It is a reality that most parents who set out to adopt a child want a baby. An overwhelming percentage of adoptive parents start off wanting a baby as young as possible. Another reality is that while there are many babies both in this country and countries all around the world that do indeed need adoptive families, most of the millions of orphans on this planet are not brand new healthy babies.

In a recent Yahoo news article titled “Adopt us, foster teenagers urge in ad campaign” the plight of orphan teenagers in the United States is highlighted, along with a new ad campaign that hopes to find adoptive families for more of the teenagers languishing in the U.S. foster care system.

The new ad campaign addresses the issue with humor, addressing perspective adoptive parents by saying that thousands of teenagers would “love to put up with you.” The public service ads will run on TV, radio, newspapers and websites.

Although the ads will be humorous, the situation is not. In 2004 alone, close to 23,000 teenagers “aged out” of the U.S. foster care system. That’s 23,000 very young adults who went out into the world all on their own.

And while new legislation in some states is allowing foster children to stay in foster care longer than the typical age 18, and some states allow foster “graduates” to attend public colleges and universities for free, these steps in helping foster children to ease into society do not solve the real problem, which is the fact that what these children really need is families.

Children who age out of the foster system without being adopted, face a doubly whammy of having their childhoods affected by their birth family’s abuse, neglect or death, combined with being completely on their own in the world. It is not shocking that many do poorly. These young adults are more likely to end up in jail, to be homeless, to be sexually abused, to not graduate high school or obtain a GED, to have a child before the age of 19 and to suffer from substance abuse or mental illness.

The article states that the largest obstacle to finding families for teenagers is other peoples’ prejudices and preconceived notions. The truth is that many if not most of the teenagers available truly do want to be adopted and are intelligent, high-functioning and healthy. Most if not all have a difficult history, but without the love and security of a family, their stories are likely to become even more difficult.
I was excited to hear about this new ad campaign and I hope that the publicity and education will help to inspire some of the adoptive parents out there, especially the increasing numbers of older adoptive parents, to consider adopting a teenager.