Small house and homeschooling - acceptable for adoption?

[GnomeyNewt]

This is my first time posting in this area of the forums, but I've read and lurked here for a long time as I've always wanted to adopt. I'm at the point where I feel like it is now or never, so I really want to get the ball going. There are 2 things that have really made me hold back on this process because I feel like maybe they will not be acceptable for adoption?

- Does it matter what size of a house you have for adoption? We live in a cabin, with 2 bedrooms. We already have 2 kids and it works well for us, and if we had another bio child -- they would share the room with their siblings. Is this allowed for adoption?

- Another thing I was curious about, was the fact that we homeschool. Will this be an issue we might have to think about when seeking adoption?

Thanks so much for reading and if anyone has any other advice they'd like to share with someone starting this journey, please feel free to make suggestions.

[SundayCrepes]

Can't say about the small house. We were upfront with our caseworker that we co-sleep (couldn't hide that one as we didn't have a bed for our son,) would adoptive tandem nurse, and homeschool. We had a very traditional, older hispanic woman as our caseworker. She was wonderful if not a bit taken aback. I offered, and she took, lots of research into our choices and it wasn't a problem. I would suspect there are caseworkers out there that would have issues. 

As far as being selected by the biological family, some parents will run screaming away from you, others will be grateful to have found you. When we did our online profile and sent letters to obstetricians, we mentioned adoptive nursing, babywearing, AP and no circ. We did not mention homeschooling. We felt that was something best left to an in person conversation. Too many people don't know what homeschooling is and we didn't want them to turn away from us out of ignorance. It turns out our baby's birthmom selected us based on a one page letter to an obstetrician and a photo collage. (Our baby was an already born situation.)

[tea_time]

Are you looking for Foster Care adopt or private?  If private you'll have more leeway, with FC Adopt there are rules for space and child care decisions (prior to the actual adoption).  I'd suggest contacting the agency you're interested in and go to their open house (most agencies offer these on a regular basis to talk about their programs and answer any questions).  

[heatherdeg]

Actually, the private agencies are SUPPOSED to follow the same space rules for kids--but they're really minimal.  Most of the time it's 50SF for the first child and 25SF per subsequent child in a room.  Some places are 50SF per child.  They also want to see that each child has dedicated space to keep their things/clothes.  

Cosleeping with a bio child is less of an issue as long as the child HAS a bed to go to if they want to.  Their concern is more about the forcing of it via the child having no other option (that's a bed--couches don't count).  It will be a bigger issue if you're fostering (long story that you can search prior threads on, but very reasonable).

Homeschooling has never been a problem for us.  And that includes being foster parents in an EXTREMELY mainstream, high COL area where hsing wasn't particularly common/popular.  Just know that if you're fostering or you have any kind of placement from the state--even adoption--you can't do it with THAT child until they're finalized.  I'm on a very popular foster parent message board that is national and represents both foster parents and parents that have adopted from the state and I may have seen one exception to this.

[GnomeyNewt]

Thanks everyone for your feedback! Seems like homeschooling will be a non-issue once any adoption finalization is done. For the house, I guess we will just have to see what happens. If we end up needing a bigger house, than I will have to wait to adopt. That would be hard, simply because I know we won't move for a while as the housing market is just not moving a long that great right now. I will get in touch with a few local agencies and hopefully at least start to get our foot in the door. Thanks again for your responses, these 2 things concerned me greatly and I've read a lot about natural parenting/adoption from these forums so it helps to see others who have been down this path before.

[excitedtobeamom]

Domestic or internation adoption?  Shop around for agencies.  I don't think you would have a problem.  It depends on what the birthparent is looking for if it is domestic.

[marsupial-mom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GnomeyNewt 
- Does it matter what size of a house you have for adoption? We live in a cabin, with 2 bedrooms. We already have 2 kids and it works well for us, and if we had another bio child -- they would share the room with their siblings. Is this allowed for adoption?

Home size matters. Each state has its own rules.

But if you wanted to adopt child who were related to you or a child considered you "fictive kin" then they would waive some of the space requirements.

And a private adoption just between you and the birthparents is really up to the birthparents, not the state, so in that case it might work out.

I don't personally recommend either of those, but those are the rules.

[Polliwog]

In the private adoptions that I'm familiar with, the home studies involved measuring the child's room to determine if there's enough room for the child. It can be shared but there needs be enough space. In my state, it's 40 square feet/child.