The important lesson COVID-19 stimulus checks taught us about adoption

There should be more government support for prospective parents left to the decision to put their children up for adoption, alongside funding for adoptive and foster care systems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a stunt in availability of adoptable children within the United States. Families that were once considering putting their child up for adoption had found that because they had the $1200 stimulus check, it would sufficiently support their child and no longer had to consider putting their child up for adoption.

There were many different reasons for an increase of children remaining with biological parents after birth, such as time at home and not having to commit to paid child care, or the fear of exposure to COVID-19 and choosing to keep themselves and their children at home. However, the primary focus is on the impact that financial insecurities have on whether a child is submitted to the foster care system for adoption or not. This stance is not meant to undermine the importance of government funding foster care or adoption centers receive, but providing financial assistance for new parents should not be neglected by the US government. Assisting expecting parents currently struggling with poverty should be a focal point of the United States government, said The Century Foundation. This is not a new idea to provide an economic incentive to having children or keeping your child. Many countries around the world provide new parents a stipend just after having children, or provide continued support throughout their child’s life to assure a lack of finances does not determine the care to a child.

There is known trauma to being adopted, whether you are adopted directly from birth at the hospital or you are placed into foster care for a brief or extended time. Adoption always holds a trauma of disconnect and isolation from the birth mother. We also know adopted individuals are much more likely to experience suicide, sexual assault, abusive relationships, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and many more hardships. There are many reasons why birth parents may decide to surrender a child for adoption; however, there is a percentage of parents that want to keep their child but do not have the resources or support to do so. Whilst this is more commonplace with single or young mothers, it can also affect committed pairs or co-parents. There is already speculation in government funding regarding where the money for this implementation will originate from. What is not general knowledge is the profound profit adoption and foster care systems acquire. The profit has encouraged people to look as this as a provocative business and has since been dubbed the adoption-industrial complex. This is often discussed as an international issue, but it is not an uncommon prospect in the United States.

Even through a simple Google search, you can find individuals looking to make foster parenting a full-time career and asking others how to make more money off becoming a foster parent. This is not to say all foster parents are in it for profit or foster parents do not deserve to have additional funding to support the children they home. However, it does expose the larger issue that caring for parentless children is seen as a stream of income says Evergreen.

A possible consequence of implementing a policy would be to allow a higher likelihood of children staying with biological parents. Similar during COVID-19, there will be a shortage of children available for adoption. This directly places a threat on children of color and children internationally. Currently, we are seeing many young children of color are no longer protected under legislation and are unethically being removed from families by people of authority. A critical piece of legislation outlining these situations is the Indian Child Welfare Act; overturning it directly places a threat on newborn native children and young children already in the care of loving parents. These instances of removing children from their biological parents allows for a continuation of profit flow into the adoption-industrial complex. Providing birth parents the funding and support needed for them to keep their child and consequently allowing said child to avoid damaging and abusive realities that foster care children face every day and have for generations.

In adoption, there are many expenses that are not known to the public. Surrendering a child for adoption is not free with many agencies. Nor is adopting a child whether it is a domestic or international adoption. Adult adoptees are still being charged by state courts and adoption agencies to have access to basic, non-identifying information, such as medical history, so adoption agencies can make an extra dollar. Eliminating these expenses and re-allocating them can be support for parents wanting to keep a child, keeping children out of the foster care system.

Many foster care homes subject the children they are supposed to care for to physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and trafficking. Taylor Ring, a California law firm, said “Foster care children are ten times more likely to be sexually abused than children who were able to be raised with their biological parents.” These are not occurrences that go unnoticed by foster parents in the position of care of those children. They are often the ones who are perpetrators of such actions. It is also common for foster and adoption agency staff members to partake in these crimes as well as facilitate in the kidnapping of children. This is a common practice and easily achieved because they are entrusted with critical information regarding children, and again, receive an additional profit to do so.

Everyday children are being left to the care of individuals enabling an unjust system where children are seen as a commodity because their biological parents are not able to handle the financial responsibility of a child. As seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and other areas of the world, financial support from the government for prospective parents can make a huge difference in the decision to allowing children to stay with their families. If more continuous policies are not enacted in the US, more children will be put at risk of being abused, removed from their current families and face future trauma-based hardships.

Written by Celena Hettrick