I received this e-mail from a single woman who has started the adoption process:

I work four nights per week and I am off three days. My job is pretty flexible with the nights, and I have a good support system… my mom and a close friend have agreed to care for my child a few nights per week.

Will working nights affect my homestudy approval?

Readers, what advice can you offer this mom-to-be? Please respond in the Comments area.

Because adopted children usually arrive on the scene without much advance notice, parents who work outside the home (particularly single parents) must scramble to find childcare. 
It’s not uncommon for an adoptive parent to spend most of his or her adoption leave madly searching for a nanny, daycare, or pre-school.

Enter speed babysitting. You’ve heard of speed dating, in which singles gather at a café or pub and chat for five minutes with a bunch of other singles. Apply that concept to finding a babysitter.

Sitter Socials, a California-based program, is one of a few services around the country that matches parents with available babysitters. Clients (aka, parents in need of a sitter) pay $50 to attend a neighborhood speed meeting (okay, “speed meeting” sounds vaguely illegal, but you get my drift). Parents spend three minutes apiece interviewing about a dozen potential babysitters. 

In addition, clients receive a book that contains profiles, references, and contact info for local babysitters (that, alone, would be worth 50 bucks!).

Sitter Socials also offer snacks and door prizes. After the initial speed interviews, there’s time for parents and sitters to negotiate deals.

It isn’t a perfect system, I suppose, but nothing in the I-need-childcare-right-now world is. I’m not sure whether speed babysitting applies to all-day care, or is just for parents in need of a night out. Either way, it might be worth looking into.

What do you think, readers? Have you tried speed babysitting? Did it work for you?

Source:
“Speed baby-sitting follows quickie dating,” by John Rogers, Associated Press, KnoxNews.com

Single women represent the fastest growing segment of adoptive parents; of the 50,000 children placed in U.S. homes through public (foster care) adoptions in 2001, 32 percent were adopted by single women.

Roughly 30 percent of all families (adoptive and otherwise) are headed by a single parent, with one of every four children being raised by a single parent.

Singles adopt for the same reasons couples do: they love children and want to be parents. But singles who hope to adopt—particularly those who want to adopt infants—are finding it increasingly challenging to do so.

U.S. Infant Adoption
In domestic infant adoptions (where the birth parents generally choose the people who will raise their child), birth parents most often choose couples, saying they prefer their child to grow up in a two-parent family.

Domestic Independent Adoption
Many singles adopt infants privately (independently), which gives them the flexibility to make connections with pregnant women who are considering adoption. (Note: independent adoptions are illegal in some U.S. states; check with a licensed adoption social worker in your state to see what the law says before pursuing this option).

Intercountry Adoption
Countries such as China, from which huge numbers of singles previously adopted, now prohibit singles from adopting. Many other countries, however, welcome single parents, whether they are divorced, widowed, or never married. Singles who adopt internationally say the process tends to move a little more quickly if they express an interest in adopting an older child.

U.S. Public (Foster Care) Adoption
Many singles adopt children of all ages from the U.S. public adoption system (foster care). There’s a huge need for people to adopt the 115,000 children living in foster care, who are legally free for adoption. Many of these children are classified as “special needs” due to their age, to their status as a member of a sibling group, or due to challenges stemming from abuse and/or neglect. These children long for a loving, stable parent. Could you be that parent?

Related post:

Single Parent Adoption on the Rise

Previous Adoption Q & A:

• Part 1: How
  do I choose an adoption agency?
• Part 2: Am
  I too old to adopt?
• Part 3: Can I adopt if I’m on a limited income?

Do you have a question about adoption you’d like me to address on the
Exploring Adoption blog? Please e-mail me. 

Join me for more adoption Q & A in the next post. We’ll discuss: When should I tell my
child he/she was adopted? 

I go into greater detail on many other questions in my book: The
Adoption Decision: 15 Things You Want to Know Before Adopting.

