With all the young children here in foster care that are waiting to be adopted.......?

Question

why are so many people adopting children from overseas? Wouldn't it be more important to help the children in our own country first?

Answer 1

Simply put because people do what they want and everyone hasd their own reasons for doing what they do, just because you see it as logical to adopt from the country you are from does not mean that is a good or suitable thing for the people adopting from overseas to do. There could be all sorts of reasons, for example they are asian or mexican or from another part of the world and want a child from their specific country, financial reasons, access, it may be easier/harder etc.

Answer 2

A child in foster care is rarely up for adoption unless the parent gives him/her up for adoption. A lot of parents hold the belief that they can have their child back, especially if he/she is still a baby. Babies is what most people want to adopt, hence not many babies available here. Some just keep holding on to the title of parent for whatever reason. This doesn't allow the child to go anywhere but remain in foster care. It is very sad.
I have friends who looked all over and couldn't find one baby for adoption here. They ended up adopting from oversees.
Nothing wrong with that either.

Answer 3

Children here in foster care tend to come from troubled families, with drugs or alcohol involved, which does affect the child in bad ways. Or various medical and psychological problems.

With overseas, you can get a perfectly healthy baby, given up only b/c mom is too poor.

Answer 4

So children in "our" country are more important than children overseas? Children are children. And we will never be able to finish helping children in our own country "first."

Answer 5

I can see what you are saying, but you could also say that perhaps children in other countries are worse off, because they don't have foster systems that are as good as ours. (Not that I think our foster system is perfect, but many other countries orphanages are worse!)