Adoption can be a wonderful way of expanding your family, but the adoption process is so riddled with misconceptions, myths, and misinformation, that it turns many people off from giving adoption much serious thought or consideration. This skewed view can deter potential adoptive families from going through with the process. Before you get started adopting, you should know myths about the adoption process that you might encounter.
1. You Need To Be Rich
In reality, you don't really need to be wealthy in order to adopt a child, and not all adoptions are costly. Yes, you need to be financially stable, but there's no real income threshold agencies will hold potential adoptive families to that will render you unable to adopt, and there's no amount of money that will automatically make you a better candidate in their eyes. In fact, your emotional resources will probably carry more weight for an adoption agency than how much money you have.
One of the most important things in adoption is that you have enough money to meet the basic needs of the child and your household. While it's true that raising a child is expensive, the cost of raising any kid, adopted or not, will vary.
If you haven't got a lot of money tucked away, or you don't have a high income, there are plenty of programs and organizations that exist to help you for this very purpose. Adoption fee benefits from employers, state and federal tax credits, adoption aid grants, as well as subsidies, can also help offset the cost of the adoption process. Some adoption agencies also offer sliding scale fees based on your family's income or ability to pay.
2. The Adoption Process Takes A Long Time
On average, the adoption process in America can take about a year to complete, but many factors will come into play that will affect how long your adoption process will take. One of the primary reasons being it takes time to find a child and family that can be matched and meet each other's needs. Some of those factors include figuring out what kind of child you'd like to adopt, what type of adoption process you're using, and completing all the paperwork.
3. Adoption Means You're Buying A Baby
Adoption is not a business transaction, and you are not purchasing a child to add to your family. Adoption is a social and legal process that helps in finding a permanent, loving home for a child who might've had parents that weren't able to provide such an environment for them to grow up in. While there is money exchanged in the adoption process, it's normally legal and administrative in nature.
4. You Need To Be Perfect
At some point in the adoption process, you'll need to complete something called a "home study". The purpose of this home study is to assess how fit you are to be an adoptive parent. Although you might feel the pressure to appear perfect to the agency in order to give them the impression you're some kind of perfect person, you need to realize no one has that sort of expectation of you. Like everyone else in the world, you'll have some imperfections and shortcomings. So long as these weaknesses don't reflect badly on your ability to be a parent, chances are, they won't be held against you. Contact Jeffrey T Bitzer to learn more about the adoption process.
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