From the New York Times Economix blog, Black Babies, Boys Less Likely to be Adopted:
Both straight and gay adoptive parents are likely to exhibit racial and sex-based biases when applying to adopt a child, a new study finds…
The authors found that girls are consistently preferred to boys. For non-African-American babies, for example, the probability that a prospective adoptive parent expresses interest in such a baby is 11.5 percent if the baby is a girl and 7.9 percent if the baby is a boy.
Interestingly, in many cultures the preference for biological children runs in the opposite direction, with parents strongly preferring boys instead of girls. The authors suggest that this preference for girls in cases of adoptive children may be because adoptive parents “fear dysfunctional social behavior in adopted children and perceive girls as ‘less risky’ than boys in that respect.”
Additionally, Caucasians and Hispanics are consistently preferred to African-Americans. The probability that a non-African-American baby will attract the interest of an adoptive parent is at least seven times as high as the corresponding probability for an African-American baby.
The desire for white babies can be partly, but not fully, explained by the fact that most of the adoptive parents in this data set were white; previous research has found that adoptive parents often want children who look similar to themselves.
The study also looked at adoptions by same-sex couples. …
In some ways…gay adoptive parents were more “selective.” Somewhat ironically (at least considering the continued social prejudice against their own family structures), same-sex couples and single women appeared to exhibit even stronger prejudice in favor of girls and against African-American babies than their opposite-sex couple counterparts.
As an adopted person and adoption advocate, I follow adoption news as closely as I can. I might as well state up front that I’m frequently irked by adoption coverage in the media, by reporters who can’t bother to do the research necessary in order to get their terms straight, and by the backlash that results from those individuals, agencies, and celebrities (I’m looking at you, Madonna) who see fit to bypass those pesky “laws” and “regulations” when adopting.
I think of adopted children and adoptive parents as my family, in some sense. We don’t agree on everything, but we are all part of the adoption community, and our lives are often misrepresented or misunderstood by friends and strangers alike who have never been on the inside of an adoption themselves. So I may take issue with or make fun of adoptive parents as a whole, but you know, it just pisses me right off when someone else does it. Inconsistent? Yeah, probably I am. Oh, well.
Which brings me to this article. I think the tendency would be for your average liberal reader to read this and say, “gosh, those adoptive parents are jerks.” And, okay, some of them definitely are, but I think that reaction would be a bit of an oversimplification.
Anyway, to unpack the piece a little…I knew there was a preference for girls among adoptive parents, though these numbers were new to me. In terms of intercountry adoption, a lot of sending countries send far more girls than boys, due to cultural biases in favor of boys, so I think a lot of prospective parents (both here and abroad) just tend to assume it’s easier to adopt a girl. I know if you say you want a Chinese boy, you could be waiting a damn long time. So a lot of parents put down “girl” because they think they could get one faster. I myself was placed for adoption largely because I was not the boy my birthparents were hoping for.
I can see some people preferring girls because there is a feeling among many parents (whether it is true or not) that little girls are “easier” than little boys. Also, plenty of biological parents hope for a boy if they already have a girl, or a girl if they already have a boy, in order to “complete the set.” When I was pregnant, I had a slight (okay, major. It was a major bias) in favor of having a girl; I was all RAHHH GIRL POWER, I’m-not-ready-to-take-a-side-in-the-circumcision-debate, “screw you”-Korean-cultural-bias-in-favor-of-males! I’m not ashamed; I would have loved a son just as much and I hope to have a boy someday; that first time, I just had a preference, that’s all. All this to say, the fact that some adoptive parents might have the nerve to express a preference for girls over boys doesn’t deeply offend me. What, they’re not allowed to have a slight gender bias, when you have wealthy biological parents “selecting” for not just gender, but brains, Aryan features, the whole nine yards?
