Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

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TopHatFox
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Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by TopHatFox »

A random thought experiment a friend and I were humoring: what if instead of doing the usual monogamous two-parent blood child thing, one parent, Bob, was to simply adopt a child and raise them while continuing to spend time with various significant others (e.g. close friends, partners, maybe one or two life partners, polyamours, etc.) as they come in and out of Bob's life. This would mean that Bob would be the consistent factor in the child's life, whereas all the other people would naturally come in and out of Bob and the child's life as they do. I suppose the child could be related to Bob by blood via a surrogate mother if desired.

Some benefits include more flexibility in child rearing geographic arbitrage, no potential divorce shenanigans, exposure for the child to a greater diversity of parenting styles, teaching of dynamism and acceptance in relationships, etc.

Thoughts? (Bob is smart and would do this post-FI, perhaps shepherding little Bob on worldly adventures)

lilacorchid
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by lilacorchid »

Adoption and simple never go in the same sentence. One does not simple go to the Child'n'Baby Barn down the street and pick up a kid. It's years of classes, home studies and waiting for someone to choose you. Also, be prepared to drop up to $50K if you want to adopt.

Where I live, you can go the "free" route through the government. I can take a year or two to get space in the classes you are supposed to take, then you take the classes, do the homestudy, and get put on the list. The government makes the decision as to who gets the child. Or you can go private and go through the exact same thing, but you also pay at least $10K (up to $50K if you want a white baby in a closed adoption that has a very good chance of not having any problems related to gestation). And at the end of all this money and waiting, it is very possible that no one ever picks you. You are more likely to get picked if you are a hetero couple in the upper middle class or higher income bracket. Some countries exclude by age, marital status (including if you have ever been divorced), and even BMI so it's not like you can just go out of country.

I disagree with having a revolving door of Aunts and/or Uncles that step in to raise the kid and then take off. However, I don't have any sources to quote. Mostly it doesn't jive with my parenting style and then there is the sample size of n=2 where I saw it happen and things did not go so well.

TL;DR - Adoption is never simple. Bob should adopt an adult.

Dragline
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by Dragline »

It's been done. But its a heck of a lot easier and less expensive these days to just make a kid instead of adopting one.

Think of it as learning to cook instead of getting take out . . . :lol:

EdithKeeler
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by EdithKeeler »

A random thought experiment a friend and I were humoring: what if instead of doing the usual monogamous two-parent blood child thing, one parent, Bob, was to simply adopt a child and raise them while continuing to spend time with various significant others (e.g. close friends, partners, maybe one or two life partners, polyamours, etc.) as they come in and out of Bob's life. This would mean that Bob would be the consistent factor in the child's life, whereas all the other people would naturally come in and out of Bob and the child's life as they do. I suppose the child could be related to Bob by blood via a surrogate mother if desired.

Some benefits include more flexibility in child rearing geographic arbitrage, no potential divorce shenanigans, exposure for the child to a greater diversity of parenting styles, teaching of dynamism and acceptance in relationships, etc.

Thoughts? (Bob is smart and would do this post-FI, perhaps shepherding little Bob on worldly adventures)
All sounds great for the parent, potentially terrible for the kid. Kids don't need a "variety of parenting styles," they need consistency and security.

I don't have kids, but I know from my own childhood, it's VERY confusing when various adults come in and out of a parent's life, even when the parent is generally a good parent and even when the other adults are good people. Depending on stage of development, it's actually pretty common for kids to wonder if the parent will "pick me or pick the other adult," especially if people have come and gone. Kids develop relationships with the other adult--then suddenly that adult might be gone because it didn't work out with the parent. Very disruptive. Not to mention inadvertently picking a partner who turns out to be a child molester or something. Not that it doesn't happen with a spouse, but....

Also moving around is not very healthy for kids. Just yesterday I happened to read this article, and a lot of it hit home with me--we moved A LOT when I was a kid. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... -an-adult/
My boyfriend and I have compared notes on this--his family moved pretty much every year. We both have had issues with depression and to an extent substance abuse. Both of us are from "good" families and always lived in "good" neighborhoods. (Of course, other factors are likely also at work).

Not that single parenthood can't work--LOTS of people make it work well, whether they are single parents by design or by circumstance. I just think it's not something that you enter into lightly or give little consideration to. I think when you have kids, in many ways your first and foremost responsibility is to the kid. (Not that you have to spoil them rotten, stuff like that, but I think you have to consider how your actions and your decisions affect the kid, first and foremost).

