Points of light: informal adoption in the black community

Charmaine Yoest

Her young mother had just died at age 31, from asthma, leaving six children between 1 and 12. Her father had left the year before. It was 1965 in Louisiana and the relatives had gathered in the kitchen of Grandmother McKee's house:

  "I can remember, vaguely, they
    were saying, what are we gonna
    do with the children?  And
    somebody said, put em up for
    adoption.'  But my grandmother
    said, No.  I'll raise them.' She
    didn't want to separate us.  So,
    that's the way it began, " remembers
    Nadine, the fourth child,
    only five years old then.

They called her "MaDear," (ma-dee-a) short for " Mother Dear," and she raised them all on nothing but her own and her daughter's Social Security checks. No welfare. A blind uncle and ten other grandchildren without a mother also needed her care. " She was like the post, the security. You could go there and lay your head down; we may not have had a lot of material things, but that was home. She was always there," says Nadine.

Many others in the black community share Nadine's memory of being informally adopted by a grandmother. The tradition of "taking care of our own" by taking in needy children is so prevalent in the black community that it is a distinctive part of its culture. In a study published in 1977, Robert Hill, a professor at Morgan State University, found that 13 % of black children lived in informally adoptive families (compared to only 3 % of white children). By an overwhelming majority, those children were being raised by single, elderly women like MaDear. Hill found that almost half of black families headed by women over 65 had informally adopted children. (1)

Grandma Jones (not the real family name) is another woman, who like MaDear, informally adopted her grandchildren. Her daughter gave birth as an unwed 15-year-old to Gale. Subsequently, in two-year intervals, Gale's mother had another daughter and a son. They all lived together in the Jones home even after her mother married.

Though Gale's mother was present, Grandma Jones was always the children's primary caregiver. Gale says of her mother, "It was like she was my sister." Gale distinctly remembers her mother sitting down in the kitchen one day and deliberately deciding that Gale would belong to her grandparents, while the other two children would remain hers. "My mother informally gave me to my grandparents," says Gale.

Eventually, her mother became addicted to heroin and left. "She went off and did her own thing," remembers Gale. Later she returned and, to strike back at the Joneses for trying to get her off heroin, took the children away. She soon returned Gale, but kept the other two with her. However, when the Joneses found out that the two younger children didn't see their mother for days at a time, Grandma Jones went to court and won guardianship of them as well.

Gale's mother was the third generation of women in her family to have become an unwed pregnant teenager. Single parenthood can be the event which effectively extinguishes the light of hope in a young girl's life, introducing her to a dark world of struggle and hardship. In our society today, unwed teenage pregnancy has become an agent of darkness, perpetuating poverty through the generations. For the child of a single parent, the statistical odds of becoming an unwed mother, or fathering a child out-of-wedlock, are staggering. One study found that 80 % of the girls who were mothers at 15 were themselves daughters of teenage mothers? (2)

Gale and Nadine are exceptional in having broken out of this vicious cycle. Gale is now studying for her Ph.D. at a northern university and Nadine graduated from college and now works in Washington, D.C. Gale's younger sister, however, did become pregnant out-of-wedlock, carrying the cycle into the fourth generation.

Unwed pregnancy is far from just "a black problem." Regardless of race or class, unwed pregnancy coupled with single parenthood is intrinsically and inescapably difficult in its emotional demands, and usually leads to poverty. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 65.7 % of all children under age 6 in female-headed families lived in poverty in 1986; in female-headed black families the proportion was 71.9 %.

The number of white, unwed pregnant teenagers is far greater than the number in the black community, but proportionally the black community is hit harder by unwed pregnancy and its effects. Today, 61.2 % of all black children are born to unwed mothers. (3) According to Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, a black teenager is twice as likely to become pregnant as a white teenager and five times as likely to become an unwed parent.

Despite this high level of unwed pregnancy, the black community has a very low percentage of girls choosing formal adoption for their babies. In fact, the percentage is statistically insignificant at less than 1%.

As a result, there is a common perception that the black community is not interested in adoption. Because there is such a low relinquishment rate, it is assumed that unwed black mothers will not consider adoption. And with black children comprising the largest percentage of the children waiting to be adopted, it is also assumed that black families will not formally adopt.

