Something that I have always been interested in, ever since I was little, is the idea of adopting a child. All I knew about it then was that some kids don't have parents, and that if you filled out some paperwork and paid some money, you can get a kid. I thought orphans were the only kids that needed adopted. I thought that most orphans were from other countries.
Since then I have learned a lot. There are children everywhere that need homes, including inside the U.S. These adoptions, called domestic adoptions, tend to be a lot cheaper than international adoption. I also have learned that not all these kids have lost parents, they're still out there somewhere, for some of them. Others, older kids, have the memory of being removed from their parents' home for whatever reason and being placed into the foster system. I didn't know much about the foster system either, until I watched a now very popular show, The Fosters, on Freeform (Previously ABC Family).
I also learned that not all kids in the foster system are eligible for adoption. The point of the foster care system is to reunify families once the situation is better, and 51% of foster kids do just that. In 2018, 437,000 children and teens were in foster care, of those 118,000 are waiting to be adopted. And those children, the ones who are waiting to be adopted, will wait an average of three to four years in the foster care system.
Sadly, over 20,500 youths are emancipated from the foster care system a year, and once they age out of the system, half of them with never finish high school and a fourth of them will be incarcerated within two years. 40% of the kids that age out have been in the system for more than three years. 20% of teens in the system become homeless as soon as their 18 birthday. What a great present. These kids, never properly supported in most cases, don't have very good chances out there in our harsh world. Less than 3% will obtain a college degree. 1 in 4 of them won't finish high school or obtain a GED. If 10 young ladies ages out of the system, 7 of them will be pregnant by the time they turn 21. 1 out of every 2 young adults who age out of the system will have a substance abuse problem. Annually, 13% of children who age out say that they never had a successful placement. If the child has a disability of any kind, including basic learning disabilities, they are twice as likely to age out. (https://www.nfyi.org/51-useful-aging-out-of-foster-care-statistics-social-race-media/).
Foster families are the ideal situation for any child that is part of the system. But there are not enough families involved to meet the need of the children in the system. More than 69,000 children that are part of the system in the United States, live in institutions and group homes (http://www.ccainstitute.org/resources/fact-sheets), which is 11% of foster kids. In 2017, 1% of the 442,995 kids in care ran away, which is over 4,000 children, gone without a trace (https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/foster.pdf). The average foster child will spend almost two years in state care, with 6% of children being in state care for five or more years. The average age of children in foster care is eight years old, there is a need for parents who want older children.
Something that I never really thought about when it came to the type of kids that are in foster care, is their race. Some people (*cough* *cough* racists *cough* *cough*), probably assume that a minority makes up the majority of the foster kid population. In actuality, Caucasian children make up the largest percentage of foster kids, at 44%.
I always assumed that abuse of the children or abuse of substance would be the number one reason that children get removed from homes, but the actual leading cause of removal is parental neglect. And the absolutely saddest fact that I have learned about the foster care system is that the children who have to experience it are twice as likely to be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than a United States war veteran.
(https://americanspcc.org/get-the-facts-foster-care/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAtOjyBRC0ARIsAIpJyGPZKKDthoLnVqy4RZUi95GsXuuC-AyeSKYhLLCgulu4MOCk3W4U2jIaAgoFEALw_wcB). Even though neglect is the most common there are lots of reasons a child could be removed. 6% of foster kids have been sexually abused by a parent or family member (https://www.nfyi.org/51-useful-aging-out-of-foster-care-statistics-social-race-media/)
I learned a lot about adoption my senior year of high school. Part of Honors English at Chesterton High School is writing a ten page research paper in the hopes of preparing us for college. You were allowed to choose any subject, and you had to have a certain number of sources, some online and some actual book sources. I chose to write my paper on same sex couples and their right to adopt.
I wrote that paper in 2014, and not much has changed since then. Quite a few states, eleven actually, still allow state-licenced welfare agencies to discriminate against same sex couples (https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/foster_and_adoption_laws). Twenty one states and four U.S. territories have no laws in place stating that agencies cannot discriminate. If laws could be put in place making it easier for same sex couples to adopt, it would dramatically effect the foster care system and adoption rates. In 2018, The Williams Institute (UCLA School of Law) one in five same sex couples choose to adopt instead of having their own kids. That is 21.4% of these couples. Where only 3% of heterosexual couples adopt. Same sex couples also currently have a big effect on the foster care system, where 2.9% of them having foster kids, where only .4% of heterosexual couples foster (https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/same-sex-parenting/).
I also use to think it was really hard to adopt if you wanted to be a single parent. But actually, according to child welfare.gov, 28% of children adopted in 2017 were adopted by single parents (https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/single_parent.pdf).
Another part of adoption that I never really thought about before was what happens after its all said and done. I thought that you filed the finished paperwork and then it was over. There is actually a lot of government systems in place to help families afterwards. 93% of families use some kind of adoption subsidies or a variety of post adoption services.
There is also help in the beginning stages of adopting. Once you've completed the required foster care classes, you receive monthly aid from the state, amounts vary depending on specific needs of the child. If the child is in care and their parents have already terminated their parental rights, you have an easier road to adoption. There are grants you can apply for to help cover the costs. It's weird to say, but some children come at a discount, depending on how long they have been in the system.
When I do talk about adoption, some of the women I converse with will tell me that they couldn't see themselves adopting because they don't know if they'd love the child 'the same' as they would their birth children.
I think that is bullshit.
No human anywhere loves any other person the same. You can have two or more kids and love them so, so much, but you don't love them the same. They have different qualities and characteristics that make them the human you love. And it is not the same. Most people, when starting a family, have a partner to do it with. A partner that (hopefully) has no blood relation to them. But they love them so much that they sometimes legally bind themselves together.
If you can find it in your heart to legally bind yourself to someone in a romantic relationship, maybe you could consider if your life and your heart as room for one or two more.
"DNA doesn't make a family, love does."- Lena Adams Foster, The Fosters
Thank you for reading. Leave a comment with which fact influenced you most, or add some facts of your own (please source).
Once you have spend some time on the subject, if you think it really isn't for you, consider helping when you can, through the donation of money, needed items, or your very valuable personal time.
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