CNN.com: Single Black Women Choosing to Adopt

From CNN.com: a very interesting article about single Black women and adoption. The part of the article that discusses colorism in adoption within the Black community was very interesting. In my work in the public foster care adoption system, I did not see this colorism. Perhaps it was because the single Black women who were adopting from the public foster care system had much different concerns about the children they were going to adopt. Also interesting to me is the criticism leveled by the African American community towards these women adopting within their own community.

Once again though, this article did not specifically mention foster care adoption.

Marriage and motherhood — it's the dream that begins in childhood for many women. Yet more African-American
women are deciding to adopt instead of waiting for a husband, says
Mardie Caldwell, founder of Lifetime Adoption, an adoption referral and
support group in Penn Valley, California.

…Yet the decision to adopt isn't just driven by the paucity of eligible African-American men, others say. Toni Oliver, founder and CEO of Roots Adoption Agency in Atlanta,
Georgia, says her agency sees more single African-American women
adopting because of infertility issues.

To read the whole article, click here.

2 thoughts

Thanks for the heads up on this, interesting article.
Happy Fourth!!

Here’s an interesting negative reaction to the piece:
http://www.blackretort.com/2009/07/cnn-has-problem-with-black-women-and.html
I do agree that the article focused much more on problems of black single mothers than on the strengths.
I attended an orientation at the Roots agency several years ago, and the stuff that was discussed about African-American adoption went a lot deeper than what got quoted in the article.

Margie says:

July 4, 2009 at 7:49 am

Thanks for the heads up on this, interesting article.
Happy Fourth!!

atlasien says:

July 7, 2009 at 2:32 pm

Here’s an interesting negative reaction to the piece:
http://www.blackretort.com/2009/07/cnn-has-problem-with-black-women-and.html
I do agree that the article focused much more on problems of black single mothers than on the strengths.
I attended an orientation at the Roots agency several years ago, and the stuff that was discussed about African-American adoption went a lot deeper than what got quoted in the article.