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Points of light: informal adoption in the black community

Children Today, Sept-Oct, 1990 by Charmaine Yoest

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Neither of these assumptions is entirely true. There is some evidence that both the girls and the families have an interest in adoption, but face barriers which lessen that interest.

Researchers Kari Sandven and Michael Resnick recently published the results of a study of a group of 54 black inner-city adolescent single mothers who had made an adoption or parenting decision within the past six months. Twelve percent reported seriously considering adoption, a significant number in light of the nearly non-existent relinquishment rate. (5)

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According to researchers Elizabeth Herzog and Rose Berstein, when family structure and income are controlled, black couples are somewhat more likely than white couples to formally adopt. (6) The successful recruitment efforts of black adoption advocacy groups like Homes for Black Children and One Church, One Child support this viewpoint. "I have never ever had to struggle to get a family," said Sydney Duncan, who has been working with black adoptive families with Homes for Black

Children since 1969. (7)

Despite the interest, however, the relinquishment rate of black newborns remains low and black babies still languish in the foster care system longer than white babies. What, then, are the barriers to formal black adoption?

The most significant barrier to a young black mother making an adoption decision is that relinquishing a newborn is not readily accepted within the black cultural milieu. Peer pressure not-so-subtly enforces this standard. Of the young women who considered adoption in the Sandven/Resnick study, 89% felt that if they had chosen formal adoption, they would receive significant negative feedback from their peers and community. (8)

Black social workers report that it is not uncommon for a teenage mother to make an adoption decision, only to return later after the relinquishment accompanied by an angry family member demanding the return of the baby. Returning from the hospital without a baby, only to face disapproval from the entire community, is an understandably insurmountable hurdle for most young girls.

There are different factors influencing the numbers of black adoptive homes. Sydney Duncan and Zena Oglesby of the Institute for Black Parenting feel that the dearth of black formal adoptive homes is due to a social services system that is not culturally sensitive to the black community, not to a lack of interest. Common criticisms of the system include barriers that white adoptive couples must also face: bureaucratic inefficiency in processing and retaining interested families, and "turf" struggles between agencies competing for the scarce resource of a black adoptive family.

There are three major criticisms often mentioned that are specific to the system's interaction with black families. Many feel that charging fees for the placement of children is a major barrier. This, they say, is too reminiscent of slavery for many families. Second, they feel that home studies of prospective adoptive families unjustly eliminate low-income black families that do not fit white middle-class standards. Lastly, they feel that the predominance of white, middle-class, social workers leads to a cultural chasm.

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Points of light: informal adoption in the black community

Children Today, Sept-Oct, 1990 by Charmaine Yoest

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