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.
Back in my young wild activist days, when I was involved in the pro-life movement, I learned that there is a terrible shortage of adoptable babies in this country. Since abortion continues to rage unabated, I doubt that has changed.
As for our "overpopulated" country -- (a) except for immigrants, we are below replacement fertility, and (b) have you flown over it lately?
"Sum ar dum."
So veri tru.
I know what you mean.(;>]
You're way in over your head here and ALL THE CAPS IN THE WORLD won't help.
I suppose that if the little girls stay in China or Russia long enough, they may get a sugar daddy.
Have you checked the price and congestion of ocean coastal properties lately. You know, the places where people really want to live?
There's only so much really nice real estate in this country.
As the population grows, a smaller and smaller percentage of Americans can be privileged to own that best land because there is only so much of it.
And they keep dividing that land into smaller and smaller parcels, packing people in so densely that the natural beauty of the places is ruined.
And so we become less and less prosperous.
A below replacement birth rate is a good thing, as we are already too crowded.
Maybe where you want to live. I prefer to live inland and not have to worry about hurricanes and floods, thanks.
But the rising price of beach-front property isn't a function of immigration -- certainly not immigration of poor people who couldn't afford to buy any property, let alone prime real estate. It's a function of economic property.
The more people get rich, the more there are who want the choicest real estate. That's where the demand that drives the price of beach-front property up come from, not from immigration.
So what you really want, if you want the price of beach-front property to come down is economic collapse. That would take care of it nicely.
Mind you, we get a declining population and that would make the economic collapse would be that much more likely. So I guess there is some logic there.
So there it is: You can't afford your dream home, so, dang it, you don't want to see kids adopted from outside the country. Niiiiice.....
Sheesh.
We have two from China, so I'm obviously biased on the subject. Still, let me point out that the population/immigration problem is Mexico moving north, not 5000 little girls a year (the number last time I checked) being adopted from China.
The immigration problem is twofold: total numbers and cultural assimiation. The native U.S. population, defined as anyone whose family has been here two generations or more, is near (or below?) replacement rate. Like Western Europe, we are keeping our numbers up through immigration. (Ours at least are Christian.)
Our daughters, adopted in infancy, will be as true-blue American as any descendant of a drunken Irishman or German draft dodger of the 1850's. The problem with Latin American immigration is that its scale is swamping our ability to assimilate these otherwise mostly fine folks.
Good luck, sphinx. I feel like I've met Scrooge himself on this thread.
I camped on Superior near Ironwood about 10 years ago in August....34 degrees that nite....water cold ...I guess low 60s water temp.
ouch
All it tells me is that the woman in question hasn't found the right man to share her life with at this point in time. That doesn't mean she can't be a good mother if she has the finances and the network of support (i.e., family and trusted friends) to parent.
You really post alot of anger in your responses targeting single, 30-something women. They are what you seem to have issue with...not fatherless adoptees.
Watch it sphinx, I resemble that remark...
We have no evidence that our German ancestors actually were draft dodgers -- other than the fact that they sat out the Civil War (maybe just the wrong ages) -- though it is a reasonable possibility. Or they may have been politicals -- left-wing freethinkers or worse.
Or maybe just farmers looking for a better life, but that's so uninteresting. As kids we much prefered to entertain the more colorful possibilities.
Anyhow, no disrespect meant to drunken Irishmen. We Scots invented fine whiskey, after all, and we can hardly fault you Irish if you can't hold it.:)
I disagree with you.
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