Why don't people adopt vs having kids.

Post Reply New Topic

Have you ever noticed that the people that are less prepared people or that should not be having babies in the first place are the most fertile and are prolific child bearers having 4-6 kids. The people that are resonable who would make good parents seem to only make 1-2 children or are infertile.

I take my carreer choice to be a stay at home mother pretty seriously - I think the first thing you have to ask yourself is "what do I have to offer a child?" before considering having one - by what ever means (natural or adoptive), and if your answer is yes I have something to offer then go ahead - this answer may be different for everybody . . . perhaps you don't have $10 000 to offer for adoption but perhaps you have other things to offer - love, guidance, etc.

I disagree with the population argument - we need more people working to solve the world's problems, and more great minds put to the task.

What I don't understand is why perspective parents must PAY to adopt these children while the government pays workers to care for them - why not pay families to take these kids in? I suspect there is a job creation interest in how these children are managed - they create a child welfare industry that employes group home workers, social workers and other "proffessionals" - it would be way cheaper to just place the kids into the countless homes that would love to adopt them but don't have the $10 000 to fork out.

So I figue for every selfless D.I.N.K. I get to have 2.5 more!

one day I will breed an army - whoHaHaHA HA HA!

It is not expensive to adopt "waiting" children. It is expensive to adopt babies. There are not "countless homes" who would love to adopt waiting children. The "countless homes" who would love to adopt, want to adopt "perfect" young (under two years of age) children, who have no "issues." The children who are waiting for homes have suffered trauma, have emotional scars, and often have other issues. They need loving homes. There are armies of social workers seeking permanent homes for them, using the media (Wednesday's Child, Monday's Child, Friday's Child ...), matching parties, inter-state posting, and all manner of inventive home-seeking to try to place children in homes so that they do not end up in group homes or other unfortunate situations. It is hard, grueling, often thankless work. There are some workers who are not very good, as there are in any field; there are some who are excellent.

It is a very, very heavy responsibility to place a child in a permanent home, and the home studies that must be done are necessarily thorough and detailed. Many prospective parents find the home studies intrusive, and don't want to go through the process. Maybe those people would have been excellent parents, but it would be irresponsible for the agencies involved to place a child with anyone without completing the detailed studies. Some people don't "pass," and maybe some of them would also have been good parents. The problem is, again, the agencies are doing their best in trying to ensure that the children whose lives are entrusted to them are going to be safe when they are adopted. There are too many horror stories not to take these concerns seriously.

...I'm a woman, and I want exactly that.

A good job and an extra 20kg or so of muscle mass.

Why would a women want muscle mass? Would it be for sex appeal or to avoid being bullied by OTHER women? Do women even get physically bullied?

We looked into adoption seriously after several miscarriages. Our original plan was to have 1 or 2 of our own babies and then adopt an older child later on. When our baby plan didn't seem to be working out, we explored adopting a baby and the whole thing just didn't sit right with us. It is sooo expensive and there's no guarantee that the birth mother won't change her mind, which is why I think a lot of people turn towards international adoption. The thought of "losing" yet another baby was scary. Our hearts were set on a baby for the previously mentioned reasons, but just becoming parents was all that we really wanted. We ultimately decided that we'd keep trying (no heroic or unnatural efforts like ivf or surrogates) and if it didn't work out, we'd just adopt an older child.

Thankfully, we lucked out and we have two beautiful, biological children. We still plan on adopting an older child when our children get a little older. The part of this adoption process that kind of creeps me out is the thought of "shopping" for a child. I know it's a good idea to try to find a child that will be a good fit, but it's almost like a dating service and I'd hate to think of a child ever thinking s/he was rejected by a prospective parent.

You post as if adopting kids is as easy as walking up to a counter and saying, "I choose to adopt." It is not. Most people I've known who have adopted have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the process, and had to wait for years upon years. And, no, they were not trying to adopt perfect white newborns.

My husband and I discussed the possibility of adoption, but we really weren't good adoptive parent candidates due to our advanced age when we got married. It was much, much easier to let God decide if we were going to have children, so we just threw it up to Him and ended up with two beautiful children.

