Each year, we set aside three months to highlight the needs of children who are at risk of harm and of children who are not in the care of their birth parents. These special months address child abuse prevention in April, foster care in May, and adoption in November.
The children, however, seem to get lost in the reams of rhetoric that are published online and in print as the issues surrounding these special topics are discussed. The rhetoric crystallizes around the concept of adoption. Adoption, however, happens in so many different ways that a public conversation can never do it justice. Sometimes, birth parents choose a plan for adoption. Sometimes, birth parents choose to offer their eggs, sperm, or wombs to help other adults become parents. Sometimes, children are separated from their birth parents because the parents are unwilling or unable to care for them properly. Sometimes, birth parents die. Each of these paths to adoption is uniquely difficult.
The fact is that separating children from the care of their birth parents for any reason creates trauma for the children and the parents. Thus, separating children from their birth parents should be done only with good reason. Birth parents should never be coerced into adoption or surrogacy of any kind, although birth parents should face no unnecessary hurdles in choosing adoption or surrogacy when they believe it is best for their child. Child abuse should be prevented, but when it occurs, well trained foster parents must be available. Adoptive parents must also be available when adoption is in the best interest of a child for any reason. However, any effort to prevent child abuse will not completely eliminate the need for child protective services or foster care, and will certainly not eliminate the existence of adoptions. Why? Because life is not perfect, and unexpected things happen to adults as well as children. Think about any recent headline – natural disaster, car accident, changes in the economy – and know that it is a harbinger of unexpected change for someone.
Conversation about adoption is always emotionally and often politically charged. Even when the conversation turns to a substantive issue such as whether a proposed adoption is best for a child, the parameters of what is to be considered in making that decision are hard to define. The same is true when discussing whether or when a foster placement is necessary to protect a child.
These conversations must remain focused on the needs of the child. Not the birth parent, not the adoptive parent, not the agency, the social worker, the judge, or any others who want to feel good about having a finger in any of these pies. If a child’s parents are overwhelmed, then help the parents become less overwhelmed. If a child has been injured, then treat the injury and address how it happened. If a child’s parents are not demonstrating a willingness or ability to resolve their own issues or to keep a child safe, then find a different family situation for the child that will be permanent and safe, and do it quickly. To a child of any age, every day in foster care reinforces a deep loss.
When I consider these issues I am reminded of the story in which a scientist debates with a lay person whether the world is round or flat. The lay person insists that the world is flat. The scientist, intending to guide the layperson to the correct answer, asks on what the world stands. The response is that the world stands on a turtle. On what does that turtle stand? Another turtle. After a few rounds of this, the layperson’s response finally becomes “it’s turtles all the way down.”
So, in the realm of child welfare and adoption, there seems to be an unending stack of turtles on which one can place arguments for and against any family-based intervention as well as the finality of adoption. One must travel a long ladder of rhetoric, circular arguments, and extreme examples to come to the key question: will this decision or action increase the child’s safety and well-being? When the answer is yes, you have found the bottom turtle.
heARTbeat is a publication of the KingSpry Adoption/ART Law Practice Group. It is meant to be informational and does not constitute legal advice.