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)

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.

However, formal adoptions in the black community are increasing, albeit slowly. Efforts to encourage that trend will be successful only to the extent that they are culturally sensitive. Working within the black community necessitates an understanding of the dynamics and resources already in place, and then building on them.

Informal adoption is just such a resource. When informal adoption arrangements are included, the black community has a very high rate of adoption: providing homes for an estimated 900,000 black children in today's society. (9) Additionally, informally adopting families take in more children per family than formal adoptive families-61% of informal adoptive families have taken in three or more related children. (10) MaDear is a good example, as is Grandmother Jones who, in addition to Gale and her brother and sister, also raised another niece. Gale said, laughing, "Black families have a revolving door."

Children come through the revolving door in different ways. The Sandven/Resnick study identified two separate categories of informal adoption: shared parenting and gift" children. In shared parenting, the mother has help from someone else, usually her own mother, with the childrearing responsibilities. Gale began her life in this situation, but eventually became a gift" child. With gift" children, the mother may remain in the home, but all acknowledge that primary care for the child comes from someone else-usually the grandmother. According to Hill, two-thirds of the informally adopted children live in informal arrangements where neither parent is present. (11)

In his book Strengths of Black Families, Hill lists the extended family as one of the black community's most valuable assets. The prevalence of informal adoption is a manifestation of this characteristic-strong kinship bonds and taking care of one's own is a hallmark of black culture. Nadine says of MaDear:

  "To this day, I try to figure her
      out.  Why did she do some of the
      things she did?  You know?  Not
      to receive anything in return.
      She didn't have any ulterior motives.
      Nothing from the state,
      which could have been paying
      her welfare checks.  But that
      wasn't the case at all.  She just
      took care of us."

For MaDear, her decision about the children's care was automatic-of course they would stay with her. This attitude springs from what Edelman calls "the strong black tradition of self-help." Another writer, James King, talking about this tradition says: All black families in America have a common sense of `peoplehood' in the sense that they have had to help each other in the struggle against oppression since arriving in America." (12)

This strong sense of kinship, expressing itself as a network of help, was very much a part of Nadine's young life: "Because my family is so close-knit, they always helped to provide for us," she says. One of her cousins made her clothes, and they all pitched in to make sure the children always had Christmas presents. The aunt that Nadine most admires (and who paved the way as a role model) was able to attend college because the family held dinners to raise money for her tuition.

In the past, close-knit communities have served another purpose-to a large degree the extended family has been the black community's Child Protective Service. A young mother raising a child alone frequently did so in the context of a watchful, protective, extended family. Child abuse or neglect did not go long undetected. One young girl quoted in All Our Kin, Carol Stack's study of the black family, said:

  "I wasn't living at home at the
     time, but mamma kept Christine
     most of the time.  One day mamma
     up and said she was going
     to take my child and raise her
     light.  She said that I was immature
     and that I had no business
    being a mother the way I was
    acting.  An my mamma's people
    agreed and there was nothing I
    could do.  So mamma took my
    child."  (13)

According to Hill, the lowest levels of child abuse are among informal adoption arrangements. But even in cases when a child is removed from a home by the state, the extended family is still a resource. A study on formal foster care by the National Black Child Development Institute found that relatives were considered for placement assistance in 75 % of the cases, and nearly 60 % offered some type of assistance.(14) One of the most common reasons for denying placement assistance was lack of financial or housing resources.

Informal adoption arrangements offer several major advantages to the children. Because the arrangements are usually made intra-family or within the kinship network, to some degree a sense of belonging and continuity is maintained for the child. Also, informal adoption can provide security and care for a child who might otherwise have to cope with the terrible disruption and impermanency of the foster care system.

Also, the involvement of the young mother's family and the support of the extended family framework in raising the child can somewhat mitigate the stress and isolation a young mother faces as a result of the absence of the father. For instance, Nadine talks with great fondness of the fun of growing up in the midst of so many cousins, all of them raised as brothers and sisters.

Looking at informal adoption reveals a community adapting and flexibly responding to its own needs. Instead of the stereotypical conniving welfare mother, we see great dignity personified. We come away with a picture of hope and possibilities-some, like Nadine and Gale, have indeed made it out of the darkness and into the light with the sacrificial support of loved ones.

