4:25 am
April 19, 2005
Katherine Salamanca on:
Adoption over Fatherlessness:
It’s Our Kids Future
It is more beneficial to place an infant into open adoption at birth than to raise it in a fatherless home in order to rear a well-balanced child and to decrease potential juvenile delinquency. Recent studies have shown that when an adopted infant grows up he or she can lead a normal or productive life. Statistics also show that teenagers tend to display signs of aggressiveness and violence when they have been raised without a father. Two parents should raise a child in order to be provided a well-rounded psychological and emotional upbringing in child and adulthood.
The Britannica Student Encyclopedia defines adoption as “the legal and social transfer of all parental rights from biological parents to non-biological parents.” In such transfer, the adoptive (non-biological) parents accept the same rights and responsibilities as the child’s birth (biological) parents would have had, while the child becomes a member of a family that provides the social, emotional, and physical nurturing that children need to grow up to be healthy and functioning adults.
Open adoptions became standard practice in several large adoption agencies in the early 1990s out of concern over the effects of secrecy on the adopted children in response to birth mothers. In the past, adoptions were mainly closed which means that by law there is no information given on the biological mother. This makes it difficult for the adopted child to find his or her biological mother and descendents. This could cause the child a lot of frustration and perhaps some feelings of displacement or abandonment. In an open adoption, birth parents and adoptive parents meet each other before the adoption takes place and agree to continue contact as the child develops. Now it is more common and practical to use an open adoption process to promote the whereabouts of the birth mother and the reasons why the adoption took place. This process also eliminates any doubts or fears the child may feel about his or her biological mother, family or ancestry.
There are four types of open adoptions: least open, more open, even more open and most open. 1) In a least open adoption, the birth mother reads about several possible adoptive families and chooses the one that sounds best for her child. She does not exchange names with the adoptive family but leaves her information available for future reference. 2) In a more open adoption, the birth mother and the possible adoptive families speak on the telephone and exchange first names. 3) In an even more open adoption the birth mother has the ability to meet the possible adoptive family. 4) In the most open adoption, the birth mother and the adoptive parents share full names, addresses, emails and telephone numbers; before the biological mother gives birth to the child.
The birth mother stays in contact with the family and the child over the years by visiting, calling, writing to each other or all. It is also true that adoption works better for children placed in infancy and who have not been horribly damaged by abuse and neglect, or by the inconsistency and uncertainty in parenting arrangements. Even toddlers can feel neglected if their single mother spends more time at work than at home in order to provide financial goods, since there is no stable father. Children can experience emotional abuse if their unmarried mother has various boyfriends coming in and out of their home; some men can even harm these children physically or sexually without the mother ever knowing. These factors can cause instability, inconsistency and uncertainty in the child and can reduce the chances of growing up productive and well functioning. Adopted children are less likely to suffer child abuse than is the norm in the general population of children raised by biological parents. Empirical studies assess how carefully selected samples and control groups of children actually fare in life, based on all these measures of human well-being that social scientists have devised, reveal no damage suffered by virtue of transferring children form their biological parents to adoptive parents (Bartholet 2). Placing children in loving, caring, stable homes should be prioritized over sustaining their biological ties if it means the children will be well taken care of and nurtured.
Research indicates that teens that were adopted from infancy do not struggle with identity issues any more than teens that were not adopted. “Furthermore, on the average adopted teenagers turn out terrific,” says the Search Institute, a Minneapolis, Minnesota
based on research foundation. Adopted teens exhibit a good self-esteem, a solid sense of who they are and strong feelings of belonging. This is the result of a stable two-parent child raising experience. The children feel safe, comfortable and are aware of the adopted situation since openness has been encouraged. When there is no room for secrecy or shamefulness then the open adopted children can grow up prosperous and with dignity.
There has been a new wave of open adoptions, which permits teens to know the identities and backgrounds of their birth parents and to establish relationships with them. “Children need to have knowledge about their heritage,” says Barbara Hutchinson, deputy director of BAAF Adoption and Fostering. “Contact dispels the fantasy their birth parents are monsters and that they will inherit this and become monsters themselves. It also dispels the fantasy that if they could have stayed with their birth family everything would have been all right”. If the adopted children have an opportunity to meet or have a relationship with their biological mother and/or family then the children can witness for themselves the reality of the situation. They can ask questions and have them answered, they can make their own assumptions and the children have a better sense of acceptance.
