Every year there are about 1. There are , foster children eligible for and waiting to be adopted. In , 50, foster kids were adopted — a number that has stayed roughly consistent for the past five years. The average age of a waiting child is 7. The average child waits for an adoptive family for more than three years. The average age of children waiting for an adoptive family is 8. On any given day, there are nearly , children in foster care in the United States.
In , over , children spent time in U. Unfortunately, instead of being safely reunified with their families — or moved quickly into adoptive homes — many will languish for years in foster homes or institutions.
Some never get adopted. Of the over , children in foster care in the U. Among these children, males outnumber females, African American children are disproportionately represented, and over half are 6 years old or older. The number of children entering foster care or in care totaled , June 17, International Adoptions. Pierce, PhD. Sixth, people adopt from other countries because there is wider list of reasons that children enter institutional care.
In the US, most children are in foster care because they are victims of abuse and neglect. In other countries, children also enter care for these reasons. That is probably the norm. But there are also children in care because:. Some of the above reasons also lead to parents in the US losing custody, but often there is someone in the extended family network who can care for the child, preventing him from entering foster care. But in the case of abuse and neglect, the child will hopefully enter the foster care system.
That means fost-adopt parents must be willing and able to care for children with such a history, and the issues that go along with abuse and neglect. International adoptive parents should be prepared for the same issues. But in general, intercountry adoptions have a stronger chance of leading to a referral of a child who was not abused or neglected. This is obviously a criterion of which adoptive parents are conscious.
Seventh, there is a case that children in other countries are in greater need. All orphaned children need parents, and this is their paramount need. But adoptive parents drawn to intercountry adoption reason that children in developing nations face threats that US children do not face.
This is undeniable. Orphaned children in other countries are:. Simply put, children in the US foster care system do not face these risks. They do face other risks, such as mental health problems, lack of success in their future career, and the life-long feeling of displacement that goes along with having no family!
But when families consider how they can make a difference, they weigh the risks these children are facing, and some see greater urgency in developing countries.
The next two reasons parents choose intercountry adoption are juxtaposed to the possibility of adopting children from the US in a private domestic adoption. In other words, what follows is not in apposition to the choice of foster care, but the choice of adopting a US child who is voluntarily relinquished.
In domestic, private adoption, the birthmother voluntarily relinquishes her child. She chooses the family with whom she wants to place her child. She may have any number of criteria. Some couples fear that factors out of their control will cause them to wait an indefinite period of time to be picked by a birth mother.
The next referral of a child who fits the general criteria of the adoptive couple, such as age or medical needs is given to the family who has been waiting the longest.
Lastly, parents choose intercountry adoption because it is almost always a closed adoption. Bethany is now trying to help struggling American birth mothers parent their own children, as growing numbers of single women aim to do. In , the group created a special program for drug-addicted birth moms intended to help them stay with their babies. A process that involves people surrendering their biological children is bound to be fraught.
Still, a single, pregnant woman is likely to have a different experience with an organization like Bethany today than she would have decades ago. To adoption reformers, the practice is now largely seen as a way to provide families for older, special-needs children rather than a way to provide healthy babies to people who want to parent.
The result is often a difficult, expensive process for couples who want to adopt a baby or toddler. Though adoption experts told me that most people who pursue infant adoption are ultimately successful, some spend their savings to do it or wait years to adopt: One survey found that 37 percent of adoptive families wait longer than a year.
Others encounter scams or birth mothers who change their mind. The journalist Erika Celeste had been trying to adopt a baby girl for years when she was tricked by Gabby Watson, a notorious adoption scammer who posed as a pregnant woman and strung along hundreds of hopeful families. But aspiring adoptive parents who are disappointed by a difficult system might not get the chance to see the other side of these changes—the one in which poor, single women get to parent their own babies, even if they never thought they could.
Bult introduced me to Brijon Ellis, a year-old in Ypsilanti, Michigan, who exemplifies this shift. When Ellis got pregnant at 15, she told me, a family member pressured her into placing her daughter into a closed adoption through Bethany. After signing the adoption paperwork, Ellis remembers crying so hard in the hospital that her face swelled. Three years later, at 18, Ellis got pregnant again, this time with twins. But this time, whenever Dawn mentioned adoption, Ellis grew teary-eyed and equivocal.
Dawn picked up on her reluctance, Ellis said. Instead, Dawn told her about Safe Families, a Bethany program that gives struggling birth parents clothes, food, child care, and other support. Ellis carried her twin boys to term, and they are now 5 years old and living with her. I had this wisdom just fall over me.
Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe.
0コメント