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.
Do you know how long the one-child policy (make that: one-boy policy) has been in effect in China and how it's working out? I read from time to time about the shortage of females in China for men who want to marry. There must be other problems as well -- workforce, economy, stuff like that?
(Please don't tell me to do a Google search, I'm just looking to the smartest people I know for a quick, nutshell picture. Anyone?)
Politically incorrect gives a modern American career woman instant gratification, no need for commitment to a husband, and an unused womb.
rintense, not every kid has an ideal childhood. I think there's a very big difference between bringing one into the world into a less than good situation and rescuing one from what is a definitely inferior situation.
Every child should have a mother and father who are in a permanent relationship. But some will never have that.
I think that single women who want children do a good thing by rescuing a child from an institution. Esp. if it's a child who will never be adopted by a married couple. Older children, special needs children, children who have languished in foreign orphanages, etc.
I don't think much of single women who have children for selfish reasons, but I do think a lot of the ones who rescue a child who has little to look forward to.
If they want to raise them, let them go to China and do it.
We have enough people in this country.
My first car stereo was named Jensen. It's a small world after all.
As long as they are going there anyway, why don't they meet a nice Chinese man?
I am not optimistic either about the Chinese government giving their people more freedom. In fact, I suspect the government will eventually crack down more -- but not until after the Beijing Olympics.
If they are doing it legally, what's your problem?
No good deed goes unpunished.
whoops, that should be:
You can't expect China to reform to the level of the US in this past century when they've faced so many problems (wars, etc).
At least they are adopted unwanted babies. I'd rather those babies be adopted by a single mother that will love them, then to be left in an ophanage in China.
Because married Chinese men are only allowed to give birth to one child and most choose to raise male babies; deposing of any female babies they birth.
I said.
We have enough people in this country.
So make what they are doing illegal because we're out of room.
But of course you won't agree.
But after we have half a billion people and you're up to your eyeballs in pollution and recycling and rationing laws, don't come crying to me.
Too bad... what they are doing is legal.
i already know there are bad laws.
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