If that hadn't happened, I don't know if we would have considered significantly older children with medical or mental issues. I'm not sure we would have considered ourselves capable of figuring out how to raise a child like that. We aren't, after, all that great at figuring out what other people want or need from us, and kids are no different. Now I think I could, but now I've already got two kids to raise. I didn't know what I was capable of until God threw me into the middle of it.

number5,

Everyone who works with children in the system tries to "soften" the reality that these children have been repeatedly rejected, but the kids know. They were, at some level, rejected by their biological parents - even if their parents were battling for them in court, they weren't doing what they needed to do to keep them: getting off drugs, getting rid of abusive partners, whatever it was - there was something that was "more important" than getting themselves together so they could be real parents to their children. Then, they were often in more than one foster home, and every time they were moved, they felt rejected. The fact that their foster parents aren't "keeping" them is another rejection - regardless of the reason. The foster parents might not be emotionally/financially capable of being permanent parents. The kid might not even particularly like the foster parent. But each transition to a new home feels like a rejection. When the kids meet prospective parents, it is done in a way that the kids are not supposed to be really aware that that's what is happening. I'm not sure it really works - sometimes it does, but sometimes ...

What is truly amazing is that many of these kids carry such enormous pain, yet have so much hope, and maintain a capacity for so much joy.

I am sure lot of us have seen on TV where kids live in orphanages and then adoption day comes and people go in and pick out a child they want and they sign the papers and the kid goes home with them as if they were a dog. It doesn't work that way in real life. I wonder if it used to be that way though? I know we don't have orphanages anymore nor do we call them that.

Why are men allowed to want muscle but not women?

And yeah. Women get physically bullied.

Since you asked: I like it for its own sake. I don't think a slim smooth body is that aesthetically pleasing.

It was that way, once upon a time. Turned out many of those children weren't adopted with the intention of being raised as part of a family. Many were adopted as the equivalent of slave labor. Others went to parents with good intentions and no ability to actually raise a child. So, standards had to be set and the process had to become more complicated.

I think it about now, wishing we had the ability to add one more child. But I don't think we do. I'm not that good of a mother, the house isn't that big, and so on. It takes a really special person. But I still think about it.

When I think of passing my own genes, I feel sick. When I think about the genes some other people pass onto their children (exactly, I am talking about people who are absolutely not prepared to be parents but become parents out of nothing else to do), I feel even sicker though.
In any case, I've picked dogs and cats off the street and adopted them. In a way, they have become mine and I have taken good care of them no matter that I didn't see how they were born. Can't personally see any difference with children, no matter whether you've had them in your belly or not for nine months, once you've decided to be a parent, you can't opt out and you must be there for them, end of story.
I have a very nice and loving mother but I've heard her say 'My, I can't believe I could ever have a child like you' at least a dozen times. I know she means well and is genuinely surprised by the differences between me and herself. Therefore for me adoption is a very natural way to have children. I don't feel in any way compelled to try to conceive and give birth myself.

I'm not sure that it takes a really special person. I think it takes ordinary people making extraordinary decisions. It also requires that people be at the right time of their lives, and this is probably not the right time for you, DW. I've known a lot of people who've adopted children with special needs, and generally, they adopt when either they are childless, or when their children are all older and not in need of a lot of parental attention/supervision. There are some who adopt while they are still in the throes of heavy-duty parenting, but those are few and far between - and for very good reason! It's too hard, not only on their existing families, but also on the newly adopted child.

Thank you for the insight. My husband and I are very much looking forward to it. We had a friend back in college that was never adopted. His story broke our hearts. I can't imagine how hard it must be not to have a family. To me, that's more basic than shelter.

If your friend was in college, he was really beating the odds! To get to college without a family is an extraordinary achievement. There are some very lucky kids who, despite not being adopted, are still part of their foster families. The families might be unable to adopt for financial reasons, but emotionally, the child is very much a member of the family, permanently. For most kids, however, when they reach age 18, they have no one - there are lots of stories of kids being dropped off at shelters when they turn 18, because they are no longer "children" for purposes of children and youth, so they aren't in foster care anymore, and they have no place to go. The requirements to plan for transition are improving, so these stories aren't the norm anymore, but it can still happen.

I agree with you about the basic necessity for family. Assuming you do adopt in the future, it will be hard, and important for you, as a parent, to recognize how difficult your child's life may have been, to feel the pain and heartache, and yet not be paralyzed or otherwise negatively impacted by it. It can be so painful to hear the child's pain, but the child has to be able to talk about it without worrying about taking care of the parents' feelings. The other thing that can be very difficult is walking the fine line between acknowledging the child's hurt and denigrating the child's biological family (assuming that the child's biological family caused some of the hurt). It is important, when adopting a child, never to say anything negative about the child's biological family. The child will interpret it as something negative about him/her.