For more news and information about adoption, visit www.laurachristianson.com, and
check out my Exploring
Adoption bookstore.

We often hear about single women adopting, but what about single men?

According to a report from Bob McClay of KTAR radio, the number of single men who are adopting children more than doubled between 1998 and 2005.

Single men account for 3 percent of all adoptions from foster care.

Source: KTAR.com

Laura’s book, The Adoption Network, has just been
released. Click here to learn about a limited-time offer: Buy 1, Get 1 FREE! Only $12.95 for TWO books (including
USPS first-class shipping anywhere in the U.S.). Buy one
for yourself and give the other one to a friend, colleague, clergyperson, or
adoption professional.

For more news and information about adoption, visit www.laurachristianson.com, and
check out my Exploring
Adoption bookstore.

One of my readers, who has a great deal of experience working with children with disabilities, is considering adopting a child who has Down syndrome.

As a high-level professional, she needs to travel for work from time to time. Her question:

What do single, professional moms do for long-term child care?

Readers, let’s hear your suggestions!

Single parent adoption is increasing in popularity,
according to an article on About.com. Thirty three percent of children adopted
from foster care are by single parents – mostly women who are more likely to
adopt an older child, says the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Adoptive Families magazine
reports that single parent adoption has increased from 2 percent of adoptions
prior to 1990 to as much as 25 percent today.

Why the steady rise?

• One-parent households are becoming the norm. Sixty-four percent of today’s
  families are non-traditional; they do not
  include both a mother, a father and the average 2.01 biological children,
  according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than half of African American children,
  nearly one third of Hispanic children and one fifth of Caucasian children live
  with a single parent. Adoption agencies recognize the changing face of families
  and welcome singles as prospective parents.
• The increase in adoption subsidies, workplace benefits and
  tax breaks has made adoption more affordable for singles.
• Singles have parenting instincts, just like couples do, and
  feel equipped to tackle parenting challenges on their own.

Adopting on Your Own:
The Complete Guide to Adoption for Single Parents (by Lee Varon)

lists five things that people should think about before they
adopt:

1. How will your personality blend with parenting?
2. What is your lifestyle like?
3. What resources do you have to offer?
4. Have you explored international and domestic adoption?
5. Are you open to educating yourself in the ways that adoptive
   parenting is different from parenting a birth child?

Another book that singles considering adoption might read is
Single Mothers by Choice: A Guidebook
for Single Women Who Are Considering or Have Chosen Motherhood, by Jane Mattes.

Source: About.com,
“Single Mother (Parent) Adoption by Nikki V. Katz

In the last two
entries, we’ve talked about how single parents can cope with the stress of
parenting. Here are some additional suggestions from Making Children Mind
Without Losing Yours, by Dr. Kevin Leman, author of 21 books on marriage and
family.

Single parents are not doomed to a second-rate life. But
their lives are full of stress. Many in high-stress lives learn to hum along at
a rapid pace. They get so used to it, they don’t even notice how stressed they
are. Often, it takes some kind of breakdown – emotional, physical, or
relational– to let them know.

1. Be aware of your stress levels.
2. Get seven or eight hours of sleep a night and eat three square meals a day. Avoid snack foods and fad diets.
3. If you can’t get to a gym, play with your kids, but find some regular time to be active.
4. Learn to say no when people ask you to do time-consuming things. Recognize that you can’t do it all.
5. Monitor when you feel especially stressed and take a mental mini vacation.
6. Enlist your kids’ help in coping. Declare the first half-hour after you get home as “quiet time.” You are not to be disturbed. Kids learn that their lives are much sweeter if they give mom some down time.
7. Pamper yourself a little. Find small indulgences that make you feel like a million bucks even if they cost seven-fifty. Get dinner delivered, get a pedicure, take a warm bath, go to a concert with friends. Budget some time and money for your own simple pleasures and don’t feel guilty about it.

