Why do some people think that sponsoring a child to stay with their family is a better option for people...?

Lillie

It is usually directed at the people who claim the are adopting because they want to "help a child" or "save a child" or "rescue a poor orphan" or something along those lines.

But if someone really wanted to just help a child or save a child, then it would make sense, wouldn't it, that the best thing for that child would be to remain in their own country, their own culture, and if possible, with their own extended family, through some form of sponsorship, wouldn't it? I mean, if a person truly, honestly just cared about the well-being of a child and had no greedy intentions of helping THEMSELVES to that child, wouldn't that be a better use for their money?

I think it would.

Now, if they "just want to be a parent" and have no intention of truly helping a child and doing what's best for the child, then no, I can see your point. They shouldn't be expected to sponsor a child if they don't get anything out of it in return.

IDK!!

Yes, they should just look for another child who needs them.

BUT, when it's a friend or cousin and adoption wasn't a consideration until someone came for help, then I think helping would be the better alternative if the baby's parents just need a little support.

Zuko

The point is that it ISN'T the responsibility of third world countries to provide America's infertile couples with children.

The point is that for a fraction of all the money people spend on importing children into this country, that child could be kept with their family and their culture.

The point is that having money and living in a country that ISN'T a developing or third world country does NOT entitle you to a child.

By all means, start your family... but that doesn't make it RIGHT to destroy other families to do so. There are PLENTY of other options that don't involve ripping children away from their families just because their economic status isn't considered 'desirable' to the social norm in economically desirable countries.

monkeykitty83

I think sponsoring a family is a great, great idea. I think it's something anyone should consider. But you're right, it's not a solution to wanting to be a parent yourself.

There are so many children (including tens of thousands in US foster care) who need homes, that I don't think it needs to be mutually exclusively. I think sponsorship works great for families who need help to stay together, but children who would have no permanent home need to be provided with homes. They don't cancel each other out. One person can do both.

opedial

Yes if adopting from foster care, or from a child with no parents or family. I understand, as I wanted nothing more than to become a mom, but I knew I had to adopt a child already waiting for a family rather than adopt one whose family could be together.

Yes sponsoring a family is a better option, but really that is a better option for all of society, to redistrubute the wealth of the countries so all people can live within human decency standards, and those who need help can get it.

Indian-vision

THIRD WORLD COUNTRY ADOPTION ADVOCATE HERE!!

I AM AN INDIAN FROM INDIA!

Kristy i do "get" your question.
Adoption is certianly not for EVERY ONE. There are people who would do the noble thing of "sponsoring families". But as an Indian from India who has volunteered in Indian orphanages. Lets bust some myths
1) These children/babies DO NOT have families. They have been abandoned and there is very little chance they would ever be re-claimed. They are in the orphanmage because they have no true family.

2) Not every kid is abandoned because of "poverty" in third world country. They are abandoned due to social/cultural practices.- girl child being unwanted.

3) Its easy to assume about us people writing in from our "third world country" what OUR desires and top of the list priorities are sitting in your first world country. How about asking US ??!!??

4) A child in the Indian orphanage or a homeless orphan beggar boy would rather have a FAMILY who loves him and is there for him physically everyday.Telling him to go to school and not smoke, eat his veges, kissing his tears away, reading bed time stories to him, etc.

Rather than sending him some money for his education and clothes and he stay in the depressing orphanage where nobody truly cares.

5) Infertile couples (Indian) are falling all over each other to adopt Indian babies. I have several couple friends who are infertile who rather stay "child free" than step into an orphanage and adopt as there are myths and negatives surrounding adoption and kids from an orphanage.

BLW_KAM

Many people truly do not understand how powerful the desire to be a day-to-day positive influence in a child's life is.

They believe that sponsoring is the same as nightie-night kisses, playing Bingo in the den, decorating the Christmas tree, watching the school bus pull away for the first day of kindergarten, running like lightening when you hear a scream, cheering from the sidelines during a Little League game, smiling when you open the report card or crying at night because you yelled when you shouldn't have.

While sponsoring is honorable, it is not, nor will it ever be, the same as being a parent.

almost human

If you REALLY what to know why, and aren't just asking rhetorically so you can gripe, then here goes:

We are saying this to people who claim that their reason for adopting is to help out children in need. That excuse doesn't hold water, because children in need typically need their families, and their families put them in orphanages because they don't have enough resources.

The proliferation of potential adoptive parents stating this position is particularly vexing because there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of them. They don't want to think of themselves as a hungry market, but that's what they are. And where there is a market, there are those that will create a supply to fill the demand if they can profit off of it.

There is NO END IN SIGHT if we don't work on the ROOT CAUSES of WHY children become orphans. THAT is the TRUE way to help children in need.

