Because adoption doesn’t cure fatherlessness.

Volunteering at The Department of Children of Families, I get to sit in on foster care reviews. I witness wonderful people helping families, including foster parents of differing households. Single adults, couples with adult children, yes even older gay couples. To be a foster parent or adopt, marriage is not a prerequisite, even unmarried partners are eligible to apply.

85% of children receive services, while living with their own families. The children in foster care usually return to their parents within 3 months. Of course due to safety, some children can not be returned to their parents, and are placed under guardianship or adopted to a family member. If that is not possible, we keep siblings together. Sometimes siblings must be placed in separate homes due to certain circumstances, but DCF finds ways to keep connectivity.

These children have parents; they may be addicted to drugs, mentally ill, incarcerated, or deceased. Yes in some cases there is physical and sexual abuse, but not all cases. (Don’t worry, these are treated differently!) For other children, they can have supervised visits with parents, and foster/adoptive parents must respectful of the fact this child lost his/her family. As adults, children are free to have relationships with their parents on their own terms.

These children need safe places to live and adults they can trust. These children are not for up for adoption to cure your infertility, or to legitimize your personal relationship with another person, and adoption isn’t for you to hoard and pride yourself what a saint you are.

Expanding the type of households, that can apply to adopt, doesn’t address the issue of fatherlessness in our communities. The only thing that can solve fatherlessness is a healthy relationship between a mother and father. Once upon a time, we use to refer to this as marriage.

Renee Aste, Lowell Massachusetts