A sizable minority of children in rich countries live with just one parent — a parent who is likely to be female, and also likely to be working.

Those are some of the takeaways from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s recent coverage this week of women in the world.

Across the industrialized world, about 15.9 percent of children live in single-parent households. The United States is at the higher end of the single-parent spectrum, with 25.8 percent of its children living with just a mother or a father. ...

The purple bars represent the proportion of children who live with both parents (whether or not those parents are married). Note the length of the pink bars, which represent the share of children living with single mothers, relative to that of the blue bars, which represent the share living with single fathers.

The only country where single fathers look like more than a faint sliver is Belgium, where there are still nearly twice as many children living with single mothers as with single fathers.

Labels: Fathers, motherhood, single parenting

posted by Eve at 8:54 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

In november 2009, one of the uglier fruits of the current practice of seeding mothers into the American military burst briefly onto the national stage. Ordered to Afghanistan from Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia, an Army cook named Alexis Hutchinson refused to go. A 21-year-old single mother, she explained that there was no one to care for her infant son because initial plans to leave him with her own mother had fallen through.

What happened next should disturb anyone who has so far succeeded in ignoring the fact that the United States now sends soldier-mothers off to war. Specialist Hutchinson was arrested and threatened with court martial and her son was temporarily placed in foster care — because, as the Fort Stewart spokesman explained, the 30-day extension that she had been granted was “plenty of time” to find some other babysitter for that ten-month-old while the only parent seemingly present in his life went off to Afghanistan. ...

According to an October report issued by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, 30,000 single mothers have served in those two war zones as of March 2009. That is 30,000< mothers forced to choose, as Hutchinson’s lawyer has put it, between their children and their service careers — a dilemma captured perfectly in a photograph that appeared alongside news accounts of the case. It showed what once would have seemed an unthinkable representation of Madonna and child: Spc. Hutchinson, a female soldier, cradling her baby in classic maternal pose.

Once, pregnancy itself was automatically grounds for discharge from the services. Today it is not. Now pregnant soldiers can request such a discharge, and commanders usually must grant it, but many mothers choose to stay. As to maternity leave, the services generally offer new mothers six weeks beginning the day they leave the hospital. After that they can receive deployment deferrals of anywhere from four months (Air Force) to six months (Army, Marines) to 12 (Navy). Note that of all these, only the Navy offers a deferral that even meets the American Academy of Pediatric’s guideline for breastfeeding, 12 months. Bear in mind too that current deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, at 15< months in length, are longer than any of these deferrals.

Labels: culture, motherhood, single parenting

posted by Eve at 8:22 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Saying children do better in a home with a mother and a father, the state House voted Monday to give married couples preference when placing children for adoption.

HB2148 would overrule the existing practice of the Department of Economic Security that makes the "best interests of the child" the primary factor when considering placing a child for adoption. Instead it would require DES - or any agency that contracts with the state - to give "primary consideration to placement with a married couple."

DES could consider a single person "only if a qualified married couple is not available."

The measure is being pushed by Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Gilbert. He said married couples should be "moved to the head of the line" for adoption if they've gone through the certification process.

And Nichols, himself adopted, said his legislation is in line with what the law already requires. ...

Nichols said he agrees [that the best interests of the child sometimes favors a single person over a married couple]. And he said his legislation accounts for that.

For example, DES can favor a single person who is a relative of the child. A placement can also go to a single parent if the alternative is extended foster care.

It also permits DES to put a single person ahead of a married couple if a "meaningful and healthy relationship" already has been established between the prospective parent and the child.

And it allows placement with a single parent if that is "in the child's best interests."

Labels: adoption, Arizona, Marriage, single parenting

posted by Imapp Staff at 5:13 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

An image from a TV ad for gay marriage, reproduced in the January 18 New Yorker, provides a Rorschach test for reactions to America’s ongoing revolution in family structure. Two men in black suits stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a group of people, looking into each other’s eyes. In their arms are two newborns in white baby clothes and blankets. Though it’s not immediately apparent from the photo, the men are at a baptism for their infants. The ad, still being test-marketed, is called “Family Values,” and is intended to emphasize the “conventionality of gay couples,” explains The New Yorker.

