Posted on 02/22/2005 6:56:50 PM PST by qam1
More than anything, Linda Bigelow wanted to be a mom.
The traditional route -- romance, marriage, pregnancy -- would have been great, but she couldn't manage to grab hold of it.
She dated, "but I realized I wasn't really looking for a husband for me, I was looking for a father for my future children," she says. "I decided that wasn't a good reason to get married."
So at the age of 31, she decided to do motherhood -- solo.
On June 4, 2000, after reams of paperwork and several months of waiting, she and her mother, Jean, collected her new baby girl from an orphanage in Changzhou, in the Jiangsu province of China. She named her Jensen.
Three and a half years later, Jensen joined her mom and grandma on another trek to China. They came home to Grand Rapids as a foursome, having adopted 2-year-old Taryn.
The Bigelows' story isn't unique. Many single women are trying to adopt a child or two nowadays. And China is first on their list.
"China is popular with single women because it's a little less expensive (than other foreign adoptions), and they get to travel there with a group of families," said Mary Zoet, China program manager for Adoption Associates, an adoption agency based in Georgetown Township.
Plus, women want baby girls, Zoet said, and China has lots of them.
They look outside of the U.S. because adopting a baby here as a single mother is almost impossible, Zoet said. Her agency allows birth mothers to select families for their child "and they just never pick single women," she said.
In China, a country with a one-child policy, girls often are abandoned. Sons are favored because they carry on the family name and are responsible for taking care of their parents in old age. Ninety-five percent of the children in orphanages are girls.
"Since last year, the increase in China sign-ups has been huge," both for single people and married couples, Zoet said.
Restriction in place
Single women's attraction to China was so great that, starting in 2002, the China Center of Adoption Affairs put a cap on the number of babies the country would release to them. Only 8 percent of adoptions can go to single people. Married couples are welcome to apply immediately and could have a child within a year.
"China's idea of an ideal family situation for a child is two parents. With a single mom, that's not what a child is getting," Zoet said. "We may not agree, but we have to abide by it."
Because of the limits placed on single parents, a woman could wait as long as two years before she even can submit an application, said Linda Schripsema, program coordinator for China adoptions at Bethany Christian Services in Grand Rapids. Zoet has about 30 single women on a waiting list at Adoption Associates. Getting to the top could take a year. Then they'll spend another 11-plus months filling out forms and waiting for a picture of their baby to arrive in the mail. Because of the delays, some who picked China opt to pursue adoption through another country.
Guatemala, El Salvador and Russia also allow single parents to adopt, but Schripsema said none of the countries encourages it.
"It's difficult for a single mom to adopt in any country," she said.
International adoption by a single man is even tougher. Some countries prohibit it. Neither Adoption Associates nor Bethany accepts international adoption applications from single men. Bethany accepts applications from single men -- and women -- for domestic adoptions of older children, however.
Waiting list or not, Barbra Trowe was not going to be deterred from raising a second baby from China. She was among the 25 single women who adopted through Bethany's Grand Rapids office over the last two years. She brought Ava home to Grand Rapids in October. Ava's 5-year-old sister, Maya, was adopted in 2000.
"I'm just crazy in love with these Chinese girls," says Trowe, 46.
She was laid off from her marketing position at Alticor last year but was adamant about keeping the adoption on track. She's tuning up her resume again, now that she's adjusted to life as a single mom of two.
"Maya so needed a sister to love," she says. "It's a beautiful thing to watch them together."
Precocious Maya recently told her mom she hasn't been doing a very good job at finding a husband.
Maya, who's in kindergarten, felt the sting when one of her classmates told her she wasn't allowed to attend a father-daughter dance at school.
Jensen, also a kindergartener, has asked about a dad, too.
"I let her talk about it. I let her have her feelings. I try to keep it positive and tell her what we do have in our family," Bigelow says. "No child is raised in a perfect situation, but my girls are being raised very well, if I do say so myself."
Not time for dating
Bigelow doesn't foresee fitting dating into her schedule anytime soon.
Trowe has a different perspective.
"I really would love to be married. I would love for Ava and Maya to have a dad," Trowe said. "I tell my daughters if I were to get married, he would be the luckiest man on earth because he'd be their dad."
She isn't dating now but likely will join a dating service sometime soon. And when she does, she'll be looking for a husband as well as a father for her girls.
Putting the cart before the horse?
Wouldn't want to ruin your precious figures birthing your own babies now, would you girls?
My mother was a single mother of 2 because my father died very young.WE were pre-school when he died.
Why anyone would CHOOSE to raise a child alone is beyond me.
I found it hard and I stayed at home and had a hard working husband. I had it easy compared to my mother.
I don't get it!
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Hmmmm......
No one in China wants the baby girls but the Chinese are supposedly concerned about them going to single households?
Doesn't make much sense to me.
It's sad isn't it? :(
I agree, but it's not like these babies aren't in need of a good home. At least these women aren't producing children while single.
Once again the slogan of the Modern American Woman-"It's all about ME"
still, being raised by a self indulgent American is loads better than being warehoused in some Chinese orphanage...
I can imagine the routine: wake up, drop the baby off at daycare, go to work. Yeah, that's raising a child.
Having a father for your children isn't a good thing?
Really, the article is touting "super single moms" like it's the wave of the future, but what kind of minisule minority of families it this?
This is feminist mythology.
God yes,the babies are very lucky. It's just such hard work for a single mom.
wake up, drop the baby off at daycare, go to work, grandma picks up baby from daycare, grandma feeds baby, mom comes home too tired to play. No Daddy, hardly a mamma, but the kid has a a great day care.
Or better yet. Female children in China are being disposed of because of their sex. What's wrong with American women, no matter married or not, raising them?
The unfortunate thing about coming over here to China for adoption is that many times the babies are sick with various illnesses/diseases and it isn't disclosed or discovered until the child has already been adopted and taken into a home.
China does not permit adoptions by homosexuals, and unmarried people seeking to adopt from China must affirm that they are heterosexual. Since they know that this affirmation cannot be truly investigated, they use the singles quota to minimize adoptions by non-heterosexuals.
This is soooo selfish.
Can't find someone to marry them so adopts a little girl and cheats her out of a Daddy.
Study after study after study is clear - a little girl needs a Daddy too!
As a single woman who wants children, this same scenario has played itself over and over again. But I just can't do it. Why? Because I want my children to have what I didn't- a father and a family.
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