On a sunny Friday afternoon, small feet pounce on the dark wood floors of the Smith home as Jamal and Micah Smith’s 3-year-old daughter, Sydney, jumps up and down with arms toward the ceiling eager to be picked up by her father, who walked into the home just seconds earlier. Inches away are Dayton, 7, Elijah, 7, and Mason, 10, who also catch a glimpse of their father and want special attention. This is a typical scene at the Smith household, one that recently welcomed two adoptive children into the family.
May 2015 was the first time Jamal Smith, former executive director of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission and now the athletic director of Indianapolis Public Schools, and his wife Micah laid eyes on their soon-to-be children. As the couple has always desired to adopt, they initially sought a 3- to 5-year-old Black male for several reasons.
“We didn’t want an infant, because we already had two kids of our own. The conversation about adopting an older child, particularly an older Black boy, began because those who are in the system and after the age of 8, their chances of getting adopted are very slim to none,” said Jamal, who has been mentoring for the past 15 years. “We wanted them to know, there is no giving them back to the system. They are home, and we want to impact our children for the rest of their lives.”
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption says, “children often wait three years or more to be adopted, move three or more times in foster care and often are separated from siblings. Children waiting to be adopted are over 8 years old.”
“I knew (Dayton and Mason) were our children the moment I saw them, although they weren’t exactly what we set out to look for,” said Micah.
Within six weeks, the siblings were standing in the foyer of their new home in Indianapolis, just hours away from their previous environment in northwest Indiana.
The couple said outside of a number of required classes, certifications, interviews and home visits, their adoption process moved rather quickly, and there wasn’t much time to mentally prepare for their new lives. They believe this was due to the children’s sibling relationship and their ages.
In 2014, Indiana counted 1,038 adoptions, compared to 1,577 in 2009, according to the Department of Child Services.
In many households where adoptions occur, a mother is involved, but there is an absence of a male or father figure, which the Smiths said made their situation very unique. They want to encourage other young, Black, professional couples to consider adoption.
“There are so many Black children who are in the system who don’t get adopted, and even fewer get the opportunity to be adopted by a mom and a dad who look like them and speak the same language as them,” said Micah, who noticed most of the success stories involved white families adopting Black and African children.
Six months into the new family structure, the Smiths have identified several advantages and disadvantages of adopting older children. Because the children are old enough for school, they don’t require 24-hour home assistance, and they are able to clearly communicate their wants and needs, but in many ways it can still be a journey of learning.
“In a sense, it’s almost like we’ve taken on two infants, because you still have to learn their quirks, their likes and dislikes and their personalities, because you don’t know them,” explained Micah. “Because they are older and already have developed personality traits, it’s a lot more difficult to mold them, because they come with a set of experiences newborns don’t come with.”
The Smith household is described as very structured and routine-based, which is something Dayton and Mason hadn’t been exposed to in the past.
“We run a pretty tight ship at home. Bed time is bed time, and play time is play time, so there is not much wiggle room for discussion between child and adult places in the Smith household,” said Jamal. “These kids have never experienced this structure, and it is non-negotiable in our home.”
One of the biggest items those outside the family might call a disadvantage, the Smiths call an advantage. They believe it’s about learning to deprogram then reprogram positive things into their children’s minds, but calls this an advantage, because it’s why they got into adoption in the first place.
“We didn’t and still don’t have rose-colored glasses and think they wouldn’t come with their own experiences that would cause us to have to retrain. We got in this to change the trajectory of the kids’ lives. Not just give them love or a home with a stable family, but to give them life skills so when they leave us for whatever God has for them to do, they can carry and conduct themselves and flourish,” commented Jamal, who mentioned he truly enjoys watching the progress made with his children and the entire family over the past six months.
The family believes adoption isn’t simply about bringing new children into their home; it’s about educating both children and adults on several levels.
According to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2010 statistics, there are 500,000 children in foster care across the United States, with 26 percent being African-American. The question arises: why aren’t more African-Americans adopting? Experts say it’s partly due to a myth that Black children are more difficult to raise or an expectation that they come from drug-infested homes and can’t be molded into anything better.
Given marriage and motherhood are the dream for many women, if neither of them occur traditionally, several African-American women turn to adoption, says Mardie Caldwell, founder of Lifetime Adoption, an adoption referral and support group in Penn Valley, California.
“We’re seeing more and more single African-American women who are not finding men,” Caldwell said in a recent article. “There’s a lack of qualified Black men to get into relationships with.”
Jamal believes all families, especially those with a Black male in the household, should look to serve as role models.
“We’re in such a ‘me, me, me’ society that the idea someone would want to do something for someone else would be considered a dysfunction doesn’t make sense,” said Jamal, who was asked, “you have such an amazing family, why mess that up?” when the couple’s plans to adopt were discussed.
“Our response was, ‘why wouldn’t you?’ The time when we looked after one another, looked after the elderly or looked after things that didn’t belong to us has come and gone. Everything is so self motivated, and the byproduct you get is what you see on the news.”
In several informal conversations, Jamal learned many of his colleagues and others in the community aren’t comfortable adopting Black males.
Educating the children in the foster system, the Smiths believe, is the key to success. Since June, all of the Smith children have begun attending The Oaks Academy, a Christ-centered school that exists to provide a rich, classical education to children of diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Although Dayton and Mason’s previous school system did not provide the same high level of curriculum as The Oaks, the family insisted their new children attend.
“They are a byproduct of their school. If their school is an F-rated school, there is no thought as to what that means for the child long-term. There are tons of kids who are in failing schools but at minimum, it only takes one person to reach out to those parents or guardians to tell them to be more aware about where their child is going to school,” said Jamal, who explained enrolling a foster child into a high-quality school is difficult.
The couple encourages people to ask questions, because there are ways to keep their foster child from attending a failing school. They also encourage the state to have vested interest in the child’s education before they make the decision to place a child in a foster parent’s home.
The National Education Association finds, “In 2000, young adults living in families with incomes in the lowest 20 percent of all family incomes were six times as likely as their peers from families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution to drop out of high school.” A survey by the Department of Justice in the early 1990s estimated a Black male born in 1991 stood a 28 percent chance of going to prison; an update in 2003 put the odds at 33 percent. The latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor find high school dropouts are 72 percent more likely to be unemployed compared to high school graduates.
“These kids have been dealt a crappy hand. The last thing they need is to be dealt an additional crappy card that trumps everything else. The child that falls further behind, (that) manifests itself into defiance and lack of discipline, which looks like suspension and expulsion. Once that shows its face, it looks like a high school dropout, crime and the prison system. It’s one public system feeding into the Department of Public Correction. Most of these kids look like me, and that’s my problem,” explained Jamal.
Outside of the logistics, the family said they are doing well and look forward to the progress in the future.
“The joy in having them in the house really helps you appreciate the very small things you become accustomed to. They get excited about going to the movies. To experience that for the first time at ages 9 and 6, they were through the moon excited,” laughs Micah. “Part of that is them not knowing when it will be over, so they’re trying to take it all in. We’re always telling them calm down, we’re not going anywhere and to really enjoy the moment.”
The Smiths look forward to celebrating Christmas this week, as it involves making cookies with family members and enjoying the company of those they care about most.
“You can’t adopt just because it’s pulling on your heart strings,” said Micah. “You have to be committed to it, and it involves a lot of self assessment that many people aren’t ready to do, but make sure you’re in it for all the right reasons.”
