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Originally Posted by Anita
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Remember though, that along with the written rules, there are the unwritten ones and just plain old human opinions and inclinations.
Since in thier minds the ideal family for any given child would probably be Polish and Catholic and living in Poland, it would stand to reason that when looking at two or more sets of possible parents, they would (all other things being equal) be predisposed towards the ones who came closest to that ideal. So the closer your ties to Poland, the better you look.
Of course me, I am not Polish at all, as far as I know, I have not a drop of Polish blood, though honestly, I don't have access to all of my mother's history as her family didn't keep very good records. My father's family is all French. My husband has no information on his maternal grandfather who died very young. So we could have Polish, blood but we don't know of any. However, we are seeking a disabled child. So for us there is very little competition. We are actually trying to adopt a specific severely disabled child and it's looking good for us. We are going through the Catholic center and they have already seen most of our paperwork and seem happy so far. Our adoption is not "normal" mainly because of the severity of our future son's disability, but we have a daughter with a similar one, so to us it's not so severe.
Anyway, all this to say, you don't have to be Polish or Catholic, but if you are, every little bit helps and make sure and put that in your paperwork! If you are not, makes sure that in your homestudy it says you plan to teach your child about his or her homeland and will attempt to instill a sense of pride in them. For us we were asked for a photo of the child's room. I had already purchased some books on Poland and had printed a map of Poland. I made sure that these things were visable in the photo of the room. I also found a cute little T-shirt that Says Polska and has the eagle on it, for a good price on the big online auction site and found a good price on Polish cartoons on DVD. Most of the people who apply to adopt are wonderful people, who have the desire and resources to parent. It's got to be very difficult for them to choose one set of parents out of what must be a huge stack. So every little bit that helps you stand out and look more like the ideal parent helps.