'Motherhood So White' Author Finds Race Matters In Adoption

Every year, thousands of Americans choose adoption among the many paths to parenthood. 

But when Nefertiti Austin, a single black woman, chose to adopt, she ran into a myriad of both systemic and cultural barriers. Though she was able to adopt a son, who she named August, she says she faced continual questions about her ability to raise him. 

Austin chronicles her experience raising her son in the new book, “Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting In America.” 

If they adopt, many African Americans tend to stay within their community when looking for a child, Austin says. That’s why so many people she knew were confused by her decision to adopt a child through the traditional adoption system. 

“It’s a whole ‘nother dynamic when you give into rumors and myths and lies really about the children that they’re damaged, they’re crack babies, they are going to grow up and become these domestic terrorists within society,” Austin says. “The prevailing narrative is that there’s something wrong with the system, therefore there is something wrong with these children.”

Austin says even before she made the final decision, she sought out information about the adoption process, and she found that there was nothing she could relate to as a single black woman. 

“It infuriated me that whenever a white starlet adopted a child, it was like, ‘Oh my God. This is amazing. This is so great,’ ” Austin says. “And there were all of these people who were doing that on a daily basis and especially women who look like me, and we were just erased from the conversation. We didn’t exist even within the adoption community.” 

Interview Highlights 

On why she made the decision to adopt instead of having a biological child 

“I was raised by my grandparents, and I think having that experience of being raised by people who had not given birth to me kind of set me on a path to, ‘Well, if someone could do that for me, I could do that for someone else.’ And my best friend is adopted. She’s also an adoption social worker. So for years, I had been hearing about all of these children who needed homes, and it had been in the back of my mind for a while. And I wanted to be married and I wanted to