[Fran27]

I really don't want to start a debate, but was wondering if any adoptive parents had a longer wait because of their religion (or lack of)? Neither dh nor me do attend services, nor do we have a specific religion, and I'm worried we are in for a long wait because of it.

Any comment would be appreciated, just no religion debate please

[ahimsa]

I'm sure that depends a lot on who you are adopting through. We are atheists and adopted through foster care. Although we know that they can't discriminate based on religion, I have seen many opinion poles and know that many people have an illogical fear of atheists. We agreed that if asked, we would use the word, nonreligious. If pushed, we were going to say that we were both raised in christian homes and churches (which is true) but that we no longer attend church. This is not lying, though it is sugarcoating things a bit. Luckily we were never asked. The only religious question that came up was whether or not we'd honor our child's religion, if they came to us with one and see that they got to continue it. We agreed, though we also knew we'd be adopting kiddos too young to deal with it anyway.

Good Luck!

[Bug-n-Bears-Mommy]

We are not affiliated with any religion and it did not seem to hold anything up.

[Free_to_be_me]

When I was looking at prospective adoptive parent profiles, I actually steered away from ones that looked too religious. I liked the ones that said "raised Lutheran" or something like that. I wanted someone with views similar to mine and I am not religious at all.

[mom2justynsarah]

My daughter's birthmom did not care about religion. All she wanted was a family who would raise her child with a sense of god and spirituality.

We are Jewish, and converted our daughter to Judaism when she was six months old. We then put her in a private preschool held at our local temple.

She will be two in December. She absolutely loves going there & knows more about traditions than we do! lol.

[NJNative]

I worried about the religion thing, too, when we were going through our home study, since I am also an atheist and my husband is best described as non-religious. To my surprise, it really didn't come up, except in our initial application. And in that case, I put down that I was raised Catholic, but no longer practiced.

I think where you might run into some resistance is if you happen to run into a social worker or other agency person who is strongly religious. But maybe not.

I don't think it should cause any real problems, unless it is a religious-based agency. We adopted our son privately, but I had begun to explore agencies and just avoided the religious ones.

[HappyTwinsMom]

I would agree that how much it affects your wait would depend on who you're working with. Our agency, in particular, identifies themselves as Christian - therefore, non-religious individuals probably wouldn't choose to work with them.

[PaperPregnant]

We have not had a problem so far. I imagine there may be birth mothers who want a specific religion, but we have not been told that our lack of church affiliation is holding us back from having our profiles presented.

[blessedbybug]

Originally Posted by Fran27

I really don't want to start a debate, but was wondering if any adoptive parents had a longer wait because of their religion (or lack of)? Neither dh nor me do attend services, nor do we have a specific religion, and I'm worried we are in for a long wait because of it.

Any comment would be appreciated, just no religion debate please

Our agency actually outlined the fact that most expecting parents (at least in our area) either don't care about the religious affiliation or don't want any religious affiliation for their child. Hubby and I are both ordained clergy so they thought we might wait longer because of it. It didn't turn out to be true which to me, just means, you be who you are and speak clearly about that, then you will be matched with the one that fits with your family.

Ironically, both of our children come from first families with NO religious affiliation. In fact, their native heritage (and beliefs of their first mothers, esp Roo's first mom) does not embrace our faith. What they did see attractive was the idea that their child would be raised in an "extended" community, be it church or family.

So be who you are...

[thornbird]

I was worried about the same thing while we were mulling the whole thing over - my husband is not religious & I am Unitarian Universalist; neither of us has a particularly mainstream conception of God & religion.

I talked to a friend of mine about it & she reminded me that although she & her husband are irreligious, she was matched within a month of completing her homestudy.

[kelceesmom]

I believe that you should be true to your beliefs what ever they are. We are catholic and that is one reason we were chosen by our bparents. But, I surely don't believe that that should completely make a decision for an agency as to whether they let you go with them or not. But, you should do your homework and if that agency is based a lot on religous beliefs maybe is isn't the right choice for you.