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.
So adopting babies that were not wanted in the first place and would have either been a) aborted (if it were known they were female in utero; b) could have been victims of selective infanticide for being born female; or, c)warehoused in orphanages then placed into forced labor once old enough. So American 'do gooders' with their marching orders from Harvard and/or God (and in that order) are 'enabling' this centuries old process of male child preference by removing the 'unwanteds' from Chinese orphanages.
Alot of anger in your post aimed at those single mom, 'do-gooders.'
When we take the pressure off a country by being the release valve, ie baby girls and China's one-child policy, or Mexico's economics and graft; we become unwitting supporters of the opressors. If all the Mexicans had to stay in Mexico, it would change because the people who spend their energy coming here would be spending their energy changing the country. Same with China. Change happens from within when things fester long enough.
Not anger PM just truth....slide the focus of the problem away fron the Chinese and you are in fact enabling their behavior by eliminating the glaring evidence and replacing it with warm fuzzy " babies for needing Moms"
the anger is yours and I detect an awful lot of PC and lack of analysis in your emptional viewpoint
Culturally, things have festered in China for hundreds of years. Male children are the preference. Infanticide of newborn girls (if there were alreadys girls present in the family) was common prior to the 'one child' policy. So by preventing the international adoption of the unwanted, girl babies, how does that change the culture?
Thank you so much for a wise and truthful post !
I hope you post it again and again...
China has recognized the social imbalance the one-child policy has created and the problems it will create a few years from now. They've modified the policy a bit. For example, if both parents were only children, then they can have a second child. There are other exceptions, but I can't remember them.
The release valve the US is providing with adoptions from China is minimal in its impact on the problem as a whole. There are about 5,000 adoptions annually in a country with over a million in orphanages.
Are you also against pro-life agencies providing homes to pregnant teenagers because it might encourage teens to get pregnant again? Same principle.
These little sweeties are being educated in a fine Christian grammar school with high standards. They will have opportunities open to them that they never would have had as discarded orphans in China.
To ascribe selfish motives to all adopting women and to broad-brush them as liberals or mal-adjusted singles is just disgusting to me.
Leni
Leni, what always surprises me is the anger, bile and resentment, just below the surface (directed at women) that is ready for posting at a moments notice, regardless of topic. That, and on this thread, a little racism sprinkled in for good measure. Just my two cents...
I suppose nuns would fit into this category, also.
Leni
you gals do get techy when your needy corns are exposed
sidestepping the question again
The only thing missing from this thread was the outrage that some of these girls may wind up in (please note official FReeper spelling) Amerikan publick skools because their single (working outside the home) moms are not homeschooling them.
Goody, the intelligensia is back!!!
What a stupid comment. Is there some federal law I am unaware of which requires every child to have, what...an acre to himself? Plenty of room? You must be living in some incredibly overcrowded inner city to make such an assertion, but even that doesn't wash. I live in an inner city. My kids have a backyard. Its the size of a postage stamp, but its a backyard. The amount of room in one's heart has a helluva lot more to do with successful parenting than real estate.
Rintense, when you become a mom, no matter what the circumstance, your child will be blessed, blessed, blessed.
And, by the way, I have sidestepped NOTHING. Read my posts...I think I have addressed the issue head on.
And by the way, I have sidestepped NOTHING. Read my posts...I believe I have expressed my opinion spot on.
RIGHT??!!!
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