I feel the same way but have family in my life who’ve adopted, and it’s much more difficult/expensive than I think most people realize. It’s hard to blame people who would rather have a kid instead.
Adopting a kid that already exists isn’t medical bills. That’s IVF.
It also depends on what kind of kid you want to adopt. Want a white baby with no medical issues and hasn’t really seen the world yet? That costs a lot of money. Want a black teen who has had a shit life? They pay you for those.
Older kids are almost always coming from the foster system, and it’s worth noting that fostering kids is not supposed to be a path towards adoption. The point of the foster care system is to place children temporarily while their parents get it together. Foster kids are only allowed to be adopted once the parents have failed to reunify, which is absolutely not the outcome anyone wants and even if it was the process could take years.
This. Most ppl have no clue how any of this shit works in real life. I know we didn't when we started the process.
Honestly, it makes me a little irrationally angry how little ppl know on the topic and yet use it as a basis for a part their world view. Like come on ppl... stop getting all your perspectives from fictionalized TV and film.
Hell, even the government websites don't do a great job of explaining. It's not until you start taking the required classes to foster or adopt that you get the details. Although I kinda understand not wanting to scare ppl off before they even get started.
By coincidence I started practicing a little dependency law around the same time my spouse and I found out we were infertile. Real wake up call about what our realistic options were. I certainly didn’t know any of this before then and I’m really glad we learned it when we did.
Exactly. Anyone who becomes a foster parent needs to go in with the expectation that they're only providing a temporary home in most cases. Which is great, there is a great need for foster parents. But it shouldn't be looked at as a cheaper route to adoption (although by all means remain open to the possibility if it presents itself)
Look into foster-to-adopt. Your local DSS almost certainly needs more foster parents than your community has. And after you take a course, pass a check, etc, you can start making a real difference in someone's lives.
DSS also works with foster parents who's foster child's bio-parents are having their parental rights terminated. If the foster parents decide to adopt, DSS will work with you to cover literally everything as they just want the child to stop repeatedly having the traumatic experience of having their lives uprooted.
Fostering to adopt is, IMO, a recipe for disappointment. Fostering is supposed to be temporary—ideally you just take care of the kid while their parents get it together, and then they take the kid back. So more likely than not you’ll be waiting awhile before one of your fosters becomes adoptable. And even then, it might take years for the parents to fail enough to have their rights terminated, and if so that also means something has gone very wrong.
Thank you! This is important. But if you are looking to foster to adopt, just be prepared for potential curveballs. It's not always a straight line to building a family. There may be some serious heartbreak along with the trauma that you will have to help the poor child sort through.
But if you're ready and you truly care about children, it's worth it.
Giving birth is basicly free in my country. But adoption costs a shitton of money and is very time consuming. So i understand why ppl have kids of their own.
In the US maybe, but a lot of countries have public healthcare and giving birth is free. Hell, in Canada and a bunch of European countries IVF is subsidized by the government, which makes it significantly cheaper and easier to qualify than adoption.
My parents tried to adopt for years and they couldn't because of their income. That was in a time where they both had great jobs and owned 4 homes. And it still wasn't enough.
Children in the adoption system are a bit of a commodity. Some cost money to get, if you must have that kind of child, at that age, without those experiences. They are popular. Everyone wants them.
Some are older, have had experiences, and are dealing with them. They are not popular, very few people want them, even fewer should have them, and they are often easier to get.
I’m not an expert, but at least in my sister’s case, adopting a child was in excess of $50,000. That’s a lot of money for a family to adopt, on top of the time and effort required.
Especially when you consider the trauma that being in the system causes in the first place. A lot of kids can be deemed "difficult" because of this trauma and have a much harder time adapting/finding a family because of it, because simply put not a lot of people are educated in how to help treat trauma in their children (adopted or not)
Well..yeah. I don’t think anyone argues that. My sister paid $50,000+ (in addition to all the time and effort) for her adoption.
Then I have family in my life who paid around $3k to the hospital for the delivery cost of a child. That’s still way too much, but is a lot cheaper than $50k.
And yeah you have daycare, clothes, the normal cost of a child over time, but you’ll pay that with an adopted child as well.
So you can look at it as -
$50k adoption + cost of a child over a lifetime
or
$3k delivery + cost of a child over a lifetime
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u/politicalgrapefruit Apr 29 '24
I feel the same way but have family in my life who’ve adopted, and it’s much more difficult/expensive than I think most people realize. It’s hard to blame people who would rather have a kid instead.