This is Part 2 of an
interview with Diane Lostrangio, Executive Director of New Hope Child and Family Agency in Seattle. In Part 1 (Sept. 26, 2005), we discussed parent-child bonding. Today
we discuss some coping strategies single parents can use when they’re feeling
overwhelmed.

Anxious moments

It’s normal for all parents,
whether they’ve just given birth to a baby or adopted, to feel moments…hours…especially
in the middle of the night, of the hugeness of the responsibility pressing. This
sense of responsibility becomes magnified for single parents, even if they have
a good support system. They feel the additional pressure of, it’s all about me.
If something should happen to me, there’s no one to step in.

Coping mechanism #1: Talk to your adoption social worker

If you’re having trouble coping, there’s no benefit in being
stoic about it. Talk to your social worker about it. If you’re candid with your
caseworker and your caseworker has any experience with singles, the caseworker
can give you the context for what’s normal. The caseworker can also reflect on
your progress over time. When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t see the
progress in your own ability to cope. Sometimes, it’s tremendously reassuring
to realize that parenting may still feel overwhelming at times, but at this
point, two months out, you’re coping a whole lot better than you were at two
weeks out. It’s important to have somebody who can mirror that progress back to
you. Your social worker and another adoptive parent are the best choices to do
that.

Coping mechanism #2:
Hook up with other adoptive parents

The best place to feel freest [about sharing frustrations]
is with other adoptive parents who have walked the path. They’ll understand and
they’ll have a good intuitive sense about whether your feelings are so
pervasive that you may need professional support. Those who are not acquainted
with adoption may have a hard time with the fact that you’re having these
feelings. I would reserve my free speech for those who know the path best.

Your agency can give you the name of another adoptive parent
who is not quite in the same phase that you’re in. It’s great to hook people up
with other people who have walked similar past, but are further along in the
progression.

Coping mechanism #3:
Learn from your child

Children teach us a lot about the need to slow down. Our culture
presses us to work harder and faster. Kids teach us to stay in the moment. If
you do a lot of future thinking and planning, try to catch yourself – to bask
in reading books or pushing your child on a swing. Enjoy those moments, because
they do teach us to slow down; they teach us about the important things in
life.

Coping mechanism #4:
Let it go

Whether you’re two working parents or a single parent, let
go of some of the stuff that isn’t going to matter in the long term, like the
house being messy and things being out of order. Learn to tolerate more disarray;
keep dinner simple and focus on making the transition from daycare into the
evening a positive one.

Typically, you get your child at the end of the day and
they’re ready to see you. You feel like you’re on the track of, “I’ve gotta get
dinner going; I’ve gotta get a load of laundry in.”

Kids from orphanages and foster care are skilled at tuning
into emotional states because their well-being depends on learning how to work
with that.

But we get task oriented and forge ahead. Then both parent
and child melt down.

If you can figure out a way to get in the door and have some
down time together, you can diffuse acting out, crying and power struggling and
you’re both going to feel a lot better.

Rather than heading immediately into the kitchen to start
cooking the meal, eat some finger food or fruit. That way, you satisfy the
initial need to get some food in you, and you can sit and cuddle and read a
book, which is what a small child will really be needing after they haven’t
seen you all day.

A couple of years ago,
when I was writing a story for Working Mother magazine about a single,
professional woman who adopted a toddler from Bulgaria, I interviewed Diane
Lostrangio, Executive Director of New Hope Child and Family Agency in
Seattle. It’s a treat to talk with Diane, because she’s a wealth of information
about adoption (she’s also an adoptive mom). This two-part series includes
excerpts from our interview, in which we discussed bonding. Although we were
discussing bonding as it pertains to single parents, Diane’s comments are
equally applicable to two-parent families:

From Dream World to
Real World

With international adoption in particular, there’s so much
anticipation, buildup and so many hurdles to jump in terms of the dossier, the
paperwork, the delays, and the ups and downs of what’s happening in that
country, that a letdown comes after you come home. If you’ve traveled overseas,
the trip can be exciting in and of itself. You stay in that country; your
laundry’s getting done; you’re eating your meals out. All you do in that
country is concentrate on your new child. The job isn’t calling. And then you
get back home to reality.

