My wife and I are considering adopting a child and we began researching the basics: what are the age requirements?, how much does it cost?, how long does it take?, etc.? I was struck that depending on the child's race, the answers to the above questions differ. I found this to be very perplexing and troubling. What seemed at first to be an option for starting a family quickly looked like some sort of cruel auction.
For example, one agency requires parents to be no older than 36 for a white infant, but they can be 47 years old for a black infant. Another agency says that you have to be 36 years old to adopt a white baby, but has NO age restriction for a black or bi-racial infant. Hmmm.
Let's check the fees, shall we? This gets confusing. In one case, the fee for white infants is $7,450 and $3,850 for black and bi-racial. In another: $12,000 for white; the fee for black or bi-racial "varies". How about this? $8,000 for a white baby and NO fee for black or bi-racial. Another bizarre fee structure was listed as follows: $8,250-18,000 for white, $4,000 for black, and $5,000-6,000 for bi-racial. Looks like a pattern is developing.
Do you suppose your marital status matters? Well, it depends, again, on the race of the child. While most agencies seem to handle marital status consistently, a few will not accept singles for white infant assignments but will for black and bi-racial. As Artie Johnson used to say on 1960's Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In TV sit-com: "Verrrry interesting, but not funny!"
If you haven't guessed by now, the waiting time varies considerably too. It's roughly six months to one year for minority kids, but expands to 2 - 7 years for white infants. Of course, many agencies fall somewhere within this rather large range, but the consistent pattern persists that black and bi-racial children will be adopted much quicker.
The last and perhaps most cruel difference rests with the fertility issue. Several agencies require infertility to adopt caucasian children but do not for minority babies.
What does all this mean? Are black and bi-racial children less valued, or should I say "valuable," or less wanted than white babies? Or is it merely a question of supply and demand, which is something we capitalists can relate to. Somehow I fear that the system is telling us the former and not the latter.
I'm no mathematician, but I know a few things and the numbers just don't add up. While the media bombards us about the plague of teen pregnancies and the black birth rate being about twice that of whites, we are also told that many black teenage girls view having and raising a child as a mark of maturity and distinction. A recent Washington Times article said that two-thirds of all black babies are born to single mothers. Therefore, while there may be a higher birth rate among blacks, one would think the incidence of children given up for adoption would be quite low. Supply and demand -- excuse my coarseness -- would suggest a higher cost and longer waiting period for the black adoptive child.
If someone can explain what seems on the surface to be the crudest example of human market value since slavery, I, for one, would love to hear it.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M. Ed.
Approximately 560 words.
© 1994