For single guys, more hurdles to adoption

[CShine]

Several factors dot the landscape with obstacles. For one, most foreign countries - even if they are willing to part with their orphaned or abandoned children - prohibit adoption by single men. And in America, where all 50 states permit single adults to adopt, church-related abuse scandals have recently raised the bar for single men trying to prove their fitness for parenthood.

"For some agencies, men are suspect because of the sex-abuse scandals. They wonder why a man would ever want to adopt," said Grace Brace, executive director of the International Adoption Services Centre, a nonprofit agency in Gardiner, Maine that supports single male adoption. "With everything that's happening, I believe it is becoming harder for men to adopt."

Despite the roadblocks, adoption rates among single guys haven't faltered. In 1998, 645 single men adopted children in the foster care system; that number grew to 1,110 in 2001. No later data is available. The numbers may be even higher since exact figures aren't kept on the approximately 65,000 private adoptions that take place in the US each year. Still, unmarried men have a way to go to match the record of single women, who accounted for 30 percent of the adoptions from the foster-care system in 2001. The number for single men is 2 percent.

Single males who explore adoption quickly find that the outcome may depend on an unpredictable network of state lawmakers, social workers, agency personnel, and birth mothers, all of whom are apt to have strong feelings about a single man's ability to raise a child. Through copious paperwork and home interviews, a candidate must convince each gatekeeper that he has the maturity, financial stability, and support network necessary for the task. Given the various factors, experiences differ widely.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0618/p11s01-lifp.html