UnchartedParent.com

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A few months ago, my kids and I were on our way to visit my sister and brother-in-law in Rhode Island when we suddenly ran into a detour at a key fork in the highway.  Just as I tried to glance at my directions for guidance, the driver in front of me slammed on his brakes and came to a complete stop in the middle of the highway.  I swerved to one side to avoid hitting him, swerved again to avoid hitting another car, then found myself on a highway I couldn’t identify.  Within minutes, I had no clue where I was. 

I called my sister’s house. 

“Hey, where are you?”  My brother-in-law sounded cheerful.

I, on the other hand, was not so bubbly.  “I’m on some road I can’t identify in a crappy part of Rhode Island somewhere near Providence.  A few minutes ago I passed a nuclear cooling tower.  My road atlas isn’t in my car.  My Mapquest directions are useless.  Some idiot braked in the middle of the highway and almost hit me.  Tell me how to get to your house from here.”

That night, my sister and brother-in-law announced that they were going to buy me a GPS device for my birthday.

We’d resisted owning a GPS until then, primarily because I don’t like it when people tell me what to do and my husband figured I’d own the thing for a week before I got annoyed with it and ran it over with my car. 

But it hasn’t been that bad.  Sure, she’s (why is the voice a “she,” by the way?) irritating when she interrupts my conversations and all but sighs and shakes her head before loudly blurting “Recalculating” if I ignore her advice, but I can live with that.

What I didn’t plan on, however, was my eight-year-old son’s enthusiasm for the GPS, and what that would mean for me.  “Jack” loves the device, and in his hands it has become a Global Pestering System.

Jack likes to use the GPS to assist us in all of our travels: not just on long trips, but to go to more common destinations like the grocery store, the soccer field, my daughter’s ballet school, etc.  For reasons I can’t explain, he thinks it’s hilarious when the computerized voice orders me to turn right and I, using my own mind and my knowledge of the area in which I live, turn left, thereby frustrating the computer. 

But the most troublesome and unanticipated consequence of the GPS in Jack’s hands is its monitoring function.  I had no idea that the unit would display not only my speed at any given moment, but the legal speed limit at the same time.  Jack is my rule-following son, and this feature of the GPS in his hands spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E for Mommy.

Jack, in the back seat: “Mommy, you’re going too fast.  The speed limit is 55 miles an hour.”  “Oh, wow, we’re going way too fast.  Mommy, slow down.”  “Mommy, Mommy, do you know you’re going 70 miles an hour?”

Me, in the driver’s seat: Do not rip the GPS out of his hands and throw it out the window.  Don’t.  Do.  It.

Jack:  “Mommy, are you sure you’re going the right way?” 

It adds a whole new dimension to driving. 

Jack’s been into maps and geography lately, and I don’t want to discourage those interests by banning him from using the GPS.  But I don’t know how much more of his “helpfulness” I can take when I’m behind the wheel.  All I can do is hope that his fascination with the GPS wears off soon.

As for my sister and brother-in-law: well, their kids are younger than mine.  They’re not yet aware of the full potential of the GPS device.  But as soon as their older child can read, they’ll understand the nature of the Global Pestering System.  And if for some reason it doesn’t happen for them, I’ll send their nephew over to show them.

Today’s entry in Basic Questions and Answers about Adoption looks at an often-feared aspect of the adoption process: the homestudy.

Every prospective adoptive parent must successfully complete a homestudy before he or she can be considered eligible to adopt a child.  The homestudy is an examination by a social worker into the life of the parent and the home to make sure that both are suitable for a child.

There are many components to a homestudy.  The social worker interviews all immediate family members of the adopting family; the adopting parents are often interviewed both together and alone.  If other people reside in the house where the adopted child will be living, those individuals need to be interviewed as well.  The interviews can be enjoyable; my husband and I were fortunate to be assigned an engaging social worker, and our interviews felt like we were hanging out with a friend.

