7 Facts about Adoption | Shannan With an A

November is Adoption Awareness month! President Reagan proclaimed the first National Adoption Week; President Clinton expanded the awareness to the entire month of November. So let’s talk about 7 facts about adoption.

108,000 Kids are waiting to be adopted out of Foster Care: I talked a little on my mamashannan TikTok about what this number means. This number isn’t a simple find 108,000 families and done. There are sib sets that are trying to stay together, there are kids that need to be the only child in the house, there are kids that need to remain in the area they are currently living in, so it’s complicated. However, the more we talk about the kids that are in care and need families, the more likely it will spark in someone that they could take a child and get the perfect match for that child and that family.

There are 135,000 kids adopted every year: This is all adoptions, so it can be private or foster adoptions. This number has flexed by 20,000 up and down through the last 10 years. I would love to see it double, and then double, and then double till every kid has a family.

There are 1.5 million adopted kids in us. 7 million Americans have been adopted. 1/25 families have an adopted child: This means you probably know at least one family with an adoptive child. When you find them, at the least ask them their story. A more significant step, ask how you can help. Kids that have experienced trauma and families that take them in need a community around them cheering them on.

The average child waits 3 years for an approved family: This sucks. Who wants to wait 3 years to know they are where they belong. To know they have a forever family and are wanted. And this is the average. That means the quick adoptions because there are no bio families fighting the process so the adoption goes quicker are outweighed by the adoptions that take more than three years. Covid slowed things down even more. And I’ve heard of adoptions that go on 5 years or more, primarily because of the courts dragging their feet.

60-70% of adoptions are open. Honestly, I think this is great. I would think many people agree because, in a lot of cases, this is going to be good for the child. To have the opportunity to keep connected with their bio family. Now, the hard part is, not always is this good. And open adoption might mean that only the bio-parent gets updated, not the child. But this is a better stat than the days of not letting a child know they are adopted. That’s guaranteed trama.

Only 4% of unwanted pregnancies end in adoption: I don’t have time in this post to get into all the pieces of this stats, and I’m not sure how they are pulling the number, but I’m assuming the unwanted means something. This isn’t people who want their child, and it’s a resourcing issue. It’s that the pregnancy isn’t wanted; the responsibility of being a parent isn’t wanted. So they give the child up for adoption. The rest are, unfortunately, abortion.

There are 17.9 million orphans worldwide who have lost both parents. You’re considered an orphan if you’ve lost at least one parent, but these are kids who have lost both parents. Maybe they have a family to help but often time not. But this is when a child becomes in danger, struggling to stay alive or worse, being taken advantage of through trafficking.

So these 7 facts about adoption, but they don’t mean much if you don’t do anything with them.

So do something, say something, and pray.