Adoption

Adoption is one of the oldest social institutions all cultures have in common. Hunter-gatherer civilizations often took in orphaned children and raised them as their own sons or daughters (Decker, 2006). In written record, the Bible shows Moses as one of the earliest know adoptions, as the son of the Pharaoh's daughter, a transracial and transreligious adoption (Mather, 2001). Adoption often offers a chance for a child to find what they need and deserve: a loving, committed and permanent family (Shapira, 2009). Often, children needing new families can be found in orphanages, foster care or children's homes and occasionally shelters if they are set up for long term care. While adequate care is normally expected, homes for children have been exposed by the media before, and sensationalized by books and movies like "Oliver Twist" or "Annie". What is the real story of adoption of American children in 2009? How does this reflect itself on a local level in Greenville, South Carolina?

To first begin to understand the problems in SC adoption, one must understand adoption itself. Rebecca Moore, a board member of Caroline's Promise- an advocacy and awareness group for orphans and adoption, said there are three types of adoption (Moore, 2009). International adoption is governed by the US Department of State and is overseen as an immigration issue (State, 2009). An adoption must follow the adoption requirements of the child's country of origin, and meet the US immigration requirements in order to be eligible to enter the US post-adoption (State, 2009). According to Lisa Johnson, the adoptive mother of a Nigerian girl, "adopting from overseas is just less of a hassle" (Johnson, 2009). Lisa was referring to domestic adoptions through DSS.

Moore mentioned three types of adoption. International was one, domestic private and public agency adoptions were the other two (Moore, 2009). According to Adoption.com, private adoption is by far the less complicated of the two; usually occurring before or without any intervention on behalf of the child by Child Protective Services (CPS); the services of an adoption lawyer to finalize proceedings before a judge is the most complicated private adoptions usually get (Anonymous, 2009). Moore said that there were no real age limitations placed on the parents for private adoptions while public agency adoptions usually have a minimum and maximum age restriction (2009). However, there are still challenges to be faced when one adopts privately.

State laws govern adoption within each state and an adoption must meet placement requirements set forth by that states laws. Since adoption is governed by the states individually, any adoption across state lines must meet both states placement requirements before being granted. Private adoption is also most likely to occur within families and also while the child is an infant or toddler. This is in contrast to the public agency adoption which can often involve much older children (Anonymous, Considering Adoption? Information For Birthmothers and Adoptive Parents., 2009).

A lot of public agency adoptions revolve around children in the CPS or court systems in cases where children have been removed from the custody of their parents of origin (Anonymous, Foster Care, Change a Lifetime, 2009). It is important to note here that some children are in the system due to parent(s) choosing to surrender custody of their child due to personal reasons. There are also private, state licensed agencies; however, there is little oversight in place at this time, so information or statistics are almost non-existent regarding them (Anonymous, Considering Adoption? Information For Birthmothers and Adoptive Parents., 2009). DSS or public agency adoption usually means children involved in the foster care system which is a state run program of "stand-in" parents who volunteer to raise minors who have been removed from the homes of their original parents (Anonymous, Foster Care, Change a Lifetime, 2009).

There are many reasons a child may be removed from their homes of origin. These reasons include abuse, neglect and inability of a parent to provide for the child's essential well-being (Anonymous, Foster Care, Change a Lifetime, 2009). There are approximately 496,000 children and teens in America currently in foster care (Moore, 2009). Some are simply awaiting the time they can be welcomed back into their family of origin; others await adoption by a new family (Anonymous, Foster Care, Change a Lifetime, 2009).

For some of these children, waiting is all they will do (Mather, 2001). For these children and teens, a future of emotional difficulties can often lie in wait. It has been shown through research and observation that children who fail to form a strong emotional bond with someone within their first year may never be able to form a strong emotional bond, nor to truly be capable of the emotion we identify as love (Provenzano, 2008). It is thought that "trust" is learned during this first year of life, and failure in this task may be the basis of the inability to form strong relationships (Lehman, 2005). One can understand how this might pose difficulties, especially if the child is required to form multiple temporary bonds as he or she is passed from foster family to foster family.

