This interpretive study utilized Owen’s ((1985) Thematic metaphors in relational communication: A conceptual framework, The Western Journal of Speech Communication, 49, 1—13) metaphoric approach to identify and understand the cognitive structures undergirding transracial, international adoptive parents’ sense-making and management of familial and personal identities during interactions that challenge familial and personal identities. Twelve focus groups with 69 parents with adopted children from either Vietnam or China were examined inductively. The results found the metaphors of adoptive parent as protector and adoptive parent as educator manifest in parental discourse. Protectors aim to guard identity, enacting defensive, somewhat reactive discourse, meeting invasive remarks straight-on, using confrontational, strategic, and toughening discourse. Seeking to build identity, educators enact less reactive and more intentional discourse through discourses of preparation, modeling, and debriefing. Based on these findings, we suggest improvements to pre-adoptive training.
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