Interracial Adoption Essay

Henry Ford once said, “ At that point, a child is eligible for adoption and can be placed with a family that can love the child and raise the child.” What this quote says is that a child should be placed with any family that can love it and raise it. If race was not so significant, a higher percentage people would be eligible to adopt, meaning that more kids will be adopted. The happiness of the children should also be of greater importance that the race of the future parents. Despite this, there will always be people who are against transracial adoption. A few of them say that a child with adoptive parents who are of a different race are more likely to suffer an identity crisis. Overall, transracial, or interracial, adoption is better for children in orphanages or the foster care system.

Others state that “race should be no barrier to finding a child a loving family and adoptive family”. One in five children waiting to be adopted are from an ethnic minority. Last year around 2,300 children were approved for adoption. Of those children 500 of them were either black or asian. Some adopted children state that growing up in a family you weren’t born into was more difficult than they thought. You never knew your ethnic background. It also always raises questions for a child about where they fit in or who they are. It becomes very pointed out if you are visually different from your

When a couple or individual decides to adopt a child, they know they are going to take on the responsibility of taking care of someone else’s child. Due to the biological parent(s) who can’t take care of that child anymore, because of either drug abuse, alcohol abuse, abuse to the child or if the parent(s) had died and there is no other care for the child. So that’s why this gives other couples who cannot have kids, the opportunity to promise themselves to be a great parent to a child in need. Though there are some bad things about adoption as well. Like adopting a child from another country of another race, because once that child is adopted into an American family, he or she will be cut off from their culture and never know about their

`Have you ever wondered what it is like to be in or a part of the adoption process? Most people have different opinions on the whole system. Many think that the process is easy and they don’t actually know what most children go through. If more people understood the problems they face then child welfare wouldn’t be so difficult. Children come from broken or abusive households where treatment is horrible or to the point where they just remove the children.

Imagine spending so much effort of trying to have a child but you can’t because through a complication in the war you became sterile. Military Veterans look towards adoption as a way to have children since combat injuries don't permit them to (Wax-Thibodeaux). Therefore, the costs of adoption are almost 40,000 dollars per child in the U.S. today (Kaminer). Furthermore, you have to think about the additional funds you need to raise the child after the adoption is complete. Within the year 2008, domestic adoption ranged from 15,000 to 30,000 dollars per child. Therefore, the government tried to help parents with the costs by creating a tax credit up to 11,700 dollars for adopting parents to claim towards financial help (Block). Along with

There were 33 adoption agencies from 10 states in three areas of the U.S. The participants came from a broad range of adoption agencies, a wide variety of races and backgrounds. The majority of the adoptive parents were in their 30’s while the average age of birth mothers was 24. The majority of the adoptive parents were Caucasian while

Ethnic identity is the major reason why many African Americans do not approve of interracial adoption. Adopting a child outside of your race is interracial adoption(Godwin 258). The National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) are strongly against interracial adoption. They think that only black people can give the children a positive racial identity. Also that only black parents can help the children develop skills for coping in a racist society. This statement is proven to be wrong in the Grow/Shapiro study in 1974(Bender/Leone 198). The study consisted of 125 white families who all adopted black children. Seventy-seven percent of the adoptions went smoothly without any problems at all. They found that the tests of the transracially adopted children verses those of white adopted children matched very closely (Bender/Leone 200). The tests compared the problems that the white and black children face like racism. The numbers show that the child’s age, not transracial adoption, has the most impact on adjustment and racial identity(Bender/Leone 202). The longer the child is in an orphanage or foster home, the more problems the child will have with an adoptive family. Because the child has no parent, it often becomes confused. The child does not know who to call mom or dad. The children wait two to five years in a foster home or orphanage before being adopted. There are not enough adoptive black

With adoption being viewed in such a positive light there are still some people who are strongly against transracial adopting and some of their reason are because they believe that the child will lose their identity. Is the race of the child more important than the love that the child will receive? While observing transracial adopting there are many point of view that you have to factor in, but there is only one that matters and that is the love of the child.

In Hugh Muir and Joanna Moorhead’s article “The Truth About Inter-Racial Adoption”, they argue that a plethora of ethnic children are fixed in the injustice adoption system due to the “shortage of minority families seeking to adopt” (Muir and Moorhead 1). The article considers issues surrounding inter-racial adoption in Great Britain where one in five children to be adopted is from ethic minority with a wait that is three times longer than their white counterparts. In fact, “20% of the ethnic minority” adoptees are never placed in adoptive homes due to the problematic adoptive system in Great Britain (Muir and Moorhead 2). This issue has attracted interest between both Muir and Moorhead who seek to understand why there is such a high amount

Robert Dale Morison, a parent who has adopted a son of a different race, professes the root of racism could easily be eliminated, stating, “The quickest way to end racism would be to have everyone adopt a child of another race. Mo matter what your beliefs, when you hold a four-week-old infant, love him and care for him, you don’t see skin color, you see a little person that is very much in need of your love.” Interracial adoption isn't about the color of the child’s skin, it is about the love they will be given in their new home and that they will still be able to learn about their culture in a safe and loving environment. The most important factor in interracial adoption is that the child has a permanent and loving home.

A child who is adopted is always a good thing, yet there are those who wish to return to the days of racial segregation when it comes to adoption. The “National Association of Black Social Workers, in 1972, likened whites adopting black children to ‘cultural genocide’” (Clemetson & Nixon, 2006, para 16), which is a completely racist view of how White people would poorly raise a Black child based solely on skin color. Their stance on interracial adoptions has changed somewhat in the last 40 years. The wording has been softened to a more politically palatable and sustainable “transracial adoption of an African American child should only be considered after documented evidence of unsuccessful same race placements has been reviewed and supported

One of the most common scenarios we think of when hearing the phrase, “transracial adoption”, is a white family bringing an African American baby into their home. However, that is not always the case. Transracial adoption means the joining together of racially diverse parents and children together into an adopted family. Many families have had the life changing opportunity of adopting a child into their home, whether the child is African American, Chinese, or Vietnamese, that has shaped the family into something even stronger. People should consider interracial adoption because children are able to benefit from a different ethnic background as well as provide a cultural abundant experience for the whole family.

To the thousands of children in foster care, adoption means being part of a family. Adoption signifies a chance to be loved, wanted, and cared for properly. Every year thousands of children enter the foster care system. In the year 2010 alone, 245,375 children entered foster care, of that number over 61,000 were black. An astounding 30,812 black children were waiting for adoption in 2010 (AFCARS). With so many children needing homes, it would seem their adoption would be open to any and all loving families, yet this is not the necessarily the case. Transracial adoption, which traditionally alludes to black children placed with white families, is riddled with difficulties. While transracial adoption can be a successful solution, many

When a white Minnesotan couple adopted their African-American child in 1948, they opened the door to a social debate that would span decades (Hawkins-Leon 1239). This first act of transracial adoption [TRA] instigated conversation on whether agencies should limit child placement to same-race matches or extend placement to interracial matches. It questioned the appropriateness of crossing racial lines. Today, TRA occurs more often than it did in the 20th century. This frequency calls to attention a need for conclusion of the dispute. While race occupies a defining space of a child’s identity, the need for a family supersedes the need for same-race matching, and calls for the acceptance of TRA.

Have you ever felt unwanted? Well, many children who wait in foster care often times feel this way. Transracial adoption can help them find a loving home. I believe that race should not be a factor in adoption.