The Cost Of Adoption Varies According To Race

When we decided to pursue a domestic adoption nearly five years ago, my husband and I -- both of us white -- decided that we were open to adopting transracially. We were naïve about this -- we really didn't understand the challenges for children adopted transracially -- but when we started researching agencies we made note of their cross-cultural adoption programs.

We are in Columbus, OH and we wanted a local agency. We knew we didn't want to adopt across state lines because things get iffy when you start mixing up adoption laws. (Every state has its own rules and regulations.) Also we were hoping for an open adoption and I knew it would be unlikely that we could have regular visits between our family and our child's birth family if airfare became an issue.

We narrowed it down to three agencies in our city. (One other agency had religious requirements we would not meet being an interfaith Jewish/Christian family.) Only one called us back and that's the agency we chose.

The three agencies we looked at all had separate programs with different costs that were dependent on characteristics of the child -- namely children with "special needs" or of African descent cost less to adopt. White kids, kids of mixed race not including black -- it's the full fee to adopt them. Black kids and kids with special needs -- about half.

...

When we approached the agency we offered to pay the full fee and take whatever baby came our way. The social workers told us that we had to choose a program and that given that we were open to “any race,” we would be placed with a black child because there were fewer waiting parents in that program.

“You may as well get the fee break,” one told us. “Because if you are open to adopting a black baby, you will get a black baby.”

What's next, smart ones carrying a 10% premium?