Adoption

Characteristics

Adoption may involve stepchildren, biologically related children, previous foster children, and children who are strangers to (have never met) the adoptive parents. Adoptions may be closed (sharing no information between the biological parents and adoptive parents); semi-open (sharing limited information, such as medical history or pictures at certain occasions, between the biological parents and adoptive parents); or open (making provision for ongoing contact between the biological parents and adoptive parents, and possibly the adoptee). Adoptions may be matched (for similarity between adoptive parents and adopted person in such areas as race, religion, physical features, nationality, and ethnicity), transracial (historically involving U.S. Caucasian parents and African American, Hispanic, or Native American children), international/intercountry (historically involving U.S. Caucasian parents and children of countries other than the United States—generally developing countries or economically impoverished countries), or trans cultural (involving differences between adopted parents and adoptee in any aspect of culture such as religious background, sexual orientation background, or ethnic background).

Incidence

Based on the 2000 census, an estimated 2.1 million adopted children live with U.S. householders. These children are distinguished from stepchildren (the biological children of the householder's spouse or partner).

While U.S. parents generally complete the largest number of international adoptions, these adoptions also occur among families in such countries as Canada, Denmark, England, France, Italy, Norway, and Sweden. In some countries, laws in force for religious reasons prohibit the adoption of children by foreigners, although in some cases foreigners may become guardians of a child who is subsequently adopted in the country of origin of the adoptive parents.

Historical Overview

Adoption originated in Rome for the purpose of providing an heir to families without a male heir. Even with legalized adoption for this purpose, the adopted child continued to reside with the biological family and maintained the usual relationship with, and rights accorded biological children of, the biological family as well as the inheritance rights and responsibilities associated with membership in the adoptive family.

During and shortly after the Great Depression of 1929, agencies transported street children of large cities like New York, whose parents were financially unable to care for them, to foster-care-like families, mostly in the Midwest—a period that, because of the method of transporting them, became known as the period of the orphan trains. Although the purpose was usually to provide care in exchange for work by the children, some families adopted these children.

Following the period of the orphan trains, the adoption of children born to unmarried mothers became prevalent. Increased social freedom of adolescents and young adults occurred at a time when effective methods of preventing or terminating unwanted pregnancies were not yet available. Accompanying this relaxing of social norms were substantially increased numbers of pregnancies among unwed women. Social stigma surrounding these pregnancies and prohibition of governmental assistance to unmarried mothers left many women little choice but to relinquish their children for adoption. A private social welfare system for placing the children with more advantaged, mostly Caucasian married couples ensued, and adoption became an avenue to family formation for married couples for whom infertility prevented biological births. Children born out-of-wedlock to minority group mothers, particularly African American children, were generally informally adopted and raised by the mother's extended family.

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