Reply to Any opinions about adoption with biological children?

Forum Index » Parenting -- Special Concerns

Reply to "Any opinions about adoption with biological children?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP, you sound quite thoughtful and caring. Being working parents in [u]no way [/u]makes you less capable.  Emotional capacity and stability matter way more than hours.  Just like biological families. But since you asked for brutal opinons, here they come. Please bear in mind that this is meant constructively to help you think about options.

Bottom line. Adopt because you want more kids.  Not out of a sense of charity.

Not surprisingly, the children in greatest [b]need [/b]of homes are AIDS orphans, have disabillities, and are about the same age as your older child.  And unfortunately in some poor countries, children are increasingly being seen as commodities.  Fraudulent medical histories, babyselling/kidnapping, exploitation of birth mothers.  It's the downside of Brangelina raising awareness of international adoption.  Agencies have to weed through more and more parents seeking photogenic toddlers of perfectly healthy birthparents.

Race is one of the toughest things to deal with in the US.  Living in a highly diverse area or having lots of multicultural friends and family can help.  But nothing can prepare you for hearing someone call your child the N-word to your face while you're holding his hand in the supermarket.  Think hard about this one and don't be naive.  Love is not enough.

Older kids and sibling groups issues: mistrust of family's motives, hostility and testing of parents' love, turf battles and jealousy, feelings of challenged loyalty i.e. is "blood is thicker than water".  And that's just the biological kids.

One thing you didn't mention is the emotional minefield of "open" versus "closed" adoptions.  Apparently there is even less long term research on how this impacts families than transracial adoptions.  It's kind of a big unknown.

Skepticism aside, you're showing signs of a responsible adoptive parent by not shying away from the scary stuff and being honest with yourself.  But hey. You never know.  Sometimes life has a funny way of choosing for you.

FWIW, I have personal and professional experience with all kinds of adoptions and STILL have no idea what works or doesn't.  My (adoptive) dad likes to say, parenting is always a crapshoot. If there was a way to game the system, somebody would have figured it out already.

Wishing the best to your family in all its forms.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics