homeschooling, and preparing to being our second.

I began writing this blog with the idea it would have laser beam focus on one corner of my (and my family’s) life: living in the United States as a member of a multiracial family, and being a multiracial person raising four very different multiracial children. In the beginning the writing came easily: I had a lot to say specific to these issues that I had been storing up for quite a while. After a few months had passed, I found my prolific output waning. I’d start posts and stop them, usually for the same reason–mission creep. I’d start writing about transracial adoption but it would turn into a post about open adoption, birthparent rights, or adoption ethics (which can each be related to transracial adoption, but are also connected to all adoptions). I’d start writing about one of my White-appearing multiracial children and it would turn into a post on tribal rights or the diversity of Native American tribal cultures and the way in which we have clumped them together into one falsely-monolithic group (the Cherokee and the Shawnee are about as culturally alike as the French and the Germans). I’d start to write about racial passing and I’d censor myself because I wasn’t ready to talk about all the other ways I was also passing.

During the unplanned blog break I took over the past month, I thought a lot about the blogs I love to read, the ones I check nearly daily. The narrative blogs that draw me in are mostly focused on an issue or two of importance to me (multiracial families, multiracial people, antiracism, transracial adoption, adoption as a first choice, adoption from foster care, adoption reform) but there are also other pieces of the blogger’s life that I connect with (homeschooling, multiple young children, gardening, writer-mom) and also places where our lives are very different (religion, where we live, mom working-outside-the-home). It means a lot to me to read about Los Angelista’s family member who committed suicide, to know that Baggage has her own complicated personal history and is still a successful mom and foster mom. I know these bloggers only through the stories they chose to share with me (and you) online, but I am interested in what they’re reading, what they’re eating, and the funny things their kids said at dinner last night.

So, I am taking this blogiversary opportunity to tweak my blog. All the essays and reflections on multiracial family life will continue (I don’t know that I could stop thinking and writing about this if I wanted to), as well as the bi-monthly multicultural homeschooling updates (I know, I’m overdue), and periodic Life Links.  I will also be folding in Sky Family Adventures, stories and kid quotes that were temporarily housed in a separate blog. I plan to write more often, including what I’m reading (White Like Me, by Time Wise), what we’re eating (just joined up with a local CSA again), what we’re watching (my kids have been loudly throwing their bodies around since I showed them the dance portions of How She Move), and more about race, adoption, school, family expansion, and other plans for the upcoming years. I haven’t forgotten about the adoption series or the long overdue post on cultural appropriation. I’m just taking it as it comes, which today–since I have the house to myself for a rare few quiet hours–completed thoughts and writing are coming fast and clear. Tomorrow, however, may be a different story.

Peace, blessings, and looking forward to another year.

The Adoption Industry, Part 1: Demand

In exploring the industry of adoption, it is fundamental to first explain why there is a market for children in the first place. Why do adults choose to adopt babies and children who are biologically unrelated to them?

1. Infertility: A heterosexual couple is unable to create and/or carry a biological child. This includes secondary infertility (infertility after the birth of one or more biological children.)
2. Need help: Parents are unable to have a child without reproductive assistance. This includes infertile couples that do not wish to use medical assistance, lesbian and gay couples, and single parents.
3. Health: Concerns about passing on a genetic disorder in the mother’s or father’s family. Pregnancy could cause the health of the mother to be seriously impaired. The mother and/or family have been exposed to certain elements (chemical, medical, etc.) that may cause birth defects.
4. Choosing gender: A family with two or more biological children of the same gender adopt in order to parent a child of the opposite gender. The adopted child is almost always a girl. (These families usually choose international adoption because the children are already born, although some domestic adoption agencies allow adoptive parents to specify gender.)
5. Personal beliefs: Parents who adopt for religious or philosophical reasons. This includes preferential adopters.

The domestic infant adoption system caters to one group of prospective adoptive parents: heterosexual, White, middle and upper class, infertile, married couples (the great majorities of groups 1 & 3, and much of group 2). This system has broadened itself a bit; certain agencies now accommodate same-sex couples and/or single parents (mostly mothers), and a handful of infant adoption agencies actively recruit parents/families of color (The Cradle and Pact are two of the biggest nonsectarian names). Still, virtually all agencies are focused on families who cannot have children without assistance (groups 1, 2, & 3), and many agencies actually will not work with fertile couples.

