Kids waiting to be adopted don't need superheroes
By Rebecca Hastings
The first time my parents decided to adopt was on a beach. A friend was telling them about a little boy she works with that no one wanted. Without missing a beat my mom said, “We’ll take him.” And they did. Sure, there were things to do, classes to take, visits, and paperwork. But the first step was what mattered most. They were willing. They were willing to open their hearts wider and do more of what they do best: love.
ADOPTION RESOURCES
Alaska Center for Resource Families (ACRF)
If you are looking to build your family through adoption from foster care, ACRF can provide information and support as you learn more about adoption and move toward placement. The organization provides support, information and training to foster, adoptive, kinship and guardianship families in Alaska. To learn more about adoption or foster care, contact ACRF at 800-478-7307 or visit acrf.org
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Alaska Adoption Services All prospective adoptive families are welcome to attend a half-day Prospective Adoptive Parent Workshop (available via Zoom) to learn more about the adoption process as well as the basic guidelines to becoming an approved waiting family. For info, visit alaskaadoptionservices.org/i-want-to-adopt-a-baby .
Heart Gallery of Alaska The Heart Gallery of Alaska, sponsored by Beacon Hill, hosts listings of Alaskan children legally free for adoption. Working in conjunction with Alaska Center for Resource Families and the Office of Children’s Services, Heart Gallery of Alaska responds to family inquiries about listed children, provides orientation to families interested in adoption, and gives guidance on next steps to take when a family wishes to be considered for placement. Visit heartgalleryak.com .
AdoptUSKids AdoptUSKids is a national project that supports child welfare systems and connects children in foster care with families. AdoptUSKids hosts listings of children from all over the nation, and allows families to register profiles to help identify potential matches. Visit adoptuskids.org .
My parents have adopted five kids over the last 12 years, and not all the adoptions have been easy. There were social work visits and court dates, waiting for parental right termination and ensuring everything was ready. It took work and time.
My mom and dad are parents. That’s what they do. They parent. In addition to parenting two biological children, they have adopted and parent five kids with special needs. I could give you the list of diagnoses but it really doesn’t matter. Their needs just mean more appointments, more accommodations, and more sleepless nights. But those things are no different than if you birth a baby with special needs.
They will be the first to tell you they are not anything special. They are ordinary just like you and me. They just love big. They treat each of my brothers and sisters like me and my other brother who were born of my mother’s womb. They are not superheroes, they are just parents, walking through life, loving big and full on the easy days and the hard days. It sounds so simple, but we all know parenthood is anything but simple.
Everyday people
It’s easy to keep the idea of adoption on a pedestal, to think it is reserved for people with exceptional patience, full bank accounts, and special skills. Adoption is special, but not unreachable. It takes real, everyday people. Adoption is both beautiful and hard and will require more of you than you know, but it can also be rewarding in life-changing ways.
Here in Alaska, there are nearly 3,000 kids in foster care, with more than 970 of those kids waiting to be adopted. Nationally there are over 400,000 kids in foster care with over 100,000 of those kids ready to be adopted. Every one of these kids needs someone who will say yes.
November is National Adoption Awareness Month, with the Saturday before Thanksgiving providing a special day to highlight the importance of adoption – National Adoption Day. With approximately one in 50 kids in the US being adopted, and six in 10 people having a personal experience with adoption in their family or social circle, it’s clear that adoption is not just for a small group of people with a superhuman skillset.
Other ways to make a difference
Maybe you don’t feel like adopting is part of your parenting journey. Sometimes we don’t know how to handle things that seem different from what we know. But we can still learn how to help other families connected to adoption. We can take away the stigmas of adoption in the way we interact and talk about it, and we can stop distancing ourselves from what seems different and remember that adoption is simply parenting.
Kids waiting to be adopted don’t need superheroes; they just need people who are willing to open their hearts and their homes to love, and parent the best they know how.
This November, may we all think about how we can directly help children waiting for someone to just say yes.