A white judge initially denied Nick and Emil Mebruer's petition to adopt a black child, ruling that the Mebruers, a white couple who live in rural Lebanon, MO, were "uniquely unqualified" to parent a black child because of their limited interaction with black people and culture. The ruling was overturned, and their daughter, Maggie, is now 3.

"We felt like it was an indictment of us and our entire community," said Mrs. Mebruer, a family doctor, as Maggie played with a black doll in the center of the 1iving room and danced to the Australian children's group the Wiggles. "It was assuming that we didn't have the desire or the capacity to learn."

The Mebruers did not explicitly set out to adopt a black child, but when an agency called one spring afternoon to say that an infant was available and that they needed the couple's decision within hours, the race of the child, Mr. Mebruer said, was secondary.

White families adopting black children are increasingly learning that the "love is enough" approach to adoption that families bring to the process is often met with skepticism.

Psychologists, researchers and adoptees themselves say many children adopted transracially in past decades suffered from philosophies focused on assimilation, with little or no acknowledgement of racial and cultural conflict.

Robert O'Connor, 39, who was raised by a white family in Rush City, Minn., recalled his struggles growing up in a small town with few other blacks. Throughout his youth, he said, he felt awkward around other blacks. He did not understand black trends in fashion or music or little things like playing the dozens, the oral tradition of dueling insults.

"I always felt like I had this ‘A’ on my forehead, this adoptee, that people could see from a far distance that I was different," said Mr. O'Connor, who now researches transracial adoptions as assistant professor of social work at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul.

Today, some agencies are working to avoid mistakes of the past. Ms. Brockway and Mr. Timble are adopting through the Cradle, a Chicago agency that gives transracial adoptive parents extensive counseling as well as a course on "conspicuous families."

One exercise meant to assess parents' comfort level in confronting racial issues lists a roster of stereotypes including. "lazy," "passive" and "athletic," an asks parents to assign them to the race or ethnic group to which they are often applied.

Judy Stigger, a counselor at the Cradle and herself a white adoptive mother of two black children, now adults, makes the issues tangible to prospective parents by relating personal stories. She tells about the time when her son, then a teenager, reached into her purse at an McDonald’s and a clerk called security; and the time when her daughter began crying while looking through congratulatory cards sent by family and friends when they took her home.

Was I supposed to have been white?" her daughter, then in the third grade, asked. Ms. Stigger had never noticed that the children on all of the cards were white.

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