Questions Again!

Meredith asks: I’m here. Here’s a question, and maybe it is too personal. Knowing what you know about the social services system, would you ever personally adopt a “waiting child” to be part of your family? Adoption is on my mind a lot these days.

We would absolutely adopt, and will absolutely adopt. I feel very strongly, for us, that it is important to adopt from foster care and from the US. I do not mean that is the best choice for everyone. There are a few reasons I feel strongly about that. The first one is in regards to private adoption. I feel that there are couples waiting in line to adopt privately. If you go on any private adoption website, there are hundreds of couples with “letters to the birth mom”  up on the site. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for a child. Waiting to be matched. Waiting to be chosen. Don’t get me wrong- there is always some kind of wait involved in adoption. However, these couples are knee deep. I think it’s great on so many levels. It gives moms who feel that adoption is the best choice for them the opportunity to carefully choose the couple that she feels fits best. I don’t think it’s right for us. As far as international adoption- clearly there are more babies, toddlers, and children then there are families waiting, although you wouldn’t think that given, again, the wait times. But there are clearly children in the world that need families and homes. I am somewhat uncomfortable with two aspects of international adoption. The first is that if we went through with international adoption, we would be taking a child out of their own culture and history. Now, I don’t think this in and of itself is inherently evil. Again, those children need families and homes. I just wish all the money we spent on international adoption could go towards fortifying those countries to adopt their own children. Which brings me to my second point, and probably the most potent of all my reasons to adopt through the US foster care system. I do not feel comfortable adopting a child from another country when I know there are children here, in my own backyard, that desperately need loving homes. There are babies, toddlers, children and teens here. They all need homes and families that love them. I feel some kind of responsibility to extend our home and family to one or more of those children, when we are able.

However. We are young, and have never parented. We will likely not start with teenagers. Both of us would like to parent an infant. If we do not have our own biological children, or decide to adopt before doing IVF, we will get approved as pre-adoptive foster parents and wait until an infant who is legally freed is available. This is of course a wait. But those babies still need loving homes. (as do they all.)

After that? Who knows. Like I said, we are young and have never parented. I hope that we will continue on that path and foster and adopt more children, perhaps not all infants. But we need to take that step by step, and it’s obviously not all my decision, either. We need to see how things go and what life throws at us. We need to evaluate, each step of the way, where we are in life and as potential parents to children with special needs.

You asked about the social services system. It is so clearly broken it’s not even funny. I’ve had intimate encounters with just how broken our child welfare system is. I watch TV about children in abusive homes and the heroes wanting to put them in foster homes- and I cringe, thinking- what if the foster homes are no better? It’s a crap shoot at best. We try our best to make it better, and to provide children in foster care with loving, safe homes. But the truth is the system is broken and needs alot of work. And we are placing children with complex and unique needs into homes that often do not have enough support, and those folks are human too. The needs of the child welfare system, and it’s brokenness, are not going to determine whether or not we foster and adopt. Regardless of the system, those kids still need homes.

That said, there is a big caveat. I work in what we call “therapeutic” of “specialized” foster care. The kids in my program come with a history of many placements, dangerous behaviors, difficult behaviors, mental health histories, psychiatric medications, etc. They come with a variety of letters attached to their names: RAD, PTSD, ODD, ADHD. There is no telling what any child will grow up to be, and any child Khalil and I take into our home we will be committed to. At this point in our life, we aren’t ready to parent a child with those kinds of needs. Again- in ten or twenty years? Who knows. But now? We’re not there. So we probably wouldn’t parent through the specialized foster care programs.

There that is. My long and possibly very disjointed answer. The one thing I want to make clear: This is where Khalil and I are now, always subject to change, and our choices are not everyone’s choices. I very clearly feel that each person/ couple/ family tries the very best to make the choices that are right for them, whether it’s foster to adopt, private adoption, international adoption, or nothing of the sort. These choices are personal and private, and I would never dare to criticize another person’s choice.