As part of the homestudy, the social worker also needs to look into the adoptive family’s personal, financial, medical and criminal backgrounds.  Each adult member of the family needs to fill out questionnaires and procure numerous documents.  Prior or existing financial or medical issues or even misdemeanors do not necessarily preclude adoption, but it’s important to be up front about any issues from the start and to understand that individual circumstances may alter individual adoption paths.  For example, China places its own restrictions on adoptive parents, including, at the time of this writing, a maximum BMI of 40, a requirement that neither parent have undergone treatment for mental health issues for at least two years, and a minimum net worth of $80,000.*

Finally, as implied in the name, the social worker will visit the family’s home.  This is the part of the homestudy that most often freaks people out.  I’ll admit that despite being fairly relaxed about the homestudy in general, even I got a little nervous about the home visit when, the night before our social worker was due to arrive at our house, our kitchen ceiling light fixture suddenly crashed to the floor.  We managed to clean everything up, but I kept imagining our social worker’s eyes glancing into our kitchen and honing in on an eighteen-month-old child playing beneath a ceiling that menaced him with dangling wires that crackled with live electricity. 

Of course, our home visit went fine.  Most of the time, they do.  Social workers don’t arrive at people’s houses sporting white gloves which they then run along wainscoting rims behind sofas or on hardwood floors below beds.  They don’t expect perfection, and that’s not what they’re looking for.  They just want to know that a child will be safe and loved.

The homestudy process is designed to weed out homes that would be unfit for children.  The process is not perfect, of course, and sometimes inappropriate families do slip through the system and are approved for adoption when they shouldn’t be.  But for now, this is the system we have. 

I feel I would be remiss if I failed to mention something that commenters on this blog and in many other places have noted: the fact that much effort and diligence goes into approving parents for adoptive parenting while there is no pre-approval process of any kind when someone chooses to become a parent  via biology.  While I acknowledge the irony of that contrast, I also note that a thorough discussion of it would invoke science, theology, law, philosophy and governance, and thus extend far beyond the scope of this post.  I’ll add to that only that while obviously every single child deserves a loving family and home, children placed for adoption by definition have already suffered one loss and thus require a family who can address the needs that come with that loss.  This, at a minimum, is what an adoption homestudy is supposed to ensure.

*Spence-Chapin, http://www.spence-chapin.org/adoption-programs/countries/b3_china.php, October 7, 2010.

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Did you feel the earth move?

About a week-and-a-half ago, we experienced a bookish event so huge that icicles formed deep below the earth’s crust.  Previously land-bound farm animals took flight.  The ground literally shook.  (Okay, I might be exaggerating.  Only that last sentence is true.  And that’s because we had an earthquake in New Hampshire two Saturdays ago, a 3.1—which I didn’t even feel if I’m being totally honest.  But still, an earthquake in New Hampshire is pretty weird, right?) 

So what happened?  Eight-year-old “Jack” asked me to help him find books to read.  “Books” as in fiction.  More precisely, he sought classic adventure stories.  Made out of chapters.  Composed of words.

I couldn’t have been more excited if he’d actually come home from school and told me about his day. 

My regular readers know that I have looooooong been trying to interest Jack, a highly skilled reader, in actually using his reading abilities to read books.  I’ve been on a mission, but he hasn’t been interested until now.  His third-grade teacher, however, assigned him several abridged adventure classics as part of the school’s differentiated reading program, thus forcing Jack into an acquaintance with the likes of Jules Verne and Jack London.  And Jack discovered that Verne, London and other writers like them actually had something worthwhile to offer.

I don’t know if Jack was actually surprised when he found himself sucked into books he’d worked hard to avoid for the past couple of years, but I do know that I nearly fell out of my chair when he approached me and asked me to help find him more novels.  I instantly cleared all other tasks from my mind and computer, dropped out of conversation with my husband and began to explore titles and book websites online with Jack.  Ultimately, he opted to read a couple of books we already had in the house—books I’d been encouraging him to read for well over a year without success.  He finished The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle and is halfway through The Phantom Tollbooth—no abridged versions here, by the way—and that doesn’t take into account the novels he’s reading at school.  Our local library is having a two-dollars-per-bag book sale this month; hmm, I think I’d better head over there soon.

