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.
Thank you. :)
But it was good enough reason for me to voluntarily and consciously raise a child alone and subject them to all the risks single parenting subjects children too.. aren't I a giving and caring person? FOOL!
I hate when my computer gets the hiccups...
Ignore him....he would be the first one to divorce his wife because she 'ruined' her figure.....
"These girls have bought into the "you can have it all" mantra from the feminists; too late they realize they can't. And they clocks are ticking."
Just another one of what Bob Seger called a Beautiful Loser.
He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man
He wants his home and security
He wants to live like a sailor at sea...
Beautiful loser, where you gonna fall?
When you realize you just don't need it all
Oh...
He's your oldest and your best friend
If you need him, he'll be there again...
He's always willing to be second best
A perfect lodger, a perfect guest...
Beautiful loser, read it on the wall...
And realize you just don't need it all
Hey, you just don't need it all...
You don't need it all
Oh...don't need it all...
Hey, you can try but you can't have it all
Oh, no no
Oh...
He'll never make any enemies, enemies
Yeah, he won't complain if he's caught on his knees, no
He'll always ask, he'll always say please...
Ooh...
Beautiful loser, never take it all
'Cause it's easier and faster when you fall
Ah...you just don't need it all...
Oh...you just don't need it all
You just don't need it all...
I sure remember that goon. At least he had the courage (stupidity?) to come right out and admit that he was against foreign adoptions because it tainted the American gene pool.
In reading through this thread, I am horrified to realize that he has some (rather sly) compatriots. Triple YUCK. Three bagger morning.
Lurking too long and drinking alone too much.
Do you honestly believe there are more 'risks' involved with being raised by a single, American mom, here in the US, than by existing in a Chinese orphanage? That is the question at the root of all of this...
Well...I was married to Lurking2Long and when I was pregnant I gained 25 lbs and couldn't lose the last 10 ---so he left me....so now my kid has no daddy.
(making a point)
Is it just me or does this seem to happen more in the mitten than anywhere else? I only get my news from national sources--literally, Fox or FR and its links (no LSJ for me, thanks!) and the horror stories of children being taken from their adoptive parents years after the adoption always seem to have the blessing of a MI judge.
Adoption laws must be modified to protect adoptive parents or nobody will ever want to adopt another American child.
To adopt an American orphan you need to play social service roulette. You may have care of the child for a year or two and be well on your way to completing the adoption process and then a birth grandmother or aunt could appear out of nowhere and will be entitled to the child.
If you want a child under 3 who has virtually no chance of being removed from your home then overseas it is.
Why not take an American orphan over 3? Well, in all likelihood you're taking a child who's been through the system and bears many emotional scars. Not everyone is up to that challenge.
Hope you can come with such a comment soon.
Leni
I would agree with Chena and motherbear IF it were true that these babies would languish in institutions if single women didn't adopt them.
But you are both making an ill-founded assumption: That there are not enough mom/dad couples available to adopt these children.
From what I've seen in television documentaries, there are many, many couples lining up and waiting months and years to adopt Chinese babies. There is NO apparent shortage of potential moms and dads --as couples-- to adopt these children.
Also, keep this in mind: Statistics show that girls who grow up in fatherless homes are far more likely to become promiscuous at an early age, to become pregnant while teenagers, and to become drug abusers.
There is a very profound, deleterious effect on both boys and girls when there is no father in the home. Of course it is better to be brought up by a single mom than to be aborted, or killed after birth. But that is not necessarily the choice.
Thank you, shhrubbery. I want to make sure that any decision I make isn't a selfish one, which is why I am still waivering on something like this. It is a difficult decision, with so many compelling reasons for and against.
watch your spelling......and you may be extended membership
intelligentsia
read your own posts ...your tunnel vision bores me
Nothing whatsoever. The children are getting a parent to love them and as a bonus, they are getting out of China.
Amen to both of you. These children are already born, in need of a home and most of all love. God bless all who give them these things.
I don't know what statistics you're reading, but you are dead wrong about Chinese adoptions. The wait (about 6 months at this point) for Chinese adoptions has nothing to do with the availibility of orphans but has to do with bureacratic processing. Parents who qualify are given a child and none are turned away or wait because there aren't enough children.
I have been in China, talked to people who work in the orphanages, and many, many children are left in the orphanages with no one to adopt them.
So, yes, the ill-founded assumption is yours. Do your research well and you will discover the truth. Television documentaries are not always a great source of truth.
The only way to succeed at Chinese adoption as a single parent is to have significant financial resources and a community of support around you. So while they fit into the category of single moms, they are not welfare moms who are popping out babies because of carelessness or a desire for a check.
These babies are penalized because of not having a father, but it is not nearly the penalty of growing up in an orphanage. And that is the alternative, as single moms are not taking babies away from two-parent families in the Chinese system.
A word of caution:
The adoptive parents had best master the Chinese language, or else when the adopted children begin to speak, they won't know what the h*ll the kid is saying.
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