Does being "crunchy" affect adopting?

[ilovemygirl]

We are very alternative .. no vaccines, vegan, homeschool, etc. and I'm concerned about how all this will be taken by social workers and agencies. Can anyone with similar non-mainstream views share what their experiences have been like?

[heatherdeg]

You should see if there's an adoptive parents support group in your area and find out how mainstream the local agencies or the local office of your CPS (if you're going through the state) happen to be. I'm really only familiar with the state.

I think when it comes to adopting (and I mean straight adopting, not fostering and then adopting) it's not such a big deal. The things I find that they usually can't manage to wrap their head around is bfing past 2 or 3yo. And then there's co-sleeping (which really, they just want to be sure the children HAVE a bed to go to if they choose to do so--so they're not co-sleeping "by force" so-to-speak).

You may run into a worker that sees crunchy stuff with concern. They're out there. I tend to only really offer up what they ask for. There's no need to know that you eat vegan. You have food in the house. If you live in a state with philosophical vax exemption, great (or if you actually have a religious reason for not doing it). I live in a state that only has religious exemption--so if your kids aren't vaxed, the workers are looking for evidence of your religion--ya know? But again, how hard they're looking depends on the worker.

[SundayCrepes]

Our cw was a retired 70 year old hispanic counselor. She was as mainstream as they come. We are not. She asked if I had any literature about some of our "ideas"--co-sleeping, tandem nursing, etc. I got her tons. I think my favorite was off the aetna insurance website and it was approved by Harvard Medical School, about the benefits of tandem nursing.

What she was was that we had solid evidence that what we were doing was good for the kids. We were making informed decisions. It's not hard to get the infor, it just took a bit of time. After that she would joke about how much knowledge I had and how much research I do.

Regarding the homeschooling. She saw that our son was in tons of extracurricular activities. We weren't trying to seclude him from the world and that's what she cared about.

[MissinNYC]

What type of adoption, specifically?

I know for state adoption/foster care its sort of worker by worker on a lot of it. As a PP said, dont be in your face about stuff if you can help it. You sort of hve to see what vibe you get from the worker, too. Like, don't mention cosleeping or veganism. No need. You must have a crib or bed, but it doesn't usually come up if they sleep there- no one has ever asked about my son. Ditto on nursing- no one ever asked abot that.

[marsupial-mom]

First, adopting is an awesome choice!

As far as private adoptions go, your lifestyle shouldn't be a major issue. You just have to find a birth parent who likes your lifestyle.

If you want to do an adoption through the state it might be a little bit of issue, particularly if you do the foster-to-adopt route, like me.

I'm a foster mom who is vegan. I'm not into homeschooling and I'm OK with vaccines, but here's what I know:

- Be prepared for some resistance. You'll have to educate people about your choices and why you make them.

- Get back-up. Find a doctor who supports your choices.

- When you're a foster parent, you're really just an agent of the state. So if the state says you have to vaccinate (or circumcise or enroll in school etc) then you have to do it. The birth parents have final say over this kind of stuff until parental rights are terminated, which can take a LONG time.

- After you adopt, you are a legal parent with all parental rights.

- Generally, they like to keep kids enrolled in the same school they're already attending, if they're in school. They only remove them if there's a danger.

- The state has certain requirements for the home study, for example, a crib/bed. But you can co-sleep if you want and if the kid is OK with it.

- Because we're vegan, we were persuaded to foster babies even though we wanted older children. There was simply too much resistance from the state agency; they were worried the kids wouldn't adjust to not eating McDonald's everyday.

- If you're willing to wait and you don't want a drug-exposed or neglected infant, there's probably a really good match for you - a child or teen who is already vegetarian or vegan and who would be more comfortable in your home than in another home. You'll just need to make your profile really specific and ask a lot of questions when they call you with a potential placement.

- There are tons of children waiting for homes. Whatever route you go, you will be doing a good thing if you give a child a loving, safe home.

UPDATE: I strongly recommend against concealing your veganism and parenting style. For starters, children have been removed from foster families when unsupportive case workers found out the family wasn't as mainstream as they thought they were. You wouldn't want to put yourself or your foster child through that. Furthermore, the system doesn't change if we all just pretend we're mainstream. Think of whether or not you want your children to have to conceal their veganism when they grow up. If you don't stand up now for what you believe in, you're virtually forcing your children to stand up later.

[pumpkingirl71]

Originally Posted by marsupial-mom

UPDATE: I strongly recommend against concealing your veganism and parenting style.

I just wanted to say that I agree, but only too a point. I personally would use the word vegetarian. I think you want to give an accurate picture, but not paint yourself as extreme.

[RiverandJulie]

Crunchy Adoption

Our social worker never asked us about our lifestyle, cosleeping, schooling style etc. She came to our house and wanted to know about our relationship with eachother, our thoughts on, discipline, our relationships with our family etc. We had to sign a non-corporal punishment agreement (no spanking), which we totally agree with. They didnt tell us how to raise our children, how to school them or where they needed to sleep. In fact, they actually encouraged us not to have a crib because everytime we walk by it we would think about the baby that was not in there.
In fact, my husband and I both participated in civil disobedience in the past, and my husband had several stints in jail for it. THis did not cause any problems.

We are now parents to a wonderful baby boy. One thing that did happen, was he was preemie and we were not selected as his parents until he had been in the hospital for several weeks, so he received the Hep B vac and a couple of other things I would not have chosen. For me, totally worth it to be parents to our child.

