The Colby Echo

Issue date: 9/16/09 Section: Opinions

For me, time flies.

I've suddenly looked up to realize that I'm a kid trapped in the body of a 21-year-old who experienced no epiphainein moment between when my adolescence ended and my adulthood began.

For no reason other than for the pleasure of my peers, from time to time I still choose to hold onto my childhood bliss and adolescent angst knowing that I've been fortunate enough to have an ample number of model adults to show me the ropes the day I decide to take that leap into a world that contains responsibility and involves me creating my own family.

Through firsthand accounts, I've seen that the ability to have a family lies in the delicate hands of someone or something much more powerful than one's own sheer will. Within our history, my family has been fortunate enough to pass on our genes through child birth without scientific intervention.

Thus my family mostly resembled one another. I inherited my father's dark skin and occasional temper, my mother's facial features and over-bubbliness, my uncle's keen eye for detail and my grandmother's tendency to unnecessarily over-think every matter in her life.

All the pieces made sense as I was growing up. I had a sense of belonging.
I suspect that families choosing to expand through adoption will face hurdles many people take for granted including not having a genetic predisposition to have a child act, think and look like his parent.

For some, adoption is a passion or an altruistic deed. But for sterile couples, it may be the most suitable option, out of a small list of options, for having children.
Hence, the over-analytical trait passed down to me by my grandmother has brought me to believe that families sometimes adopt children who look like them to make family life less complicated.

Over the summer, as an intern doing research for a story on foster care youth, I noticed that even in Maine, a disproportionately high number of black children are waiting to be adopted. On the contrary, a disproportionately high number of families willing to adopt are white. The state-wide statistics are symbolic of a national trend where minority children are less likely to be adopted than white children.

The research also made clear that a large percentage of foster care youth and children who won't be adopted are more likely to face a range of difficulties including psychiatric illnesses, violence, drug addiction and homelessness.

Continued...

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