We’re all very aware of those cute pet adoption ads:
Sweet 2-year-old Spot was left next to the dumpster on a rainy night when his family decided they didn’t want him anymore. Spot likes to play at the dog park and chase his tail. He’s looking for a nice home with no cats, but is great with kids and other dogs. No health issues.
A sad puppy dog-eyed photo to follow. Tearing at the heartstrings of any dog lover.
Cue to the adoption recruitment of another species. The human one. And, surprisingly, the profiles aren’t much different.
Little Susie and her brother Tommy have been in foster care for 15 months and are now legally available for adoption. They love to play tag at the park, play video games, and their favorite food is pizza. Susie is a shy two-year-old and looks up to her 5-year-old brother Tommy, who is very protective of her. Tommy is full of energy but is sometimes slowed down by his asthma. Susie and Tommy just want a safe home with loving parents.
A sweet photo of two bright-eyed children to follow.
Get my drift?
This fake adoption profile is not far reaching. There are thousands of them online (here, here, and here). The formula for these are = kids first names, ages, (sometimes) grades + likes and/or dislikes + strengths-based verbiage + a statement or two that lets you read in between the lines if you know what to look for. They all have sweet photos to get you teary-eyed if you weren’t already. If the kids are lucky, they’ll be featured on a local news show to get wider reach (i.e. A Place to Call Home). And this is how we, as a society, have advertised our most eligible children to adults looking to adopt, for all to see. This process makes me so angry – furious at a system that dehumanizes children and plasters their photos around the internet. “Who wants this child? Look at how cute they are!”
Full transparency, I am biased. My fury stems from the fact that my children are going through this process now. After almost 30 months of living with us, our foster children are being recruited for adoption and this process just tears my heart open. Sending in their cutest photos. Being asked to help write their profiles. It’s awful. How do you sum up the essence of an 8-year-old child in 150 words? What will it be like to see this child, who has called you ‘mom’ for 2.5 years, be posted up on the internet. How would you want to respond to people’s comments of, “Oh, what a cutie, I’ll take her!” or “Only if I had one more bed!” or “@becky, did you see this? You might be interested.” And what about the child? Knowing that they’re being advertised. The anxiety about the families that respond (or don’t) to their cutest photo and their greatest qualities would be unbearable. Would their friends from school see it? Their teachers? How shameful they could feel.
One of our foster kids told us that she thought adoption was her standing in a storefront window and people walking by and looking at her and if they wanted her then they would go into the store and take her. I had to assure her that this was not the process, but inside I knew it wasn’t far off.
There has to be an alternative to this public child advertisement system, but most people I talk to can’t figure it out. Its been done this way forever (well, maybe since the Orphan Train times?). How can prospective adoptive parents be matched with children who need to be adopted in a non-objectifying, private way? The only answer I can come up with is to have really good people working behind the scenes who know the kids really well and know those people looking to adopt really well and who can match them up. Everyone will say that it requires a lot of resources that the foster and adoption agencies don’t have, but that’s not a good enough excuse for me. I would ask those same people how it would make their child feel to be advertised publicly and then ask them to respond again.
