On November 20, 2010 thousands of parents and children will finalize adoptions. Created in 2000 by the Alliance for Children’s Rights, National Adoption Day unites children from foster care with forever adoptive families. More than 30,000 children have been adopted from foster care on National Adoption Day since its inception. This year, over 300 events will be held nationwide.
As Americans tend to do, we expanded National Adoption Day into National Adoption Month. We’ve also expanded the focus of these celebrations to include all adoption. Some people are unhappy about that. To a certain extent, I can see their point. While private and international adoptions should be celebrated, adopting from foster care needs more attention.
I believe that adopting from foster care is totally misunderstood by most of the people in America. I have no scientific data to back that up. Instead, I have years of interesting but not very realistic comments. Comments such as the following:
- Adopt from foster care – it’s free! (Found on countless forums and e-mail groups.)
- Maybe you should try being foster parents first to see if you can love someone else’s children. (From one of my uncles.)
- My cousin adopted from foster care, and she had her baby in 3 weeks. (From a clerk at a children’s store.)
- I want to adopt a child from foster care because it’ll be easier. (Heard in a few places.)
Adopting from foster care is not for everybody. However, I think it could be for more people. With over 400,000 children in foster care, 100,000 of whom are available for adoption, we need more qualified foster parents. The entire system has to be overhauled, yes, but in the mean time, the system, adoptive parents, and concerned individuals need to do more to educate the masses about adoption from foster care.
If you have adopted from foster care, please share your experiences with others. Blog about your experience, write letters to the editors of your newspapers, offer to speak at your local library. Become a resource for prospective adoptive parents.
If you are considering adoption from foster care, or simply want to learn more about it, there are many resources available online.
- Adoption.com Fost-Adopt page
- Casey Family Services, one of the first sponsors of National Adoption Day
- National Adoption Day, Adoption Information, the official site for National Adoption Day
- Child Welfare Information Gateway, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
To those of you who are finalizing your adoptions this weekend, or are celebrating the anniversary of the date you became a forever family, a huge, heartfelt, Congratulations!
Happy National Adoption Day!
I finalized today with my beautiful daughter
What a great day!
Dannieas, congratulations! That is fantastic!