Keeping It Valid

A birth certificate question and an realistic answers –

I was adopted by my grandmother when I was a kid and have an amended birth certificate with her name on it AND I have my original birth certificate with both of my parents names on it. The most recent one is the one with just my grandmother’s name on it, but it also has my place of birth incorrect. I’d rather use my birth parents names for personal reasons but I worry if it will be valid or not. I am having to fill out some paperwork and they need to know my parents names and need to see my birth certificate. Does anyone know if it’s okay to use my original birth certificate, or do I have to use my most recent one with my grandmother’s name ?

Answers from adoptees – The old one is no longer valid. And listing your actual birthplace from your Original Birth Certificate can cause hiccups with security questions, passports etc. Another adoptee noted – I think they want you to use the amended birth certificate you got when your grandmother adopted you. That is what I would use for something like social security card even though its a lie. The bottom line from another one – Your original birth certificate is no longer valid for identification purposes. That said, the specific thing you’re needing to provide information for matters. This is my hill to die on, and from my experience you can push back on this is many situations.

The more detailed longer answer from an adoptee – What you have is your Original Birth Certificate (OBC) with your genuine parents’ names and all of the actual information of your true birth recorded. And then you have the Amended Birth Certificate which now supersedes the OBC and is the only legal document (although includes untruths from your real birth information) because your grandmother adopted you in a court of family law and the government (federal and state) has jurisdiction over the deception that your grandmother somehow became your mother and her daughter’s relationship with you has been severed. That said, when people ask me my parents names (and their parents names) I do use my actual parents with their actual names – not the government sanctioned lies. So, it depends for us adopted people (whether kinship adopted or via strangers) what you are using this information to do for YOU.

Biology and What’s Possible

A thought and a question in my all things adoption group today – Biology programs us to prefer the children we gave birth to. You can try to be “fair” but I firmly believe biology and the subconscious takes over. This is how it’s supposed to be. It’s natural instincts. What does it say about biological connection when one says they love a stranger’s natural child the same or just as much? How do biological children in the home feel about this? Is it really possible?

Some replies –

A woman who spent time in foster care, writes – As a biologist, and just someone who can read research, children’s risk factors for abuse increase with a step parent in the home. I can imagine the risk increases as an adopted child. Our biology literally hardwires us to support our family lineage over non. We’re one of several species who will take in non blood others however. As someone who’s mother preferred other children over her own, I couldn’t say. I think my mom wanted a doll baby, not kids.

Someone backs that up with a PubMed.NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov study abstract, an excerpt – Children residing in households with adults unrelated to them were 8 times more likely to die of maltreatment than children in households with 2 biological parents. The risk of maltreatment death was elevated for children residing with step, foster, or adoptive parents. Risk of maltreatment was not increased for children living with only 1 biological parent.

One adoptee shares – Having my own children really bought home the difference. My son had to go into NICU after he was born for a few days. I had an anxiety attack. I’ve never had an anxiety attack before or since. Another with a similar experience mentions the book LINK>Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel. (blogger’s note – that book’s page touches a deep sadness in me as my daughter ended up being raised by her dad and a step-mother. McDaniel notes – “a mother can’t give her daughter what she doesn’t have.” I didn’t have the financial resources to support us. An interesting coincidence – my daughter ended up spending many days breastfeeding my grand-daughter in NICU.)

Another woman notes – I started learning more about the issues with adoption, while I was pregnant, but once I gave birth it was permanently engraved in my mind – I will never take away another mom’s babies. An adoptee responds to that with – Having my baby was a painful wake up call once I realized how different my experience with my adoptive parents was to what’s natural. And what it meant to lose the natural connection with my first mom in infancy. Yet another adoptee shares – my second baby was a 27 week preemie. I was horrified at the thought of not being there for him and for him experiencing what I did (being left alone in a hospital for two months). He was only allowed out of the humicrib once a day, so I would express and then have him skin to skin for as long as I could. I would lie like that for hours, until I had to either pee or express again. The nurses told me they had never seen anyone stay for hours like this. I was just so terrified he would suffer long term effects like I do.

There is always possible yet another perspective – I love my adopted kids the same as my biological ones. I also love my besties kids the same. My heart swells with love for the littles who call me Nanny that are not related to me at all. I love all my parents. I have natural, adopted and step parents. There is no shortage of love that a heart can give. That is just my personal opinion, of course. To which another responds – I’ll go ahead and say it. It’s true. Even if you don’t want to admit it’s true; it’s true. I love every kid I’ve ever taken care of, I love my friends kids, my nieces, and my nephews but the love I have for my biological son will always be different. Now, that doesn’t mean that I treat them different because I don’t but the love is just… different.