If your reaction to the image is: “Where’s the mother(s)?” you may not yet be fully on board the “conventionality” bandwagon. If your reaction to the foregoing question, however, is: “Why does it matter?” then you are keeping pace with the revolution. “Why does it matter?” may ultimately prove the more appropriate response, but no one should pretend that it represents anything other than a radical revision of the traditional relationship between parents and children — one whose consequences no one can predict.

Every time a homosexual couple conceives a child, there is another parent offstage somewhere whose sperm or egg has allowed conception to occur (and, in the case of male homosexuals, whose womb has allowed gestation to occur). In some homosexual families, that parent will be involved in his child’s life; in others, he will remain completely anonymous and unknown. Parental identity and responsibility for children in a homosexual family do not flow from biology; they result from choice and intent. To the extent that a gay couple wants to retain the traditional number of parents in the home, it must exclude one biological parent from inclusion in the family unit. To the extent that a gay couple wants to preserve the traditional connection between that biological parent and his offspring, however, the adult side of the family becomes more of a non-traditional threesome. ...

These are not easy questions. The deprivation to gays from not being able to put the official, public stamp of legitimacy on their love is large. If one were confident that gay marriage would have at most a negligible effect on the ongoing dissolution of the traditional family, I would see no reason to oppose it. And fertility technology is hardly the only source of stress on families; heterosexual adults have been wreaking havoc on the two-parent family for the last five decades in their quest for maximal freedom and choice. The self-interested assumption behind that havoc has been that what’s good for adults must be good for children: If adults want flexibility in their living arrangements, then children will benefit from it, as well. Perhaps children are as infinitely malleable as it would be convenient for them to be. But if it turns out that they thrive best with stability in their lives and that the traditional family evolved to provide that stability, then our breezy jettisoning of child-rearing traditions may not be such a boon for children.

The facile libertarian argument that gay marriage is a trivial matter that affects only the parties involved is astoundingly blind to the complexity of human institutions and to the web of sometimes imperceptible meanings and practices that compose them. Equally specious is the central theme in attorney Theodore Olson’s legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8: that only religious belief or animus towards gays could explain someone’s hesitation regarding gay marriage. Anyone with the slightest appreciation for the Burkean understanding of tradition will feel the disquieting burden of his ignorance in this massive act of social reengineering, even if he ultimately decides that the benefits to gays from gay marriage outweigh the risks of the unknown.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, culture, donor conception, gay marriage, gay parenting, single parenting

posted by Eve at 12:27 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

In a recent newsletter, the National Organization for Marriage cites a new government study as evidence that gay marriage will hurt kids, because the research finds that kids suffer less abuse with married biological parents than with a single parent, a parent living with an unmarried partner, or a parent and step-parent.

They got it half right. Having two married biological parents is good for kids, and better than the alternatives the study examined. We here at IGF are all for it. But that doesn't make having, say, an unmarried mom and mom better than having a married mom and mom. As a correspondent points out:

Does NOM never, ever learn? These same figures indicate that for either two-adult family structure (both biological parents, or one biological and one step-parent) the chance of abuse to the child goes down drastically IF THE COUPLE GETS MARRIED. For the first kind of family, the risk drops 80 percent. For the second kind of family, the risk drops nearly 60 percent. Even for single biological parents, the child's risk drops by about 15 percent if that single parent finds and marries someone.

Labels: cohabitation, gay marriage, gay parenting, Jonathan Rauch, Maggie Gallagher, Marriage, NOM, parenting, remarriage, single parenting

posted by Eve at 1:47 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Rachel Downtain is a telecommunications project manager who says her friends would describe her as tall, slender, fit and active. Not someone you'd think would fail to find a mate. Yet, of late, Ms. Downtain has been sifting through sperm-donor Web sites. This is not her first choice for how to start a family, but at 35 she says she's quickly running out of options.

Ms. Downtain's story should sound familiar. In recent months the spike in college-educated women deciding to have a husbandless family has become a magazine staple. The New York Times Sunday Magazine devoted a cover story to the issue. There's been a 145% rise in unmarried births among college-educated women since 1980, more than twice the increase in such births among women without college educations. That's just births; adoptions are another outlet for women seeking families on their own. But there's a largely unexplored part to this story: Why is this happening?