Adoption fees rule out most potential adoptive parents who are not at least middle-class. Current domestic infant adoption fees for a healthy* baby, of any race, usually run in the $18,000-$30,000 range. This includes homestudy, paperwork, agency fees, legal fees, and living expenses for a pregnant woman. Travel costs, medical expenses (for baby and mother), and legal complications can push the cost even higher. International adoption fees vary by country, but costs often run higher than domestic adoption. About 40% of international adoptions and 20% of domestic infant adoptions cost more than $30,000.

*A note on the domestic infant adoption system definition of a healthy baby. A baby who is classified as ‘healthy’ includes a baby who was prenatally drug and/or alcohol exposed, was born prematurely, has no birthfather medical/social information (i.e. ‘unknown birthfather’), has a birthfamily history of moderate mental health problems and/or a birthfamily history of moderate genetically-transferable medical conditions. When a baby appears to be healthy at birth (no apparent physical, mental, or serious medical handicaps), that baby is part of the mainstream adoptive placement system, including standard fees. Fees are often reduced substantially for infants who are born with clear disabilities, have been prenatally exposed to extremely high levels of alcohol and/or illegal drugs, or have two birthparents who have mental health diagnoses.

When calculating adoption costs, there is the often misunderstood $10,000 federal adoption tax credit. The funds from this tax credit are not available until after an adoption has been legally finalized (usually 6-8 months after the placement of a child); adoptive parents must come up with all the money for adoption fees and expenses up front. In addition, this is a non-refundable tax credit; the tax credit is deducted from the federal tax a family owes over a period of up to five years. In adoption literature, it is often noted that a family is eligible for the adoption tax credit unless a family’s income exceeds federal restrictions (meaning: modified adjusted gross income of more than $204,000). It is never noted that if a family does not make enough money to owe any federal income tax (total income of less than $45,000/year for a family of four) the family does not qualify for the adoption tax credit. If a family owes less than $2,000/year in federal income tax, they will not receive the full adoption tax credit ($2,000 x 5 years = $10,000). NOTE: 4% of families in the U.S. make more than $200,000/year, while 40% of families in the United States make less than $50,000/year.

The majority of prospective adoptive parents waiting in the domestic adoption system fit the description of the people to which the system caters: White, middle/upper class, infertile, married, heterosexual couples. The great majority of these prospective parents are seeking a certain type of baby: usually White (at least 80%), and often also with a very healthy** social/medical family history (**very healthy meaning not only apparently healthy at birth, but also including not prenatally drug or alcohol exposed, no mental illness or major medical issues in either side of the birthfamily, full-term delivery, birthparents not in prison, and often more). Even so, White newborns with health issues, premature birth, mild to moderate birthfamily medical/social history issues, ‘unknown’ birthfather, or minor disabilities are still very desirable to these prospective adoptive parents.

The domestic infant adoption system does not easily accommodate adoptive parents who are outside the target prospective adoptive parent population. (The target adoptive-parent-client population excludes portions of groups 1-4, and all of group 5.) In addition, if a prospective adoptive parent is prepared to care for a child of any race who has been prenatally drug and/or alcohol exposed or has moderate to serious, multiple, or unknown birthfamily medical/social issues, why would they choose domestic infant adoption ($18,000-$30,000 or more in fees) instead of foster care adoption (often less than $2,000 in fees)? The more open a prospective adoptive family is, the less likely they are part of the domestic infant adoption system.

Prospective adoptive parents who fall outside the targeted adoptive parent population (especially working or lower-middle class families, People of Color, and fertile couples) are more likely to choose foster adoption or toddler/older child international adoption-for many different reasons. Because they have family or personal connections to another country. Because they have lived abroad or traveled extensively. Because they know what it’s like to be involved with Child and Family Services. Because they themselves were in foster care. Because they are not afraid (rightly or not) of the issues and history children in foster care, older children, and/or institutionalized children may bring home. Because they have already raised their biological children from infancy, and would prefer to parent older children. Because they want to ‘help’ a child who has less opportunity for a family. Because they know how many children of color are in foster care or orphanages–and how long these children wait for a family.

