What About Adoption?
This is a topic that people ask about often, and it's one we talk about fairly regularly as well. If it were as easy as 'Here's a 0-2 year old. You have to get a home study and lawyer and go to court a few times, but then that kid is yours', I think we'd be all in. But it is definitely not that easy.
We live in a province with a small population. There is one private adoption agency in the province, and they have 85 families waiting to adopt. Last year, they placed 5 babies. The year before it was 11, or something, but still, those are not good odds of being chosen. Like, it might be worse odds than we currently are playing with frozen embryo transfers.
There is also 'foster-to-adopt', which is when you take a child from the child welfare system (here it's called Child and Family Services; in other places it's called 'Children's Aid' or 'Child Protective Services') who has been removed from their home because it was deemed unsafe. If it isn't considered likely that the biological parents can get their act together, the children can be available for adoption. I know a bunch of people in Ontario who have gone this route, for example. I would love for this to be an option for us, but it isn't, for a few reasons:
1. Manitoba's child welfare system is a complete mess. Like, TOTAL MESS. Jake and I see the results of this every day in our students. It is terrible.
2. As has been widely reported in the news, 90% of the kids in care of the province are First Nations children. These children, except in very rare cases, are not available for adoption by non-First Nations families. There are very solid historical reasons for this policy to be in place (residential schools, 60's scoop etc) - but what it means in reality right now is there are A LOT of kids who get bounced around, between unstable parents and foster care. There are also A LOT of kids who are considered 'Permanent Wards' of the province. This means they will not necessarily be reunited with their parents - they will be in foster care until they turn 18.
3. Jake and I work with kids with very high needs. We see first hand the issues and trauma that comes when kids are removed from their birth parents, no matter what state the birth parents were in. We also see the dysfunction of the system (moms getting other moms' kids taken away over a feud, social workers apprehending without fully investigating, kids being bounced around all over the place) and toll it takes on the kids in its care. There is definitely a part of me that would love to be a stable family for some long-term placements, but that seems to happen so rarely. Plus, we give and give and give of ourselves at school to these kids; there is absolutely no way we could come home and give in that same way, to kids with the same issues there.
So all that means, we can't go down that road.
And international adoption. I know a lot of people who have done this as well. In fact, at our family reunion this past summer, I met a new 2nd cousin who was adopted from China a few years ago. She is a little firecracker with more personality than any other 5 people I've ever met - and a definite light to her family who had their own long and hard struggle to create the family they had originally dreamed of. It just doesn't feel 'right' for me/us. I think this has to do with the identity struggles I see my students having; mostly First Nations students who are trying to figure out what it means to be First Nations, trying to navigate the (mostly negative) stereotypes they are surrounded by and find a meaningful path. I don't know how I'd guide a child to reconcile their biological identity/race with growing up in Canada with white parents. Plus, I don't have the willpower to do all the paperwork and live through the potential heartbreaks you hear so much about with international adoption, either.
So, unless something changes drastically, that road is not one we are on. If we lived somewhere else, I think it would be different. But we live here. And sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles.
We live in a province with a small population. There is one private adoption agency in the province, and they have 85 families waiting to adopt. Last year, they placed 5 babies. The year before it was 11, or something, but still, those are not good odds of being chosen. Like, it might be worse odds than we currently are playing with frozen embryo transfers.
There is also 'foster-to-adopt', which is when you take a child from the child welfare system (here it's called Child and Family Services; in other places it's called 'Children's Aid' or 'Child Protective Services') who has been removed from their home because it was deemed unsafe. If it isn't considered likely that the biological parents can get their act together, the children can be available for adoption. I know a bunch of people in Ontario who have gone this route, for example. I would love for this to be an option for us, but it isn't, for a few reasons:
1. Manitoba's child welfare system is a complete mess. Like, TOTAL MESS. Jake and I see the results of this every day in our students. It is terrible.
2. As has been widely reported in the news, 90% of the kids in care of the province are First Nations children. These children, except in very rare cases, are not available for adoption by non-First Nations families. There are very solid historical reasons for this policy to be in place (residential schools, 60's scoop etc) - but what it means in reality right now is there are A LOT of kids who get bounced around, between unstable parents and foster care. There are also A LOT of kids who are considered 'Permanent Wards' of the province. This means they will not necessarily be reunited with their parents - they will be in foster care until they turn 18.
3. Jake and I work with kids with very high needs. We see first hand the issues and trauma that comes when kids are removed from their birth parents, no matter what state the birth parents were in. We also see the dysfunction of the system (moms getting other moms' kids taken away over a feud, social workers apprehending without fully investigating, kids being bounced around all over the place) and toll it takes on the kids in its care. There is definitely a part of me that would love to be a stable family for some long-term placements, but that seems to happen so rarely. Plus, we give and give and give of ourselves at school to these kids; there is absolutely no way we could come home and give in that same way, to kids with the same issues there.
So all that means, we can't go down that road.
And international adoption. I know a lot of people who have done this as well. In fact, at our family reunion this past summer, I met a new 2nd cousin who was adopted from China a few years ago. She is a little firecracker with more personality than any other 5 people I've ever met - and a definite light to her family who had their own long and hard struggle to create the family they had originally dreamed of. It just doesn't feel 'right' for me/us. I think this has to do with the identity struggles I see my students having; mostly First Nations students who are trying to figure out what it means to be First Nations, trying to navigate the (mostly negative) stereotypes they are surrounded by and find a meaningful path. I don't know how I'd guide a child to reconcile their biological identity/race with growing up in Canada with white parents. Plus, I don't have the willpower to do all the paperwork and live through the potential heartbreaks you hear so much about with international adoption, either.
So, unless something changes drastically, that road is not one we are on. If we lived somewhere else, I think it would be different. But we live here. And sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles.
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