[SavannahGirl]

I find this story depressing as well. The issues described in the article have impacted my adoption plans. I think that one of the root causes of the problem is that alot of the young men profiled in the article did not have a positive, consistent father or father-figure in their lives. I've seen the results of this first hand in the neighborhood I grew up in. For some reason, the girls in similar circumstances seemed to do better in my experience. I thought about this often when I was in the adoption process. It is the reason why I specified gender and have decided to adopt only girls while I'm single. As a single mom who does not live near my extended family, I could not be certain that I would have a consistent male who would play a significant role in my son's life. Even after several discussions with a friend who was raised well by his single mom, I wasn't sure if I was up to the challenges that might occur with raising a young black man in America without a father.