Letters

From the February 2000 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

Diane Dexter
Adoption Chief
Department of Social Services
Waterbury, VT
[e-mail]

My wife and I are trying to adopt twin boys through the Jewish Child Care Association. My wife quit a lucrative job to stay at home to raise the boys (they just turned 2). We were led to believe that the process would take about six months. It's been a year now, and I don't see an end in sight.

We are working hard to make ends meet. ACS keeps losing forms, the JCCA keeps losing staff, and my wife and I are losing our patience. The boys call us Momma and Daddy and are doing better than they ever have. However, if this process does not end soon we all may lose out and my wife and I will have to move on.

B. Keith Fulton
New York, NY
[e-mail]

Having just completed two years in the dependency and adoption division of the circuit court, I found your article depressingly familiar.

Considering that the well-being of a small child is at stake, there is no excuse for it taking two years to investigate prospective adoptive parents. The reason it does, in my opinion, is reluctance by the social services agency and the judges to make a decision until absolutely forced to. Nobody wants to be blamed for making a decision if it later proves tragically wrong. This deliberate indecisiveness perpetuates a system not in the best interests of the children or the adoptive parents.

Dennis Maloney
Circuit Judge
Bartow, FL
[e-mail]

Jacob Sullum replies: I thank Ms. Dexter and Judge Maloney for their comments, and I hope that everything works out well for Mr. Fulton and his wife.

Contrary to Mr. Reid's implication, my wife and I were not asking Judge Hepner to finalize the adoption; we were merely seeking temporary custody. Since we had passed the background checks and undergone two home studies--points on which the judge did not need to take our attorney's word, since they were matters of record--this seemed a reasonable request. Whether or not Judge Hepner planned to grant our petition, there was no justification for her hostile and suspicious attitude. Treating my wife and me as if we were trying to pull a fast one, she falsely accused us of lying about the timing of the JCCA home study and other readily verifiable facts.

Mr. Reid emphasizes the need to be "sure" that people seeking to adopt a child will make good parents. But there is always the possibility that seemingly normal, decent people will turn out to be capable of abuse. A system that insisted on certainty about such matters would be a system that never approved an adoption.

Finally, I'd like to make it clear that we believe Francine received good care at the Rusk Institute, where the staff seemed quite competent and compassionate. Given the hazard from the omnipresent wheelchairs, we do not fault them for keeping Francine in one when they were not able to supervise her closely. Her eagerness to get out and run around was simply an indication that she was kept in the hospital longer than necessary--which, though by no means ideal, was preferable to putting her in a foster home.

Parity Disparity

I was saddened by Nick Gillespie's piece on the Educational Testing Service's aborted "strivers" program ("Striving for Parity," November). The program, which would have added SAT points for disadvantages overcome by a student, is redistributive in nature. That is clearly Gillespie's objection, and why he considers it "insidious." Leave the system alone, Gillespie argues, so my son keeps his step up, and so kids with less than my son won't easily surpass him.

I'm old enough to remember a time in this country when it was embarrassing to make arguments that were so blatantly drenched in self-interest. I've also spent the last 12 years working closely with the SAT, and I've witnessed the injury it has done to kids who are poor, rural, underrepresented minority, and female. My work is to help mitigate some of that damage until the test is abolished. The SAT, as it is now configured, gives Gillespie's son a clear advantage. The SAT permits successful parents to efficiently and effectively transmit their college admissions advantages to their children.

At bottom, Gillespie is simply ungracious. He has enjoyed some upward social mobility and wants to maintain his gains. Now he wants to pull up all the ladders and not create any new ones. Gillespie might next argue for strivers points for the rich. But they don't need them--they already have the SAT.

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