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As most everyone in the adoption world has heard, a study that says adoptive parents are good has been making headlines and has some people all riled up.
I mentioned it briefly, and included a link to the pdf so anyone interested enough could read the whole thing rather than form opinions based on the mass media masticated version.
Deb over on the Open Adoption Blog published her take on it, one adoptive parents appreciated but others did not. Suggesting that the process aparents endure to adopt might well be applied to anyone deciding to parent has a lot of people up in arms.
Well, I’m sorry if this offends, but I’m with Deb. (Okay. I’m not so sorry.)
I don’t see a practical application, unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean everyone having to pass some sort of test or qualify for a license to parent wouldn’t be darned fine idea, and a helpful step in the right direction.
Yeah, yeah … Big Brother and all that. I get that slippery slope, but that’s not my point.
So, what is the point?
Let’s just toss some numbers around to get an idea …
According to the US Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children & Families, in 2004, the most recent year with data, 1490 children in American DIED from abuse and/or neglect. Eighty-one percent of these children were under the age of four. Three-quarters of them were killed by one or both parents. Medical neglect accounted for only 1.4%, the rest were abused or neglected to death.
Children whose families had received family preservation services in the past 5 years accounted for 12.4% of child fatalities and 2% of fatalities had been in foster care, then reunited with the parents that killed them.
Here’s a grabber …
More that 90% (91.9% to be exact) of parental perpetrators were biological parents. Four and a half percent were stepparents. Adoptive parents? 0.6% … Six-tenths of ONE PERCENT.
Now, any time one of those 0.6% killings of children happens through abuse or neglect by adoptive parents, the headlines are ten feet tall, global and go on for weeks or longer. Every facet of adoption is called into question, often resulting in more restraints being added to the already amazingly cumbersome process, and thereby discouraging potential adopters from tiptoeing into the waters that could have seen them adding a child to their family.
Continued …
The study does not just say that adoptive parents are good, it says blanketly they are BETTER than birth parents. There is a huge difference.
More fuel to sling at each other and fight over who is better. Makes me sad that we feel a need to judge which set of parents is better. What a waste of time.
A test for parenthood? Right, would you have passed it at 17 or me at 16 – did we know enough to have impressed anyone we were capable of parenting? Would anyone pass a test? If not, what would happen to their babies? Adoption?
What about parents who are adoptive and birth parents? Does that mean that they are more likely to harm the children they gave birth to? Do all your studies take into consideration that there are more birth parents? Probably, but…
I have seen studies that indicate non-birth parents are more liable to harm children. What is the point though in proving one set of parents is “better”? Do adoptive parents need to feel as though they are better? Sad…very sad that you needed to attack birth parents – and lump us in with murdering parents to boot.
I was the “one adoptive parent” over on Deb’s thread. I want to clarify that my support of her positive had nothing to do with being an adoptive mother. I have believed that some screening was necessary ever since my own bio parent started abusing me when I was a toddler.
For me, this belief is more of an “I wish we could do this…” than an actual proposal because it would not be possible to logistically to do this. That does not mean that the idea does not have merit — just that it is not practical.
For any birthmothers who were offended by this, let me say that the screening that I believe is needed would not include women who considered placing a child for adoption. If a woman considers adoption as an option, whether or not she chooses to place or parent, she is clearly considering the best interest of the child. One thing that child abusers have in common is a complete inability to consider a child’s welfare. I know this from personal experience as well as hearing hundreds of stories from abuse survivors.
In the U.S., 1 in 3 to 4 girls and 1 in 6 to 7 boys are sexually abused by age 18. (If you want to see the link to this data, click over to my post Surviving the Wait: Dealing with Unresolved Issues. This does not include those who are physically and emotionally abused. That’s an epidemic, and something needs to be done. Because screening is not logistically practical, it’s not the answer, but I still offer my full support to anyone who is at least thinking about what we can do to stop this epidemic. All you need to do is read some of the RAD, Older Adopted Children, Special Needs, and Foster blogs to see how devastating child abuse is.
This is a soapbox issue for me because of all that I experienced as a child and because of the hundreds of abuse stories that I have heard. Keeping children safe must ALWAYS be our first priority because chidren do not have the ability to protect themselves. It is every single adult’s responsibility to look about for children.
- Faith
Faith, I totally agree. That was the just of what I was trying (not to successfully) to get across.
As a survivor of abuse (bio-parents) myself I wish someone had been looking out for my interests!
I agree with both Faith and Deb that more needs to be done to protect children in non-adoptive families. Licensing parents is not the answer though.
Abuse continues in families because outsiders (or even other family members) do not speak up and allow it to continue. I think we all have an obligation to protect children in our community. However, I think when families are reported, the follow-up is often lacking.
If any of us see abuse or suspects it in a family, I think we are obliged as human beings to speak up.
ABSOLUTELY!! And I practice what I preach. If I have reason to suspect that a child is in danger, I encourage the (non-abusive) parent to handle it and, if the parent refuses, I will report it. I won’t do it anonymously, either. I think that we, as a society, need to make it clear that we will not tolerate our children being abused. Period.
Yes — follow-up is often lacking. Also, unfortunately people don’t want to believe that their family members/friends/neighbors could do such a thing, and so the abuse victim is not supported. I see this a lot with adult survivors of abuse as well. Entire families will turn on the one who speaks out, even though they all (or many of them) know that the one who speaks out is telling the truth. It is so sad.
It is our obligation as human beings to speak out, and yet it is only a small minority who do. Considering how on-going and severe the abuse was in my household for both my sister and me, I find it hard to believe that not one person suspected it. And yet nobody ever intervened. I don’t know how someone can live with himself when he allows a child to be harmed just because he “doesn’t want to get involved” or “it’s none of my business.” Child abuse is EVERYONE’S business.
Stepping off the soapbox now . . . :0)
- Faith
Jan,
First, the study does NOT, “blanketly [state] they are BETTER than birth parents”.
The link to the pdf is there. Read it.
On to part 2 …