[Sleeplvr]

I was wondering if any of you thought of adoption in the AA community as a Civic duty.

The thread about adoption being a “calling” got me thinking about a conversation with one of my friends. We had quite a few discussions back when DH and I started infertility treatments. She was curious about how long would we do infertility treatment and would we be willing to adopt. She then talked about a couple that we both knew. They had recently retired, were well educated and have been well off financially all their lives. They always wanted children but never tried to adopt. My friend thinks it’s ridiculous that they have never adopted. She feels that when someone has much to offer they have an obligation to share it. Their estate will be going to another family member that does not need it.

My friend almost sounds like a throw back to the 1970’s when she talks about community involvement and activism. She feels that we who have “made it” have a civic duty to reach out by working in the AA community, adopting AA children, or mentoring children or adults.

Do you feel like you are giving back to the community by adopting? Is the life you are giving your children drastically different than what they would have had with their birthparents? That is one of the main reasons why we went to the foster care system first for adoption. We knew that the kids in the system were coming from homes that were unfit. We would be satisfying a need to parent, giving a child a new life as well as possibly keeping one more AA person from becoming a statistic. Now that we have moved to private agency adoption we still see some of the some of the same issues presenting there as well. Abuse and neglect are not factors…but poverty is still an issue.

[Nevada Jen]

I realize its not my place to post here (because I am CC) but after this thread gets some responses here you should repost on the general thread. This is an issue that I have thought alot about in planning a transracial domestic adoption and part of the reason we switched from international was because of the need for good families for AA babies here in the US. I will be interested to hear what people say here about this topic.

Jen

[Kelli]

Great question Sleeplvr! I'm gonna answer this one later when I get home and don't have to worry about looking over my shoulder every second. I'm sure my nosey co-workers are beginning to wonder why they see a flash of a website with babies on my screen every time they walk in, followed by a quick blank one .

Kelli

P.S. Nevada Jen, it's my understanding that everybody is welcome to post everywhere. So share, share, share!!

[Sleeplvr]

Jen

I thought about posting it with the wording slightly changed on the general forum too. I just didn't want to get the International adoptions people riled up. They are already very defensive about their reasons for what they are doing. But it's something they ought to think about too. Depending on where you live the majority of domestic infants or waiting children could be AA or hispanic.

I applaud you for wanting to take care of home first!

Thanks!

[Lorraine123]

Although my daughter is caucasian, I hope its ok for me to respond here.

I do feel that I am giving back to the community through our adoption. We wanted to help stop the cycle of abuse and neglect. My daughter has pretty serious RAD. I'm not sure that she will be able to attach to her children once she becomes a mother, but hopefully we can teach her the proper way to parent and she will act correctly even if she doesn't feel it. That way her children will attach to her and will be healthy. While we may not be able to cure her RAD, we can stop it in future generations. Thats how the cycle stops.

We are helping stop it with one child.

Her life is very different from what it would be without adoption. I firmly believe that she would have continued the cycle, only because she would not know anything different.

I truly feel that you must give of yourselves as you have been given.

[spaypets]

Interesting, Sleeplvr, that you see adopting internationally as having a different motivation and not as a civic duty, because I was going to post and say "Yes, one of the reasons we adopted a child from an orphanage was because we like the idea of providing a family to a child without one. It fulfilled a sense of altruism."

I guess I think of myself as a citizen of the world. I think of providing a family to a child who doesn't have one (and has spent her whole life in an institution) does fulfill a sense of giving back to the world.

That sense is why we didn't bother at all with fertility treatments. Why spend a lot of money with no guarantee of payback when there are kids already born who need us?

[leaabc123]

My partner and I are foster parents, hoping to eventually adopt. She is Samoan/Japanese and I am CC, our extended family runs the gamut.
We had an AA infant with us for 7 months and all signs were pointing to adoption when a judge decided to give a relative who had chosen not to visit him and who had major health issues, custody.
We just took an emergency placement of 2 AA girls, who look to be a longterm placement/ possible adoption.

We are also currently trying to have a child through artificial insemination. Our hope was to have already adopted at least 1 child, then having 1, then continuing however. But, we realize nothing is perfect so we are continuing to foster while I (hopefully) become pregnant.

I have much more empathy for people who adopt internationally than I used to. While they go through as much red tape (or more) as we do for local adoptions, they most likely will have a child in the end. And once an international adoption is final, there is very little chance of it being overturned.

Whereas with foster care, and with local adoptions, there is more "emotional risk". When we lost our 7 month old boy, our hearts broke and we are still putting the pieces back together. We are much more cautious with this new placement now, while giving them the love and safety that they need.

