Someone sent me Christianity Today’s new story on singles who are adopting, asking why I wasn’t quoted. Heck if I know. Yes, I’ve written more on it than anyone else has (who else has a blog dedicated exclusively to the topic?), so obviously the writer didn’t google experts on the matter.
But hey, my relationship with CT has been rocky for at least a decade, so I’m not expecting any calls from them. Historical fact: I was one of only a few women to regularly write for that publication starting back in 1978 when, as a new college grad, I pitched them on a charismatic Anglican conference in Canterbury that I was attending.
So, I am truly glad that, after years of ignoring the matter, CT has seen fit to make singles adoption a cover story. Occasionally hell does freeze over.
Singles adoption was actually more of a thing 15-20 years ago when foreign adoptions were soaring and I, in my 40s at the time, spent one Saturday a month at Single Women by Choice gatherings in the DC area trying to get up the courage (and finances) to adopt. There was no Christian equivalent that I could attend. Most of the women were going the far cheaper artificial insemination route rather than the $30K+ adoption route like I was, but at least they were positive, kind people.
I’ve related elsewhere in this blog the hell that many evangelical Christians put me through as I was considering balancing a newspaper career with becoming a mom. My family wasn’t supportive, either, so I did all my prep work in secret until about four months before I climbed on a plane.
And a bunch of single female journalists were doing the same thing I was (Laura Ingraham was the best known), so in February 2007, I brought home my little girl from Kazakhstan. My life, of course, completely changed. Fourteen years later, CT has decided that we’re now acceptable.
Well, sort of acceptable. The CT story still comes with a bunch of insulting insinuations one would never apply to a married person. More on that in a moment. It’s interesting that a quote from Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, comes near the top of the story in that Moore has been an opponent of singles adoption for years. I’ve personally challenged him on it but he won’t engage. Orphan advocate Jed Medefind, also quoted near the top has also been unsupportive (I’ve approached him privately too). Hopefully, he’s coming around, even if Moore never will.
I am curious what led to this story. Was it because of Bethany Christian Service’s recent decision OK’ing gay/lesbian adoptions or had this story been planned long beforehand? (I suspect the latter). But the timing is interesting. The secular world simply wants to find parents for millions of parentless kids no matter what the sexual preference of the parents while the Christians are still tied up over whether singles are good enough.
For instance, some of the folks quoted in the article believe that singles shouldn’t have the temerity to actually be permanent parents, but should settle for volunteer positions like providing respite care for (you’ve guessed it) the vastly more preferable two-parent families. I’ve heard this kind of reasoning before, albeit in slightly different words, from churches that tell their singles that they should be teaching Sunday school and doing childcare on Sundays so the married couples can have a break. The article says:
Marriage rates, too, are declining inside and outside the church, leaving more single women childless. Reid, who said his own views on the issue have evolved, noted that singles have other entry points beyond fostering and adoption: There is respite care (a trained position to aid foster families), or working with emergency placements that are as temporary as a day or a weekend.
“Is it ideal for a kid to be in foster care with two parents? Yes, of course,” Reid said. But there are so many kids and the need is so urgent that there is “absolutely a place” for singles to provide direct care for at-risk children.
Does this guy have a clue what respite care truly entails? It’s rough work that requires some pretty serious training. I’ve been a mom for 13 years now; I’ve a lot of experience in the Washington state mental health system and I’d never do respite. Once again, singles are this permanent servant class who, because they never found a mate in churches with impossible male-female ratios, are sentenced to take positions that the marrieds don’t want.
The CT article spends much time recommending foster care for singles which causes me to (again) shake my head. My parent Facebook groups are full of entries from single and married foster parents who recount simply hellish tales about their lives, which are made worse by inept state foster care systems (see below this and this piece on the disarray in Washington state) that are beyond incompetent.
There are happy endings and a friend of mine in Alaska just wrote a book about her foster care adventure. But, knowing what I know now, no way I’d go into foster care as a single mom. Maybe if I had a stay-at-home husband, meaning there’d be two of us around all the time, I might consider it.
About the insulting insinuations in the article toward singles, read the next few paragraphs:
Williams’s team watches for certain red flags when they consider placements with single people. They try to weed out those who may be motivated by the financial “benefits” of foster care (which is a myth, Williams added) or by overly strong maternal instincts, which she calls the “motherhood motivation.”
Single parenting by choice is a calling. It’s not for people who simply want to “experience having kids,” said Robin Gerardi, head of WeFoster, a ministry of First Baptist Church Woodstock in Georgia. ..
Heather Creed agrees. “I don’t have to worry about the health of my marriage and myself and my husband and any biological children,” she said. “I can give so much more focus to the healing and restoration of the child.”
Still, like Gerardi, Creed cautions those in particular who want to adopt simply out of a parental desire to have kids. “There are a whole lot of issues that will emerge from that,” she said.
Whoa – WAIT A MOMENT. Simply wanting to be a parent isn’t a good enough motivation for a single? Excuse me? What are they looking for: Mother Teresa? Every couple I know who adopts or fosters does so because they want to be parents. No one questions their motives or asks them to detail their “calling.”
As I read this and fume, I am so glad that I adopted from a secular agency, not a Christian one that would endlessly question my motives for wanting to form a family while happily waving through couples.
The article does end on an up note, which is good. As I read it, it’s clear that singles have long since given up on waiting for approval from their churches and have moved ahead to adopt and foster anyway. And for a second act, I hope CT also covers those Christian families for whom adoption and foster care has become a nightmare. I’ve been trying to sell a story on that topic for years with no luck because it doesn’t fit the narrative of adoptive families getting tons of support from their families and churches.
That’s a fantasy of course. When push comes to shove, the support evaporates and you’re on your own. Singles have always known this, of course. So go ahead and adopt. Your ending may be happy. I hope it is. But if it’s not, at the end of the day, the only person that child has to depend on is you.
Single Christians Adopting 