It’s often said that "adoption is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." Will this be true in your case? I hope not, and I encourage you to begin thinking about this seriously.

Your biggest task right now is to separate which of your problems are temporary and which are ongoing or chronic. In other words, which of your problems are for right now, and which seem likely to be with you throughout your life? Which of them could be fixed with a little help, and which are things that only you can address? I’ll give a few examples below.

Bad reasons for choosing adoption:

• You don’t have much money. (Assistance is out there, and financial situations can turn around quickly.)


• Your family disapproves. (If they are cold now, they may not be in a few months. Most disapproving grandparents do an amazing turnaround once they actually meet the baby.)


• You worry about not having a husband. (If single parenthood is such a bad thing, why do single parents adopt all the time?)



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• You lack self-confidence. (This is a temporary problem that can be addressed by counselling.)

Better reasons for choosing adoption:

• You are concerned about the health or safety of your child.


• You have an ongoing substance abuse problem and are not willing or able to treat it.


• You are in an abusive relationship.


• You strongly want to finish your education before becoming a parent, and there is no childcare available to you.


• You know deep in your heart, without outside pressures, that you do not want to be a parent right now.

Obviously this just scratches the surface, so I'd really like to get some discussion going here. Readers: what do you see as good reasons for adoption, and what are the bad ones?