Deb – it was not clear to me in your post whether you writing about your specific situation with “birthmothers” or generalizing to mothers considering adoption. Thanks for the clarification.

Janet

And if instead we’re talking about which circumstance is LEAST likely to have minimized, trivialized, marginalized, traumatized, neglected or mistreated children …?

Why?

Because the mantra of the foster system is to keep children in their biological families if at all possible.

Meanwhile, the mantra of the infant adoption system in the U.S. is to convince mothers to think about the “best interest” of the child…. and they usually translate “best interest” to mean “in the home of a paying customer” (the potential aparents).

Does the foster system need reform?

HECK yes.

Are some bio parents given too many chances?

HECK yes.

Is the foster system perfectly free of ethical concerns–even ethical concerns regarding bio family treatment?

No.

(And by the way, YES, I ACTUALLY HAVE worked in that system… as an adoption caseworker for foster care kids.)

However, if we’re talking about which type of adoption is LEAST likely to have minimized, trivialized, coerced, or manipulated the biological family, then I absolutely stand firm with Jan in agreeing that non-risk fost-adopt placements are far and away the best kind.

Thank you Angela – that was what I meant, and thank you for not twisting my words, putting words in my mouth, and accusing me of everything under the sun. I appreciate greatly that at least you did not jump on the bandwagon.

happygmom, I am well aware of who exactly a “birthother” is. I was speaking of my own children’s birthmothers, who all left the hospital, and voluntarily signed adoption papers. I would have accepted any decision they would have made at that time, and I have, they placed.

It isn’t hard for me to see there are people who want adoption reform. They are typically “child focused” as opposed to “adoptive parent” or “first parent”.

“Child focused” is when people try to keep the child in a safe and familiar environment. The placement attempts are in this order:

1) In the immediate family
2) With relatives
3) In same town
4) In same county
5) In same state
6) In same country

And many countries actually have a system set up for this. In Ukraine parental rights must be terminated before a child is made available for adoption.

Children must be registered for domestic adoption for 14 months. Then they are available for international adoption.

Ukraine was actually critized by the International Social Service (http://www.iss-ssi.org/index.html) for the 14 month waiting period. The ISS believe that Ukraine is keeping the children in the orphanage too long.

There is a balance that every country is trying to find. Be child focused but get them out of the orphanage system.

I think you were just trying to say that “non-risk” placements AKA when parental rights have been terminated already… This is the best kind of placement.

Foster care does place children for adoption prior to parental rights being terminated. This are called risk placements.

I was told by my social worker (assigned by foster care system) that if I really wanted to adopt within the next few years…. I needed to be open to risk placement.

And talk about a big old ethical mess… Social workers are overworked and don’t check on events as frequently as they should. Foster parents in many systems are set up to “mentor” the natural families. Talk about setting up a big old ethic mess if the foster parents want to adoption. They can help set up the natural parents for failure. I am not saying this happens with great frequency, but it does happen.

Side note… They are called the natural parents up to their parental rights are terminated.

I’m not sure about this. I think the foster care system is in BAD NEED OF REFORMS. They put too much store on blood and do not, for the most part seem to do what is right for the child.
I think, and it’s a bit offensive, that a parent who has had their child taken away from the system should have a set limited time to make the changes to get that child back. There is no way a child should be bounced from the biological parent’s home, to foster care, back to the biological parent’s home, back to foster care only to suffer all sorts of attachment issues and problems from abuse, neglect and not having a primary care giver.
The system should really be streamlined to make things better for these children so the cycle doesn’t repeat when they are old enough to have children of their own…

Also, in the case of international adoptions.. there are things that have come to my attention that are too horrible to think about. Such as children being abandoned on the streets or sold to brothels.
In the case of countries that have some unethical processes, it isn’t right to shut down the whole country (Guatemala comes to mind, horrible depressing things about Cambodia that hurt too much to think about.) and make many children who need homes suffer, but at the same time every effort should be made to make adoption from these countries honorable and ethical.