What country has the most helpful adoption rules?
May 5, 2010 by Adoption Information and Laws
Filed under More Adoption Answers
Can you answer this member\’s question?…
I find myself having very strong parental instincts, and i do believe that i can do a lot of good helping a child grow. However, i’m a progressive and radical person and i would not want to have to marry somebody and the only way i would “send” a child to school would be if one asks.
I would be willing to relocate to a different country (although probably not USA) if that would help, but i’d like to know which countries have the most helpful adoption rules (i.e. they actually help with the adoption process rather than trying to put road blocks in place). Is there a comparison somewhere on the net?
Cambodia has the most liberal adoption laws. If you see a child you would like to adopt, you can take them freely providing you have permission from one parent or a supervising adult.
Google it for more information.
Hope that helps. My little Zing-zing just turned 8.
First off Cambodian adoptions are off (at least in the US) because of its lack of laws but it has very lax policies… Next the ‘road blocks’ you mentioned are there for the protection of the child. Yes they make it hard to adopt, they are in the CHILD’S best interests. If your parental instincts are so strong but you are so radical you fear agencies won’t let you adopt then have your own.
Australia, definitely – they’ve almost completely banned adoption now, which is utterly excellent news.
Hang on a minute… there’s all these women being told that they should abandon their kids to adoption because all kids deserve two parents, so why in the world should a single person, male or female, be allowed to adopt? Surely that’s contrary to why people are being encouraged to abandon their kids in the first place?
Sadly though, yes, if you’ve got enough money, you can buy almost anything. I think, given the right case worker, and given the right incentives (e.g. money), pretty much anyone could get away with being able to adopt someone from somewhere, somehow. That doesn’t mean you should though.
I’m also one of them “bitter adoptees” that people like to rant about. I actually love my afam very much, and it’s because they are such a fantastic family that knowing that I didn’t know *any* of that about myself hurt so much. So I give you warning; as an AP, you’re never gonna be able to win. Even if you’re good, you can still lose.
I was abandoned to adoption at 7mths old, and would like to give you a word of caution – not to put you off being willing to help a child who honestly and truly needs help, but to make you aware that adoption isn’t always the rainbow farting unicorns as depicted in the media.
I honestly and truly wish that I’d been aborted instead of abandoned to adoption, so please be prepared for the fact that any kid you adopt could grow up (I’m 37, so definitely and legally a “grown up” in pretty much everywhere) to be as screwed up as me.
I didn’t have a bad adoption – my afamily are the best I could ever have chosen… but if I’d been able to choose, I’d've chosen to be aborted before birth instead, ’cause at least that way the lifetime of agony I’ve gone through would’ve been over in minutes, instead of the decades I’ve been suffering for now.
I’ve been in reunion with my bfam for a while now, and even that’s proving to be completely agonising.
Taken from Nancy Verrier’s book, Coming Home to Self: http://www.nancyverrier.com/self_book.php
For the adoptee every day is a challenge of trying to figure out how to be, although he probably doesn’t understand the difficulty this presents for him. It has been true his whole life and, therefore, feels normal. However, it takes a great deal of energy and concentration. And it never feels quite right. He never quite fits. Therefore he feels as if /he/ is never quite right.
(pg 50)
Abandonment and neglect are reported to be the two most devastating experiences that children endure – even more devastating then sexual or physical abuse. That’s why some neglected children do naughty things to get attention. Even though the attention is hurtful – being yelled at, hit, or otherwise harmed – it is better than neglect. /Anything/ is better than abandonment. Abandonment is a child’s greatest fear. For adoptees, it is also reality, embedded in their implicit and unintegrated memory.
(pg 102)
It is sometimes difficult to spot grief in children. After all, it isn’t as if the child sits in a puddle of tears his entire childhood. As one adoptee said, “Of course I played, laughed, sang. Do people think that if you’re not sitting in a corner with your head on your knees, you are not sad? I had happy times, but the sadness was always there, even when I was having fun.”
(pg 117)
Please read back through a few months worth of resolved questions in here http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/index?sid=2115500138 and then go read through all of the books and links listed at http://7rin-on-adoption.dreamwidth.org/tag/recommended+reading
Comprehend that lot, and you’ll be about ready to adopt.