As for the racial bias, I can’t say I found it surprising, and to the extent that it is motivated by racism, it is reprehensible. The article above failed to highlight the fact that there are very long waiting lists of prospective adoptive parents (mostly white) who want to adopt children of color and children with special needs. In some places, white parents aren’t allowed to adopt babies who aren’t white, because some people believe they wouldn’t be able to understand or empathize with the racial prejudice and identity issues that child would encounter. But there are plenty of white parents who, for good or ill, would and do leap at the chance to adopt a child of color.
I’m certainly not defending all adoptive parents here, as many of them do have less than ideal motives for and attitudes towards both same-race and transracial adoption. I know plenty of people who have told me they just couldn’t see adopting a child of another race. But you know what? I know plenty MORE people who have told me they could never adopt AT ALL, because they just weren’t sure they would “feel the same” about a child who “wasn’t theirs.” So you tell me which kind of parent is worse. My point is, a couple often has to take a long, winding, difficult journey to get to the point where they can consider adoption of any kind fairly and squarely. Given that, and the fact that for most people it truly is (regrettably) a last resort after they have exhausted all fertility treatment options, it should hardly be surprising that, once they do settle on adoption, they aren’t the shining paragons of openness and evolved sensibility you might like to see.
One more thing this post failed to emphasize — though perhaps the study itself sheds more light on this — is the fact that for many adoptive parents, the racial and cultural barriers that arise are not always due solely to prejudice, but rather to their own feelings of inadequacy when it comes to raising a child outside his or her culture of origin. Really, I don’t think you can get more fair than that. I think this doubt and honest assessment of one’s shortcomings is a healthy exercise for any adoptive parent to go through, frankly. Adopting a child of another race and/or culture should not be undertaken lightly, with the assumption one will have no trouble with it along the way, and the expectation of perfect success. Many adoptees like me who were adopted outside our culture are quite vocal about the things we felt were missing because we were raised by white parents. Much as I might want to adopt a black child, therefore, I might also hesitate because I would wonder if I’d be the best parent to that child.
The fact is, and I think we all agree on this — not just anyone can be a good adoptive parent, particularly to a child of another race. Not just anyone should be one. If you recognize that, as a prospective adoptive parent, maybe that’s all to the good. (You know, assuming you are truly being conscientious, and not just a racist asshat.) But it seems there is no way for adoptive parents to win, is there? If they show a preference for a child of color, they are self-righteous imperialists with a white savior complex. If they show a preference for white children, they must be racist.
Ideally, there would be enough people willing and able to adopt, in both the U.S. and abroad, to keep children within families of their own ethnic and cultural background. Believe it or not, many, many international adoption advocates, agencies, and organizations acknowledge this, too — and believe that the best option for orphaned children globally would be domestic adoption within their own countries. But sadly, this is far from possible at this time. To quote from another post I wrote a few months ago:
The “ideal” would be for more countries to establish ethical, transparent, and thriving domestic adoption programs, allowing more children to be adopted by parents within their own country and culture. Currently, however, domestic adoption is far from a realistic option for the vast majority of children in many, many sending countries, due to a variety of economic, cultural, and political factors. The U.S. is one of only a few nations whose citizens enjoy both the financial ability to adopt, and a general cultural openness and friendliness to adoption. And for many thousands of orphaned and abandoned children worldwide, their only chance to have a family of their own and escape institutional/foster care is through intercountry adoption.
The same goes for children of all ethnic backgrounds here in the U.S. who have been abandoned, orphaned, or placed for adoption with no recourse to biological parents or other family. We don’t have orphanages or workhouses anymore, but we do have an overburdened and underfunded foster care and juvenile courts system, and there is a wealth of research and foster care alumni stories detailing the increased likelihood of poor outcomes for children who are forced to languish in foster care (most of whom are never made eligible for adoption). Children don’t just need, they have the right to safe, loving, permanent families. Right now, the only way for many of them to achieve this is through adoption, including transracial adoption. We need to educate and encourage those who want to adopt and make it more possible for white parents to raise nonwhite children without making a huge mess of it. And in the meantime, we should promote ethical, responsible adoption any way we can, particularly among people of color, so that one day we might be able to serve the best interests of all children in need of families of their own.