More Single, Black Professionals Becoming Mothers by Adopting

WASHINGTON–Jerri Harris was so certain she’d grow up to be a mom that she chose her favorite baby name, Danielle, when she was 12. Then she waited patiently for things to line up in traditional order: college, career, marriage, home, kids.
College came, as did a management career in human resources and a home in the Washington suburbs. But as she passed 40 and was still single, Harris said, she knew the odds were against her in a region where unmarried, well-educated African-American women far outnumber their male counterparts.
So she adopted a baby and named her Danielle.
”I love children, and I have always wanted children,” said Harris, 43, of Kensington, Md. ”I’ve also always wanted to adopt. The ideal in my mind was to get married and have two children, then adopt one. Then, when I hit 40 and I wasn’t married and had no prospects, I decided that didn’t change the fact that I wanted children.”
This highly personal decision reflects a national trend. Record numbers of single, professional black women have made similar choices in recent years, officials say, with profound implications for the nation’s adoption systems.
”Forty percent of the (parents) who are adopting with our agency are single, black women,” said Gloria King, executive director of the Black Adoption Placement and Research Center in Oakland, Calif., a city with a large African-American population.
”They feel their biological clocks are ticking and they haven’t married, but they want to parent,” she said. ”They’re not going to let marriage stand in the way of them connecting with a child.”
Of the 50,000 children of all ages permanently placed in U.S. homes through public adoptions in 2001, 32 percent were adopted by single women–and 55 percent of those women were black, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau.
The federal government figures show that half of the single, black women who adopted were, like Harris, between 30 and 50.
Many are homeowners, with the financial resources to give a child access to high-quality schools and other educational benefits, such as travel. ”At 25, you have a lot more energy when running around the gym with your child playing soccer,” said Harris, who used a private adoption service. ”But as you get older, you have more wisdom, are in a better financial position and are more conscious about what is important and how you want to raise your child. You have reached a different level of maturity, and you can make wiser decisions.”
It wasn’t that many years ago when single women, no matter their race or socioeconomic status, faced daunting obstacles along the path to adoption. Child welfare experts say changes in societal attitudes and a need to broaden the pool of possible adoptive homes–especially for black children who are older than infants–have removed many of the barriers.
”We looked at the caseloads of children … who needed families, and they were not infants. When you started looking at the fact that they were not infants, you needed to recruit families for the children,” said Stephanie Pettaway, adoption manager for the Maryland Department of Human Resources’ Social Services Administration, which has been recruiting singles as adoptive parents for 25 years.
Pettaway said the increasing number of black, single women looking to adopt has made it possible to place more of these children. ”Before,” she said, ”we recruited infants for the families.”
Moy West adopted a baby girl, Imani Grace, last fall. West, 45, began considering adoption nearly three years ago, after two close friends adopted successfully.
”That desire to be a mom is always there. You start to get older, and you still want to be a mom and you start thinking about things differently,” said West, a school psychologist from Mitchellville, Md.
”I asked a lot of questions. I talked to my sister. She said, ‘When you look back on your life, would you be the kind of person who would regret not being a mom?’ I realized that I would regret if I didn’t.”
Some of her friends encouraged her to consider artificial insemination or surrogacy, West said, but neither felt right. ”I also thought about all the African American children out there who need homes,” she said. ”Imani couldn’t be more mine if I’d had her.”
That’s not to say it’s easy. West’s weekdays typically begin at 5 a.m. After getting ready for work, preparing breakfast and doing household chores, she wakes Imani, and they play for 15 minutes. Soon they’re off for the baby-sitter’s house.
After work, she picks up Imani at 4:30 p.m., and their evening home life is a whirl of activity until Imani goes to bed about 8:30 p.m.
”I try to get in bed by 9:30, and by that time, I’m real tired,” West said, laughing.
Harris’ schedule is even more complicated because of her daily 60- to 90-minute commute each way to her office. Her weekdays begin at 4:30 a.m., and she usually climbs into bed at night about 10.
”You know before you adopt, in theory, that it will change your life, but you don’t know how much in actuality,” Harris said. ”I was very prepared, but you still have no frame of reference for how much it will take: day to day, every day, all day.”
Both women said they depend on a close network of relatives and friends. Harris’ mother and sister accompanied her when she brought Danielle home. West’s family and friends threw four baby showers for her, including one in Atlanta, where she grew up.
Harris adopted Danielle Adrienne two years ago, when the baby was a month old. Her New Year’s resolution the year she turned 40 was to begin the adoption process. She investigated several options and chose private adoption because she wanted an infant. She said the process took about 18 months.
Harris took two months off work after she adopted Danielle, using vacation time and savings she had put aside. ”I felt it was one of my gifts in life to be able to nurture, love and provide for a child,” she said.
West said marriage still might come for her, but she was concerned that she might not have as much energy later in life to be a parent. Caring for an infant leaves little time for a social life, she said, and she is not actively dating.
Harris is trying to figure out how to explain to Danielle why she doesn’t have a father. She recently contacted her adoption agency to ask for advice.
”Danielle’s little cousins and friends are already asking where her father is,” Harris said. ”As a single mother, I knew that (question) would come, but I didn’t think it would come this quickly.”