[Nevada Jen]

Ugh. I didn't mean to get people riled up. Domestic was the choice we made for us. I want all children adopted where ever they may be (I would take them all if it was not for my darn husband limiting me!). The original question was do you feel a civic duty as an African American to adopt. I should not have derailed the topic. I am really interested to see the answers as an outside observer.

Jen

[Sleeplvr]

Spaypets

I made a point of narrowing the scope of this discussion because I wanted opinions regarding the perception of AA community activism. This was not a post trying to put down international adoptions. I posted on this forum because I thought that it would be understood here. I often have discussions with friends and family on how we can improve the AA community. My parents are from the country…Alabama and Tennessee. There is still abject poverty in the AA community there. It bothers me that each time I go there, I see kids still without shoes and living in substandard homes (shacks). There are people still in certain areas of this country without running water in their homes. This is the year 2005…this country is way to rich for this to continue. Should the AA people who have “made it” out of poverty and despair look back to reach out a helping hand? A helping hand could be adoption, mentoring or financial support for programs.

My mother made it a part of her life to give back to the community she came from. She always took clothes twice a year to one particular elderly couple that lived on the same dirt road that my grandparents lived on. They were raising their granddaughter and couldn’t afford to buy her school clothes. My mother provided clothes and school supplies for her until she graduated from high school. She had good grades and earned a scholarship to the local college. She could have ended up a teenage mother on welfare…. She ended up a college graduate. My mother mentored her.
One time I was in town after my mother passed and “L” made a point of coming by to see me. She wanted me to know how much the clothes and school supplies meant to her. She said that she would have never been able to get where she was in life without my mother. This is an example of uplifting the community. It can be done one person at a time.

My mother always said that welfare is a dirty word. Poverty creates all kinds of social ills. The AA community is rife with problems because of it. Trapped in a cycle they don’t know how to extricate themselves from. The point of this discussion was to find out if people viewed adopting AA children as a method stopping the cycle of poverty, drugs and violence. I have friends and family members that feel DH and I should adopt to uplift the AA community. We are selfish if we don’t give back.
That little AA boy that I adopt could be removed from a life that could potentially end up filled with drugs, jail or death. That kind of behavior could spill over into our comfortable lives….because he lives in my neighborhood, town or community. That’s why I’m asking about the civic duty aspect. The old folks I know, who were involved during the civil rights era say that we as AA people are not holding up our end of the bargain…that we are not looking out for each other. We need to do more to improve the condition of the AA community. Could adoption be part of the answer?

As far as the infertility treatments are concerned…We had a limit…I knew from the time that I was in my twenties that I had one shot at having a bio baby. I would not be able to do it twice. So we put a dollar limit, an emotional limit and the age thing just factored itself in. The cost of the private adoption is going cost much more than what we have spent on infertility treatments. I’m a realist. I’m not just going to throw my money away. I thought that I would have one bio child and then adopt one or two more. Adoption was always part of the plan….

I never said that you have different motivations. I was implying that you seem to be overly sensitive about your chosen your route….. I knew that you would and have taken offense at this topic. I did not want to start that whole discussion again and derail the intent of this topic……….

I too consider myself a citizen of the world, but I just can’t keep driving by neighborhoods and see people that look like me (AA) in need or in trouble. What can I do to help?

[CAV]

Sleeplvr

I was curious as to your feeling concerning CC or hispanic couples adopting AA children. I've been told by AA friends that a CC family adopting an AA child would be basically depriving them of their culture. That in the long run it would do more harm than good.
I'm CC, my husband in Hispanic. We had always thought that if we were to adopt again we would adopt a child whose ethnicity was the same as one of ours. But then I went through the "waiting children" list one night. It amazed me that so many healthy, beautiful AA children were waiting for families while there were just as many families wanting children... just not AA children.

I think it's disgraceful that so many bright boys and girls will stay in the system until they fall into the stereotypes of teen pregnancy, drugs, and gangs.... when all they need is a little love, encouragement and a safe home of their own to thrive and reach their potential.

[SavannahGirl]

For me I believe that adoption is my civic duty but not my primary motivation to adopt. I think that those of us who have "made it" have dropped the ball for the most part. Our generation seems to be more self-consumed than previous ones and has not picked up where the civil rights movement of the 60s left off.

