This was a question I had back when I was in elementary school. I had asked my mom but she had no clue. In my little brain I thought it was wrong to buy children, but now I’m wondering if that’s not actually the case. What is that money being spent on?
In: Economics
It’s only expensive if you do it through a private agency or independently. You can adopt a kid through the orphanage system but there’s a lot of problems. The main issue is that most children in foster care are small children, not babies. These are mostly kids that were taken away from their parents through child protective services. Not only can you adopt these kids for free but in most cases you’ll get a stipend from the government. But much like when you adopt a dog, people don’t want to adopt a 5 year old kid. They want a baby/puppy.
There’s two key ways to go about this. You can find someone with an unwanted pregnancy who is looking to put their baby up for adoption. You generally pay for all of the mothers prenatal care and medical expenses etc. But there’s a supply and demand issue. More infertile couples looking for babies than teen mothers looking to give their baby up for adoption.
So then there’s the third option: going abroad. This is where most couples adopt babies from. Poor countries have a lot more pregnant women looking to give their kids up for adoption. The question is how do you find them? You go through an adoption agency. This is why it’s so expensive. These agencies find and match up adopters and adoptees from different countries. They also navigate the very complex legal process of adopting a child from another country and getting all the proper documentation to bring them to the US. So that’s why it’s expensive. You’re paying big money to an adoption agency to find you a baby and facilitate a complex international legal process.
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