Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Anyone here have an opinion about adopting? I have a history of mental issues in my family and wonder if adopting would be the better option for me and my peace of mind that I wouldn't be passing that on.

Not planing on adopting or having a kid any time soon, but thinking what other vegans think. (Ideas on overpopulation?)

I'd like to adopt whenever I get to the stage of my life where kids seems like a good idea (that is still a very far way off). I dunno, it just seems like there's a lot of children who need caretakers and, though I don't have major health problems in my family history, I don't think there's anything exceptionally special in my genes that -needs- to be passed down, so why pop out more kids?

i probably won't ever have kids in my house, but if that ever changes, i'd adopt an older kid. (or at least foster.)

It is very expensive to adopt compared to having a bio kid if you have health insurance and don't have fertility issues. My daughter cost us less than $150 in medical bills. By comparison, I've known people who have had to pay around 20k to adopt a child, which is apparently on the low side (according to http://www.theadoptionguide.com/cost/ar ... ption-cost). I love the idea of adoption, but that is a lot of money. I definitely would have considered adopting a second child rather than having another bio kid if the economics of it had been different.

We are an adoptive family. I think it's awesome!! Adoption can be expensive, it depends on a lot of different factors (private vs fostercare, etc). There is a adoption tax credit that you can take though which off-sets it somewhat.

Obviously it would depend on my life when I'm ready for kids, but I see a lot of kids in need of a home in my line of work,and that has made me really want to adopt or foster in the future...right now my sister is looking into how to start the process which is interesting

I voted not sure, but I am seriously considering it for the future.

I would have gone with adopting if DH had been okay with it and it was planned for similar reasons. (Lots of genes that can make life difficult for a kid, so far so good though)

I would adopt, my husband is not interested. Sigh.

My partner wants kids, I don't. I'm 26 years old and totally open to the idea that I may change my mind someday. If I did, I'd definitely go the adoption route. Mental illness runs strongly in my family, and I am no exception.

I think having a bio kid has made me more disposed toward adopting in the future. Before I worried about bonding with a kid I hadn't birthed and I also really wanted the experience of birthing and breastfeeding. Now that I've birthed a kid, a) the only real impetus for doing it again is just redeeming the first experience (and of course having another child), there wasn't much redeeming about birthing itself (or being pregnant or being postpartum), b) I may be doomed on the breastfeeding front anyway, so that's no longer a major consideration, and c) my child was a stranger to me at birth anyway - I loved her right away, but bonding took time, I don't know that it'd be so much different with a child I hadn't birthed. A friend of mine has two children adopted from South Korea and they're pretty much the happiest family I know, but she tells me about how her children grieved when they came here (as infants) and that kind of stuff does scare me.

I still think I'm not likely cut out for adopting an older child.

I also wouldn't want to do international adoption. I wouldn't care what race/ethnicity my child was (I hope), but I think the need is here and there's a fetishization of foreign-born kids (who obviously also need homes, but I don't know if Westerners adopting them is the sustainable solution to that problem). I'm also less worried about possible illegal/immoral termination of parental rights, but I don't know if I have any basis for that. A friend of mine is a social worker who does adoptions and she tells really depressing stories about people (of all races) who are willing to adopt African babies, but not perfectly healthy black American babies.

What is the deal with that? I mean, do they say why? I would be really interested to know what people's reasoning behind this is, since it doesn't make any sense at all to me.

I love the idea of adopting, but I would say if you are doing it to circumvent genetics consider that you have no idea what the bio parents could pass on.

I'm 100% all for it. and coincidentally not all that sure how fertile my boyzzz are.

I think this is really important to remember.

I had completely planned to adopt rather than have biological children. Then I spent 2 months with a pediatric psychiatrist doing inpatient and outpatient work. A huge percentage of his patient load were adopted or foster children and many of them had extremely severe emotional issues (even the ones who were adopted as very young children). I know that for myself (at least at this time in my life) I wouldn't be able to handle those kinds of issues. I suppose if I had access to medical history including mental health I might consider it because genes are strong influences.

Like climbing Mount Everest, adopting children seems like a difficult and expensive thing that someone else might enjoy doing but really isn't for me.

When I had fertility issues, a few of my friends urged me to adopt. And where I would have thought beforehand that I was completely open to adoption, I discovered that I really wanted a bio-kid. I loved the experience of being pregnant and birthing and I actually love having a bio-kid and seeing my partner and me in her.

Things change all the time, but at the moment, I would not adopt. And I love what annak said.

It's about the "look" - Africans are considered beautiful, American blacks are considered unattractive.