My wife and I have been waiting around 3 years to adopt a child, but before we could apply formally we both had to go through a series of tests. The tests were highly invasive and dug as deep as they could into our personal lives.
I get why they were screening us, they wanted to know if they placed a child with us that we had all the traits that would make great parents. They wanted to know if we smoked, how much we drank, how much money we made, if we were married, we had to go through a criminal record check, and submit child abuse checks as well.
Then they came to our house and made sure we had a safe environment for a child to live in as well ask us a ton of really personal questions, like how often do we have sex and asked us if we had good relations with our immediate family. They went through our house looking for carbon monoxide detectors and working smoke alarms, they suggested that we put a gate on the stairs and a fence around the dugout that was quite a ways off from the house.
After the home check they wrote up a report, and sent it in to be a part of our file, it wasn't just what we said to the representative that got written up it was her opinion on us as well. After it was over we still have to go in yearly for an update to our lives, and report any new things that might have happened to us.
It has been a lengthy process and we are still waiting. In that time I have seen people being caught for torturing their children, chaining them in the basement, neglecting them. I have seen children about three to four years old walking down the street alone, with no parent or sibling watching them. Children being killed in a hot car after being locked inside while their parents went to the casino or the store.
So while my wife and I are waiting impatiently and desperately wanting to be parents, there are people out there that couldn't care less and find children a burden. I have often thought to myself, if you don't want your kid I will gladly take them off your hands.
Every once in while someone says to us, you don't know what it's like
you don't have children. We have both been around a lot of children
and helped raise our nieces and nephews as well as our friends children.
Yes, we are not full time parents, but we are far from clueless and we
are both intelligent. My response to them would be: You don't know
what it's like to want children, to be a parent and not be able to. Some people don't appreciate the gift of life that is sitting right next to them
I think anyone who wants kids, and it doesn't matter if you can easily get pregnant or not, should have to go through the same screening process that my wife and I went through, to make sure parents are going to be GOOD parents, and that the couple in question can afford to have children. That they aren't alcoholics, and have rage issues, or their house is a very unstable environment and that if they have a child, that child is going to have a really good life.
Scott Goerz
