single mom with adopted children?

[kimberlyb0112]

So as a Christian, is it a sin for me to not want children, but for me to plan to adopt and be a single mom? Of course, I would raise my children with a Christian background, and make sure I am emotionally, financially, and maturally (is that a word??) ready..
I was just wondering everyone's opinion on this.

 

[heather]

That's a tough question. We were designed to be in companionship with others...including our parents. As a little girl growing up with a dad who was more into drugs and drinking than he was in me, I know of the harsh affects not having a father. If you get a little girl, she will have a dad-sized hole in her heart. So will a little boy.

I would spend ample amount of time in prayer and in the Word and in counseling with other believer who live in the Spirit.

If, ultimately, God has told you to adopt a child, make sure that he/she has a close positive male role model (maybe an uncle or close family friend) who can guide him/her in life and give advice in a perspective as only a man can. It would also be good for him/her to see how married couples interact so that he/she grows up knowing how to be a good spouse as according to the Bible.

I hope this helps!

Heather.

 

[handy]

Kim, you've asked an honest question, and I'm going to give you an honest answer, unvarnished OK.

I don't think a single person should ever adopt an infant. I believe that it's best when children grow up with two parents. We need both a mom and a dad. There are so many couples lined up to adopt infants, there usually is no problem placing the infant in a home with a mom and a dad. For a single woman to adopt a healthy infant...I do believe that is selfish, always with the caveat that there are always special circumstances for some.


Having said that....

Steve and I adopted our kids from the foster care program. There are so many children in the foster care program who are shuttled from foster home to foster home with never a real home of their own. Some of these kids develop behavioral issues, some are sick, some simply don't get chosen for adoption. So, they stay in this foster care cycle, growing up without ever a true home and then, when they are 18, that's it. They are out, on their own. Period. Maybe they might be lucky and get a really good foster care family. But most who do foster care have to move on because the need is so great that for every child that gets moved out, several more are waiting to be placed.

I can't tell you how important it was for our kids, when we brought them home, to understand, to truly understand that they had a forever home. That we really were their mom and dad and we weren't going to make them go away if they were bad, or make them share a room with kids who show up in the middle of the night, then get to like the kids, just to have them leave and never return. Or they were the one who left and never returned. For my daughter, we were her 5th home in life and she was only 3 1/2 when she came to live with us. 5 homes in 3 1/2 years. Can you imagine what a little child goes through with that? And our son. Believe it or not he was considered "at risk" and "hard to place" because he was black and a boy. That's it. Being black and being a boy, this meant that, statisticaly speaking, he was unlikely to ever find a home. He's an intelligent, funny, good-looking, healthy child, but because of his sex and skin pigmentation, most didn't want him.

Anyone who adopts a child under these circumstances is doing a great good. Under these circumstances, the whole thing of "we need both a mom and a dad" takes second place to the fact that they don't have either or even a home to call their own. These are the "throw away" kids, the hard to place kids, the kids for whom a home of their very own is just a dream.

I'm not going to paint a pretty picture here: It's HARD work to undo the damage that prolonged foster care and multiple placements does to a child. Our daughter had severe attachment issues and it was just last week that she and I sat on the back porch and held each other and cried over her past. But, I thank God all the time that He closed my womb and brought her and my son into our home to be our kids.

So, pray over this and consider the issue from every angle, the pressures of single motherhood, the issues that children in foster care have, the fact that you will indeed need to figure out some kind of father figure for the kids (how do you get along with men in your family or do you go to a church with men that could be a mentor and father-figure for a child), the fact that undoing the damage that foster care did is emotionally draining and you won't have a husband to lean on. Prayerfully consider every angle.

And then, if you want to adopt an older child (over age 2) in the foster care system, I'll do every thing I can to help you through the process. Promise.

 

[paisley]

I believe God made a plan for every child to have a father and a mother. If you don`t plan on getting married, that is fine, but it is an injustice to a child to not give them a father. If you plan on being single, you should also plan on being childless, the 2 go hand in hand. However, you could do LOTS of things for children. For example, you could sponsor a 3rd world country child. You could join the "Big Sister" program to help hurting children. You could volunteer at an orphanage or juvenile facility. You could volunteer at a children`s hospital. You could teach children`s Sunday School classes at church. You could host an exchange student from overseas. And the list can go on and on. There is so many ways you can contribute to children`s lives.
There is one other issue that many people don`t talk about or know about and that is some of the children in America who are up for adoption were taken from their families and their families were forced or tricked into giving up their parental rights. Some of these children were taken away from decent parents. It is too complicated of a subject to get into now but if you do a little research, you might be surprised at what is going on in American foster care/adoption. So I`m not in favor or feeding this system either.

 

[paisley]

I just now read Handy`s reply. I didn`t write what I wrote about foster care to contradict Handy. I`m sure God had His hand in guiding Handy and I do feel some conflict with the foster care system. The children in the system as Handy mentioned are victims of really terrible treatment. If you read or hear some of the things that that grown foster children report happened to them in their many foster homes, you would be horrified. So from that perspective, I respect Christians, like Handy, who step in and try to give stability and love to these broken and torn lives of dear, dear children. But on the other hand, there is a LOT of crooked stuff going on in the foster care system where people are making a lot of money by taking unabused children from their parents, getting the parents to sign away their parental rights, drugging the children up, and then bouncing them around in multiple abusive situations while trying to adopt them out for a bigger profit. It is a big problem so the only way to stop it is to stop the demand for adoptions in America, but to do that children are left to suffer who are already in the system. Anyway, I think adopting a foster child definitely is a 2 parent job. A healthy, normal child born into one`s family takes a lot of work, but foster children must take 100 times more work because they often come with a lot of hurt, baggage, and damage.