A very interesting article appeared in the adoption blog this morning. Some of the points intrigued me enough to write about how I feel about the subject. What got my attention was the idea that some people think that adoption subsidies and assistance are not justified. Our family is paid an adoption subsidy and given other benefits such as Medicaid and I do not feel like I need to apologize to anyone for taking it.
Historically, these benefits came with every child that was adopted. We have very good friends that adopted twelve years ago. They are fairly affluent people, not rich, but certainly upper middle class. They really did not think that they needed the money, but the state insisted on paying it to them. Today, it is much more difficult to qualify for any assistance once a child is adopted.
We could not operate our household, which includes five adopted children, without this assistance. That is certainly not why we adopted. In order to do this work, my wife and I took early retirements and left a lot of money on the table. If I had finished out my career to full retirement age, my pension would be triple what it is now and my savings would have seen a similar increase. We live on approximately 25% of our pre-retirement earnings.
We have adopted five maternal brothers, ages two through eight, who qualify as special needs children. It takes two of us to maintain the home and meet all of the children’s needs. If we did not receive assistance, I would have to stay employed. I do not mind working; I retired after doing that for thirty years. If I had to work, then we would need a full-time housekeeper / mother’s helper. We firmly believe that these boys need a father at home all of the time.
We do take assistance from the State of Texas. We took five badly damaged little boys off of their hands. We rescued these children from an environment where most young men spend their entire lives in and out of the prison system. That would have cost the taxpayers much more money.
The problem is not that the state spends money on adopted children. The real problem is that women are allowed to annually give birth to children that are damaged by their mother’s drug addiction, social diseases, and bad habits. The state must step in to insure the health and safety of these children. Some of these women have given birth to many children. Something needs to happen to stop this national calamity.