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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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Rather than providing an environment that enables young people to climb out of the intergenerational poverty cycle into self-sufficiency, informal adoption can itself become a factor in perpetuating the cycle of dependency and poverty. This can be seen in three ways:

* lack of a model of an intact, nuclear family;

* perpetuation of unwed pregnancy, and;

* lack of legal status and confusing relationships.

The absence of a model of what a family with a mother and a father can be is perhaps the most damaging effect of informal adoption. This is not a problem when the child is brought into an intact home. However, the majority of informal adoptions transfer a child from a single teenage mother to another single grandmother or an aunt.

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The child then grows up experiencing the single parenthood model as normal. And according to Edelman's analysis of the breakdown of the black family, "The failure of first marriages to form among young blacks is the largest single cause of the very high proportion of all young black families that are fatherless." (16) In Sandven and Resnick's study, only 52% of the young girls viewed having two parents as important. Thirty-seven percent said that they would never marry. (17)

As an adult, Nadine is beginning to see how this lack of modeling has impacted her. She says that she very much missed her mother growing up: "I have always missed not having a momma. I really have. And my grandmother did an excellent job. But I do believe that there's nothing like your own mom."

But she says she never "had an understanding of what a real daddy was." All of her aunts, except the one in Houston, were divorced, so there were no models of a father even in her extended family. She added, "How could you miss something you don't have? For the most part, a dad-he was just an option."

The second negative effect of informal adoption is its contribution to the continuation of the unwed teenage pregnancy cycle. Informal adoption provides a resolution to the pregnancy that may do nothing to address the underlying reasons for the young girl's pregnancy.

Sandven and Resnick found that the young girls whose first babies became "gift" children in an informal arrangement tended to soon "replace" that child by having another. Although Sandven and Resnick report that "the majority had not intended to become pregnant when they did," there are other indications in their study that the girls' intentions were not clear, perhaps even to themselves. For instance, they also note that 67 % of the gift" group, and 56% of the overall group, reported a death of a family member or friend in the past year. (18)

Motherhood (and fatherhood) becomes a pathway to adulthood. Accordingly, the girls in Sandven and Resnick's study received very few negative reactions to their pregnancies; in fact, their peers tended to react with surprise and excitement and their boyfriends were the ones to respond most positively. In addition, with informal adoption the corollary adult responsibilities may be diluted. The new mother is allowed to remain a child, while her own mother assumes the role of care-giver to the new baby. Significant relational problems can result. According to Hill:

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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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