Is It Easier to Adopt Babies of Color

Caryn Lantz and her hubby Chuck were surprised to larn that costs associated with adopting black children were much lower than for white or mixed race children. They ultimately went with an adoption in which the fee was based on their income, not peel color. Courtesy of Caryn Lantz hide caption

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Courtesy of Caryn Lantz

Caryn Lantz and her husband Chuck were surprised to learn that costs associated with adopting blackness children were much lower than for white or mixed race children. They ultimately went with an adoption in which the fee was based on their income, non skin color.

Courtesy of Caryn Lantz

NPR continues a series of conversations about The Race Card Project, where thousands of people have submitted their thoughts on race and cultural identity in six words. Every so often NPR Host/Special Correspondent Michele Norris volition dip into those vi-word stories to explore issues surrounding race and cultural identity for Morning Edition. Yous can notice hundreds of half dozen-word submissions and submit your own at www.theracecardproject.com.

Americans prefer thousands of children each yr. And as the nation has become increasingly diverse, and with the growth of international adoption in recent decades, many of those children don't look like their adoptive parents. That intersection of race and adoption has prompted many people to submit their six words to The Race Card Project, including this submission from a Louisiana woman: "Black babies cost less to adopt."

Other contributors have also addressed the skin-color based fee structure for many adoptions, including Caryn Lantz of Minneapolis. Her six words: "Navigating world as transracial adopted family."

Lantz and her husband, both white, are the adoptive parents of 2 African-American boys. The couple had struggled for years to excogitate a child. When they finally decided to plow to adoption they were willing to prefer kids of some other race. But they were concerned by what they discovered virtually the differential costs.

Lantz says she remembers a phone call with an adoption agency social worker. "And [she] was telling u.s. about these different fee structures that they had based on the indigenous background of the kid. And ... they as well had, sort of a different rails for adoptive parents."

Moving through the process would be quicker if the family was open to adopting an African-American (not biracial) child, the social worker explained to her. "And that is because they have children of color waiting," Lantz says. Adopting biracial, Latino, Asian or Caucasian children could be a slower procedure, she was told, because there were more parents waiting for them.

A screen grab detailing the race-based cost differential for children being placed past various agencies. The original page appeared on the website for an adoption consulting group that links potential parents with adoption agencies. This fee construction has been mutual for some time throughout the adoption system. The grouping no longer posts this information to the public and asked to remain anonymous. Courtesy of Caryn Lantz hibernate explanation

toggle explanation

Courtesy of Caryn Lantz

A screen catch detailing the race-based cost differential for children existence placed by various agencies. The original folio appeared on the website for an adoption consulting group that links potential parents with adoption agencies. This fee structure has been common for some fourth dimension throughout the adoption system. The group no longer posts this data to the public and asked to remain bearding.

Courtesy of Caryn Lantz

"And I call up hearing this and simply sort of being dumbfounded that they would sort of segregate — to utilise a loaded term — segregate these children by ethnic background before they were fifty-fifty in this world," Lantz says. "That'southward when I started realizing that, OK, being a parent to a child of a unlike indigenous background — this is gonna be some work. In that location'southward going to exist a lot of work on our end in order to be successful parents and to get our kid set up for this world."

The Race Card Project spoke with social workers, adoption agencies and adoptive parents virtually adoption costs based on ethnicity. We discovered that this is non widely talked nearly, but it is common, Norris tells NPR's David Greene. "No i is comfortable nearly this."

Non-white children, and black children, in detail, are harder to place in adoptive homes, Norris says. And then the cost is adjusted to provide an incentive for families that might otherwise be locked out of adoption due to cost, equally well as "for families who actually have to, perhaps accept a petty chip of prodding to think near adopting across racial lines."

In other words, Norris explains, there are often altruistic reasons for the discrepancy — "but people who work in adoption say there'southward ane more reason, quite simply: Information technology'due south supply and demand."

The fees typically encompass authoritative costs, but also costs associated with taking care of the mother, like travel, rent, health intendance and counseling services. Now, some states and agencies are using a different formula to make adoption more affordable for families, with a sliding scale based on income rather than peel color. In that arrangement, lower-income families pay less to adopt. Some agencies are likewise moving toward a uniform toll system where all adoptive parents would pay the same fees.

Ultimately, the Lantz family unit adopted their sons from Nevada, where the sliding calibration was based on income, not race. Simply considering they were eager to find a kid, they did consider agencies that used a race-based cost differential.

Many people have written to The Race Card Project about the intersection of race and adoption.

White Mom, Black Son, barbershop revelations — Kathy Osborne, Greensboro, S.C.

Yes, they actually are my children. — Corrie Bugby, Murray, Utah

Race adopting outside Race ... least racist. — Tod Carey, Laguna Woods, Calif.

Family matters; race, not at all. — Phyllis Kedl, Little Canada, Minn.

During the process, the family received four calls about potential children to be matched with them — three from states that used this race-based cost structure. "One was a full African-American child, i was a biracial kid and i was a white child," Lantz says. "And when they told me the fees for the white child, I was in a Babies R Us [shop] and I think having to sit down in the alley and say to myself, 'I don't call back we tin can afford to adopt this kid if the expectant mother chose united states.' "

The price to adopt the Caucasian child was approximately $35,000, plus some legal expenses. "Versus when nosotros got the first phone call about a little girl, a full African-American daughter, information technology was about $18,000," Lantz says. The cost for adoption of a biracial child was between $24,000 and $26,000.

Eyes do linger on her blended family in her community, Lantz says, and curious people make comments. Ii years agone, before she had a 2d son, she started growing concerned nearly the effect those comments might have on her son as he grows older.

"I am a little nervous virtually what we're gonna practise when he starts to empathize why someone approached us at Target and thanked u.s. for saving babies," she explained at the time. "Or when a woman, y'all know, walks downwardly the aisle of the grocery store and says, 'What's he mixed with?' "

Lantz responded to that incident, she recalls, past saying, "My son, nosotros adopted him at nascency. And, you know, his ethnic background is a lilliputian different. And nosotros don't know a whole agglomeration about it, but he is a beautiful kid, isn't he?"

'White Parents Enhance Beautifully Various Children'

That half-dozen-word submission to The Race Card Project comes from Louise Bannon of Holly Springs, Due north.C. Bannon and her hubby Greg, both white, have two sons: Darius, Bannon'southward biological son, who is biracial, and Bryce, who is adopted and African-American. Bannon writes:

Raising, playing, growing and living every bit a diverse family unit is an extraordinary experience. It brings both good days and tough days — obstacles and disappointments, laughter and lightheartedness. The journey is full of stares — stares full of curiosity, stares total of love and stares of hatefulness from the people we encounter from time to time in our lives. While both my husband and I want to believe that order has risen above racism — we have a biracial president after all — information technology all the same exists and we talk our kids through it and about it all of the time, especially our teenager, who is now driving and looks like an adult — peculiarly to a constabulary officer. I wouldn't change annihilation nearly our experience! We learn something new every day and we share our openness, dear and acceptance with anybody nosotros know/encounter. Life is precious!

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2013/06/27/195967886/six-words-black-babies-cost-less-to-adopt#:~:text=Six%20Words%3A%20'Black%20Babies%20Cost%20Less%20To%20Adopt'%20In,black%20children%20waiting%20for%20placement.

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