Some children are not kept in foster care. Some may be in group homes or shelter situations. Since there is not a national governing body for adoption or child services, there is no accurate statistic to tell how many children there are in need of and awaiting adoption in the US (Moore, 2009). However, it is estimated by the Home for Good Foundation that worldwide over 38,493 orphans "age out" of the system every year (Foundation). One would assume these may have emotional and psychological problems that will follow them all of their adult lives. "There are a lot of kids who age out (in South Carolina) every year," says Moore (2009).

According to Moore, out of the 496,000 children in foster care in the US, approximately 4,894 of them are in South Carolina. Moore also said that children are placed in a foster family an average of eight times before exiting the foster care system, either by adoption or through age out (2009). This number does not take into account children in private or group home settings. In South Carolina, according to Adoption.com, there are at least 11 listed adoption agencies or attorneys in SC (Anonymous, Considering Adoption? Information For Birthmothers and Adoptive Parents., 2009). There is more if one considers the number of group homes in SC. A Google search reveals 5 group homes in Greenville County in South Carolina alone.

A telephone call with the administrative assistant of Crossroads Group Home in Greenville, SC (who wished to remain anonymous) described the average group home situation as such:

It is " a multiple individual living situation, sometimes co-ed, but (Crossroads) is an all-girl facility. A group home may have any number of adolescents at any given time, but not all are up for adoption... because of various reasons such as waiting for termination of parental rights, or maybe they are in the system from (Department of Juvenile Justice) awaiting on court processes. We have some that are simply waiting to age out of the system because the courts will not be able to terminate parental rights before they come of age (Anonymous, Administrative Assistant, Crossroads Group Home, 2009)."

Moore related that a child can wait up to 2 years or more for parental rights to be terminated, depending on the situation the child or teen may be in (Moore, 2009). Even if that were not challenge enough, the source from Crossroads Group Home said there simply is "not enough people wanting to adopt in SC, especially if it is an older adolescent with special needs or behavioral challenges" (Anonymous, Administrative Assistant, Crossroads Group Home, 2009). Only 256 adoptions were finalized from foster care in 1997 (Anonymous, Considering Adoption? Information For Birthmothers and Adoptive Parents., 2009). This would leave over 4000 per year trapped in the foster care system each year if statistics stay steady. Calculations show that over an eighteen year period, over 1000 people could age out of the system; a tragic number.

When asked what was the one thing that should be changed about adoption Moore responded by saying, "I would make the system less burdensome. It is such a difficult system to navigate" (2009). During research, many problems with the system of adoptions became apparent. The first was obviously that there was no single national system of oversight for adoptions in America. Each state mandates its own requirements making it difficult to provide exacting standards of the quality of care within group homes or foster care, nor in the requirements for an adoptive household.

The need to meet both states requirements for adoptions bring rise to unique legal challenges in this day and time as well. "It is an exciting and troubling time," said Ahimsa Bodhran, MSU Professor of Queer studies, "state rights are being challenged thanks to the issues of gay rights and marriage, and adoption is part and parcel with that." (2009). States have traditionally honored the legal rites performed in other states, like marriage or adoptions, when families cross state borders. This, however, is no longer the case thanks to the challenges brought against gay marriage. A marriage performed in Massachusetts may allow for the couple to adopt and both assume parental rights of a child there, but will those legal rights of adoption hold in a state like SC, where there is no recognition of the Massachusetts marriage as being legally binding? The answer is not yet known (Bodhran, 2009).

Cindy and Chana are a lesbian couple. In 2006, Cindy gave birth to Teagan, a happy and loving boy. The two were married in Canada in 2003, but this marriage is not binding or legal in South Carolina. As a result, Chana is not considered a legal parent to Teagan, and although the "father" signed over his parental rights on paper Chana is not able to legally adopt Teagan since SC does not allow for "two party adoption (Flot, 2009). Cindy described in depth the challenges she has faced to provide an alternative to adoption for their family.

"We have spent an enormous amount of money on this. I have had to get a lawyer so I could give Chana certain rights, like making medical decisions. Chana keeps a piece of paper in her bag at all times allowing her to authorize treatment for our son if they get into a car wreck while I am at work- even to allow her in the same room as Teagan while he is being treated. She needs another paper to allow her to make simple everyday decisions, like to sign him up for child care or even the YMCA swimming lessons since she cannot simply claim herself as his guardian without it. I even had to make special provisions in my will leaving Teagan to (Chana) since Teagan won't simply go to her as if we were any other married heterosexual couple, and even a will is contestable. It really is not a simple matter. We hoped she could simply adopt at first, but no" (Flot, 2009).

