A little lost? I literally don't know how to word this

I was thinking the same thing, with the classes, post support and contacts.

That's a fantastic point for sure, I'm not sure I would have made that distinction about services

Lashes - We are actually just starting the adoption process and we chose an agency that has discounted fees for AA and multi racial children. I can definitely see how some people think it's unethical. However, when you are shown stats of years when the program was not in place and after it was implimented and you can see for yourself the change that has happened. When you can see that implementing this program has allowed the "harder" to place children to be placed it's kind of hard to refut it. Also, one of the things that my agency has told me, which now having been in the "infertility world" for 4 years have learned to be true, a lot of caucasian people do not want to adopt AA or Multi Racial children. Which I don't think there is anything wrong with it, I think most people would prefer to adopt a child that "looks like" them. There are plently of AA or Families of color that would love to adopt, but just cannot afford the standard fees. These subsidized programs are wonderful as they allow these families who may be a little more financially strapped still obtain their dream of becoming parents as well as helping these children find loving and caring homes. We personally wouldn't be able to adopt for MANY MANY MANY more years if we did not have the option to enter the subsidized program. So we are truly thankful for that. I say to each their own and if YOU feel comfortable entering the program because it's a good fit for your family, then go for it. Melissa

In that case, why not base the fees on the parents' income, instead of the child's race? There are a few agencies and facilitators who do this. Furthermore, there are plenty of white families who want to adopt white children who can't afford the $30K+ price tag. When you have a system that says, to adopt a White child will cost you $40K, to adopt a Biracial child will cost you $30K, and to adopt a Black child will cost you $20K, you are literally saying that a Black child is worth less than White child. There's no room for interpretation there. Some people are comfortable with that. It's supply and demand - there are more Black babies and children available than White ones. Scarcity makes costs rise. It's simple economics. It may be depressing, but it's true. Some people, such as myself, are not comfortable with that. We'd rather see adoption costs be regulated in some other way that has nothing to do with race or color. :hippie:

I've posted about this before, and our agency does not operate separate programs, but it is fairly likely that social factors (e.g. when expectant parents present to an agency) are one of the reasons why costs differ between races.This would mean that if your agency had a single program (as ours does) then you'd likely pay less anyway if you ended up adopting an AA baby.

The fee scaled based on income, not race is the better option for those worrying about ethics. I do applaud those that question the ethics of all parts of adoption. Being AA, I would also add, that many AA families would not pay crazy fees (for domestic private adoption) even if they had the money. Dh and I, or more Dh was not going to spend over our budgeted fund. The presented situation could be perfect, his first question: how much?

I guess it depends somewhat on the agency, but I think the pricing discrepancies are usually based on what needs to be done to find families for children and not because some children are considered to be worth less. I always think of an experience with a baby the agency we adopted our last child from. A few months later, they called me and asked if I knew anyone out here who might be interested in adopting a black baby boy. He had been born at about 28 weeks gestation and was being released from the hospital. They only had a couple weeks to place him and then he would have gone into the state foster care system. They said that they would be willing to reduce their cost in order to find a family for him. I found a family that was interested, but they were actually waiting for another baby and that adoption was going to take several thousand dollars. A few days later, the parents were on their way to pick up their little boy. They had reduced their price considerably to make it possible for that family to adopt him. They got the little girl they were waiting for, too, and raised the two together, pretty much like twins. Their son is now a healthy teenager with a family that loves him. Had it not been for the fee being reduced so much, he would probably still be in foster care somewhere.

I think more likely he would have been quickly adopted out of foster care, except then the agency wouldn't have gotten any money for him instead of the reduced fee they did get. Very few infants remain in foster care for long once they are legally free for adoption unless they have major health issues.

In this case, a baby born at 28 weeks gestation might have significant special needs. Special needs can cost a great deal of money, thus, the adoption fee is reduced accordingly. The fact that the child did not have special needs is, I suppose, a bonus. It was likely an unknown at the time.

