Adoption

November is the month of adoption so I thought I would take the opportunity to write a little blog about adoption. Scott, Thom and I's boss, worked as an adoption social worker for six years and often comes out to the schools with Thom and I to speak about adoption. An important point that Scott likes to make is that a person does not "put up" their child for adoption. The phrase "put up" comes from the early 1900's when parents would put their children on trains and send them out West to help on the farms. When they got off the train, they were put up on a platform for the farmers to choose from. Adoption is nowhere near the same experience. Birth parents do not simply put their child up for adoption. Rather, they make an adoption plan. They are making a plan for that child's future. For whatever reason, they are not mature (financially, emotionally, spiritually) enough to parent their child so they make a plan to ensure that child's going to be taken care of. Birth parents love their children and it is out of this great love that they choose adoption. It takes a lot of courage, responsibility and unconditional love to place a child for adoption.

In Semi-open and Completely open adoptions, the birth mother is able to choose the adoptive family. There are somewhere between 1-2 million couples waiting to adopt because teen pregnancy is no longer a stigma so teens are keeping and parenting, abortion has cut the pool of available babies in half, wide-spread STDs have caused infertility and people are waiting longer to have children and using birth control which can create infertility problems. Birth parents have plenty of couples to choose fro and the adoptive family goes through interviews, home study, training, finger painting, etc to ensure that they are a stable unit that can provide a strong and loving family for a baby.