Friday, July 15, 2005

This doesn't surprise me at all.

Mainstream "Christian" and the definition of "Christian" according to the congregationalists, nazarenes, etc is somewhat different. Not that this bothers me any; I'd have thought that the families looking to adopt would have done a bit more thorough research into the mission/regulations/doctrine of the private group they were trying to adopt via.

Adoption is very difficult in the US, from agreements by African-American social worker groups to not place black children with white parents to things like the above. This is why so many are currently adopting from China or Russia. (Personally, I know of 12 families who have gone this route.)

3 comments:

Yogo said...

I didn't know there was an effort to keep black children out of white homes. There is a show on television--Adoption Stories--or something like that, and white families routinely adopt black children as well as children from other countries.

Be said...

Yes, there is, actually.

http://racerelations.about.com/library/weekly/aa121700a.htm

It's a sort of unspoken agreement between social workers "of color," and one that makes it a pain in the rear for state-contracted private agencies to make placements.

For the record - I do have one former colleague who is white who did manage to see through the red tape here to adopt a severely developmentally handicapped boy in one of our programs. It wasn't easy for her, though.

Nick said...

I know of about a half dozen people myself who have gone to China to adopt. Of course... the red tape there is no picnic either.