Two months ago, Jack would have preferred scrubbing fingerprints off the mudroom wall to reading novels, but suddenly, he’s a reader.  I don’t want to kill this new enthusiasm with embarrassing mom-behavior, so I’m restraining my fist pumps, screams of joy, etc. when Jack’s around.  But on my blog, it’s a different story.  Whoo-hoo!  It’s wonderful to watch my child discover a joy I’ve long known. 

Welcome, Jack, to an incredible world.  Wherever else you go, I hope you always spend some time here, and I hope that this new acquaintance between you and books is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

With costs that range from minimal to $30,000 or more, plenty of people want to know why it costs so much money to adopt a child.  Let’s address that question in today’s Basic Questions and Answers about Adoption.

First, the cost of adoption through the foster-care system is minimal.  (See “What Are the 3 Basic Types of Adoption Available to Prospective Parents in the U.S.?” for definitions of the basic types of adoption.)  Government programs often offer subsidies or reimburse any expenses adoptive parents do incur.  Programs vary by state.

The expensive adoptions to which people refer are non-foster domestic or international adoptions.  These adoptions can cost from $15,000 to $50,000, and adoptive parents sometimes find themselves taking out second mortgages on their homes, holding fundraising drives, working second jobs or doing whatever they can to fund their dreams of adopting.  Why does this have to be so expensive?

Think about what’s involved in completing an adoption.  There are dozens of steps to ensure the safety of the child and the legitimacy of the adoption, and every single one of those steps must be paid for.

A social worker spends dozens of hours getting to know each family intimately, interviewing its members, explaining and assisting with the process, assembling and filing dizzying amounts of paperwork, visiting the house and writing up the homestudy.  Documents must be procured: certificates of birth, marriage, divorce, etc.  Multiple background checks must be performed on each family member and by multiple jurisdictions (general criminal, child abuse and neglect).  Fingerprints must be checked.  If adopting internationally, sometimes your entire file (called a dossier) must be authenticated and translated.  Visas and passports must be applied for and secured.

There’s more.  In a domestic private adoption, legal fees must be paid and the birthmother’s pre- and postnatal medical fees are often the responsibility of the adoptive parents; of course, the adoptive parents must pay for the baby’s medical care, too.  In international adoption, substantial fees paid by adoptive parents support foster and orphanage care both for children before they are turned over to adoptive parents and for those children who never find adoptive homes. 

Both domestic and international adoption can involve substantial travel costs, including plane tickets, hotels, food, customary gifts, etc. 

And: once the family is physically together, it’s not quite over.  There are post-placement visits by the state in accordance with state laws and sometimes in accordance with the placing country’s requirements to make sure that the child is safe and well cared for.  There are birth certificates to procure, procedures in court to make sure that the adoption is finalized and more papers to file, sometimes in two countries.  If the adoption is international, sometimes the adoptive parents need to file multiple papers either to preserve dual citizenship or to ensure that their child is removed from the citizenship register of the birth country (for example, to ensure that their male child can never be called for mandatory military service in that country) and registered unquestionably, in every way possible, as a U.S. citizen here.  (Because even after your child has legally become a U.S. citizen, some agencies will still question that status.  Trust me.)

Every one of the steps above involves at least one person whose salary needs to be paid—usually more than one.  Agencies operate out of buildings that pay rent and utilities.  They have their own operating expenses, their own costs of doing business.  Thus, adoptive parents pay a lot of fees.  And it all adds up.

Many prospective parents come to their first information meeting about adoption only to be shocked and discouraged when they learn how much adoption will cost.  If foster adoption isn’t right for them, they may look at the domestic and international options and despair at the fees, wondering not only how they can manage these costs, but why in the world so much money should have to change hands when a human life is at stake.