Another problem made clear was the need for some sort of national system that would keep accurate statistics on the numbers of children and teens in the system. Even South Carolina did not have accurate statistics on the total number of kids waiting for adoption- this is due to the fact that there in no primary governing agency that provides oversight on all adoptions from both public and private sources. It also cannot account for those who are tied up in the system; those who may be fighting to gain the termination of parental rights.

A problem may also lie in the fact that there are different standards held for private adoptions than for public agency adoptions. It seems that the private adoptions should meet the minimum requirements set forth by the state for public agency adoptions, in order to ensure certain standards are being met in both the adoptive families and the care given to the children in the per-adoptive settings. The obvious exceptions may be cases of adoption by a relative.

A solution to these problems is glaringly obvious. The creation of a National Adoption Oversight Board would provide a basis for solving these issues. They could establish a national standard for pre-adoptive home care and adoptive family standards, which could ensure quality and provide a solution to the questions of legality betweens states on the issue of adoption and issues pertaining to adoptive rights. A National Adoption Oversight Board could also provide a basis for finally gathering accurate statistics regarding the total number of US adoptions and the adoptive process from the day someone enters the system until the leave the system. An accurate system of reporting the total number of people who age out yearly might reveal a bigger problem than officials think, and provide the impetus for improvement in the entire adoptive system as a whole by raising awareness of this important issue.

On a more local level, since the Home for Good Foundation reported a link between criminal activity and those who age out of the system (Foundation), perhaps more accurate statistics in South Carolina can convince legislators that adoption in South Carolina is more important than they believe and provide better funding for programs that can improve education and care these individuals receive in order to combat these behavioral problems that probably stem from emotional baggage. It is important for legislators to begin to realize that, in South Carolina and the US as a whole, adoption is poorly governed, inadequately regulated, and provided with negligent oversight.

Perhaps when these things are done, and through education, we can virtually eliminate the number of those stuck in the system for life. As Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's said of adoption, "Every child deserves a home and love. Period."

Bibliography

Anonymous. (2009, October 14). Administrative Assistant, Crossroads Group Home. (M. Gittner, Interviewer)

Anonymous. (2009). Considering Adoption? Information For Birthmothers and Adoptive Parents. Retrieved October 14, 2009, from Adoption.com: www.adoption.com

Anonymous. (2009). Foster Care, Change a Lifetime. Retrieved October 12, 2009, from National Foster Care Month: http://www.fostercaremonth.org/Pages/default.aspx

Bodhran, A. T. (2009, October 14). Doctoral Candidate, Professor of Queer Studies, Michigan State University. (M. Gittner, Interviewer)

Decker, D. D. (2006, Spring/Fall). African History/ Western Civilization Class Lectures. (M. Gittner, Interviewer)

Fencl, K. A. (2009, October 12). Lesbian Mother of Adopted Boy. (M. Gittner, Interviewer)

Flot, C. (2009, October 9). Lesbian Mom. (M. Gittner, Interviewer)

Foundation, H. f. (n.d.). Orphan Statistics.

Johnson, L. (2009, October 11). Adoptive Mother of Nigerian Child. (M. Gittner, Interviewer)

Lehman, J. D. (2005). Understanding Marriage, Family and Intimate Relationships. Springfield: Thomas Books.

Mather, M. (2001). Adoption: the opportunity to give a child a second chance deserves health and social support. British Medical Journal v.322.7302 , 1556.

Moore, R. (2009, October 13). Board Member- Caroline' Promise. (M. Gittner, Interviewer)

Provenzano, D. F. (2008, Spring Semester- Psychology of Relationships). Ph.D, Family Psychologist . (M. Gittner, Interviewer)

Shapira, S. (2009). Where Do I Start? Retrieved October 9, 2009, from Adoption.Com: http://adopting.adoption.com/adopt/getting-started-with-adoption.html

State, D. o. (2009). Intercountry Adoption. Retrieved October 13, 2009, from Office of Childrens Issues, United States Department Of State: http://adoption.state.gov/about/how/childeligibility.html