Different Strokes

Until now, Jarrah has never noticed what she looks like. Oh, if she's dressed as Tigger, or has stickers all over her face, or is wearing a bucket on her head--sure, then she notices. But the fact that she is sleek and dark with huge brown eyes and we are white and frizzy with green eyes has either been irrelevant or not apparent before now.

A few days ago, David was putting sunscreen on Jarrah before a playdate. He slapped the thick, white cream on both her arms, preparing to rub it in.

"Look!" she exclaimed, holding out her arms. "I'm white like Daddy!"

Today, we went to the mall to escape the hellish, steaming heat, and along with every other person in East County, we encountered our friend Mari and her 4-month-old baby girl. Since for undisclosed reasons it was taking about half an hour to get a sandwich at Quiznos, we had lots of time to chat and catch up. Jarrah was very interested in the baby (though she did murmur, in classic Jarrah fashion, that "the baby not touch my bag." First, Jarrah tickled her toes (she asked first) and then stroked her little arm. "Isn't she soft?" I asked her. Jarrah nodded, and then with a delighted smile, stroked her own arm.

"You're soft, too!" I said.

"I'm brown!" she announced.

"Yes, you are," I said. "Brown and beautiful."

These are truly adorable moments that clearly have caused Jarrah no distress. She's simply making observations, which is what toddlers do in the most distinctive ways. But even as I'm laughing, I feel a little twinge of, as the poem says, "Time's wing-ed Chariot drawing Near," because eventually (who knows if it will be sooner or later?) these cute statements will lead to questions, and the questions will lead to hard answers.

Now I don't mean to get melodramatic here. I have done a lot of reading (and followed a lot of bulletin board threads) about a child's dawning realization that they are a different color and race than their parents (and all the "where did I come from?" queries that will follow) and I know that sometimes kids take it in stride, even think it's pretty cool. They might feel different than some of their friends, but it's special-different. Kids with a strong sense of self and good channels of communication with their families might skate by in these situations, and the answers to the questions assuage curiosity rather than build a hulking tower of Unknown in the living room.

Sometimes, though (and you can't plan for when, or if--such is the uniqueness of children) the answers cause pain, or confusion, or a mini-identity crisis. I read about one family who, after viewing Stuart Little with their child, had to repeatedly explain that no one was going to come "reclaim" their daughter in the middle of the night, that this was her home and she belonged there. Another girl, adopted from China and now about seven, wouldn't eat meals with her family for a couple of weeks, preferring to stay in her room, mourning another family she would never know. Stories like that frighten me, but I want to be prepared for any permutation of them, because, as I once read, "an adopted child is entitled to her feelings of loss. It's condescending to gloss over them. After all, if the adoptive parents were not adopted themselves, how could they possibly know how their child is feeling?"

A very good point, that. I try to keep it in mind when I start to panic about what form Jarrah's questions might take, and how she will accept the answers. It's not my job to decide how she should feel. But it is my job to love her, no matter what happens, and for that I am entirely qualified.