That’s actually the point.  It’s because a child’s life is at stake that so many people are involved in the adoption of a child into a new family.  The system is supposed to ensure that every child that passes through it is legitimately available for adoption and ends up with a good family.  Does it always work?  Unfortunately, no.  But most of the time, it does.  Could the system be streamlined to reduce some of the costs?  Probably.  I don’t pretend to have the magic formula as to how to do that.  There’s no question that the system doesn’t always function as it should.  But it’s the system we’ve got for now, and these are the reasons it costs so much to adopt a child.

It’s Banned Books Week again.  This year, from September 25 – October 2, we call attention to the fact that there are people in the U.S. who are so afraid of ideas that they believe certain books ought to be banned.  Here at Uncharted Parent, I couldn’t disagree more.  So I’m observing the week by making a point of reading at least one of the books on the “banned” lists.  (Hey, book-banners were responsible for introducing me to Harry Potter.  Why else would I have picked up a young adult novel about a boy wizard?  So I guess I owe the banners some gratitude.)

This year, my pick for Banned Books Week deals with a difficult topic.  Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a young adult novel about what happens to a thirteen-year-old girl after she is raped at a party and she is afraid to tell anyone what happened.  The protagonist’s story, told in the first person, rings true for anyone who has ever stood in the outcast’s shoes in high school, who has ever been a depressed adolescent and who has ever gone through those years and not known how to reach out to anyone as she watched her life slip away as though she were a mere observer.  In the end, it’s a story of hope and empowerment that lets teens know that they’re not alone.

So why has it been banned?

You can read Anderson’s discussion of this controversy on her blog , but by way of example, a professor in Republic, Missouri, recently called the book “soft pornography” because, amongst other things, it contains two rape scenes. 

The professor is missing the point.

Pornography is meant to arouse, Professor.  Rape is not sex.  Rape is violence.  Learning the difference between the two is precisely why books like Speak are important.

Here’s my point: not only am I glad I read this book, but I want my kids to read it.  No, not now.  I’m not crazy.  I do have my limits; at eight and five, my kids are obviously not old enough to read this book.  But when adolescence hits, when the hormones kick in and the sexual urges they don’t understand combine with mixed messages they receive from TV and movies and the internet and the possibility begins to arise that something awful, God forbid, could happen to them, that’s when I want my kids to read this book.  Knowledge is power, and I want my children to be able to defend themselves.  I want them to know what’s okay and what’s not.  I want them to know it’s okay to ask questions, to say no, and to speak.

I don’t just want my daughter to read Speak.  I want my son to read it, too.  I think the education of boys in these matters gets ignored sometimes.  In the most recent edition of Halse’s novel, she includes a Q & A at the back, and I was struck in particular by her response to the question, “Have any readers ever asked questions that shocked you?”

            I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men.  These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused.  They ask me why Melinda was so upset about being raped.

            …  I realized that many young men are not being taught the impact that sexual assault has on women.  They are inundated by sexual imagery in the media, and often come to the (incorrect) conclusion that having sex is not a big deal.  This, no doubt, is why the numbers of sexual assault is so high.

We are doing our sons—and our daughters—a huge disservice by not discussing these issues with boys.  We leave our boys to figure these issues out for themselves, but really, they’re not doing it alone.  They’re learning from media and from each other.  I want my son to learn that sex can be a wonderful, beautiful thing in the right context but that no always means no.  I want him to learn a lot more than that and, frankly, I’m not at all confident his friends are going to teach him.  Boys need more responsible input, and we adults are the ones who need to guide them to it.  Of course it’s an icky job.  Of course it’s difficult.  But no one ever said parenting was easy.  You know that already. 

I’ve said this before, and I’ll repeat it here: the world is coming into our kids’ view, whether we want it to or not.  We can influence our children’s introduction to that world or not; it’s up to us.  Personally, I try to guide my kids into some of the world’s nastier elements so that they don’t feel they’ve just been thrown to the wolves.  I want them to know that they are not alone. 

When the time comes, not many years from now, I’m going to suggest to my kids that they read Speak.  I think it’s an important book.  I’d like to thank the book-banners for bringing it to my attention.

So, what about you?  What have you read that’s on one of the banned books lists?  Is there anything on one of those lists that you’d like to read?  Have you got any thoughts about Speak?