Part of the answer is found in a Pew Research Center report released this week: A sea change in relationships is taking place as everyone adjusts to the new reality of women being better educated and in some cases more preferred than men in the workforce. Especially unsettling to some men is their role as second-best earner in the family. As the Pew report documents, 22% of men with "some college" are now outearned by their wives, up from 4% in 1970. ...

There's no single answer to the "why" question, but social scientists agree that the education mismatch Ms. Downtain experiences with men is a significant player behind the increase in college-educated women choosing single motherhood.

Labels: gender, gender differences, heterosexual couples, men, out-of-wedlock births, single parenting, women

posted by Eve at 10:34 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Adoption is arguably one of the Christian social ministries most central to evangelical theology. It has—to a greater extent than church positions on issues such as abortion and marriage—avoided becoming entangled in politics. Until now.

A foster dad's court challenge to a Florida law banning adoption by gays and lesbians has made headlines in recent months. So has a proposed same-sex marriage law in the District of Columbia that the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington warned could force it to cancel its social service programs, including adoption.

At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Pete Stark introduced a bill in October dubbed the "Every Child Deserves a Family Act." The California Democrat's proposal immediately drew the ire of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance (IRF). IRF claims the proposed law could run "roughshod over the convictions of many faith-based adoption agencies" and "require every state to forbid every agency that it licenses from preferring mother-father families over gay families or single parents." ...

On the other hand, voters in Arkansas last year passed a referendum banning unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children—a direct attack on gay parenting. Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat and active member of an Episcopal Church, voiced concern in November that the law hinders the state's ability to recruit qualified parents.

Labels: adoption, Arkansas, Catholic Church, Christianity Today, DC, Florida, gay parenting, Marriage, religious liberty, single parenting

posted by Eve at 5:33 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A French court on Tuesday allowed a lesbian woman to adopt a child with her partner after 11 years of legal battle, in what gay rights campaigners said was an unprecedented victory.

French law allows single people to adopt but not same-sex couples, a position that has been criticized by the European Court of Human Rights. ...

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Emmanuelle B. had been fighting to assert her right to adopt with her partner since 1998, when the authorities rejected her first application. She had taken her case to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in her favor in January 2008.

The Court said France was applying double standards because on the one hand it allowed single people to adopt, while on the other hand it was denying that right to Emmanuelle B. on the basis that there was "no father figure" in her home.

Labels: adoption, Fathers, France, gay parenting, single parenting

posted by Eve at 12:12 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

THE divisive issue of gay parenting is set to split State Parliament after the Opposition introduced a Bill to ban same-sex couples and single mothers from accessing surrogacy.

Opposition deputy leader Lawrence Springborg yesterday moved to trump the Government on the issue after it drafted laws to decriminalise altruistic surrogacy for anyone in Queensland, including homosexual couples and sole parents.

But Opposition MPs were angry the issue of surrogacy had been tied to gay parenting and had called on the Government to split its Bill, allowing all MPs to vote separately on decriminalising surrogacy for heterosexual couples and then same-sex couples.

The Government refused, but Labor politicians will now be forced to vote on the Opposition's Bill with a conscience vote expected to reveal deep divisions over the issue on all sides of politics.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, Australia, gay parenting, single parenting, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 11:50 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops.

German biologist Anna Katharina Braun and others are conducting research on animals that are typically raised by two parents, in the hopes of better understanding the impact on humans of being raised by a single parent. Dr. Braun's work focuses on degus, small rodents related to guinea pigs and chinchillas, because mother and father degus naturally raise their babies together.

When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain. Dr. Braun, director of the Institute of Biology at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, and her colleagues are also looking at how these physical changes affect offspring behavior.

Their preliminary analysis indicates that fatherless degu pups exhibit more aggressive and impulsive behavior than pups raised by two parents.

Labels: animal research, Fathers, single parenting

posted by Eve at 5:39 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Living alone is on its way to becoming the new norm in parts of the Washington area, as the proportion of households headed by married couples has declined and one-person households have jumped.

