Foster to Adopt or Domestic Minority Infant?

We have been Fostering and Fostering to Adopt since March of 2000. Any where you go with the age range you are seeking. The Advocacy is reunification with the Birth Family. Another option that I would recommend. As well as it is way cheaper if you know someone who would Volunteer, but I would look into Surrogacy??

We could have our own if DH got his vasectomy reversed which is actually covered by our insurance...but we feel called to adopt. Just not sure how specifically we're being called.

We're a yr in and just added our 2 NB sibling in Feb. We are in LA, so fostering or adopting is very possible. I would inquire on the Adoptive Parents board on what's the climate in DA. Before we became FP, we inquired but decided to do IVF and when unsuccessfully, became FP.GL:)

We're a yr in and just added our 2 NB sibling in Feb. We are in LA, so fostering or adopting is very possible. I would inquire on the Adoptive Parents board on what's the climate in DA. Before we became FP, we inquired but decided to do IVF and when unsuccessfully, became FP. GL:)

There is certainly no reason not to foster in hopes of adopting but it sounds like you live in area where foster adoption is difficult. If you are reasonably close to a big city, you may get placements from there or you may get placements from other counties in the area. So it might not be that your county is the only option for placements. Another thing to consider is that I do not think you are necessarily going to avoid all problems by doing a domestic "minority" adoption. In many places in the US there are plenty of people waiting to adopt minority babies who have no drug or alcohol exposure and no family history of mental health issues. So I would not assume that you would be matched quicker with domestic infant adoption. It seems like you are willing to try fostering. Try it. Call it fostering and approach it that way with your kids. We found fostering to be very good for our permanent kids to give them an understanding of their blessings in life and to teach them to think outside themselves. You can always add Domestic Infant adoption to the mix later and certainly could pursue both at the same time.

There is certainly no reason not to foster in hopes of adopting but it sounds like you live in area where foster adoption is difficult. If you are reasonably close to a big city, you may get placements from there or you may get placements from other counties in the area. So it might not be that your county is the only option for placements. Another thing to consider is that I do not think you are necessarily going to avoid all problems by doing a domestic "minority" adoption. In many places in the US there are plenty of people waiting to adopt minority babies who have no drug or alcohol exposure and no family history of mental health issues. So I would not assume that you would be matched quicker with domestic infant adoption. It seems like you are willing to try fostering. Try it. Call it fostering and approach it that way with your kids. We found fostering to be very good for our permanent kids to give them an understanding of their blessings in life and to teach them to think outside themselves. You can always add Domestic Infant adoption to the mix later and certainly could pursue both at the same time.

Is the reason you are considering adopting transracially because you believe the match would be quicker than adopting a caucasian child privately? This may or may not be the case - as others have said, there are plenty of people waiting to adopt any healthy infant, so the wait can be quite extensive regardless. If you live in rural MN, I'm guessing you don't live in a highly racially diverse area? I would suggest you do a lot of reading and other research on transracial adoption before going down this road. Many people feel that, if they will love a child the same regardless, everything will be fine, but that is just not the case. Especially in less diverse areas, you need to work hard to make sure a transracially adopted child's needs are met. You may want to look at the transracial board in the adoptive parents section of the forums, since there are a lot of folks there who have good advice.

I have to say that I do not agree with PACT's philosophy. I do not have a high opinion on anecdotes, such as cited in the PACT literature. I need to know what social work research says about transracial adoption. I have adopted transracially three times, and my children are all from three different ethnicities. They are all well adjusted ,and the topic of race has not posed an issue. What was central in my three adoptions were the medical issues two of my kids have, and the process of healing from abuse/neglect one of them endured while languishing in a Chinese orphanage. I read Beth Hall's book "Inside transracial adoption" - with represents much of PACT's philosophy - and overall, I found the book biased, overgeneralized and stuck in the past. The fact that some now-adult adoptees speak of feelings of inadequacy does not mean that the majority of transracially adopted persons feel this way (in research it's called a "sampling bias", i.e. drawing conclusions from a non-representative sample). I noticed that the book was based on assumptions that are not necessarily true (e.g. transracial adoptees live in a predominantly white environment, are bothered their "racial difference", the parents are white, the parents are essentially clueless about other cultures etc.). What disturbed me most though was the fact that the book completely ignored social work research on transracial adoption that consistently finds that that transracial adoptees fair as well as inracial adoptees. Further, the book cannot possibly predict how a specific transracial adoption will unfold, there are simply too many variables. As a social worker (I studied social work after adopting my kids), I found it concerning that no attempt was made to revert to evidence based social work research. The book relied entirely on anecdotes which is good and nice but doing that is not scientifically sound. The book appeared fixated on the premise that it's all about race and that white adoptive parents do not understand the feelings of their adopted children. I disagree respectfully. An undue fixation on the race and ethnicity aspects distorts the reality on the big issues in adoption which are emotional and behavioral problems related to age at adoption, genetic risk factors and a history of abuse and neglect. Especially when adopting internationally or from foster care, we need to be well prepared for the challenges down the road, and have a realistic outlook where those challenges will come from. From my own experience, instead of PACT I recommend first focusing on resources on attachment and parenting, like e.g. Karyn Purvis' book "The Connected Child" and her DVDs on parenting adopted children. Just me ...