[SpottedFoxx]

First and foremost - lying is never a good thing. By doing so, you are convincing a potential birth mother and father to choose you under false pretenses.

I don't believe an adoption agency would have an issue with this. However, a potential birth parent may have a problem with some or all of your beliefs. That's fine, you want to match up with someone who has similar feelings, ethics, etc. It may take a bit longer but I definitely think it's possible.

[mamarhu]

I am not mainstream in any aspect. I homeschool, am heavily tattooed, co-sleep, work at home, live in a funky old farm house in a major metropolitan area - heck - I just stand out. In the first 2 states I applied, I was rejected to foster. In my current state, I am everyone's favorite poster child for a foster parent. I think it has a lot to do with the area. If you are looking to foster, step one is to attend a local informational meeting. You should be able to get an idea of the local attitudes.

[annethcz]

Honestly, I don't know most of these issues would even come up. I'm not suggesting lying or even being evasive. But the majority of the topics you mentioned (diet, vaccination status, cosleeping, breastfeeding) never came up in our homestudy visits. And I don't see any reason to bring them up, kwim? At the time we were homeschooling, but it was a complete non-issue.

I've heard that state adoptions and fostering require a more invasive homestudy. But our homestudy for a private (international) adoption wasn't terribly probing. Our social worker was far more interested in how we planned to parent our propective child and in the resources we could provide. She didn't care or even ask about if our 2 year old was still nursing or if I was a vegetarian. Those things had no bearing on whether or not we could adequately parent another child.

[RiverandJulie]

Yes Anne, totally agree.
ALso our son's birthmother chose us specifically because we were a little crunchy. We were luckyto meet her, and she said she chose us because we seemed so down to earth in our album, she liked that our pictures were mainly outdoors, that we didnt seem pretentious. There are all kinds of birthmothers out there, the crunchy ones are going to want crunchy families.

[veganjoy]

We're sorting this out right now. Our family is vegan (mostly raw vegan), no vaxes (so far), co-sleeping, still breastfeeding, and so on. We hope to foster-to-adopt children under 18 months, and have completed everything up to the homestudy, which will be scheduled next month. Everyone at DHS has seemed really excited about us, and our area is accustomed to progressive ideas, so I'm hopeful. Our family comes across as very "normal" (we dress decently, have fine jobs...no "MEAT IS MURDER!" posters on the walls, lol), so I'm not sure it will come up. But we do plan to be forthcoming about it.

It makes me sad to give a baby formula and do all vaxes according to the CDC schedule (I was hoping to delay some, but foster children in my county must receive all medical treatment at a county clinic), and not be able to co-sleep, but it's something I'm becoming okay with.

FYI, I started a FB group called Vegan Adoptive Parents to connect and share stories.

[queencarr]

In our international adoption, some nonstream choices we made were actually bonuses. Our agency actively encourages co sleeping after placement, bottle nursing, babywearing, primary caregiver at home for 6-12m if possible, care providers had to be approved, etc. As far as shots, ds1 were mostly UTD but we made an informed choice to avoid or delay some. I just worded it that we made X decision after much research and discussion with our dr, and he is fine with it. For ds3, we told her that ds2 had been delayed due to medical reasons and that he was now on an alternet dosing schdeule and would UTD by school age (meaning some will no longer even apply). Ds3 hasn't had any in the US, he'smedically contraindicated do to severe allergy, and so other 2 boys can't even get live vac boosters. Point of all that is to inform your dr that you are hiding behind their authority, and let the agency know you have the dr blessing. If you are crunchy enough tath you dont even have a family/ped dr, get one and have some well visits w no shots so there is a history of good medical care.

The vegan won't be an issue unless you make it one. I'd be surprised if it even came up.

The homeschool, be prepared to show how involved your kids are with other kids, that they are good in academics, they they are happy to be homeschooled.

Carrie

[tiffani]

Originally Posted by annethcz

Honestly, I don't know most of these issues would even come up. I'm not suggesting lying or even being evasive. But the majority of the topics you mentioned (diet, vaccination status, cosleeping, breastfeeding) never came up in our homestudy visits. And I don't see any reason to bring them up, kwim?

I think this depends on the social worker, and their own personal biases. We had a funny moment with our social worker, when she was talking about her own personal parenting path (we became friends quickly) and she said something along the lines of how you worry so much with your first baby, and how she was so worried about vax'ing but wasn't one of those crazy parents who doesn't vaccinate at all.... and then we all sort of looked at each other uncomfortably, and moved along to the next subject when she realized that we were those crazy parents! but at that point she knew us well enough to see that we are all about parenting, our kids are great, our home is great, our family is strong, and that's what matters. she herself has a young kid and knows that she isn't a perfect parent, that her ideas might not match up with everyone's ideas of great parenting, etc, and that as long as your focus is what's best for your kids, then all is well. an older social worker or someone who is more rigid in their ideas about "what kids need" might not have glossed over the vax discussion, might not be willing to sort of look the other way about co-sleeping, or might want to give your 5 year old a literacy test like our first social worker did when she heard we were homeschooling. She was nice, but we had a lot more discussions with her where we felt on the defensive, and like we had to really sell our decisions.

having had two different homestudies done (one in canada, one with a US social worker here in NZ when we moved and had to start over) it's clear that the whole thing hinges on the social worker you end up with. it's good to ask around for other people's opinion and find a social worker you think will be a good fit for your family.

good luck!