Welcome back to Basic Questions and Answers about Adoption.

Today’s question is often asked both by prospective adoptive parents and members of the public in general.  There are kids who need homes and parents who want to adopt them.  Why can’t we bring members of these groups together without dragging the process on for months or years?

Good question.  Here’s why:

On the prospective-parent side of things, the answer boils down to the need to determine that the parents will be suitable parents before children are placed in their homes.  Prospective parents are subjected to extensive background checks, social workers interview them and anyone who lives with them, their finances and medical histories are investigated, etc.  Agencies, birthparents and any involved governmental bodies all want to ensure that no child is ever placed in a home that in any way will be unacceptable for a child.  Of course, it would be great if all of these investigations could take place in a rapid and efficient matter.  Occasionally, I’m sure, they do.  But there are so many places for things to get stuck.  Officials have backlogs, agencies are underfunded, people have overused fingers.  (That last one happened to me.  Seriously.  Read about it here.)

With respect to the child-side of the equation, reasons vary depending on whether we’re talking about domestic or international adoption.  Domestic adoption can happen very quickly if prospective parents are willing to adopt an older child with special needs, or it can sometimes take years if parents want a healthy, Caucasian infant because far fewer such children are available for adoption in the U.S.  Also, in the U.S., the statutory requirements granting birthmothers the right to change their minds about placing their children for adoption for specified amounts of time (time periods vary from state to state) mean that a minority of adoptions do fall through and the adopting couple must begin the process again.  So yes, sometimes domestic adoptions can take a long time.

In international adoption, adoptive parents must fulfill the requirements of two national governments and one state government within the U.S.  That’s a lot of paperwork right there.  Several factors go into these requirements.  First, both the U.S. government and foreign governments (if they’re doing things right) require extensive documentation to ensure that children placed for adoption are truly orphans and/or do not have parents or other family members who can or want to care for them, and they are not the victims of child trafficking.  Second, contrary to popular belief, many foreign governments are not eager to “offload” their children onto families in adopting countries.  Some governments and citizens of countries that “adopt out” children feel ambivalence or even shame over what they perceive as their inability to care for their own children.  Consequently, they go to great lengths to make sure that there is no alternative for an individual child other than international adoption before they will grant that child’s approval.  Third, sometimes foreign governments’ procedures or wait times can change in the middle of the process, thereby lengthening adoptive parents’ waiting periods in the U.S.

So those are the complicated, rational reasons adoption takes so long.  But there’s one more reason the adoption process can drag on: red tape.  In adoption, as in so many areas where multiple governmental entities are involved, bureaucracy happens.

(Photo credit: BenedictFrancis via Flickr.com)

I’m not sure what five-year-old “Emmie” thought kindergarten would be, but I do know that it’s not quite living up to her expectations.

Throughout the summer, Emmie literally jumped up and down whenever anyone mentioned her new status as a kindergartener.  (For the uninitiated, preschoolers are officially granted kindergartner status the instant their preschool closes on its last day of the school year.  Never, ever address a newly minted kindergartener as a preschooler at 5:31 p.m. on preschool-closing day.  The offended child will publicly call you out in the most indignant tone he or she can muster.)  Emmie was proud to be “one of the big kids,” excited to learn “lots of new things, like letter sounds so I can read,” and thrilled to be one step closer to riding the school bus with her big brother (she’ll do this next year when she’s in first grade), but still grouped with friends she’s known since she was three years old for one more year.  Kindergarten was a dream about to come true for Emmie.

But now, the reality of kindergarten has hit Emmie a bit hard.

Emmie’s experiencing a bit of an adjustment problem with kindergarten, one that I didn’t foresee.  In kindergarten, as it turns out, you don’t get to do what you want all the time.  There are some choices, but the teacher calls more of the shots and the kids have to follow along. 

This change from preschool is not something Emmie was counting on at all.  And she isn’t happy about it.

“I want to learn about animals and space.  And we’re not learning about animals and space.  We’re learning about other things.”

