In Colorado, it costs about $20,000 for the state to care for a child. Adoption agencies can place the child in a permanent home for a fraction of that cost, at great benefit to both child and adoptive parents.

Emma is one preschooler who's definitely benefiting from the love and guidance of adoptive parents. ... She was born drug positive and suffered neglect as an infant. "She couldn't hold herself up. She couldn't hold anything in her hand. She had no cognitive skills ... just kind of laid there in her own little world," [Emma's adoptive mother] explained.

Emma's adoptive parents, Liz and Mike, learned how to draw her out so that she would engage with them and others. She's now an active toddler whose abilities surpass her age, they said.

Source: CBS Channel 4 (Denver, Colorado)

Labels: parenting, benefits, inspiration, influences

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A "baby hatch" is a small door in the outside wall of a hospital that allows parents to leave their child if they feel they can't care for the baby. Japan's Catholic-run Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto is the first place in Japan to have a "baby hatch", and it's raising concerns.

"But the many vocal critics of the first 'baby hatch' in Japan are afraid it may encourage parents to opt out of their responsibilities. And legal barriers and prejudice against adoption in Japan may mean that children abandoned in the 'baby hatch' will be raised in institutions rather than by adopted parents."

Many cite Confucianism as a reason adoption is not well received in Japan. It places a heavy emphasis on a child's relationship with his birth parents and a reverence for ancestry. Adoption outside of the family line wasn't approved in Japan until 1989, and only a few hundred of these types of adoptions take place each year. In comparison, the United Kingdom, which has about half of Japan's population, approves three to four thousand adoptions a year.

Read more at Today.Reuters.com.

Labels: influences, society, ancestry

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