The system of informal adoption has been successful in its primary, and most fundamental, objective: providing homes for needy children. But in some other, significant ways, it falls short of the optimal situation for the child. And although in the real world, the optimal cannot always be attained, it must always remain the goal. Hill himself says:

  "The informal adoption mechanism
    appears to perform some
    vital functions for black families
    in such areas as income maintenance,
    day care, services to
    out-of-wedlock children and unwed
    mothers, foster care and
    adoption.  But very little is
    known about the adequacy of
    these self-help efforts and coping
    strategies among low-income
    blacks-a primary target
    group of most social welfare policies
    today.  And, until one assesses
    the adequacy of these
    coping strategies, it is not possible
    to effectively determine the
    kinds of additional supportive
    services and programs that are
    needed to enhance the quality of
    life of low-income and minority
    children in general."  (15)

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.

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:

  "...  several studies have revealed
     role strain and conflict between
     grandmothers and mothers concerning
     the rearing of informally
     adopted children.  Often, the
     grandmother behaves as the
    'mother" of the grandchild,
    and the natural mother as an
    older sister of her own child.
    Consequently, the grandmother
    role may, in fact, be non-existent." (19)

Lastly, informal adoption leaves the child in legal limbo. Should the child's informal parent die, the child is ineligible for Social Security benefits. Nor would the child be eligible for disability benefits to which he would otherwise have been entitled had he been legally adopted. Additionally, if no one present has ultimate legal responsibility for them, informally adopted children are sometimes shuffled from one home to another. This is the dark side of the "revolving door."

In our discussion of informal adoption, we must recognize the deterioration of some of the factors that have made informal adoption possible in the past. During the last 20 years the extended family network in the black community has been seriously weakened. With the decline in the extended family, the resources that have enabled older black women, and others, to take in needy-children in the kinship network are diminishing.

Hearing the details of Nadine's story without knowing her or knowing the outcome, there would be little risk in predicting that she would become an unwed, poorly educated adolescent mother living in poverty. All of the other girls on her block became unwed mothers. But she did not. On getting to know her, one is startled to discover that Nadine comes from an economically deprived background; there are no outwardly visible indications.

Gale's story is likewise a gratifying surprise: A woman who as a very young girl watched her mother shooting up on heroin, grew up to earn a college degree and go on to pursue a doctorate. Her story is a wonderful anomaly.

These are two who were born on the edge of darkness. But light came to them through their grandparents: MaDear McKee and the Joneses. And that light enabled them to see things differently. Nadine explains:

  "There is one thing that I know
     has made me different.  I don't
     want to sound too mystical but
     the only thing I can say is that
     I have always, always wanted
     better for myself!  And I don't
  know where that came from; but
      I have always, always wanted
      better for myself.  Just because
      you didn't have, doesn't mean
      you have to end your life not
      having."

Gale's outlook is similar. When asked what the difference was between those who were able to make their dreams a reality and those who fell prey to the limitations of their background, she replied, "There's got to be something inside you that says, 'I don't want to live like that.' For some people it's a much clearer vision, they see it as attainable."

If it was a clear vision of a better life which motivated both Nadine and Gale, the path that they both took to get there was the same as well: education.

"It wasn't a big push," said Gale. "When I came home, I was just expected to get A's. My grandfather would have done anything to help me go to college. `You're smart,' he would say, go to school.' All his generation knew was that if you got an education You could be somebody."

Nadine's comments about MaDear echo the same sentiment:

  `She never sat us down and
      preached to us, but we knew she
      wanted us all ...  it was expected...
      that we would get an education.
      She wanted me to get an
      education because she knew she
      could only do so much for us.
      She knew that if we got an education,
      at least we would be
      more equipped to have what she
      didn't have, and to have what
     she couldn't give us.  When I
     finished my college degree, she
     was so happy she didn't know
     what to do."

A vision becomes believable when we see it modeled in someone's life. Role models also play a big part in helping young people see something better beckoning. For Nadine, it was her aunt in Houston, the one with the beautiful things and the many bottles of shiny nail polish. Inspired to be like her, Nadine collected and sold soft drink bottles to be able to get her hair done. Her aunt had gone to college, so Nadine did too. To this day, her aunt prods her on, asking about her goals and aspirations.