"Quickly dismiss"? Interesting. It took me years of reading numerous studies incl. meta-analyses on transracial adoption outcomes, analyzing a dataset of thousands of adoptees from the foster care system, speaking with transracial adoptees, and reading books like "inside transracial adoptions", "in their own voices" besides adopting transracially myself multiple times. Maybe I am just slow. :arrow: I do not discount the voices of thousands the dissatisfied transracial adoptees (who are more likely to be the ones who write blogs/make movies/produce solo shows etc), nor do I ignore the voices of the thousands of well adjusted transracial adoptees (who usually are silent). The blogs, movies, solo shows, Youtube videos and anecdotal evidence in books is good and nice as qualitative evidence, but unfortunately, it suffers from a sampling bias due to the sample not being collected in a systematic way. If we really want to explore transracial adoptions, it has to be done by collecting both quantitative and qualitative data from a carefully selected sample of adoptees before drawing the conclusions. As I stated above, this has been done many times in the past, and the results were that transracial adoptees fared as well as inracial adoptees. But alas, one cannot write a book/blog/ make a movie or solo shows with such kind of results :) Lastly, even the most rigorous studies don't have predictive power about the future. The results will at best reflect how transracial adoptees felt at a given point in time. There is no way to predict how our children will feel in the future, there are too many unknowns and too many variables. :flower:

Have you ever taken the time to think about what defines someone as well-adjusted? I did that recently and I think everyone should as well. You can be well adjusted, and still have views that are counter to what adoptive parents want to believe. I can't tell you just how dismissive it is to have that stated about adoptees who do speak up. Could it be that they actually want a better outcome for the next generation? Studies on outcomes are not the same as studies on feelings, what challenges you faced, what help was available, what worked, what didn't. On any societal issue there are those who speak up and those who don't - it has no bearing on whether they as human beings are well-adjusted or not. If people don't speak up then nothing changes. Kind regards, Dickons

Yes. I have taken time to do that, too. :) It is dismissive to ignore adoption outcome studies and continue to promote a biased picture of transracial adoption. It is not about what "adoptive parents want to believe", it is about presenting a balanced picture. Historically, there has been quite some opposition to transracial adoptions (it was even labeled as "cultural genocide"), and it took the Multi Ethnic Placement Act of 1994 ("MEPA") - which was research based and whose goal was to promote the best interest of the children - to put things into proportions. I agree. Outcome studies tell you by and large what the hypothetical "average" transracial adoptee feels. The adoptees who speak up do not represent this "average" adoptee. But then, I ask myself, why would what worked for the "non-average" adoptees be widely applicable to the "average" adoptee?? We live in an ever-evolving time, children and parents have their unique personalities, families live in a variety of environments, so there are many variables. Even the construct "transracial adoption" itself encompasses many family constellations - not only the classical white-parents-black kids family. What about minority parents who adopt other minority kids? What about minority parents who adopt non-minority kids? Do all those families face the same challenges? For example, I belong to a minority culture, my adopted children are each of a different minority, we live in a predominantly Asian neighborhood - so what worked for those adoptees who chose to speak up on behalf of transracial adoptions in general will work for families like my own?? Doesn't make tons of sense, does it. :arrow: I agree. If I won't speak up and express healthy criticism on e.g. books like "Inside Transracial Adoption", nothing will change.

Just want to throw it out there-Infants adopted privately does not mean no attachment/behavioral issues. I was adopted as an infant and had severe abandonment issues and had lots of attachment problems.The foster parent trainer at my agency has adopted 9 children, 8 from foster care and 1 privately and her privately adopted son whom she brought home from the hospital has the most severe psychological, behavioral, and attachment-related problems.

Just want to throw it out there- Infants adopted privately does not mean no attachment/behavioral issues. I was adopted as an infant and had severe abandonment issues and had lots of attachment problems. The foster parent trainer at my agency has adopted 9 children, 8 from foster care and 1 privately and her privately adopted son whom she brought home from the hospital has the most severe psychological, behavioral, and attachment-related problems.