The adoption process in America is, well, kind of wack. I keep meaning to write an intelligent, thoughtful post on the topic, but I never seem to get around to it. So I’ve decided to just write down my jumble of thoughts, as messy and imperfect as that is. Otherwise, I might never write anything.
Ok, here is where I mainly am coming from. Obviously we need to do something to protect kids and make sure they don’t wind up with parents who cannot or will not adequately care for them. So we need to make sure adoptive parents aren’t criminals, aren’t abusive, have enough common sense and money to take care of a child or children. They should have room in their life for a child and no major relationship or personal problems. They should be loving and kind. Good citizens, good role models. Nurturing. All this makes sense to me, and I know I’ve left out other important attributes. And of course, this is a REALLY REALLY important thing to do. As a society, we have a responsibility to protect our children. So, there is a whole lot at stake here.
Well, here is what gets me. In terms of vetting parents and overseeing the adoption process, there is very little to no oversight by the federal government here in the US. Not only does each state have different rules, but each county within each state has different rules. For example, if I lived in the next county over, I would have to have the fire dept come inspect my house. In my county, the health department comes to inspect (after the adoptive parent pays them $75), and they do various things like look in your closets (because they are not allowed to be cluttered and things can’t be too close to the floor), they check to see if there is a thermometer mounted in your refrigerator (doesn’t everyone have one?), review the fire escape plan, fire alarms, check pet vaccination histories, check water test results (you pay for that separately), and on and on (there are six pages of regulations). And that is just one county requirement.
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