Population statistics released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday, based on samples taken from 2006 to 2008, reflect national trends that have accelerated since the 2000 census. The Washington area figures were particularly stark.

Every jurisdiction in the region showed a leap in single households. In most places, they now make up 20 to 30 percent of all households. In the District and Alexandria, almost half of all households have just one person. ...

Lisa Neidert, a researcher with the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, said young people going through that stage are less likely to live with roommates than they were two decades ago. And people who divorce are less likely to remarry.

"It's the idea that if you're not in a married relationship, that's okay," she said. "You definitely have young people feeling more independent. On the other hand, strong family ties have faded a bit. In 1940, a 70-year-old was going to live with a 40-year-old son. Now, they're not even living in the same community." ...

The Census Bureau survey also showed an increase in the number of households headed by single parents. In Prince William County, 11 percent of households are headed by single parents, up from 7 percent in 1990. Fairfax and Loudoun counties stayed the same, about 6 percent. The District also stayed roughly the same, about 10 percent.

Labels: culture, DC, demographics, single parenting

posted by Eve at 3:43 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Eleanor Holmes Norton started to become concerned about marriage among black people when her first child was born in 1970. She told those gathered at an Urban League convention there was reason to worry -- fully 30 percent of black children were then being born out of wedlock.

Two weeks ago, before a standing-room-only crowd at the Congressional Black Caucus Conference, she provided a startling update: "What was 30 percent then is 70 percent today," she said, eliciting a collective murmur of disapproval. ...

That day's conversation continued 175 miles south of Washington last week, with the launch of Hampton University's National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting, an academic organization focused on studying black relationships and developing resources to improve them. ...

Linda Malone-Colon's goals are more concrete. Malone-Colon, chairwoman of Hampton University's psychology department, intends for the National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting to become a clearinghouse for research on marriage in the black community and a resource for organizations looking to get involved with the issue.

Labels: Linda Malone-Colon, Marriage, race, single parenting

posted by Eve at 5:44 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Disappointments in Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, and California have affected gay men and lesbians around the country. Although in some states our ability to form loving, caring relationships is presumed to be subjected to a vote by fellow citizens, a growing number of gay men nationwide are having children and proving to be great parents.

Can recent ballot measures present obstacles to this trend? Not according to John Weltman, president and owner of the country’s oldest gay owned and gay focused surrogacy agency. Based on first hand experience, Weltman is optimistic about both the level of public acceptance of gay families, and the availability and affordability of surrogacy as a safe, legal and rewarding parenting option for gay men. ProudParenting asked John Weltman [pictured below] a few questions about how gay surrogacy is affected by recent political and economic trends, and the possibility of seeing more gay dads at the playground. We included a poll, to let you weigh in.

PP: John - we've read about you in the New York Times, Newsweek, and Details magazine. You are everywhere we look, getting your message out, and you recently told the newswire service AFP that Circle has grown significantly in 12 years. You also expect to double in the next two and half years. The number of new gay parents seems to be rising at a remarkable rate when we consider that the economy is getting more unmanageable. Do you expect the gayby boom to plateau at any point soon?

JW: I don't - in fact, I expect the gay surrogacy boom to continue to grow quite substantially in the next 10 to 20 years. I think what we are experiencing at Circle is the result of several trends resulting in more gay parents, and a larger share of these men who are choosing surrogacy as the method to achieve this goal. I think the world has just begun to accept gay relationships and gay parenting, and the rise in gay men choosing to become parents is in part a reflection of the growing numbers of men coming out and reaching a certain age and level of financial security. As this becomes true in more and more places, I think the desire of gay men to become parents is likely to grow further. However, a recent statistic I saw states that about 15% of gay men were becoming parents, still a much lower percentage than their heterosexual and even lesbian counterparts. This, I fear, reflects the simple fact that it is much harder for men to achieve parenthood. In addition with states like Arkansas cutting off gay adoption and certain international countries stopping adoption altogether, adoption is becoming even harder still. So what we are experiencing is the result of growing public awareness and acceptance of surrogacy as a viable method for gay men to become parents, when the alternatives are becoming decreasingly available. Beyond the obvious advantage of having a biological link with your children, surrogacy today is often faster than adoption, it is extremely reliable and essentially 100% safe legally. It doesn't involve the risk of a birth mother changing her mind, or the need to persuade the entire electorate that you are fit to be a parent. Our clients express a strong sense of empowerment and satisfaction that surrogacy allows them to “take their fate in their own hands,” especially when they are working with a gay-owned and gay-focused agency like ours. ...