One raised by a step-mother writes – Growing up there was absolutely a difference in how my step mom felt towards me compared to my siblings (who were all hers). I was the only one from my father’s previous marriage. It was very tough. She will be the first to tell you that she did NOT love me the same. She struggled severely with depression and anxiety, a lot of which was spurred by how much she wanted to love me like her other kids, but couldn’t bring herself to.

To be fair to her, she was young when she married my dad and I was already 3. She also didn’t know she would become a primary parent in my life as my mom had legal custody (blogger’s note, very much like what happened with my daughter). She stood by my dad’s side as he fought for full custody (blogger’s note – which my ex never attempted to my knowledge) when it was needed because she knew it was right, but she did not think she was signing up to raise me when she married him.

Now, if you asked her now about our relationship, she would tell you that secretly she loves me more than her own kids (as both my parents like to tell me) and she relies more on me than any of them. It took a loooooot of building over many years, though, and it certainly wasn’t natural. It was hard, hard work. (blogger’s note – I know that my daughter has very strong, positive feelings towards her step-mother, who actually stepped into very similar circumstances when she married my daughter’s father. Her being there to give my daughter a family with siblings had a lot to do with me not fighting to regain physical custody of my daughter, which I had never expected to give up. It sort just came to pass over time.)

A note from a legal professional – The way biological vs. non-bio family are treated in estate plans tells me you are 100% correct. Adopters put on a good front in public and on their social media pages, but when it comes time to choose, they always choose blood.

Also, as an actual mother, the feeling I have for each of my children is deeply engrained in me. It’s a biological connection that was triggered during pregnancy and heightened during birth. If you’ve never given birth, you cannot understand this instant bond. It is not the same as anything you’ve experienced in your life so don’t even try to say “I felt an instant bond to my adopted child” because while there may be some truth to that, it does not compare. Period.

On another note, I do think men are capable of connecting to non-bio children easier than women. This is based off the stories I’ve heard from adoptees (not my own lived experience) so take it with a grain of salt.

One final one from the sibling of international adoptees – I always thought this was a weird thing my parents said about my adopted siblings. It didn’t make me feel “slighted” but the pendulum swung HARD as they continued to try and prove the adopted kids were “just as loved”, which resulted in us bio kids never really getting much care from our bio parents. And to be clear my parents had NO business taking in more children – since they had 5 biological children of their own and a kinship placement, when they decided to adopt 4 foreign teenagers with SEVERE trauma. My adopted siblings deserved more care and time than they got, while the biological kids still drowned on their own anyways, due to a lack of time/care.

I think we were in a weird case, where my parents didn’t actually like or want children and they adopted purely for the savior complex and social media accolades. Most of the bio kids have been cut off for various reasons but my parents have never stopped publicly loving their internet sensations. Many of the people around them have pointed out they could care less about the kids who don’t give them a good public image.

She adds this disclaimer- I do not blame or hold any resentment towards my adopted siblings at all in this regard.

Crazy and Too Old ?

A personal story in The Huffington Post got my attention this morning – LINK>I Never Wanted Children. Then I Got Pregnant With Twins At 53 by Anne Bockman Hansen. The link mentions “advanced maternal age”. I’m totally familiar with that !! I conceived my oldest son at 47 and my youngest son at 50. When we told my dad we were going to try and conceive the older one, he said “I question your sanity.” And I do understand but really we have been fine being older parents. Occasionally, it has been suggested I am my sons “grandmother”. I also have a grown daughter and 2 grandchildren, so I can easily and honestly say, “I understand why you would think that because I AM a grandmother.”

We knew we didn’t want multiples and so, because we had to use assisted reproduction, it was always a possibility. We relied on the experts’ advice on how many embryos to transfer with a good potential for success, without trending into a greater likelihood for twins, and it gave us the single births we preferred. Many of the mothers who cycled along with me at the same time did have twins and even one had triplets – they were all happy with their results and somehow managed the challenges. Glad it was NOT my own challenge. Having a baby and then toddler in one’s life is challenging enough for me !!

