> As for adoption, I'm interested to know how many adoptive parents really want any baby. From what I've read, many parents want babies who look like them, preferably blue-eyed and blonde. I could be wrong though. Also, there are many Asian children waiting for adoption, as well as older children. If these adoptive parents were really so eager to raise any child, they wouldn't have to wait so long.


> Please don't think I'm attacking adoptive
parents. They are admirable, no exception. It's just that why are there so many parents looking for children and so many children looking for parents at the same time?

I wish you could talk to some of the adoptive parents I know. These are families I've met at my church. Many are foster parents who end up (or want to end up) adopting the foster children they are caring for. Most of them have adopted children of a different race than their own; perhaps a third have adopted children with mental or physical difficulties. You would not believe the incredible perserverance it takes to adopt a child--especially if you are trying to adopt through the foster care system. Now you'd figure that these "throw away" children already in foster care due to parental abuse or neglect should be easy to adopt, right?--especially if you believe (and perhaps rightly so, I don't know) that most American couples are looking for a white infant to adopt, not an older or minority child. Well, it's not so easy. The prospective parents go through a battery of social service interviews, unannounced visits, red tape upon more red tape--and can have a wait of *years* for legal issues of bio-parental rights to be settled.
I can think of three separate families who had their hopes (of adopting the children they'd come to love) alternately raised and dashed numerous times over a period of just one year--for two of them, the problem was with bio-parents who relinquished their rights, then wanted them back again. Another family was told the child they wanted to adopt was too severely compromised by both mental and physical defects, and would be better off in a state institution. (They *were* successful, however, in adopting his brother, the absoutely most incredibly hyperactive child I have *ever* seen--which in my book qualifies them for instant sainthood).

Yes, they *really* want these children, *no*, it's not easy to get them, even if they're not healthy blue eyed-blondes.

koala"interested in discussing topic more but *yawn* needs some sleep"mom