PP: The New York Times recently published a story about single dads by choice, and we know Circle has worked with single men as clients throughout its 13 years of existence. The Time's piece reported an increase in the number of gay single fathers working with surrogates. Because so many gay men are single, do you believe the ratio of single gay dads will ever equal the number of gay male couples who choose surrogacy?

JW: While I do not think that the ratio will ever be the same, since obviously it is harder to raise a child on your own, we have seen a growth in the number of applications from single guys. I think that more single gay men are feeling confident and financially secure enough to start the process alone. However we have always had about 20% of our practice devoted to single dads.

Labels: gay marriage, parenting, single parenting, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 4:28 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Insisting on their religious and academic freedoms, Catholic educational institutions are seeking exemption from a provision in the new Magna Carta of Women banning the dismissal of unwed mothers from employment or school.

Monsignor Gerardo Santos, national president of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP), said the CEAP would ask that a provision on such an exemption be inserted into the new law’s implementing rules and regulations. ...

Women’s rights activists have said that under the new law, unwed mothers who are kicked out can file a civil case and sue for damages while government officials who dismiss them can be sanctioned under administrative and civil service laws.

Santos insisted on the Catholic schools’ right to have an unwed pregnant student or employee go on leave “after due process,” or to enforce other disciplinary action.

Labels: Catholic Church, culture, discrimination law, gender differences, out-of-wedlock births, Philippines, religion, religious liberty, single parenting

posted by Eve at 3:54 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

: My last post, which was quite modest, really, sparked a discussion about anonymous gamete (that’s sperm and egg) donors. Reading the comments made me think about the topic again. It’s come up in comments from time to time before and
there are a few posts on the subject back there as well.

I think it is time to revisit the topic and lay out my thinking on it a bit more clearly. I know, of course, that plenty of people will disagree with me. And I’ll start by stating an underlying assumption that is critical to what follows: I do not believe gamete donors are or should be seen as parents.

That’s something I have discussed at length on many occasions. (Here’s one link, but if you just nose around under the “sperm donor” tag you’ll find plenty of others.) I think of all the parents–and perhaps particularly all the fathers–I know who work so hard to create and sustain their families, and it frankly offends me to place someone who does nothing more than give up some sperm in the same
category. ...

There’s actually also a substantial irony here. I find it much easier to consider provisions that would strongly encourage, if not require, some form of donor identification if we are very clear that donors are not parents. In other words, the insistence that donors are parents actually creates obstacles to the desired end–the abolition of gamete donor anonymity.

Let me illustrate what I mean. Suppose a single woman wants to raise a child. If a
donor is not a parent, then perhaps she would agree to using a donor who could be identified in the future. The donor could not threaten the integrity of her family (the mother/child unit) or her autonomy (she’d still be the only parent.) On the other hand, if you tell her that the donor will be a parent, then she has reason to seek an unknown and unknowable donor, because that is the only way she can protect herself from having the donor intrude into her life.

Labels: children, donor conception, single parenting

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:28 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The push is on to bring happy endings to many more African-American orphans.

They make up more than 30 percent of the children in foster care.

As CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports, a new ad campaign urges black parents to open their hearts.

Of the 510,000 in foster care, 32 percent are African-American, even though African Americans only make up 15 per cent of all U.S. kids.

The same study also shows that black kids in foster care, especially older ones, are less likely than white kids to be adopted.

"A lot of the older teenagers give up on that hope of finding a forever family or a permanent home," Kirsten Ahlberg, of the Childrens Home and Aid Society, said.

To attack that imbalance, a nationwide TV campaign debuts this fall encouraging African Americans to adopt. Even a lack of bar-b-q skills or inability to pack a lunch doesn't mean you can't adopt.

And being a single parent is no barrier, either.

