No Excuse to be Ignorant about Adoption

Willful ignorance is the state and practice of ignoring any sensory input that appears to contradict one’s inner model of reality. At heart, it is almost certainly driven by confirmation bias.

It differs from the standard definition of “ignorance“ — which just means that one is unaware of something — in that willfully ignorant people are fully aware of facts, resources and sources, but refuse to acknowledge them. Indeed, calling someone “ignorant” shouldn’t really be a pejorative, but intentional and willful ignorance is an entirely different matter. In practice though, the word “ignorance” has often come to mean “willful ignorance”, and indeed, in many non-English languages, the word based on the same stem actually carries that meaning.

It is sometimes referred to as tactical stupidity.

Depending on the nature and strength of an individual’s pre-existing beliefs, willful ignorance can manifest itself in different ways. The practice can entail completely disregarding established facts, evidence and/or reasonable opinions if they fail to meet one’s expectations. Often excuses will be made, stating that the source is unreliable, that the experiment was flawed or the opinion is too biased. More often than not this is simple circular reasoning: “I cannot agree with that source because it is untrustworthy because it disagrees with me”.

In other slightly more extreme cases, willful ignorance can involve outright refusal to read, hear or study, in any way, anything that does not conform to the person’s worldview. With regard to oneself, this can even extend to fake locked-in syndrome with complete unresponsiveness. Or with regard to others, to outright censorship of the material from others.

To counteract any true ignorance, may we present you with some real facts about adoption.

Adoption Laws By State

Wondering about the adoption laws in your state? We all do. One of the things that must be fix in adoption is that there is a whole patchwork of state laws that affect the natural rights of parents to consent to adoption, when they can change their minds  and revoke consent and whatright fathers have, plus any true “choice” in contact with your child post-adoption. This allows the adoption professionals to move both mothers and babies around to different states depending on their adoption laws.

As adoption is generally considered a state by state issue, you must look up the laws in the state you are giving birth in to find the  consent time and the revoke time frame. Putative Fathers Rights laws tend to jump around a bit and should be looked at for the state the father lived in, the state the child was conceived in and the state the the child is born in. For open agreements and their legality and enforce-ability ( which doesn’t exist ) look at the state the adoption was finalized it, where the child will be living and also the state that the child was born in.

Statistics, Studies and Research  on Adoption and Adoption Related Issues

In the United States, there is not a central body that is collecting accurate adoption statistics. There is no one single oversight organization that actual collects data from all the different adoption agencies around the country. Often all the “big” number on adoption are estimated at best. Various facts and numbers float around and if they get repeated often enough, they are “facts about adoption”. Sometimes the source is lost and cannot be verified.

Actual scientific research on adoption and adoption related issues is frequently hard to find. For one,  there just isn’t enough of it.  Almost every study that I have ever read included in their conclusion “further studies are needed”.

Making Adoption Research Studies Public to All

The other issue is that many of the adoption studies are not made public. They are easy enough to find, but not read online. Many of the studies require access to an educational database or a purchase of the papers.  In the last 12 years I have acquired quite a collection from various sources and am working to add them all here.

When I can transfer them over to copy, I have included the entire papers. When I cannot move the copy off PDF, I have a link to the actual PDF of the adoption research study.

Frequently Asked Questions About Adoption

They don’t teach the facts about adoption in school. There are no courses in college unless you go into a master level in Social work and even then it is limited. Most people go thought life thinking what they hear about adoption form the media, or even worse, from the adoption industry that supplies the message to the media is true. They would be wrong.

Then, when people find themselves about to enter the word of adoption, they go to the “trusted professionals” . Again, most of these sources have their own agenda for keep “on message” as the professionals make their living form the continuation of the adoption status quo. This goes for both prospective adoptive parents and expectant mothers considering adoption.  Neither have any reason to believe that they are being given a sales pitch.

Information Graphics on Adoption

Good info graphics are a wonderful way to share information across many social media networks clearly and concisely. An informational graphic creates a clear visual medium to share much needed information on adoption. We are so lucky in AdoptionLand that we are blessed with the wonderful info graphic designer, Kate Dahlquist.

The copy from the graphic images is re-created in text so the information can be index and ranked properly on the search engines.

Please feel free to share away. These images are do particularly well  on both Pinterest and Facebook!

What are the Costs of Adoption?

How much does adoption cost? According to Google, about 3600 people a month want to know “how much does adoption cost?” Of course the word “cost” here is assumed to mean the monetary expenses incurred when a child or baby is adopted.  Those facts and figures, the actual answer to “how much does it cost to adopt a baby” are rather simple to answer

No matter where you do adopt a baby or child from, if you do it legally (ethically is another matter entirely) then you must have a home study and someone to handle the legal transaction of transferring the parental rights of said child.However, please remember that adoption is a 14 billion dollar annual industry, which means that in the end, there are enough potential adoptive parents who desire children enough to part with that 13 billion dollars. And then all the other “costs” and “fees’ that make adoption such a wonderful social construct, but that is just the money.

Let’s look at the true costs of adoption; the cost to the adoptee, to the families involved. 

Websites for Additional Adoption Information

Online Information About Adoption

There are many sources for adoption information online. You will find research and support groups and history and facts. If you can’t find something, please ask me. I can usually point you in the right direction.

 

More articles and such pertaining to Adoption Facts and Information, click here.