These days, it’s not unusual for the public to question why adoption still matters. Or if it still matters, at all.
After all, fewer bio-moms now consider placing babies for adoption than ever before. (Which means that hopeful adoptive couples nationwide are waiting longer than ever before.)
The competition for placement, between adoption attorneys, facilitators, consultants, advertisers and licensed adoption agencies, unfortunately is driving costs up, meaning private domestic adoptions are costing more.
And that race for babies is unfortunately having another unwanted effect, increasing the number of adoption scams, both in and outside of the country.
To understand why adoption still matters, you have to go back to what adoption is supposed to be all about in the first place… and that’s about what kids who are in-need need most.
Is There an Adoption Shortage?
A 2022 report by the National Council on Adoption documented that not only was the birth rate in America declining, the numbers of adoptions (whether international adoptions, foster care adoptions or domestic infant adoptions) were plummeting, as well.
In some ways, this might be a good thing, if it means fewer children are in need of adoption. The drop in infant adoptions almost certainly points to a cultural shift in America. It used to be that females with unplanned pregnancies “had” to make adoption plans, even when they didn’t want to, because “becoming a mother out-of-wedlock” was a shameful stigma for unwed moms and their innocent babies, but not so much anymore. More single dads now find raising kids socially acceptable, as well. And teenage pregnancies are down nationwide, which would also potentially be a plus.
And yet, there are still records of numbers of kids in state foster care who wait for years to be wanted by some family somewhere. There are still organizations encouraging desperate women to anonymously dump their unwanted infants in “safe haven baby boxes” around the country. Even worse, child abuse statistics are likely to rise, due to the coming recession and parental stress over lost jobs, immigration risks and addiction issues.
So why adoption still matters is because there are still far too many kids in America who don’t have the safe homes and loving families they deserve. There may not be enough healthy newborns for everybody that wants one, but there are not enough hopeful adoptive parents ready to consider the children who need adoption most.
(Never have been… yet definitely should be.)
The Children are Why Adoption Still Matters
Try this: go on Google and search the term “adoption” under the news tab. For most folks, the vast majority ot links relate to stories about pet adoptions– not adoption for babies or children. One has to scroll down, page after page, just to find the “people adoption” stories in the media. (And those are rarely positive adoption stories.)
Today, for example, the first half dozen news stories have to do with “empty the shelters” appeals, before you get to the Daily Beast’s story headlined “Bringing the Infamous Adoption Story From Hell to Life on TV.” Never mind that Natalia Grace’s initial failed adoption eventually helped her find the adoptive family of her dreams. What expectant parent unprepared for parenting sees that headline and thinks adoption is a good thing?
Yet as an adoptee named Cecilia, who’d previously been in foster care, pointed out on Talk About Adoption, the foster care system is not better for children than adoption. “In my case, the system knew myy biological family was destructive, yet pushed for reunification. This is why the choice of open adoption for women facing unplanned pregnancies is so vital, because biology alone does not guarantee safety, stability or love. I said what I said.”
There are no “ideal solutions” for the issues of inadequate parents, poverty, homelessness, parental addiction, familial maladjustment or domestic violence. There are plenty of social service programs that work to address such problems, but children should not have to wait indefinitely for grownups to get their act together. The children are the reason why adoption still matters in this day and age.
Call Us. Why? Adoption Still Matters at Abrazo
For 31 years, Abrazo has served the needs of children and parents in crisis through its nationally-renowned open adoption program. As a licensed nonprofit agency, Abrazo has placed babies, toddlers, children and sibling groups in loving homes through the USA, in safe and private adoptions that enabled adoptees and their birthparents to keep in touch over the years,
By doing so, Abrazo has kept nearly two thousand children out of state foster care since 1994. And in the process, we have witnessed countless miracles for placing parents and adopting parents whose friendships, begun here, proved life-changing for both. The kids adopted through Abrazo went home with parents who promised to raise them to know the truth of their adoption stories, and as a result, the vast majority have found greater success in life because they are more secure in their own identities.
In a perfect world, adoption would not need to exist. We’ve said that a million times if we’ve said it once.
But in reality, this is not a perfect world. You know it. We know it. So doing whatever we can to make each day a little more perfect for every little one is exactly why adoption still matters, and why adoption is a choice worth making here, if the future of a child matters to you.