Labels: adoption, race, single parenting

posted by Eve at 4:33 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Homosexuals can "lay equal claim to their married heterosexual counterparts when bringing up children in stable relationships" the head of the highly regarded British Catholic marriage counselling service, Marriage Care, will tell a gathering of homosexualist activists this weekend.

Marriage Care is registered as a Catholic charity whose president is the sitting Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, who is represented on the board by Fr. Michael Cooley. The organization, formed after the Second World War, calls itself "a Christian organisation, developed from within the Catholic community." The group operates from 80 locations and 53 relationship counselling centres in England and Wales.

Terry Prendergast, Chief Executive of Marriage Care, is to be keynote speaker at the annual conference of the homosexualist organisation Quest, a group that is trying to convince the Catholic Church to abandon its "policies" on sexuality and the nature of marriage. Prendergast will call upon the Catholic Church to "rethink" the nature of the family this weekend.

"Statistically, children do best in a family where the adult relationship is steady, stable and loving," Prendergast will tell the group in his prepared remarks. "Note that I stress adult, not married, since there is no evidence that suggests that children do best with heterosexual couples," he will add.

In a press release, Quest said it was looking forward to the appearance of Prendergast at its annual conference this coming weekend, the theme of which is "We Are Family: New Thinking for the Twenty First Century." Quest describes Prendergast's upcoming talk as focusing on the "romantic image" built up by the Church of a "golden age of the nuclear family" which excludes those who "do not fit." These, the group says, include single parent families, "and also co-habiting and same-sex families." ...

Terry Prendergast told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview that a significant source of the group's funding and other support comes from Catholic dioceses, one of which pays the rent for offices, and from individual parishes across the country. But, he said, the group's purpose is not necessarily to uphold the Catholic teaching on marriage and family.

Labels: Catholic Church, cohabitation, gay marriage, Marriage, marriage counseling, religion, single parenting, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 11:15 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Wendy Duren thought she did everything right.

She broke off relationships with men who didn't want to settle down. She refused to get pregnant out of wedlock. She prayed for a child.

Duren's yearning for motherhood was so palpable that her former fiancé once offered to father a child with her. But he warned her that he wasn't ready for marriage.

"I get bored in relationships after a couple of years," he told her, she recalls.

Those events could have caused some women to give up their dreams of motherhood. But Duren, a pharmaceutical saleswoman, didn't need a man to be a mom. At 37 years old, she decided to adopt. ...

Marriage and motherhood -- it's the dream that begins in childhood for many women. Yet more African-American women are deciding to adopt instead of waiting for a husband, says Mardie Caldwell, founder of Lifetime Adoption, an adoption referral and support group in Penn Valley, California.

"We're seeing more and more single African-American women who are not finding men," Caldwell says. "There's a lack of qualified black men to get into relationships with."

The numbers are grim. According to the 2006 U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 45 percent of African-American women have never been married, compared with 23 percent of white women.

Yet the decision to adopt isn't just driven by the paucity of eligible African-American men, others say.

Toni Oliver, founder and CEO of Roots Adoption Agency in Atlanta, Georgia, says her agency sees more single African-American women adopting because of infertility issues. ...

Some single African-American women deal with another challenge: criticism for bringing another African-American child into a single-parent household.

Kaydra Fleming, a 37-year-old social worker in Arlington, Texas, is the mother of Zoey, an adopted eight-month-old girl whose biological mother was young and poor.

"Zoey was going to be born to a single black mother anyway," Fleming says. "At least she's being raised by a single black parent who was ready financially and emotionally to take care of her."

Yet there are some single African-American women who are not emotionally ready to adopt an African-American child who is too dark, some adoption agency officials say.

Fair-skinned or biracial children stand a better chance of being adopted by single black women than darker-skinned children, some adoption officials say.

"They'll say, 'I want a baby to look like a Snickers bar, not dark chocolate,' " Caldwell, founder of Lifetime Adoption, says about some prospective parents.

"I had a family who turned a baby down because it was too dark," she says. "They said the baby wouldn't look good in family photographs."

Labels: adoption, motherhood, parenting, race, single parenting

posted by Eve at 9:40 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT