RA>Yes.  One of the ladies I work with adopted her niece and nephew and is
  >raising them by herself.  One of my friends arranged to raise her
  >cousin's children when her cousin was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
  >One of Mom's good friends raised her daughter's children after her
  >daughter passed away.  So this is very common.  It would seem to be a
  >common sense idea for social workers to routinely look to see if there
  >are relatives willing to raise a child or even shelter a child
  >temporarily, not to mention that in this money-conscious era, it would
  >save a lot of taxpayer dollars.
And, in many cases, it would place the child in a home where she or he
is already loved.
RA>One of the problems with the adoption system is that it was set up years
  >ago when unmarried women who had babies wanted to hide themselves from
  >any moral stigma, so the birth records were sealed and all contacts with
  >the birth family rendered virtually impossible.  I think this needs to be
  >rethought so that a child need not be routinely completely severed from
  >his or her kindred.
I approve of open adoptions in cases where contact with the birth family
would not be detrimental to the child.  In some cases (heavy drug
abusers or pedophiles, for example), such contact has too much
possibility of damaging the growing youngster.
RA>A lot of times this doesn't seem to happen.  Debbie, my neighbor next
  >door, has been a foster mom for over fifteen years now.  Over the years,
  >she and Vic have adopted two of their foster children.  They want to
  >adopt a third child, who has been with them since birth.  The little
  >girl, whose name I can't remember offhand, is three-four years old and
  >the social service agency still hasn't moved on terminating parental
  >rights.  Good grief!  This little girl was a crack baby who was given up
  >at birth by her biological mother.  There is no reason for waiting this
  >long to terminate parental rights.
There is, actually, although it is not a moral reason.  Child protective
services get more money from the federal and state governments for every
child NOT placed in an adoptive home, then for every child placed.  It's
strictly an economics gains issue in many cases.  Some states are
beginning to talk about changing that balance, and giving rewards to
agencies and social workers who successfully place children for
adoption.  New Jersey is one of those states, but it's only in the talk
stage right now.
RA>I would also toss plain ignorance into the picture.  There are a lot of
  >different cultures making up society in the US and they tend to have
  >widely differing views on adoption.  Some believe it doesn't matter who
  >adopts a child as long as that child is raised in a loving home.  Some
  >believe in the statement 'we take care of our own', some view a
  >mixed-blood child as an unwanted outcast, others do not, etc., etc.  I
  >doubt if social workers are taught that there are such cross-cultural
  >differences and that these differences need to be taken into account.
They are not.  About the extent of what a social worker hears is "The
feds want you to place Indians with Indian families, but don't worry too
much if you can't find one.  It doesn't really matter anyway."  When we
adopted Robert, we were told we were the only Indian family looking for
a kid.  Maybe that was true.  Maybe they didn't look very hard.  In any
case, I'm not complaining.  We got him.  But if we hadn't, some white
family probably would have.
  >I consider this a glaring omission, but in some sense hardly surprising.
  >This year they offered a class in cross-cultural communications at work
  >for the very first time.  About half a dozen people signed up for the
  >class, so they postponed it from June to August in hopes of getting a
  >few more people.  A few days before the rescheduled date, one of the
  >people in the human resources department called to say that they had to
  >postpone the class again because the instructor had cancelled out and
  >they were having trouble finding a replacement.
Bummer!  Would the cross cultural class have included Indians?  I know
that in New Jersey, "cross cultural" almost always means "Black";
occasionally it includes "Hispanic"; and it never means "Indian".
                                Sondra
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 þ SLMR 2.1a þ Don't take tomorrow to bed with you.    Peale
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