-Adoption provides a way for underprivileged countries to ignore social services.
-Adoption creates a market for babies, and where a market exists, exploitation, corruption, and human trafficking follow.
-Adoption provides an excuse for people to stop taking responsibility for their offspring
-Adoption provides a way for the privileged to capitalize on the instability and vulnerability of developing nations

What happened in Korea is being repeated over and over again. for the first wave, war created a few thousand real orphans. The second wave came after the war, when there were no more real orphans but the international adoption became a way for the government to neglect social services and neglect their aid to impoverished families. Food and economic aid to post war era families would have prevented the creation of thousands more orphans such as myself, and orphanages could have been nearly eliminated. It was also during this time that privileged countries were becoming more comfortable entertaining international adoption. The third wave came during reconstruction, the majority of young women moved to the cities for work and many became single mothers because they were removed from their highly structured traditional families. Because there were no social services, orphanages were the only alternative given them. The definition of what an orphan is changed from being a child without parents, to a child whose parents couldn't afford to feed them, to a child who lived in a society that gave no way for a mother to raise her child on her own. The fourth and fifth waves have come during times of great economic prosperity, where relinquishing children became the standard accepted practice.

Nearly 200,000 adoptions and five decades later, the Korean people feel nothing but shame and want international adoption to end.

Other impoverished countries, likewise, are too focused on other struggles to invest in their families, so orphaning their children also becomes the default way to deal with family difficulties. But more problematic is that most impoverished countries are not developing as Korea did. Corruption, exploitation of expectant mothers, and child trafficking all increase whenever there is a spike in demand for children. Child traffickers sell children to orphanages, which they give to adoption agencies for exorbitant fees, and the agencies and governments look the other way. As countries stabilize and realize their culture and families are being destabilized by adoption, and as more and more cases of human trafficking in the adoption industry reveal themselves, the countries look to eliminating international adoption.

But with every country that closes its doors, the demand continues to grow so new countries are canvassed for babies. Take France, for example. Even in the wake of the Zoe's Ark scandal, where an entire planeload of children obtained through coersion underscored how desperate "saving" children has become, the French government has created something similar to the Peace Corps, enlisting volunteer saviors to canvas countries for adoptable children. So, essentially, they are officially taking up for the vacuum left over by the Zoe's Ark criminals. Why? They unabashedly say they are doing this because the U.S. and other EU nations are beating France to all the available healthy adoptable babies.

Today's adoption is much, much, different than the adoption that began half a century ago by missionaries. Today's adoption is called an industry for a reason.

Adoption CREATES orphans. And as long as each potential adoptive parent insists that their participation has nothing to do with perpetuating this industry peddling human flesh, then it will continue on in its corrupt, unethical practices.

We who are adoptees and we who love children and we who call ourselves parents must all work together for ethical adoption practices, child placement reform, and to reduce the need for adoptions in the first place.

If saving children is your FOR REAL reason for adopting, then please join us to help stop creating orphans. Making the world a more humane place by giving parents opportunities, pride, and dignity are what saves children from being severed from their flesh and blood.

tish

because poverty is often used as a red herring for people who want a kid. most question if they actually care that the child would prefer to stay with the natural family, yet can't due to poverty.

it's forcing people to do a bit of self-examination about their reasons for wanting to adopt. and it usually has NOTHING to do with helping poor children: it's more to do with their self-serving need to score a kid.

one can't, say that...of course. so many default to "i want to save a poor child."

ps. not every child in an orphanage was abandaned.

Robin

Staying with their 1st family may be a better option for the CHILD. Which is what adoption should be about...fulfilling the needs of the CHILD - not the person/adults who just "want to become parents".

Especially when the desire to become a parent means taking someone else's child.

ETA: Thanks, Supercali! Of course my comments don't apply to children without parents/families! I was taken from my family & given to another.

All children deserve a loving home & family!

Heather B

Because Adoption is supposed to be about meeting the needs of a child and not about meeting the needs of people who want to be parents.

littleJaina

In my experience, the people who offer this as a concrete alternative to adoption seem to believe that money cures all ills. It doesn't. Thus, it's not reasonable to assume that sponsorship will help all families stay together. If a person is wanting to adopt, then as long as they do so in an ethical manner, there's nothing wrong with it.

sizesmith

I believe this "answer" is more designed towards the adoptive parents who adopt from agencies, and who advertise to adopt and those who put things in like, "Wanted to adopt-baby girl". They don't have the best interests of the child or placing family, they want a child they can raise.

Even though I adopted a newborn, it was just by chance, and meeting the mother through a mutual friend, after she'd stated she needed some help to get rid of the baby, because they weren't going to keep it. I had offered to help with the baby, and have offered help with his sister, born a few months ago, that first mom kept. Quite frankly, if I had helped her out financially, the baby would have been either placed with us, or in foster care, because she would have done meth again.

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