Mon, Apr 13, 2020
Read in 4 minutes
Ottawa Hub, Canada Originally from Maryland, USA/Gwangju, South Korea
I saw a tweet the other day from a woman named Summer Brennan that really stuck with me. It read, “Thousands of women all over the world have just had their long-awaited and sometimes last ditch effort IVF treatments cancelled indefinitely. Just something to consider before you start making presumptions about the easy lives of people who don’t have kids right now.”
As an adopted person, it made me wonder how COVID-19 was impacting people trying to grow their families during this time - and just as (maybe more) importantly, how kids who need families are being affected.
You don’t have to look far to see stories of parents who have had their international adoption plans disrupted or their adoption finalizations delayed because of COVID-19. This is a devastating and unexpected hurdle for many parents who have waited, sometimes years, to adopt and grow their families. Families working with international (and domestic) surrogates are faced with new questions, as social distancing rules may prevent them from being present at birth or even traveling to be in the same country as their child. Think whatever you will of international surrogacy, but this is an unprecedented and heartbreaking dilemma.
Children in domestic foster care, in Canada and the United States, at least, are facing significant challenges. Foster families, already in short supply, are reluctant to parent additional children or may fear for the health of the children already in their home. It just isn’t possible to test every child. Foster families often rely on respite services that give them some time off, critical to maintain good mental health and coping strategies when you’re parenting children who have experienced trauma (which up to 90% of children in foster care have). More than that, social distancing in the legal and court system means that refunication hearings, or the decision made by judges to potentially reunite children with their biological parents, is on hold. During an already stressful time, kids are stuck in limbo even longer. In many cases, parental visits have been suspended due to health and safety concerns. For the kids in foster care who look forward to these visits, this is extremely anxiety-causing.
Statistics show that domestic abuse, child abuse, and neglect incidents all escalate during a crisis and it isn’t so hard to see why. For a home that may already be overcrowded, the added stress and pressure of layoffs, reduced income, lack of activities, and mental health challenges create a dangerous combination. It is interesting to note that reports of child abuse have actually dropped in many States - but experts think this is simply because there isn’t anyone there to report the abuse anymore, like a family friend or teacher might do in different times, before coronavirus.
Crises like these don’t create but rather highlight the cracks in an already overtaxed foster care system that doesn’t tend to draw enough coverage or attention, especially compared to international adoption. Luckily, there are some steps being taken. An Ohio adoption was recently finalized on Zoom. In Ontario, no child will “age out” or be forced to leave the foster care system while the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions continue. But while the Canadian Government has extended financial resources for kids who aged out prior to COVID-19, many youth still struggle with anxiety and depression related to past (or present) trauma and living alone for the first time is likely not a particularly welcome place to be right now.
I suppose the conclusion to this long journey from the intention of Summer’s tweet is simply that it is a mistake to make frustrated assumptions at this point - whether it’s that that families without kids are basking in joy and endless, happy free time or that adoptive parents are the only ones in the child welfare world who are suffering because of COVID-19.