Now that I have written about older child adoption in my Transracial Adoption ABCs, I am going to write about older parent adoption.

Older Parent Adoption – First off, while words like “older” are relative terms and have different meanings for different people, I am going to use “older adoptive parent” to mean parents in their 40’s or older. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone! :)

Adoption by older parents is not as uncommon as you may think. In fact, when Josh and I started our first adoption at the ages of 24 and 26, we seemed to be in a minority as younger adoptive parents, and we have since met many adoptive parents who were adopting young children, and also had children my age or older.

There are many reasons why older parents would choose to adopt. In this day and age it is not uncommon for people to focus on college, grad school, employment, etc. before considering parenthood. Some people get to the point where they are finally ready to be parents, and find that having a biological child is not possible, or do not desire to physically go through a pregnancy.

Other couples choose to be parents at earlier ages, but suffer through years of infertility before considering adoption as a road to parenthood.

A third reason is called “the empty next syndrome”. Some parents have their children at a young age, raise them and have them all leave home (or start leaving home), and then realize that they miss having young children in the home. They turn to adoption to “start over” or “start again”. For some people, raising children is what the want to do with their lives, so they continue to build their family.

The critics of older parent adoption worry about the age and health of the adoptive parents and how it will affect the children if they lose their parents at a relatively early age in life. Others worry about older adoptive parents having the energy needed to keep up with young children.

On the flip side, older adoptive parents can have a lot of strengths, too. Older adoptive parents are often experienced parents, and some even have experience with adopted children. Older parents can also be more patient than their younger counterparts.

While not all adoption programs are open to older parents, there are many options for parents in the forties and even fifties, and some for parents in their sixties.

Personally, I think that as long as the world has millions of orphans, we should take advantage of as many parents who have the desire and ability to adopt as possible. I know personally many WONDERFUL older adoptive parents and hope that older parents out there who have a desire to adopt, won’t let their age discourage them.

Resources for older adoptive parents:

Older Parent Adoption Blog

Over 40 Adoption Forum

Older Parent Adoption information from Adoption.com