A study shows the reason why Americans desire to adopt children of different races in other countries. They espouse children from China, Korea, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ukraine. The study was issued in the journal Sociological Perspectives and entitled "We Didn't Even Think about Adopting Domestically: The Role of Race and Other Factors in Shaping Parents' Decisions to Adopt Abroad."
Science Daily reports that the study involved 41 white parents from the northeastern United States who adopted 33 children with racial background from 10 countries. They were interviewed by the researchers from the University of Vermont.
"The fact that some respondents went abroad to actively seek children of color challenges the assumption that parents simply choose to adopt abroad because they are in search of white children they could not find in the United States," Nikki Khanna, the lead author of the study and the associate professor of sociology at the University of Vermont said.
"Yet, even for many parents who were open to or actively seeking children of color, they had limits; they were open to children of varying racial backgrounds, but not black--especially not African American," Khanna added.
Yes! #TheChurchBeingTheChurch “@baptmessenger: Interracial adoption opens doors https://t.co/3Yu7TRYTrZ pic.twitter.com/kecaeXHtLA”
— R.A. Redwine (@RARedwine) December 2, 2015
The researchers discovered that the reason why Americans are not adopting domestically is that they have a fear that the biological parents of the adopted child might change their minds and want their child back. They also say that adoptive children in the US have health issues as some mothers are taking drugs or drinking alcohol during pregnancy.
They also found out that Americans do not like to adopt a black child, particularly the African American race. One of the most common reasons is that the parent "did not think it was in the child's best interest." Some other reasons include racial stereotypes, family prejudice and bonding fears.
Wikipedia states that there were 233,934 adoptions into America from other countries in 1999 to 2011. And children from China have the biggest number of adoption totaling 66,630 children and Russia with 45,112 children. In the US, there were almost 37,000 children from California and New York.