Anne Hansen shares – “Still, the thought of having children did not interest me until I was 52 and had taken time away from my job to re-evaluate what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. When I finally knew that I wanted to do it, the realization hit me with incredible force. I felt certain that I wanted to raise kids — and raise them the way I wished I had been raised. I wanted to bring them up with unconditional love, compassion, a love for learning, a sense of adventure and amazement at the miraculous small things in life.” blogger’s note – Sounds like what happened with my husband after we had been married 10 years.

And even before I had learned all of the issues I share in this blog, I also knew that, as the author says – “. . . I wanted to carry them. I never considered surrogacy or adoption.” and that “I was not ovulating,” plus she shares yet another complication – her 58-year-old husband had a vasectomy in his 30s. blogger’s note – in our case, my husband was able to provide his own sperm and I love seeing how some of his traits have turned up in our sons and that he can be a genetic mirror for them.

Yet, when they saw a reproductive endocrinologist, he told them that sperm could still be retrieved from her husband. Like what happened to me when my husband decided he wanted to have children after all (he had been grateful, I had already done that in my own life, no pressure on him), she was told that she could still get pregnant using an egg donor. For me as well, that was a major breakthrough.

And she mentions the “age related” comments, which I have heard as well. She says – “A member of my church said, ‘A lot of people will think you are selfish for bringing children into this world at your age’.” My perspective is – no one knows how long their parents will continue to be alive while they are maturing – I know many examples where parents died young. Though I remember clearly one day, while checking out groceries, realizing that when my youngest turned 20, I would be 70 – oh my. That day arrived this year.

The same as what the author shares, “My pregnancy was a breeze. I felt the best I had ever felt.” I loved being pregnant. And yes from me too – “the babies were precious and I felt so blessed to have them. The love I had for them was beyond measure.” Ours also changed our lives in so many beautiful ways. Our lives became immensely richer. We have never regretted our decision to become parents, even at our “advanced” ages.

Of course, she had the same experiences that I have had. She shares, “Invariably, everywhere we went, people would think I was their grandmother. Sometimes I corrected them and they were embarrassed and surprised, but many times I just let it go. It didn’t bother me and, incredibly, it didn’t bother the kids. It still doesn’t.”

She follows up at the end with this thought – “I’m now 67 years old with a 73-year-old husband. Despite the difficult and amazing journey we’ve been on — and despite my worries that we could be gone before the twins reach adulthood — I would not have done anything differently. Parents at any age can and do get sick and leave their kids parentless, but not many parents have the free time to devote to their children as we have had and do.”

An 18th-Century Hoax

Things have been a bit heavy lately. Not heavier than usual as regards all things adoption but even so, I’m going for a bit of light-hearted-ness today – or is it, really ? My soul and psyche need it but this one may not soothe, as it is one those historical oddities. Never-the-less . . . here goes.

Courtesy of The Guardian story by Melissa Harrison. It is a review of LINK>Mary and the Rabbit Dream. In 1726, the medical establishment believed that a poor woman had given birth to rabbits. That woman was Mary Toft of Godalming, who was a seasonal field laborer. paid only a penny a day. Her husband Joshua was a cloth worker. They were impoverished almost to the point of destitution. It wasn’t all that rare in a time of gross economic inequality. She was illiterate and healthy but her doctors described her as having “a stupid and sullen temper”.

The first “rabbit birth” occurred not long after Mary had suffered a miscarriage. Her mother-in-law, Ann Toft, was her midwife. A doctor from Guildford, John Howard, was enlisted for her case. She was moved into John Howard’s house but he lost control of the situation, as the sideshow snowballed with more and more rabbit parts issuing from Mary. So, she was taken to London, where she attracted the interest of the press and the king, was examined by rival surgeons and, eventually, the eminent obstetrician Sir Richard Manningham.

There was a myth at the time that that anything a woman saw or even imagined while pregnant could impress itself upon the developing fetus. What was known as maternal impression. Indignity and suffering were visited upon this powerless woman by people in thrall either to their own egos or their own schemes. In this historical hoax story, there was a lack of any clear, central motive presented to explain Mary’s supposed condition (though hunger could have driven her to the fabrications). At the time, rabbit farming was popular on Godalming’s sandy soils, but only for the rich. To poach a rabbit was to risk severe punishment – even in the face of starvation.

The “rabbit births” could have been an act of desperation on Mary’s part. Like many stories lost in the mists of time, all of the facts will never be known. So okay, maybe not a fun story for today. More so, a sad tale – as too oft is the truth.

Tone Policing

Though the example uses feminism, adoptees also frequently experience similar criticisms. So, just a little PSA for anyone in an adoption or foster care related group or community – note, I have not had a problem of this sort in my efforts here.

