Isn't it crazy that in the UK you can't adopt...?

I see what you're saying. I think it's crazy and somewhat offensive to assume that everyone with the same skin tone has the same culture. My best friend growing up was from Haiti. She and her family felt uncomfortable being lumped together with American blacks. Her culture was completely different from theirs and she resented that because of her skin color she was supposed to drop her culture and assimilate with a group of people whose only common bond was personal appearance.

A girl in our class was from Guatemala. Any time a new student who spoke Spanish came to the school the teacher would seat them together assuming they would have a lot in common. The girl from Guatemala pointed out that she could barely understand the other girl's Spanish accent because they were from countries that were very far apart. They did not share a culture, barely shared a language, but were lumped together because everyone who speaks Spanish must be all the same.

Back in the day, when my grandmother adopted a child, they tried to match ethnicities as closely as possible. The idea was probably that the children would look like the parents, but my grandmother said she was told it was because with similar ethnic background they thought the family would have a more successful match in the long run because of inherited traits within a culture. They were given a child that was half German, half Irish because that's what their natural child would have been.

I could understand matching by cultural group before I could agree with matching children to families just by skin color.

No it isn't. Whilst I do believe it is better for a child to be adopted rather than be in foster care I do have 3 cousins who are adopted and not of the same ethnic minority. They were raised in a predominately white, upper middle class area.

Two are twins from Africa so they had to deal with looking completely different to the rest of the family - parents have two bio sons - nor were they raised in their own culture. The other one is Malaysian with light skin so didn't have to deal with as many issues as the twins. However they feel like they don't quite fit in with white people or their own cultures. Their parents did their best but they couldn't how other people percieved the children as it was obvious they were adopted. They had to deal with people being patronising on top of everything else.

ETA Everybody has a right to their opinions so if you don't like it then don't ask questions like this one because people will have strong opinions. Incidently my cousins are are happy, well adjusted people and my opinions have been formed because I took time to get to know them. They have turned out fine as well. Incidently my cousins wouldn't have festered away in foster care they would have been raised by extended family. I think you have been very rude about the opinions given as everybody has answered politely and haven;t been hateful. ignorant or uneducated. Incidently have you actually had a real heart to heart with any adopted person who is of a different race to their parents?

For what it's worth a few years ago my husband and I look into fostering and we were told that they had too many white foster carers and not enough non whites so whilst we suitable candidates we weren't accepted because we were white. You could call that racism towards white people.

There was a famous case in the early 80's of a black child who was physically removed from her white adoptive mother at the age of 8 or 9 just because of her colour, she went back to a childrens home and stayed there for over 2 years cos there wasn't a black family who wanted her, at the age of 16 she moved back in with her white mother and she was very bitter about the way social services has treated her and rightly so.

It isn't allowed, government policy is that children should not be stopped from being adopted on grounds of race however social services have their own beliefs and would rather keep children in foster care than place with a family with a different racial mix. They believe it's in the best interests of the child to wait for the correct race to adopt them.

@ Cath the issue is that there were approx 2,000 children under 1 available for adoption but due to the race issue only 60 were adopted.

In an ideal world yes those children would be placed within their own heritage however the simple fact is that there are not the available adoptive parents of the right racial mix to adopt, these children are being brought up in foster care due to this issue but again the foster carers are not the same race so surely rather than leaving the children in limbo with people who still can't relate let them have permanent homes but provide the support so they can identify with their own background.

This isn't an issue of racism. It's an issue of the CHILD being comfortable in the family that raises him. Black people, for example, have different hair and skin care regimens than most white people. Ignoring those needs is not just unkind...it's neglectful. That's just one example. There are also cultural and sometimes religious differences that should be honored.

"OK," you say. "I would honor and even celebrate any differences between myself and a child of a different race." Well, as lovely a sentiment as that is, it isn't about YOU. Imagine growing up surrounded by black people. Your adoptive mother, father, and siblings: all black. Your cousins, your grandparents, your aunts, uncles, and most of your friends: black. Most of the kids in your neighborhood and at your church are black. Don't you feel even a tiny bit out of place? Don't you feel DIFFERENT? Now imagine that little black child growing up in a white family, not sharing features with anyone he knows. He already knows he's different because he's adopted. But he is so much MORE different because no one he knows looks like him. He doesn't fit in with the white kids at school because he's black and most of the white kids hang out with other white kids. He doesn't fit in with the black kids because they all know his family is white so he's not REALLY black. Now what?

As much as this seems like a racist thing, it's not. It's for the well-being of the children. Although I'm sure there are some great white parents of black kids and vice versa, I don't think most of the kids adopted into families of a different race feel completely comfortable. Read some blogs of transracial adoptees and see what THEY have to say. They're the ones who would truly know.

Well, I am white and I really would have hated to have been raised by a black family.

Sorry, but I am also very active in anti-racism. I lived in the East-End of London for 4 years and if you live there, you end up not noticing people's skin colour after a while.

Nevertheless, a family is something else. You need to feel the people around you are the same as you.

EDIT:

If you don't like other people's opinions, don't ask for them.

I believe any reasoning behind such a ruling is child centred. A child adopted into a similar cultural background to it's biological heritage will feel more at ease with themselves growing up.

I was removed from my natural background and raised by a different nationality. Had I ever had any choice in the matter I would have wanted to be raised by someone from my own culture.

To the person who said you can't adopt a child out of their culture/race and raise them in your culture/race.... Culture and race AREN'T the same thing. Race is just a phenotype (that is, appearance). Everything else (culture) is learned. If you're white and adopt a black kid, the kid will naturally respond to your parenting and examples -- not to the color of his own skin!

It IS allowed. It's just very much not preferred. If possible, kids are adopted by parents who share their own culture. That has far more factors than just skin colour.

And why are you talking about babies? There were 60 adoptions of babies in the UK last year. Adoption in the UK is almost always of older kids - toddlers and upwards.

I think people need grow up it is 2011 you should be allowed to adopt a child of the color skin you want . It makes me sick that you can't adopt another race.