I vowed I’d never look at those photos again. They interfere with my life. I can’t get them off my mind and I can’t get anything done. Another packet of them arrived in the mail yesterday. I left them in the car overnight so I wouldn’t look at them. But today I couldn’t resist.
I’m referring to the “waiting child” photolistings, online or on paper. “Waiting children” basically means children for whom there is no waiting family. They may be from the U.S. foster care system and hard to place because of age or number of siblings. International agencies use the term to mean children who are not in their “regular” adoption programs. (An example of a “regular” international adoption program: people seeking to adopt a relatively healthy infant from Korea who have had their homestudy approved go on a referral list, and the next infant needing adoption is matched with the family next in line.) These waiting children usually have some medical or developmental need or disability, although sometimes they wait simply because they are older or even because they are boys.
These listings show a photograph, age, country or region, and a descriptive paragraph about the child. Some countries and agencies use a first name, others don’t. Some countries allow photos of their children on internet photolistings, others require that they be sent only to parents who are adopting or have adopted.
The brochure I received yesterday had 32 pages and 191 kids. Once I let myself open the envelope I had to read the paragraph on every one of them. I couldn’t help thinking of how these kids’ ages would fit with my kids’ ages, maybe Patrick would really like a brother….
This brochure had 30 kids from the U.S. foster care system. The other kids were from different countries overseas. The ages ranged from 4 months to 16 years. Some had visual or hearing disabilities. One had no limbs. Others had mild cerebral palsy, a scar or birthmark, or needed cleft palate surgery. Others had no identified special issues at all, but for some reason had not yet found a family.
It’s probably not a sensible idea to fall in love with a child from a photolisting. Most agencies want to find a child a home as soon as possible and will accept requests for specific children only after a homestudy is approved. Still, there are many families who have adopted the child they first fell in love with. At the least, photolistings may get you thinking about the kinds of needs children have, the many differences between individual children, and how alike they are in needing a family. Go ahead and browse them—if you dare.
You can link to photolistings and other adoption information by going to www.adoption.com/ and typing in “photolistings”.
Also see these related blogs:
Rescue a Child
Should You Adopt a Child From A Photolisting?