This is where the domestic adoption ‘market’ becomes extremely unbalanced. Prospective adoptive parents are overwhelmingly White, and they are seeking White babies. (However, it must be noted that Black American families adopt at twice the rate of White American families.) There is a racial hierarchy of adoption. Certain babies, through the unearned privilege of their racial ancestry, are easier to place in an adoptive family. From most prospective adoptive families waiting to least families waiting, the racial hierarchy ranges from light to dark, from undeveloped White American history to most complex; the newborns who are most quickly matched with an adoptive family have White (also known as European American) ancestry, then Asian ancestry, Hispanic/Latino ancestry, Native American ancestry, and finally Black ancestry. In adoption, girls are also easier to place than boys; thus, the easiest child to find an adoptive family for is a White girl, the most difficult is a Black boy. Biracial and multiracial children are shuttled to their ‘darkest’ heritage in the racial hierarchy. Thus, finding an adoptive family for a biracial Black/White boy is similar to finding a family for a ‘full’ Black boy (full Black meaning two Black-identifying biological parents). Within the infant adoption system, it is still common to read or hear descriptions of pregnant women that include the shade of their skin, or even the fair skin-tone of a newborn biracial baby. (The latter could only be information offered by White professionals with no experience with infants/people of color.)

As long as the practice and process of adoption remains an ‘industry’, prospective adoptive parents will be regarded as ‘customers’. In such a system, infants, children, and mothers will necessarily continue to be viewed and treated as merchandise, objects to be marketed to the paying clientele (as in the misleading ‘light-skinned’ biracial newborn). It is an oft-repeated phrase in many corners of the adoption system nowadays that adoption agencies are looking for families for children, not children for families. This statement must become the blanket truth about adoption.

Following segments will address supply in the adoption system (including domestic infants, children in foster care, international infants/toddlers, international older children, and systemic birthparent/family coercion), whether adoption is necessary (including what can be done to lower the ‘need’ for adoptive families), adoption ethics and the rights of mothers (including pregnant women), specific coverage of foster care adoption and international adoption (including a more in-depth exploration of the reasons parents choose different types of adoption), gender choice in adoption, and transracial adoption (including the racial and country hierarchies within transracial adoption).

Please feel free to ask questions in the comments; I will try to address them within the upcoming series segments. A full bibliography for the entire series will be available.

Complexity and Fertility

Over the weekend we spent time with a group of families/couples. There was a meeting followed by a meal, although (and I didn’t know this going in) for the duration of the meeting the children and I were sequestered in a finished basement, which was not really set up for little kids. For two long hours, I was down there with all four of my kids along with three other kids and their moms.

Our basement group included a mother and her only child. The mother spoke only Spanish to her child, and her child only spoke Spanish back to her. We speak a little Spanish, and have several friends with Spanish/English bilingual children (in our friends’ families, one parent’s first language is Spanish). I talked to this mom a bit, introduced myself and my kids after we arrived. She volunteered (in English) that Spanish is not her first language, or her bio child’s. That’s pretty much all she ever said to me.

Because this mother and her child would only speak Spanish, they couldn’t/didn’t talk to anyone else (adult or child) who was sharing this very small space. My Spanish is rusty, but I could understand everything this mother and child were saying–but my kids couldn’t. And the other mother and children present didn’t seem to know any Spanish. It was like being back in high school when two of my best friends learned/invented a secret language they called ‘Gibberish’ (think of complicated pig-latin).

Our friends who are raising their kids bilingually speak Spanish and English to their kids, and they translate for my kids after they say something to their kids in Spanish. (And they are happy to converse in English with my kids and with me.) The exclusionary style of parenting, choosing to converse with your child in a language nobody understands when you both also speak a language everybody else present both speaks and understands, was so unbelievably rude. It came off as the we-are-so-important-we-don’t-have-to-consider-anyone-else philosophy of living.

I often struggle to connect with parents who purposefully have just one child. In my experience, these parents are more likely (than the parents of 2+ kids) to act as though the sun rises and sets over their perfect child. I have struggled through parents-of-onlies who allow their child to cheat at games, cut in line, and snub other kids, and other parents who perpetually treat their single growing child as though they are a baby (picture a parent feeding every bite of a meal to an able-bodied grade-schooler).

