Slashdot Mirror

There's this from FL:

What are the financial requirements (if any) to adopt a child in care?
The acceptable income level varies widely depending on each unique situation. Income will be addressed as part of the home study to ensure that an adoptive parent is currently financially stable and able to provide for the basic needs of a child. Potential adoptive parents will never be disqualified based on income alone.

http://www.adoptflorida.org/fa...

----

According to the posts in this forum, people adopting foster kids need only turn in a couple paystubs and self-report their monthly expenses -- no credit checks, investigation, or anything else. Obviously the state must know this will be abused.

http://forums.adoption.com/tex...

-----
or this:

Many different people can be successful parents. You don't have to own your own home or meet a pre-determined income level to be eligible. Your income may come from employment, a pension or disability payments. Both members of a couple may work.

http://www.adopt.org/who-can-a...

On a related note, given the huge number of people who want to adopt babies and can't find them as well as the people with fertility challenges, it seems to me a better way to "settle" the "issue" is to avoid it by making those fertilized embryos available to other people.

If someone wants to adopt a baby they aren't looking. Here's one website with children waiting to be adopted, Meet the Waiting Children. Here's another website with some waiting, National Adoption Center, or here, Adoption.com. Sure there may not be many babies but it can't be said there's a shortage of adoptees. And I'd bet that internationally there are babies available.

My wife had a wonderful childhood and has unquestionably been given a much better life than what she would have experienced had she not been adopted into a loving family. While we were fortunate and did not have any difficulty conceiving our first child, we are in the middle of an international adoption for our second and I am sure we will adopt more or become foster parents later in life. I've met many people that didn't think they could love an adopted child as much as their "natural" child - but they typically look like I just hit them with a sack of bricks when asked if they would still love their biological child if they suddenly discovered it wasn't theirs. I don't want this to be misconstrued as a guilt trip, but there are many many children throughout the US and the world that are in need of loving families. Good luck to you and your family.

But as time went on, things went wrong. He would fly off the handle for no apparent reason (as a four year old). He still wakes up at 5:30 - 6 every morning absolutely bouncing off the walls. He can't grasp instruction (sans medicine) without constant repetition, and even then can't follow through well. He seems (note "seems") to think causing pain to the vulnerable (small animals/insects/etc) is funny in some way. He can show the greatest sympathy, however. He lies about meaningless things. He has very little external awareness. He exhibits loud repetitive patterns. He sneaks food he has permission to eat and hoardes snacks he doesn't. He has absolutely no tolerance for change or disappointment.

You may want to look into the possibilty that you are dealing with an emotional attachment issue (in whole or in part). A couple of the behaviors you mention are typically strong indicators of an attachment problem. They frequently show up in post-institutionalized or other children who did not have the opportunity to form emotional attachments to parents or caregivers early on in life.

IANA <whatever>, so please don't take my comments here as a diagnosis. My wife and I have dealt with attachment issues with our eldest (adopted) daughter, though, and your description seems to have some parallels with what I know and understand as symptoms of attachment issues. If you're interested in finding out additional information about attachment issues and potential treatments, you can start by taking a look at:

• Discussion of attachment and bonding issues at adoption.com
• The attachment disorder site, home of the Attachment Disorder Support List.
• Holding Time by Martha G. Welch (describes her treatment methodology)
• Martha G. Welch Center

Trust me, it's a real name.

Which means Horse Lover

got bored with making an honest living.

and turned to patent whoring instead.

International adoptions often result in adoption of children of color, though that usage is not quite what is usually meant by the domestic agencies (where it pretty much means black and hispanic kids; SE asian kids, who are the most common international adoptees, are not exactly numerous in domestic system). At any rate, I hope you didn't interpret it as my playing the race card against your friends/acquaintances - talking about adoption is pretty much impossible without acknowledging the racial issues involved, is all. No offense meant, and hopefully none taken.

My point, to some extent, is that burdening the system with more infants is just going to drop teen adoption rates even lower than they already are; this is no good because teens are both the hardest to place and the hardest to raise in a foster care system. Further, adding infants to the system in no way means they *will* be adopted. Although statistics show a half million are currently "seeking to adopt" (1995, the data is poor), only 200,000 have taken any real steps towards doing so. That level of demand has stayed pretty constant over at least the last 20 years. Again, lots of abortions, not that many adoptions; not even that many prospective adoptions.

Some scary statistics: "After aging out of foster care, 27% of males and 10% of females were incarcerated within 12 to 18 months. 50% were unemployed, 37% had not finished high school, 33% received public assistance, and 19% of females had given birth to children." Even if the incoming infants were adopted, they're likely to displace at least some possible teen adoptions. The outcomes for teens coming out of foster care are pretty poor, as you can see. While adoption numbers in a "rape/incest/life of mother only" abortion environment would undoubtedly rise, so would foster care numbers, and probably higher; the increased supply of 'desirable' adoptions would be only partially covered by the increased number of infant adoptions, some of which would be counter-balanced by a corresponding teen adoption which wouldn't happen. Most problems, and most abuses, are due to or happen to older children in the foster care system. That's the problem, not that the infants would be difficult to adopt, but that an easy supply of them would make it damn near impossible to get the kids who are difficult to serve adopted. Taking care of an infant is a lot easier, in some ways, than taking care of a 12 year old.

I used to hate it when my dad would shut off the TV on Saturday morning and throw us outside. I used to take a book outside and walk around the yard in circles while I read. Wow, I was a weird little kid. If I'd had a computer, I'd definitely have been a wired little kid.

Now I've got my wireless laptop, and yeah, a dsl line, so I can go outside and read....

But the no recess thing is happening, too. You knew that, right? No recess There's a Wisk billboard around here that claims that 45% of schools have eliminated recess.