Adoption is a loving, permanent, cost-effective solution to some intractable social problems. But it’s not used enough because of obstructive attitudes by many social workers, state legislators and courts.
A new law passed by Congress just before it adjourned and signed last week by President Clinton should help make adoption easier, give more children new, permanent families and reduce the number of kids stuck for years in foster homes. But it is only a beginning. Making it work will also require changing the mindset of many professionals who control the child welfare system.
It’s hoped the new law will double the number of adoptions to 54,000–still only about 10 percent of the youngsters in foster homes, many of whom can never be reunited with a biological parent and who would benefit enormously from having an adoptive family.
The new law is supposed to make it easier to remove abused youngsters from their biological parents, shorten the time these children must spend in foster care and release them for adoption sooner.
More important, it shifts the basis for official decisions about these kids to give priority to their best interests and not to the rights of their biological parents, however neglectful and indifferent. Too many children have been harmed, too many mistakes made, too much tax money wasted trying to change abusive and neglectful parents. Too many children are stuck for years in the foster-care system, waiting in vain to be returned to a biological parent.
In most cases, the problem is not finding adoptive parents. Many people who urgently want to adopt would, understandably, prefer a baby who is normal, healthy and of the same race. But with abortion common and most single mothers keeping their babies, it is difficult to find this ideal. So would-be parents resort to using newspaper ads to reach pregnant women, or hiring surrogate moms to bear an infant for them or trying to get a child from Russia or South America or Korea or China.
Some such couples would welcome an American foster child, if available. And some foster families would gladly adopt a child they are caring for if the courts would make it possible.
Under the new law, states will be required to make a permanent placement plan for a child in foster care within 12 months, instead of the current 18 months. It says courts must end the rights of biological parents after a youngster has been in foster care for 15 of the previous 22 months–even sooner in cases of severe physical or sexual abuse or abandonment.
It also provides some monetary incentives for states to increase the number of children adopted.
But basically, responsibility for children whose families have failed them lies with the states, with state courts, state child welfare departments and in reality, with state social workers, who may be young and inexperienced and almost certainly are overworked and underpaid.
These are the hearts and professional minds that will have to be changed if adoptions are to increase and children moved out of foster care more quickly. The new federal law will help–but only help.
There are no perfect solutions for children whose biological parents can’t, won’t, don’t, take good, loving care of them. Adoption comes closest, replacing biological parents with new, permanent parents. It works best when a baby can be adopted at birth with the willing consent of birth parents, bond with new father and mother immediately, and grow up from the start with a new identity.
Adoption is more complicated for children whose parents don’t relinquish their rights at birth and who have been in foster care for years. It’s harder for them to adapt to a new family, to bond with new parents, to give up fantasies of returning to their biological parents. Many of them have been abused, have learning problems or other disabilities and are generally considered to be “special needs” kids.
Race plays a part in foster care and adoption, too. Of half a million kids in foster care, 47 percent are black and 63 percent non-white. Despite intensive and commendable campaigns to increase adoption among black families, interracial adoption may be necessary if many of these children are to have their own permanent homes.
In the 1960s, interracial adoptions were acceptable and some white families adopted black youngsters with apparent success. Then black social workers rebelled, objecting to white parents “stealing” black children and saying they could not possibly raise them well in a racist society. The practice stopped–even in instances where white foster families loved and cared for black children and wanted the relationship to become permanent.
Federal law passed last year is supposed to have removed bars to adoption across racial lines, but its effects are still uncertain. As interracial marriages increase, mixed-race families are much more common than in the past and society–and social workers–should be more accepting of those formed by adoption.
The power of the state to take a child away from his biological parents is awesome and should not be used lightly or easily. A 1980 law provides that reasonable efforts must be made to help reunite children with their biological parents before they can be adopted. That’s fair and right. But many case workers have carried this policy to dangerous and expensive extremes.
Time runs out fast for a child–to bond, to love, to trust, to feel a sense of permanency, to have parents he can count on. The longer he stays in foster care, the less his chances of adoption become. The new law is right to put more emphasis on the rights of the child and to free him for adoption more quickly when that becomes necessary.
Now it’s up to the states, to state courts and to those overworked, underpaid and often inexperienced social workers to make the new law do what Congress intends.