The step beyond the only-childers (these people are rarely part of our circle–wonder why?) are the childless-by-choice. I’m talking about adults who purposely choose not to have any children in their life (not biologically, not adopted, not step, not foster, not guardianship, not living with their sister and her two kids–none). There were some of these people at this meeting too. Liberal, over-educated bobos who somehow think it is reasonable for little children to be neither seen nor heard. People who pretend children under the age of ten are not actually there. People who don’t acknowledge kids, who don’t even look at them, smile at them, speak to them, help them, move out of their way. People who glare at the parent (me!) when a child brushes against their leg trying to squeeze by.

What’s beyond childless-by-choice? The people with no children and no pets (yes, there were some of these people present as well). It’s not that I think everyone should have children (or dogs)–not in the least. What makes me skittish is that in my experience people who have chosen not to have children (or children and pets) view their life–and by extension the world–as an eminently controllable thing. The neat, organized life of Choice A leading directly to Point A, with no annoying detours in between.

My life with four young children and one large dog is messy, chaotic, loud, dirty, constant, and (mostly) fun. Many of the moms I know with 3+ kids, especially if the kids are closely spaced, understand the parenting part of our life. But if my friends with 1 or 2 kids struggle to understand how (and why) we do things the way we do, we must apear completely crazy (and hey–they treat us that way) to the no-pets/no-children/1-perfect-child sets. I realize children inevitably create a bit of chaos, I want to say, but you’re scorning the future leaders of the world.

As one of our children’s (young, active, single) uncles said, “Children are so exhausting and irrational!” Uh . . . yep. We were all children once, as exhausting and irrational as the best of them. The adults who cannot find it in their tidy hearts to–at the least–acknowledge the existence of these little people in their presence, I just don’t understand them (and honestly, I don’t like them much either).

At the meeting there was a family with an internationally transracially adopted toddler. The toddler was the only child close to Teri’s age. Teri and the toddler eyed each other, as only tiny children can. I tried to make small-talk with this mother. She turned her back to me. I tried again later–twice–and she literally turned away. I watched her talk to other people, even discuss her child, and couldn’t figure out what was going on.

I mentioned this snub to my partner as we drove home. He immediately said, “It’s probably because you have bio kids.” (Picture me smacking my forehead–Duh!) Like most adoptive parents, this couple is likely infertile. I forget that fertility/infertility is often still an issue for parents who have already adopted. (I’m more mindful of infertility issues with pre-adoptive/waiting couples.) It used to be that I really didn’t get the fertility-bias thing. Since I have always planned to adopt, I didn’t think it would have been a big deal to me if I hadn’t been able to have bio kids. And then a strange thing happened.

At a certain point in our family-building we were planning to adopt, and then it seemed as though we weren’t going to be able to. My partner floated the idea of having another biological child instead–and I was so opposed to getting pregnant again at that point in time. I realized that I didn’t just want a child, I wanted a child through adoption. And suddenly I understood a piece of infertility that had alluded me for years–beyond the grief of not being able to pass on your genes, to see yourself in your child’s face and temperament (not always a good thing, I tell you), there is the additional piece of infertility that frustratingly denies you the ability to do something very basic that you always thought–assumed, even–you would be able to do.

For us, becoming both adoptive and bio parents was relatively simple. In our adoptions, we had one quick match, one ‘instant’ baby, and no failed placements. With our pregnancies, we had two ‘instant’ conceptions and no miscarriages. In the building of our family, our biggest hardships (if you could even call them that) were financial (adoption) and my health (serious problems during and after Rico’s birth from undiagnosed eclampsia).

We interviewed pediatricians while waiting for Jaja to be born. While talking to one doctor (who we eventually chose) we mentioned that we hoped to have a biological child about 18 months younger than Jaja. “You should know,” the doctor said, “after trying to conceive for six months, only 50% of couples are pregnant. Only 80% of couples are pregnant after trying for one year.” She issued these numbers as a warning to us. We talked about these ’statistics’ on the way home: we didn’t want our kids to be years apart. Somehow we didn’t factor in that we were both in our mid-20s, completely healthy, taking no prescription medications, hadn’t been using any medical birth-control for several years, and nobody in any part of our families has ever had any fertility problems (including mothers giving birth at 37 and 40 years old).

Jaja and Rico were born 9 months (plus a few days) apart. That was a busy year.  And that was (and is) complicated in all different ways, some ways in which we (as parents) have absolutely no control.

I embrace that intricate and intimate complexity. To me, those are the most rewarding parts of life.