Adopting Older Children. Stephanie Bosco-Ruggiero

       Who Can Adopt an Older Child?

      In the United States, older children, especially those over the age of ten who are legally free for adoption, may wait for years to find a forever family and, sadly, many of those waiting will never find one. Special needs children from abroad, those who are older or who have health problems also may wait years to find a family to love them. This is why it is so important for prospective adoptive parents to understand how welcome they are to adopt an older child and just how much they are needed. The beauty of older child adoption is that parents from varying backgrounds, ages, ethnicities and sexual orientations are welcome to adopt. While prospective older parents, single parents or those with limited financial means may face challenges adopting an infant, they will encounter fewer problems adopting older children. Likewise, gays and lesbians may face challenges adopting an infant in the United States but are welcome by many public agencies to adopt an older child. Their ease in adopting an older child will depend, however, on agency culture and state laws. For gays and lesbians, adopting internationally is a different story which we will discuss later.

      Waiting children, particularly older ones, will be asked by their caseworkers what type of family situation might work best for them in terms of family structure and location. A teen may be interested in being adopted by a married couple rather than a single parent or by adoptive parents who do not have any other children; sibling groups may only want to be adopted together. Furthermore, a child may prefer prospective parents in a particular geographic location so they can maintain contact with biological family members, their foster family or friends.

      Laws regarding the age above which a legally free child must consent to be adopted by particular prospective parents vary state by state. There is the chance that after visits with a prospective family, or even living with them for several months, a child will decline to be adopted.

      PROSPECTIVE OLDER ADOPTIVE PARENTS

      Adoptions through the American child welfare system by older adults have increased over the past decades. As Americans live longer, middle age and beyond is no longer considered too late for parenting. Members of the baby-boomer generation are more active in their senior years than most generations that have come before them. They are starting new careers, going to school and developing new businesses, so why not start a new family?

      Older adults may be more emotionally and financially ready to parent compared to when they were in their twenties and thirties. Adults over the age of fifty may even be interested in raising adopted children after their biological children are grown and have left home. Some, never having had biological children, may fulfill their dreams of raising children long after their childbearing years have passed. The child welfare system provides older adults an opportunity to become parents, whereas the private system of infant adoption is no longer an option due to age requirements set by most private agencies.

      There are upper age limits on infant adoption, because private agencies want to ensure adoptive parents are healthy enough to parent a young child. Generally there are no maximum age requirements for domestic older child adoption because agencies want to expand their pool of prospective parents. Also, older parents may have years of parenting experience behind them, making them excellent applicants for raising children who have experienced early adversity.

      PROSPECTIVE SINGLE ADOPTIVE PARENTS

      Adoption by single adults has increased over the past few decades as well. In 2011, close to one-third of adoptions from foster care were by single adults, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.¹ Since the 1980s it has become more culturally acceptable for single parents to raise children on their own.

      Women in particular have become increasingly willing and interested in raising children alone, though single fatherhood is on the rise as well. Children may come to single women biologically, through relationships with partners, surrogate partners, artificial insemination or through adoption. Older child adoption may appeal particularly to single women who are in a later stage of life when raising an infant is not an option. Single women who have a strong support system may adopt with the hope they will later find a partner with whom to raise the child. Others may not be as concerned about finding a partner and are willing and expecting to take on the burden of parenting largely on their own. Lesbians and gay men may need to adopt as single parents, even if they have a partner, due to restrictions on gay couples adopting in their states.

      While there are more single women interested in adoption, the pool of prospective single male adoptive parents is growing. Single men may have concerns similar to single women including feeling that, as older single men, they are more prepared to parent an older child than an infant. Some single men who adopt may be gay and do not yet have a partner or are restricted to adopting as a single man due to state laws against same-sex second parent adoption. While the number of single adoptive fathers is increasing, single adoptive mothers greatly outnumber single adoptive fathers by a ratio of thirteen to one.²

      KINSHIP CARE AND ADOPTION

      Kinship care or kinship adoption refers to the care or adoption of a child by a relative such as a grandparent, aunt or uncle. Some states have a broader definition of kin that includes non-related persons such as close friends of the family. Kinship care arrangements are made in families every day without the involvement of the courts or the child welfare system. Parents may be unable to care for their children due to military deployment or sudden illness. In certain cultures, informal care of children by kin is not uncommon. In Native American cultures, for example, members of the extended family and even unrelated members of the tribe are expected to care for children in need. Quite often, Native American children whose parents are unable to care for them are raised by grandparents or other older relatives.

      Custody or guardianship agreements may be preferred to formal care or adoption by relative caregivers, because it does not result in termination of parental rights but gives the caregivers authority to make decisions for the child.

      The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 placed a major emphasis on kinship care and adoption. The Act encouraged states to enact policies requiring child welfare agencies to do a diligent search for all extended family members of a child removed from the home and to notify those