First of all, what constitutes “tone policing” and second of all, why tone policing isn’t a healthy way to address marginalized people from the privileged position. Tone policing is telling a marginalized individual (like adoptees) that they should speak respectfully to their oppressors (for any reason).

A common form of tone policing is one person telling a justifiably angry (or even triggered) person that foster and adoptive (including hopeful) parents “learn best” when they are spoken to in a gentle tone. This is an example of foster and adoptive parents using their privilege to force submission from the marginalized person. You don’t think of it that way, but that is absolutely what you are doing.

Foster and adoptive parents become allies by learning boundaries from an adoptee or former foster care youth’s harsh tone. While it isn’t always easy, it is necessary to face the realities of these lived experiences without asking them to moderate their tone. These privileged people do not “learn best” from a gentle or more submissive tone.

Marginalized people (adoptees and former foster care youth) have spent their entire lives performing. By that, I mean they are forced to conform to the standards set by privileged people in order to appease them. If they do not, they are accused of being angry, bitter, and advised to seek professional help.

When you ask them to “code-switch” (changing aspects of conversation to fit in or gain acceptance) in order to make you, the privileged powerful person, more comfortable, you are forcing them to conform to your ideal of what the submissive, grateful adoptee or former foster youth is supposed to look like. You are forcing them to conform to your vision and version of who they are meant to be.

The best thing you can do is listen to their voices and understand that they are sharing their lived experience with you and often in spite of difficult emotions related to those experiences.

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

I came across the concept of a wolf in sheep’s clothing today in a different frame of reference but it got me to thinking about the behavior of hopeful adoptive parents towards pregnant women. They clothe their desires in the sheep’s clothing of good intentions but what they really want is your baby.

I remember cartoons from my youth about the sheep dog watching over the flock. I wondered who the sheep dog is in adoption proceedings. Certainly, the judge who finalizes the adoption doesn’t really know anything about the couple who wants to adopt. My parents were adopted in the 1930s and in both cases I ran into references of social workers doing home visits to vet the prospective couple. I don’t know if they do that anymore in the modern capitalistic influenced “for profit” industry.

Ralph Wolf looks a lot like Wiley Coyote. Sam Sheepdog I remember.

Is It Wonderful Or Painful ?

A trans-racial adoptee complained about the all things adoption group I belong to. She said – It seems this is a group about hating adoption. Not at all what I thought I was joining. Adoption is wonderful and painful. It’s not more one than the other. It isn’t only bad. If you choose to only see bad, you’re missing the true picture. So far no actual adoptees weighed in on the thread I was in, only those who cannot speak to what being adopted is like. That’s like white people trying to tell people what other races feel like. You can’t! Nothing I love more than people who haven’t been adopted telling me what it’s like.

Maybe I can unpack that a bit. First of all the group is NOT about hating adoption but a sincere desire for some reforms. Yes, it is a mixed up kind of experience. From what I know, wonderful perhaps . . . if there was real disfunction for the original genetic, biological parents. Yes, it definitely can be that sometimes a child is better off elsewhere. Most of the reforms that adoptees are seeking have to do with transparency and hiding their true origins from them one way or another – either adoptive parent lying and pretending like they gave birth to the child or simply the way the courts and adoption system insist on altering birth certificates and usually changing the child’s name. A trans-racial adoptee is someone who has been adopted by parents who come from a different culture. That’s usually a difficult situation for the adoptee, as I have read in the words of adoptee’s own voices many times. I don’t know what thread she was indicating but this particular post received 72 comments, so I doubt that it lacked genuine adoptee voices and perspectives. I do understand as a white person who did spend a significant amount of time during the Black Lives Matter protests educating myself, that no matter how much I learn, I have not lived as a Black person nor experienced the realities of their lives and would never try to claim I understood, only that I have tried to become more informed.

It’s true – I was not adopted (thankfully – I think in my case that was a close call – when my high school student, unwed mother conceived me). Both of my parents were adopted. I know somewhat more about how my mom felt about it than my dad. Because my dad was not sympathetic to my mother’s need for knowledge and seemed to simply accept his status, my mom confided in me. The loss was my father’s because his half-sibling was living only 90 miles away when he died and could have told him so much about his mother.

Both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption and both have made it back to my family in seeking their own roots. I think that for both, what they learned answered some of the questions they had before they met us. I love them both dearly and they seem to have in their own ways resolved their own issues.

Never would I say that adoption does not include some degree of trauma. For myself, after over 60 years of knowing nothing about my grandparents and my cultural genetics, it means the world to me to know a LOT of those details now – closed and sealed adoptions kept that information not only from my adoptee parents but from me as well.

No Leniency

Sadly, it happens. A woman was sentenced to prison and is due to deliver in 6 weeks. She had hoped for leniency, but that didn’t happen. The minimum is a 15 year sentence, her earliest parole is 2031. She has no family who can take the baby (or be approved to take the baby) and she doesn’t know who the dad is. Her only option is foster care or adoption. She has been told by her attorney and by Child Protective Services (CPS) that CPS will need to sign off on any placement she picks. Due to her crimes and what happened, 99% of her friends have backed away from her, so there are no friends willing to take her baby. CPS will be notified the minute the baby is born and will take custody. She has a public defender for an attorney, admitted guilt and took a plea to get the minimum available.

One response – access to information is going to be the first step. Make certain she fully understands how her institutionalization will impact the kid’s systemic involvement. But you have to be up front and realistic. Once she is in the custody of the state, she has very minimal legal rights over the child because she’s classified as a dependent of the state and that’s always been their tool to remove or restrict civil rights and liberties from people. Her child will be adopted, if there are zero kin to step up for the baby. There’s not a state in the country that wouldn’t move for a termination of parental rights for an incarcerated parent with such a long sentence. This is a tragic situation where there are basically no options. Her rights will be terminated and the child will be adopted.

Someone else noted that foster care and adoption are likely not actually her only options. Depending on how involved the state already is (hopefully less because the child isn’t born yet) she can likely assign a non-family legal guardian through the duration of her prison stay. Legal advice ASAP is crucial. In my state, she would be able to sign power of attorney over as soon as baby is born and keep the Dept of Family Services from even stepping in – as a temporary situation at first, until a guardianship could be set up.

Yet, it is noted that because of the situation and history, CPS must approve the placement chosen and her attorney has said the chances of them even considering a private placement outside of an adoption are almost zero.

One person noted that even the most distant of relatives may feel compelled to help, if she gets the word out that she’s searching for someone with any familial connection to assume guardianship of the child. She shared this story – I know of a family who wound up adopting a child because the parents’ rights were terminated – child was put in foster care because no one in the family would or could take the child. The adopting family only found out about the child through the grapevine because of a very distant familial connection – it was one of the adoptive parent’s distant cousin’s or great uncle’s great-grandchild or something crazy like that. The adoptive parents didn’t personally know the parents and had no knowledge the child even existed but was able to get the child out of the system because of the very distant familial relationship. They felt compelled to get the child out of the system because even though they didn’t know the child or parents – the child was “family.” These adoptive parents were also past the age of “typical” parents – they have grown kids and are old enough to have grandkids or great grandkids.

One brings up the possibility of a conditional surrender. She would still have visits with baby until adoption and she could do the terms of a surrender to require legally binding visits until baby is 18. It is an agreement between parent and adopters (both sides have to agree to the terms). If adopters don’t follow the agreement, the parent can take them to court. As far as what the courts can/will do, that is an open question until it happens but the courts do have the power to enforce it because it’s a legal agreement. However, sadly all it takes is the adopters with a good child psychologist to go back to the judge later on and say it’s detrimental to the child to continue those visits.

And maybe it won’t actually be 15 years. One shared – What we learned after the fact having had no experience with the prison system, our son’s mother was sentenced for 15 yrs in federal with no option for parole. We assumed there was no leniency based on what her lawyer said. Now at 3 years in, she only has about 2-4 years left. I would highly recommend temporary guardianship.

And then there was this story with a happier ending – Someone I know ran multiple ancestry databases on her newborn because she was facing prison time with no viable caregiver in her family. She had casual flings during that period with no way to contact the potential fathers. She was able to narrow it down to a family. Several awkward phone calls later, she found the father. He eventually took custody (I think his brother and sister-in-law were involved for a bit too and they were foster parents, so an easier time of getting CPS approval initially, while the formal paternity testing was being done. She gave birth while out on bond before her trial. This process may be harder if the person you are helping has the baby in a jail or prison setting where she cannot access DNA kits. And the reply was – sadly, she is already incarcerated. And so this – Some states allow lawyers to petition for a DNA sample from the baby to narrow down paternity. She may need to work with a legal team knowledgeable about foster care and incarceration. I know it’s a long shot, but if it pans out the baby may have the possibility to be with relatives.