“I wanted to play at the Lego table today.  I didn’t get a chance all day to play at the Lego table.  It’s not fair.”

And so on.

Oh, Emmie, I know. 

I’ve had to really reach back inside myself for this one, to think back to what it must have felt like that very first time I had the conscious thought that the choices I needed to follow in life would not always be my own.  I’ve been trying to teach Emmie for years that she’s got to do what she’s told—especially when I’m doing the telling—but it seems the lesson has just now hit home—ironically, in school.  What a tough reality to learn.

I think it’s an important one.  This is a life lesson, and it’s part of why we send our kids to school, so that they can learn these lessons along with reading, math, animals and space.  So I empathized with Emmie, and when she lamented that she’s not getting to do what she wants to do at school, I told her that I know how hard it is when you want to do one thing but you have to do something else.  Then I tried to explain to her that the teacher has a plan for how she’s going to teach Emmie and the other kids all of those wonderful things like letter sounds and reading that Emmie was so excited to learn about at the beginning of the year.

But I also tried to give Emmie some tools to influence her world, too.  “I bet if you talk to your teacher, she’ll listen to you,” I told her.  “Tell her that you really want to learn about animals and space.  She might not teach you about those things right now, but maybe you can talk about them in the classroom a little bit later in the year.  What do you think of that?”

Emmie’s lower lip protruded further from her face and her arms crossed tighter in front of her chest.  (Once Emmie begins to pout, it’s very difficult to convince her to un-pout.) 

“Well, think about it,” I said.  “I’m sure your teacher would be willing to talk to you about the things you want to learn about.”

Empathy.  Explanation.  A touch of empowerment.  When those life lessons hit, it’s the best we parents can do.  At least when kindergarten hasn’t been quite what Emmie expected it to be, it’s the best I’ve come up with.

Thoughts?  How have you handled your child’s disappointments or unexpected adjustments?

Welcome to the first installment of my new mini-series, Basic Questions and Answers about Adoption.  (See my previous post for the basic introduction.)

Starting today, I’ll answer an adoption-related question per week for the next few weeks in a way that I hope will enhance understanding about adoption and how it works here in the U.S.  If you have a question you’d like to send in, e-mail me at unchartedparent[at]unchartedparent[dot]com and if it fits with the series, I’ll do my best to answer it.

Today’s question: What Are the 3 Basic Types of Adoption Available to Prospective Parents in the U.S.? 

Many people don’t realize this, but prospective adoptive parents (let’s just use the term “adoptive parents” to keep it simple) have 3 basic options available to them: domestic, international and foster.  Adoptive parents must learn about each of these adoption systems and evaluate honestly which will work best for them.  The 3 systems differ in fundamental ways.

• Domestic Adoption – In domestic adoption, a U.S. couple adopts a child from a birthmother located in the United States.  This can be arranged through an agency or done privately; in the latter case, both the birthmother and the adoptive parents often hire attorneys to represent their interests. In agency adoption, the agency will provide the birthmother with profiles of likely prospective parents for the birthmother to examine prior to birth; the birthmother usually chooses to meet with one or more prospective parents to find a match.  Laws governing domestic adoption vary from state to state, and there is a statutory period during which the birthmother has the right to change her mind about the adoption.  Wait times for adoptive parents vary, medical information is generally available, and “open adoptions” with ongoing contact between the birthmother and the adoptive family to the extent it is beneficial for the child is encouraged.  Fees vary, but are generally somewhat lower than those for international adoption. 

 Domestic adoption is a good choice for adoptive parents who feel strongly about adopting within the U.S., who want a close relationship with their child’s birthmother or are at least willing to maintain an open relationship, who feel strongly about wanting a newborn, who want accurate medical and other information about their child’s past, and/or who are comfortable with uncertainty regarding wait times and the possibility of the birthmother changing her mind during the statutory period.