I'm sorry, this is probably not politically correct, but I feel anything that helps children who are most in need is a good thing (though, at the same time I agree that it is unfortunate that AA or BR children are having more difficulty getting placed than CC children). I get so frustrated with the adoption process here in Africa. They make it so difficult while there are so many children here who need families to love and care for them. I know there are not so many children who are "legally available" for adoption, but that's only because there are not enough workers to do the paperwork to make them available. I wish more could be done to make the process simpler and reduce the costs, as I'm sure more of these children would find homes if they did. I'd think it'd be awful if someone valued a child based on how much money they spent in the adoption process!

We planned to go into the process open to all races. With the agencies we found, that's not how it works. With our agency, you cannot be in the Caucasian program unless you have at most one child and have documented infertility. We had three bios and no fertility issues. The program only took twelve waiting couples at a time. We went into the Minority program, which only ever had four waiting families during our entire wait (almost three years), while the other group was always full. I do have issues with the whole process, but the fact that there were very few families waiting for babies like my son told me that no matter what, I was in the right place. The thought that there wasn't a line a mile long to adopt my sweetheart makes me sick, and I'm very glad that I was privileged enough to become his mother :)

I was thinking that this issue of race is a bit similar to gender issues where I am. Originally we were more interested in adopting girls than boys, until we started checking into it, and discovered that boys (who might qualify for adoption) outnumber girls at least five to one. There are cultural issues that cause that to be so (boys inheriting land, girls bringing in a dowry). At one point when we were introduced to a little girl, we were told sternly "it's first come first served basis"! We decided then and there we weren't going to be in competition in a country with so many needy children! So we changed our minds and now have three boys and a girl. Like Persian Mama we feel very privileged. They are amazing children. And it's really sad that there aren't long queues for the amazing little boys out there.

When looking at domestic infant adoption, there are far more families wanting babies (both Caucasian and AA) than babies needing homes. Just look at this board and the number of people who have been waiting for an infant and are open to all races. Just because one agency doesn't have any or many families open to a AA/biracial child doesn't mean that another agency doesn't. If adoption agencies acted as true social service agencies trying to help a child find a home instead of trying to find babies for families they would just refer the case to another agency who had an available family. There would be no need to charge different fees.

For many there is an hierarchy of race amongst prospective adoptive parents, they may not verbalize such. It also falls back on trying to match as close to ones family make-up as possible, which in itself is understanding. Of course there are exceptions, but I have seen the oh higher standards for a CC baby, whats next?In addition in private domestic, there is networking amongst some agencies. Networking with social services and private agencies. Now, I make a distinct separation with the finding a home for a baby... its not social services. I do know some moms with personal issues will choose such an agency over social services taking their child, or fear of such. However, private agency wise, I rather the agency truly utilize their power to get all of the resources for expectant parent to actually parent.

That may be true in some areas, but not others. At that time, the state of Florida had so many black infants that needed homes that they were actually giving some families a monthly incentive of several hundred dollars to take them. They still didn't have enough families for all of the healthy black babies, let alone one with extreme prematurity, which increased his risk for developmental problems. The agencies that placed our last two children found us only after extensive networking between three states, with our daughter, and four with our son. Our son was all ready in foster care, because no family had been located, sooner, despite the fact that they had all ready been looking for several months before he was born. Our daughter would have gone to foster care, had we not been found the day before she was born. Both babies' birth mothers had to go through their whole pregnancies wondering if there would be a family who wanted their babies, obviously knowing that the only reason there weren't multiple families interested was that their babies weren't white. So, I really disagree that the baby boy I had the privilege of helping find his family would have been likely to have been quickly adopted out of foster care. He had been in the hospital for three months. If the state of Florida had lots of families interested, they would have had someone all ready to take him home from the hospital. It was someone from the state who called our agency and asked them if they could find a family. By the way, the discount that family I contacted got was huge; 85%. They paid only 15% of what we had, a few months before.I wish we didn't have adoption fees at all, in America. That would be the only way I think that it would be functionally possible to keep costs for black kids from tending to be lower. That may sound absurd, but it is actually the case in many countries. In Germany, where lived when we adopted our third child, there are no adoption fees. We had to pay a translator to go with us to court and translate all documents into both languages but that was the only expense. A German family wouldn't have had to pay a dime to adopt. We've made some progress here, in that there is now a tax credit, where adoption expenses didn't even used to be tax deductable. The tax credit became available the first year after our last adoption.