What does family look like? To some, “family” is exclusively a matchie-matchie bunch, like those “Dick and Jane” readers right out of the 1950s. Dad in his pleated khakis looking responsible. Mom in her skirt, hurrying to open the door for the kids after school. Kids, who will without doubt, grow up to look just like Mom and/or Dad.
So what does a transracial family look like?
Well, thanks to Angelina, Brad, and their brood; Sandra Bullock and little Louis; Meg Ryan’s Daisy True; and many other celebrity parents such as Katherine Heigl, Madonna, Hugh Jackman, and Michelle Pfeiffer who have adopted children transracially, more and more Americans have new pictures in their minds and realize that there is no one answer to what family looks like. There’s no “one size fits all” in any family and, perhaps, being part of a transracial family helps to underscore that in ways that are healthy for all kinds of families.
Our culture’s addiction to celebrity news, then, can actually reap some rewards. (Imagine that!) That is, Americans from every nook and cranny of our country and culture are faced with compelling evidence (and, um, really adorable photos) on the magazine racks at the checkout aisle that illustrate the truth that multicultural families – whether or not they’ve been created by adoption – are real families. Real. Functional. Happy. (And, like all of us, weary, unhappy, burned out at times too.)
This week Law and Order SVU star Mariska Hargitay, 47, was photographed with her newly-adopted daughter. Newborn Amaya is U.S.-born, appears to be African-American and more importantly – as has been published all over the web – is the sister Hargitay and husband Peter Hermann’s older child, August (who came into the family the traditional way), has always longed for. As for Hargitay, she’s repeatedly said that in adopting Amaya, her prayers have been answered.
“We talked a lot about mixed-race adoptions, and we are very excited that we are now a multi-racial family,” she told People magazine.
Hargitay may not be aware of the way her new family portrait will affect the perspectives of those who might have, before seeing their favorite TV star nuzzling her African-American daughter, felt uncomfortable with transracial adoption. Pictures do speak a thousand words. Words of healing. Words of connection. Words of truth. As more Caucasian, American families adopt children from countries such as Ethiopia, Haiti, and Uganda, having Hargitay (and Bullock and the Jolie-Pitts) as reminders of the many constellations families come in is a very, very good thing.
Wishing the Hargitay-Hermanns every happiness on their adoption! Welcome to the transracial (or as one blog calls it “Mixed and Happy”) club!
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Jennifer Grant is a journalist in the Chicago area and author of Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter, a memoir.