• International Adoption – In international adoption, a U.S. couple arranges through an agency in the U.S. to adopt a child from another country.*  Ages of available children, availability of medical information, wait times, requirements for adoptive parents and stability of programs vary widely from country to country.  Fees are generally somewhat higher than those for domestic adoption.  “Open adoptions,” where there is ongoing contact between birth and adoptive families, were once not really possible in international adoption but they are becoming more common in some countries.  Children available for adoption are often toddlers or older and many have lived in conditions where they received insufficient individual attention, so the possibility of attachment and other disorders must be considered. 

 International Adoption is a good choice for parents who are willing to incorporate another culture and/or race into their lives and their homes, who are willing to pay the high fees required in international adoption, who are comfortable with the possibility of not having accurate medical information or other knowledge about their child’s early history, who are comfortable not having contact with their child’s birthmother, who educate themselves about and are prepared for the possibility of attachment disorders and/or developmental delays and who are willing to adopt a child older than a newborn.

• Foster Adoption – Foster adoption involves parenting one or more children who have been removed from the home of their biological parent or parents for reasons of abuse or neglect.  Parents are “foster parents” until the biological parents’ rights are terminated, at which point the parents can legally adopt the child or children.  Foster adoptions are arranged through state welfare or social service agencies, and wait times for placement of children in the home can vary widely depending on how many and what restrictions parents specify such as age, gender, health, etc.  Foster parenting requires special training and many foster/adoptive children have come from difficult situations and thus have special needs.  Children of all ages are available.  Fees are minimal, and subsidies for care may even be available. 

 Foster adoption is a good choice for parents who are willing to devote themselves to the extra care and attention required for children who may come to their homes with special needs due to abuse or neglect, and for parents who are willing to wait for uncertain and possibly long periods of time for placement to meet their specifications.

Those are the basics.  Want more information?  Try The Adoption Guide from AdoptiveFamilies.com, Adoption.com, or, if you’re thinking about adopting, adoption agencies like the one we used to complete our family, Wide Horizons for Children.

_______________________________________________________________

*Note: Some private international adoptions do occur.  While I can imagine a few exceptions to agency adoptions that might make sense—known, orphaned relatives, for example—in general, I personally would never recommend to anyone that he or she pursue a non-agency international adoption.  There are just too many unsavory people out there trafficking in children, and the best way to guard against this is to do your research and find an experienced, reputable adoption agency to assist you.

This week, I’m introducing a new mini-series to the blog.  Once per week for the next few weeks, I’m going to answer a basic question about adoption. 

In the course of countless conversations I’ve had about adoption over the past ten years, many of the same questions have cropped up over and over again.  At the beginning, I was the one asking them.  Now I find myself giving the answers, both to people who are interested in becoming adoptive parents and to people who want to understand more about the adoptive families they meet in their lives.

What this series will be: Basic, non-legal answers to common questions.  For example, I’ll begin this Thursday by outlining the three fundamental types of adoption available to prospective adoptive parents in the United States.  Why?  To serve as a primer for prospective parents?  Well, that’s certainly one possibility, but I also want to introduce this information to the non-adoptive community as well.  I’ve learned over the years that most people who make negative assumptions about why parents choose to adopt internationally have no idea that there are different types of adoption in this country and that those types of adoption differ in fundamental ways.  In almost every case, once I’ve presented this information, the individual concerned has reconsidered his or her initial assumptions.

What this series won’t be: A comprehensive, A-Z guide to adopting a child.  Those resources already exist, and anyway, that’s not really what this series is about.  I’ll try to provide a few links where appropriate to help prospective adoptive parents and any other readers looking for more information.  But my primary goal here will be to give the wider community—that’s pretty much anyone who’s interested—the tools needed to understand the role that adoption plays in all of our lives.

Got a question?  If you have a question about adoption, here’s your chance to ask!  Please e-mail your question to me at unchartedparent[at]unchartedparent[dot]com, and if it fits in with the series, I’ll try to answer it. 

First up: this Thursday – What are the 3 basic types of adoption available to prospective parents in the U.S.?

Please click here to read my column in today’s Concord Monitor marking the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  And wherever you are today, whatever you are doing, please take a few moments out of your day to remember.