That being said, the primary reason for adopting has to be a love for children and a willingness to embrace all that comes with adoption. You have to be able to love your children unconditionally as if you would with your bio children. At the same time, be able to accept that your child has someone else's genetics and also that there will always be a birthfamily out there. The couple that you discussed may not have been prepared to do that. If so, it would be unfair of them to adopt a child. The child would be the one who is hurt in the long run. Based on some of the comments that I have gotten since adopting (none of which I believe were malicious in intent), I see firsthand that adoption is not for everyone. For those of us who have a heart for adoption, providing loving homes for our children would be a great step forward in healing some of the issues in the AA community. For others mentoring, setting scholarships and the other things that were mentioned can also go along way in helping the community.

I did not meet my dd's birthmother. So I don't know what her lifestyle or standard of living is. I do know that she felt that should could not provide for dd. So in that respect, life for dd will be less of a struggle since I have been blessed with the financial and emotional means to care for her.

[Kelli]

Do you feel like you are giving back to the community by adopting? Is the life you are giving your children drastically different than what they would have had with their birthparents?

I wouldn't be honest here if I didn't first say that we never gave an ounce of consideration to adopting any other child other then an AA child, and part of it does have to do with my belief that it is important to "take care of our own". Not to be confused with a "nobody else can take care of our own" or an "our own are the only ones we should take care of" belief. There was no need for us to go outside of our race or outside of the country when the need in our own backyard is so great. In this sense I am probably "giving back to the community" by keeping one "out of certain communities." Plenty of them to choose from! But I agree with Savannahgirl too. You also have to be able to love the idea of adoption and more importantly be able to love and open your heart up completely to a child that is not of your making. Not everybody has it in them to do. Not to toot our own horns, but I do really think it is a special person that has this capability.

There have been times when my dh and I have watched our daughter happily playing, or being kissed on and loved by our family and friends, and we've been suddenly saddened by thoughts of what her life could have been like. Without going into any details here, I do believe that her life with us, is much different then what it could have been. But I think it's fair to say that her bmom probably knew this as well, which is why she made the loving decision to make sure she had a different life.

Good topic Sleeplvr.

Kelli

[lmrod55]

Very interesting topic! Adoption was always a part of our plans to build a family, just so happened that it is the only way that we will be able to build a family. I never really thought about it as "giving back to the community" but I guess in a way it is. It never crossed our minds to look at any other countries or races, like Kelli said, the need in our own community is too great.

I do believe that our dd's life is drastically different with us than if she were raised by her bparents. They wanted her to have a better life than they could see providing based on circumstances, and thus made the hard decision to place her for adoption.

[LisaCA]

hi sleeplvr,

I am so glad you started this thread. I think this is a great discussion for african americans to have.

I came to adoption early in my life, I think by high school. And once i realized I nearly fainted in the 8th grade watching part of a bw birth video, my fate was sealed . When dh and I got together over 20 years ago, he knew my feelings. when he proposed he had to agree that there would be no children or we'd adopt (reserving the right to change my mind of course). I've always seen it as something we could do for the community and ourselves. We intended to do adoption from foster care, but after researching the subject, we were pretty sure we were not the best for older child adoption (we both travel a lot for our jobs, and i've been away for 2 months at a time, not good for kids with attachment issues.) so we chose to do infant adoption and it was clear that there were not enough african american paparents stepping up to the plate. If bmom wants aa paparents, she should have that option.

In our situation, our dd's bmom is under 18, absolutely brilliant and destined for greatness. I know that she would have been a great parent for dd, and with her parents help, dd would have had a great life. The one who would have had a very different life would have been bmom- things would be harder for her. I feel like we're allowing her to be all that she can be, including going back to being a child for a while.

we never looked outside of our community to adopt and I doubt we would adopt internationally unless a situation fell into our laps. I do have issues with international adoption (at least for me-not to judge others) so i know that's probably not for us (we do, however, give money to groups overseas to better the lives of individuals in the Sudan and Egypt, as well as other countries). I do know that race, while not biologically valid, is socially valid, and that there's stuff that we as AA parents can share with AA children. Having a mom from another race/ethnic group, I know the importance that race has here in the US- it's my duty to step up to the plate.

one thing that always amazed me. we'd meet people and they'd find out that we intended to adopt when we were older, and we' d often get comments like "you guys are the type who SHOULD have kids"-totally creepy, racist and classist. It's this type of comment that drives us to help on a small level. The heartbreak was that in our 4 weeks of waiting for a match, we encountered many children and their bmoms and it broke our hearts.

one thing we've tried to do is discuss this with many black parents that we encounter, sharing our experience and trying to encourage others to investigate adoption.
We hope in a small way we can plant the seed of an idea in a few hearts.

[spaypets]

Sleeplvr--I wasn't offended by the topic nor by the original question. I was just going to read the thread with interest (because I thought that the issues you were raising were quite similar to the feelings we had and I was relating) until _you_ brought up international adoption.