Financial Compensation Truth

Some suggestions in my all things adoption group today from a former foster care youth, adoptee and mother who lost her own child to adoption –

What I want to discuss is the financial compensation foster and adoptive parents often receive (not always). If you are a Foster Parent or Adoptive Parent – listen: Do not try to hide the fact you make money from this. Communication and transparency is important, regardless of age. Express that it’s THEIR money, earned for them.

Example: “Our family receives this check to help support you. You’ve been growing so big and I think it would be fun to use this money on new clothes! What do you think? We could also put it into your savings account.”

Don’t downplay it by expressing how it’s ‘not enough’.. Of course not, no government assistance ever is. But at the end of the day you are being paid money to parent another person’s child. That is an unnatural concept and can make a child feel dehumanized, like an item to be bought and sold.

Do you know what it feels like to look around and realize your family is being paid to love you? If you think “Pft nooo we LOVE them! my FC/AC would know it’s not like that–” then you clearly need more time listening to the broken hearts of stolen children. Sometimes all the love in the world can’t cure that “I was paid for” feeling. It takes therapy.

For me, I never knew people profited from my custody. I was a foster youth, adopted at 12, and then my adoptive parent died when I was 15. I down spiraled and by 16, I was raising my premature son in a shelter/group home. A month in, staff hands me a check for $1.7k with my name on it. My legal guardian on paper (the ex-husband of my dead adoptive parent) had been cashing these checks every month, despite not having lived in our home for two years. I was told by my social worker that they’d last until I was 21 and she helped me open a savings account for my son. I used my final checks for a down payment on my first apartment. I was a homeowner by 25.

Moral of the story is that it’s wrong to hide from kids that the foster or adoptive parent receives compensation. Yes, the aid ‘isn’t enough’ to help some struggling families, but IMO those people should have stabilized their situations prior to fostering. You shouldn’t depend on subsidies as an income; The child is not there to support you. You wouldn’t give birth to a child and expect them to somehow contribute financially to the family, right?

Financial literacy is such a vital skill to learn and this is a great opportunity to teach it to them from a young age. Begin a conversation. We deserve it!

Reality. Finally this from the LINK>Foster Parent Journal – Foster-to-adopt parents are entitled to continuing support after the adoption. This may include a monthly per diem subsidy, medical insurance, reimbursement for expenses, a federal tax credit, and help later with college tuition.

In some cases, the reality is it IS about the money and NOT about the welfare of a child. Some of these people are not saviors but opportunists.

Investing in Families

Some thoughts from my all things adoption group today –

The state pays struggling families welfare benefits and the federal government also pays hundreds of billions in welfare and Medicaid benefits and subsidized housing and food stamps for poor families. The federal and state governments don’t enjoy financially supporting poor people’s children, they don’t find it to be a good investment. They think children raised on public funds grow up in large part to have more kids raised on public funds.

The federal government tasks states with promoting adoption of children whose parents get public assistance or whose parents qualify for public assistance. That means everything from fresh from the womb infants of uneducated unmarried girls who would qualify for welfare if they applied, to already born children of parents who are either on welfare or make so little as to be statistically likely to qualify for benefits at some point.

The federal government invests hundreds of millions of dollars in adoption incentives to save hundreds of billions on welfare benefits which also artificially sterilizes the poor by taking their children away and giving them to wealthier families who can afford to support them either totally on their own or with subsidies amounting to less than would have been paid to the parents on welfare.

The federal government requires states to hit a certain quota of adopting out special needs kids and pays $6,000 to $12,000 for every adoption of a child whose parents are on welfare or who qualify for welfare and states are mandated to increase the number of children on welfare adopted each year.

The state has zero incentive to return a child to a parent who has been meeting the state’s demands for return of their child, if that parent is on welfare. Returning the child to that parent literally costs the state money and so, there you go. Our judges work for the states that financially benefit from the adoption of welfare dependent children. There is a grave conflict of interest, when the arbiter is working for and paid by the state – who has a financial stake in the child being moved from the welfare dependent parent to a financially solvent adoptive home.

blogger’s note – The reality is that our society does not support struggling families well enough and is even a danger to many of them, causing the break-up of that family structure. It really is only about the money and our government would rather give it to the wealthy, who don’t need it but might donate to the politicians re-election campaigns, than help struggling families get on their feet and live dignified lives. Sadly, this is the reality.