Human nature is so infinitely variable that there are no simple formulas which guarantee success. Though Gale-despite the obstacles-was able to build a life of accomplishment, her brother did not. And Nadine and one other cousin are the only ones out of the 16 MaDear raised together who finished college. While it is impossible to lay down conditions which ensure that a child will develop to his full potential, experience clearly teaches us that certain fundamental factors enormously improve the odds for positive outcomes.

The sacrificial, loving care, the encouragement, the positive expectations, the discipline, and the taking of responsibility personified by MaDear and Grandmother Jones provide a solid foundation for life, and opportunity to grow, develop and achieve. It is impossible to overemphasize the significance of the security of the consistent individual, personalized attention of an adult in the life of a young child.

Sometimes, children almost seem radiant with their purity and enthusiasm for life. There is a fragile, natural, spark of light which begins with a child's dreams, hopes, and imagination and must be nurtured and protected. Just as a candle's wick must be trimmed and the flame protected from a draft, so the light of a child must be shielded from the winds of adversity whose icy blast can extinguish it, leaving only darkness. With nurturing love and care, the light grows and brightens; with neglect and abuse, the light flickers, dims, and finally dies.

But even in the darkness, the dying spark can be reignited into a glowing flame with another point of light. Rekindling the spark in a child's life and nurturing the flame, as MaDear McKee and Grandma Jones did, can illuminate the path to a new and better life, renewing confidence and bringing priceless hope.

After considering whether her identity should be disguised in this article, Nadine returned with her decision:

  "I've always been real open,"
      she said, and the reason why
      is in Ecclesiastes.  It says the end
      of a matter is better than the beginning.
      If anybody reads my
      story, I would just want it to give
      children hope.  I really do believe
      God is going to do something
      with my life.
      "Even my name, Nadine,
      means hope.'"

Charmaine Crouse Yoest is a policy analyst at the Family Research Council.

1. Robert B. Hill, "Informal Adoption Among Black Families," address before the Adoption Research Workshop, sponsored by the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, United States Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C., June 6,1990.

2. Ann Hulbert, "Children As Parents," The New Republic, September 10, 1984, Vol. 191, No. 11, p.18.

3. "U. S. Children and Their Families: Current Conditions and Recent Trends, 1989," Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families,

4. House of Representatives, 101st Congress, 1st Session, September 1989, p. 15.

5. Adoption Fact Book, National Committee for Adoption, Washington, D.C., 1989, p. 178.

6. Kari Sandven and Michael D. Resnick, "Informal Adoption Among Black Adolescent Mothers," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 60 (2), April 1990, p. 217.

6. Elizabeth Herzog and Rose Berstein, "Why So Few Negro Adoptions?" Children, January-February, 1965, p. 24.

7. Sydney Duncan and Zena Oglesby, " Models for Success in Adoptive Planning for Black Infants," workshop presentation before the 15th North American Training Conference on Adoptable Children, sponsored by the North American Council on Adoptable Children, Washington, D.C., August 16-19, 1990.

8. Sandven and Resnick, p. 217.

9. Hill, address before the Adoption Research Workshop, p. 3.

10. Robert B. Hill, Informal Adoption Among Black Families, National Urban League, Research Department, 1977, p. 43.

11. Hill, Adoption Research Workshop, p. 3. James R. King, African Survivals in the Black American Family: Key Factors in Stability," Journal of Afro-American Issues, Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter 1976, p. 30.

13. Carol B. Stack, All Our Kin, New York: Harper and Row, 1974, as quoted in Hill's Informal Adoption Among Black Families, p. 76.

14. Who Will Care When Parents Can't: A Study of Black Children in Foster Care," National Black Child Development Institute, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1989, p. 6.

15. Hill, Informal Adoption Among Black Families, p. 3.

16. Marian Wright Edelman, Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987, p. 10.

17. Sandven and Resnick, p. 217.

18. Sandven and Resnick, p. 216.

19. Hill, Informal Adoption Among Black Families, p. 73.

COPYRIGHT 1990 U.S. Government Printing Office
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