on domestic adoptions

0.
Most people I talk to seem to look on adoptive parenthood
as an unqualified moral good. "Isn't it so noble," they say,
"that some people open their hearts and homes to these
foundlings."

This makes me uncomfortable, because I know it's not true.
Not exactly.

Other people I've run into get rather critical concerning the
kind of adoption I've done -- international adoption. The major
part (although not the only part) of the critique is that children
are often not foundlings because they're not really lost
-- they're more like (deep breath) victims of a post-colonial social-economic
system that unfairly deprives have-not mothers of their basic right
to their own offspring (and children of their home culture and
racial identities) because of a wild imbalance in power
between white, privileged would-be parents (who are often
in total ignorance of their privileged status) and poor, desperate
mothers-of-color in what used to be the Third World.

One of the things that gets brought up by people who
take that tack is that domestic adoptions would be a
better option. Kids don't leave their home culture, and there's
less chance for exploitation if it's all here in the well-
regulated US of A.

This story would be the argument against that simplification.
At least where I come from.

The Domestic Adoption Story

1.
In my home state, Legal Aid has a pilot program
called the "Foster Care Project." There are
several lawyers that have child welfare
backgrounds working there. They used to work for
DCF, the state Department of Children and
Families, but most of DCF’s sub-departments have
now been broken off into private agencies who
work with the state, but aren’t actually part of
the state. Officially, at least.

The Foster Care Project is based around the idea
of placing foster care children into permanent
adoptive homes as quickly as possible. It is a
noble goal. They have a list of parents that want
to adopt and when the kids come into care, they
place the babies with someone on this list.

To keep the process as smooth and fast as
possible, the Foster Care Project lawyers try to
identify which parents are going to have their
rights terminated at the very start of the
process, so that the babies are then not in
foster care too long and, whenever possible, have
already been placed in the home where they will
be adopted.

When my wife first started looking into adoption,
she was told if she wanted to adopt a baby, this
was the best way to go. She needed to get on the
list with this project.

My wife is a social worker who also does volunteer work for
some of these agencies. She's part of the system.

That’s how she learned this story.

2.
So, there’s this one mom – let’s call her Clara,
although that’s not her real name.

Clara has had a troubled past. Three of her
previous kids have been removed and were adopted
out. She’s just had a new baby – let’s call her
Rosie -- and got into a fight with the father.
Law enforcement was called and DCF is notified.

Because of her history, Clara is told she needs
to attend counseling and address the issues in
her file before they will close her DCF case.

She then gets caught stealing from her job at
Walmart.

3.
State officials spring into action curiously
quickly. They take Rosie into custody and place
her in a foster care home.

Now, because of Clara’s track record, Rosie is
put on this (unofficial) fast track for
Termination of Parental Rights. Suddenly, Clara’s
case file expands. Not only does it include the
prior Terminations of Parental Rights cases, but
it is also filled with dozens of past allegations
against Clara. These have never been proven. They
are not necessarily even under investigation. But
they are now in her file, where they were not
before.

And suddenly, Rosie is having visitations with
her biological siblings -- although they are not
really her legal siblings. The adoptive parents
want to adopt Rosie too, so they have started the
visits.

How do the adoptive parents know the new baby has
been placed in foster care?

4.
The judge overseeing Clara’s case is not happy
with the visits. As I write this, they may have
been stopped. However, Clara now has a case plan
that is a mile long. To have her rights restored,
she has to fix things that were allegations from
prior cases that were never even proven.

This implies that they made her case plan almost
impossible to complete in a short time.

Meanwhile Rosie is left to live and bond with
someone else.

And that’s the story.

There are worse ones. This is just the latest one
I’ve heard.

Posted by grant at April 06, 2005 12:51 AM