Parenting has a
different rhythm than work

The adoption process can feed the sense that you’re really
well prepared to parent. You have to pass this test, so to speak. You’ve been
through the homestudy; you’ve undergone scrutiny. Adoptive parents are
typically older; they’re established professionally. They often work in spheres
where working harder and working smarter helps them overcome the difficulty. A
lot of parenting, especially in the early years, is just managing the changing
terrain.

Give yourself
permission to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

One of the sad realities for adoptive parents is that they
don’t feel a lot of permission to have the normal mix of feelings that any
parent does. Typically their process is very public – everyone has been pulling
for them. They’re taking a great deal of initiative in overcoming tremendous
obstacles to become a parent. Everybody presumes that this is the answer to
prayer. We feed into the notion that somehow, a child, a relationship can
completely fulfill us. And the reality of any relationship is that no one person
is going to meet all your needs. Talk to any mother about a day home with a
child. You love them but there are times when you get very frustrated.

Devote your attention
to bonding

There needs to be high-level attentiveness to the whole
bonding piece. Even infant adoptees and newborns go through a transition in
caregivers. Everything that’s familiar – sounds, feel, smells – changes, two
days, three days post-birth. Just because infants can’t express it in the same
way as older children doesn’t mean that they’re not undergoing a change. It’s
optimal if there can be some high-level availability on the part of the primary
parent to that infant through that time.

The first year is
critical

[Parents should] devote as much time as possible to
optimizing time with their child in the early months and the first year. The
first year is a critical transition period. I think of the transition and
adjustment as being at least a full year. With older kids, you can view the
transition time as far longer than that. When you’re talking about an
infant-toddler, expect a full year where getting that child transitioned is a
high-level priority in your life.

Take time off your
job, if possible

Singles need to take off as much time as they can possibly
take after the child’s placement. Especially if the child is a little bit
older, people tend to underestimate what the child’s needs are and how much the
child will need. Kids who have been in orphanage care often make a very good
transition into day care, but you want to orient them to family life.

Plan different
scenarios

Ask yourself: How much
time can I take off before I have to go back to work? You might say: I think I can hypothetically swing two
months off and then she’ll start child care. Keep in mind that you’re going
from two months off to full time child care. Think through whether that feels
the best for you and for the child.

Another option might be to look at four weeks home and the
equivalent of those hours that you would have taken off in those four weeks of
gradually entering the child in to childcare. This is true for couples who both
work, too, but for singles it’s more critical.

Some of that will be influenced by how your child’s
adjustment goes. Some kids adjust very well and seem ready to bond. You don’t always
know what’s going to feel optimal to your child. If you get really attached to one scenario and you realize that
it is not working for your child, that’s going to deepen your sense of being overwhelmed.

Find balance

If you’re single, it’s going to be a radical shift to go
from defining all of your time outside of work to be able to do whatever you
want to, to being “on,” all the time. If you’re adopting an older child or an
internationally adopted child who’s been in orphanage care, the time you’re not
working does need to be largely devoted to building the bond and the attachment
with the child. However, if you don’t build in some time for yourself, you’ll
get burned out and you’ll feel isolated. It’s a balance.

Recognize that, in the early years of your child’s life,
you’re not going to be pursuing lots of your favorite hobbies and pursuits. You’re
going to be attending to your work. You’re going to be spending as much time
with your child and trying to build in those pockets of down time for yourself
so that you don’t get burned out. There’s a limit to quality time. Kids need
quantity time, too.

Stay tuned for Part 2,
when we’ll discuss ways for frazzled parents to cope.