A fatherless home is one where a child is raised without a father, also known as a single parent or a one-parent home. “The epidemic of fatherlessness is the major cause of juvenile crime and violence because children lacking adult male authority figures are more likely to commit crimes” according to Dave Kopel a property lawyer in Los Angeles and contributing columnist for the National Review. One reason for this is that
in a one parent home there is little to no supervision as the child grows up because the single mother spends most of her time working in order to provide financial resources such as housing, food, transportation, education and childcare. Also, when there is no strong or stable male father figure to teach by example then the child grows up with no positive leadership and looks for guidance in outside sources, perhaps negative influences. Furthermore, the lack of authority gives the child conscious and subconscious freedom. Another notion is that a child raised without a father continues to ask: where’s my father, why doesn’t he love me enough to live with me, what did I do, will he ever come see me? And these questions can cause a deep seeded wound of rejection, anger and self-deprecation, which could be manifested through aggressiveness and violence later in their adolescence. A Detroit study found that 70% of juvenile homicide perpetrators did not live with both parents. Nationally, 70% of youths incarcerated in state reform institutions come from single parent homes. These findings show that the majority of kids raised in a single parent home tend to participate in irresponsible or delinquent behavior. If the one parent family is in a neighborhood with a large number of other one-parent families, the odds of the young man becoming involved in crime are tripled. These findings are based on a study conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services by M. Anne Hill and June O’Neill of Baruch College. According to, the Just In Time Research for Children: Youth and Families titled Men in the Family: Associations with Juvenile Conduct done by Alan Sroufe and Susan Pie children from father absent homes are at much greater risk for adolescent conduct disorder compared to children from two parent homes. This is because a two-parent home provides the stability, comfort, guidance and discipline that a single parent home is not able to. Other findings concluded that when children are raised in homes where fathers are present, they are much less likely to become aggressive or criminal. The reason is that the child is provided a stable and secure male authority figure, which he or she can use for leadership and direction. Because child supervision or monitoring in single parent homes are so often related to children’s conduct disturbances, researchers have hypothesized that single mothers (mothers without husbands) have difficulties monitoring and regulating their child’s behavior these findings are according to the results of Lytton 1990 and Dishion 1995. The risks to children with out fathers have been noted for decades. Researchers generally agree that those risks include increase in aggressive and antisocial behavior. Studies have usually explored family structure by comparing two-parent to one-parent homes. It is suggested that, if a responsible and continuous adult male role model like a father or father figure is unavailable to young, developing children, then those children will become prone to engage in deviant anti-social behavior, numerous studies have noted the tendency for children from fatherless homes to be over-presented in categorized of antisocial behavior. Antisocial behavior is any behavior that is: disagreeable, disruptive, rebellious, harmful, inconsiderate, destructive, aggressive or violent. These teenagers can exhibit these antisocial behaviors towards: classmates, friends, teachers, church members, police officers and even their own family members. Studies have also found that father absence has a generally negative impact upon children
and adolescents; Hetherington & Clingempeel 1992, with three recent studies suggesting that youth in single-parent families engage in more problem behaviors than those in two parent homes; Capaldi & Patterson, 1991, Dornbusch, 1985, Steinberg, 1985
Open adoptions from infancy should be widely considered and performed instead of raising a fatherless child, which may increase the risk of violent behavior as an adolescent. There are many prospective married couples that are more than willing to
open adopt an infant into their stable, secure, comfortable, nurturing and loving home. There are also many unwed mothers that become pregnant and because they are not readily informed about the benefits of open adoption, decide to go through the painstaking process of raising a child without a steady father. Therefore we have an increasing outbreak of resentful teenagers that become involved in antisocial behavior and that live in our own neighborhoods. Recent data indicates that open adopted children grow to be well-balanced individuals. This information comes directly from open adopted teenagers that have discussed their own experiences and emotions. This data comes from accumulated tests, studies and research done by social scientists and psychologists that observe the development of open adopted children from infancy to adolescence. The link between fatherlessness and violent behavior is innumerable fortunately there is a wise solution: open adoption.
Written by:
Katherine Salamanca
Works Cited
“Adoption.” Britannica Student Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia Britannica Online April 8, 2005: http://0www.search.eb.com.librus.hccs.edu:80/ebi/article?tocld=195779
Arenofsky, Janice. “Adoption: teens talk about their experiences (teens who had been adopted).” Current Health 2, March (1996): v22 n7 p23 (3).
Bartholet, Elizabeth. “Adoption should be encouraged.” excerpted from Nobody’s Children (1999).
Beckstrom, Maja. “Thanks to open adoption kids grow up knowing who they are and where they come from.” Saint Paul Pioneer Press via Knight-Rider/Tribune News Service May 12, 2003: pNA.
Bower, Bruce. “Children can thrive in adopted families: Adapting to adoption.” Science News, August 13, 1994: v146 n7 p104-106.
Foggit, Rachel. “Unforgettable: Adoption.” Community Care March 10, 2005: i1563 p32 – 34.
Kopel, Dave. “The root cause of juvenile crime and violence is fatherlessness.” National Review Online. May 2, 2000: www.nationalreview.com
Mackey, Wade C. and Nancy S. Coney. “The enigma of father presence in relationship to sons’ violence and daughters’ mating strategies: empiricism in search of a theory.” The Journal of Men’s Studies Spring 2000: v8 i3 p349 – 351.
Mason, Craig, Ana Marie Cauce, Nancy Gonzalez, and Yumi Hiraga. “Adolescent problem behavior: the effect of peers and the moderating role of father absence and the mother child relationship.” American Journal of Community Psychology Dec 1994, v22 n6 p723 – 725.
Smith, Debra G. “Information on adoption for birth mothers.” Excerpted from are you pregnant and thinking about adoption? National Adoption Information Clearinghouse (2001): www.calib.com/naic/pubs/f_pregna.htm
Sroufe, Alan L. and Susan L. Pie. “Men in the family: associations with Juvenile Conduct.” Just in Time Research: Children, Youth and Families University of Minnesota (1999)