That's the main reason I never had a kid. I didn't have a Mr. Right in my life when I was ready, and I realized I did NOT want to do it by myself. Sometimes I regret that, but I still think it was the right decision for me.

ether
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by ether »

How is that any different from a single parent that has a bunch of short term relationships?

BRUTE
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by BRUTE »

ether wrote:How is that any different from a single parent that has a bunch of short term relationships?
+1 brute was going to write this too

ps: brute unconvinced about the "stability" part of childhood. most of those studies probably don't factor in that in classical family situations, stability existed because life was good, and change because it wasn't.

Laura Ingalls
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by Laura Ingalls »

Holy make me feel like crap about moving a seventh grader
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... -an-adult/

I actually believe adoption is a deeply flawed system and that birth parents are usually underinformed or cohersed into to what they are consenting too.

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fiby41
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by fiby41 »

EdithKeeler wrote:
Also moving around is not very healthy for kids. Just yesterday I happened to read this article, and a lot of it hit home with me--we moved A LOT when I was a kid. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... -an-adult/
No, mobility cannot be "intrinsically" harmful as the article claims. Moving has been our modus operandi as hunter-gatherers.

What could be stressing is leaving away a web/network of people who you have come to know and starting from square one all over again at that age.
Also the distance between the two places must be large enough that this earlier network cannot be retained as it is without calldrop.

Hunter-gatherers carried all of the people they knew and were close with with them so a change in scenery wasn't harmful.

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GandK
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by GandK »

This is the weirdest thread.

Most people end up with kids not because they planned meticulously and have an ideal parenting and nurturing situation on hand in which to raise them, but because nine months ago they were horny. And that goes double for married people.

@Zalo, I've been a single parent. It is the opposite of fun. Nothing else in my life has been a tenth as stressful. And while I'm not equating it with abuse, I don't think partners/people dancing in and out of a child's life is ideal, either. There are far better ways to expose them to life's variety. It would also create a lot of unnecessary stress for J-type kids who literally need a lot of stability in their immediate environment in order to feel safe.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Well, first off, I don't like or believe in primarily results oriented parenting. I think if you take care in the moment, the results will mostly take care of themselves. Also, one of the interesting things about having or interacting with kids is that there is never any given point when "the results" are finally in. You don't necessarily have to birth or adopt children in order to engage in meaningful interaction with the young of our species. You can share a favorite picture book with a group of 4 year old kids at your local library and give their parents a break. You can come to my impoverished neighborhood and organize a futball game, so these damn running wild kids will stop tossing firecrackers into the dry grass. I am so not a fan of HIllary, but she was right with her "It takes a village." campaign. My ex was an extreme introvert who suffered from dysthymia, so I had to make the effort to take our kids to extended family gatherings on his side of the family as well as my own. Some years I attended 3 Thanksgivings!! I forced my hyper-novelty-seeking-ENTP self to stay put in a Norman Rockwell town for 13 years so my kids could stay with the same peer group for most of their school years. That's why I am now allowed to do whatever I damn well please in my early-semi-retirement pre-Grandma phase of life-lol.

OTOH, one of my old, grouchy polyamours recently put himself in danger of having his parental visitation rights abnegated due to teaching his 11 year old son a terrible game called "Slap the baby and don't get caught." and informing him that he should not be dressing himself in sweatpants and crocs in a semi-harsh manner, and other behaviors that would have been deemed normal.acceptable paternal behavior 40 years ago in rural Michigan, but not in the modern world where kids are swaddle,diagnosed and drugged. So, a person such as myself, who has not even met the child (and who would not choose to involve herself in any sort of maternal manner outside of committed relationship with a young child) , and likely may just be wandering for a bit through his father's life, can have a positive influence. I told him to stay calm, don't overly engage with the therapist his ex hired, just play it like John Wayne and stay on the message "A boy needs his father." I'm kind of old-fashioned because I think boys are actually better off in their father's custody after about age 12. OTOH, I don't think single men should be allowed to adopt infants unless they have the funds to hire a good wet nurse. You can f*ck up a kids immune system for life with that powdered soylent crap.

Dragline
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by Dragline »

7Wannabe5 wrote: That's why I am now allowed to do whatever I damn well please in my early-semi-retirement pre-Grandma phase of life-lol.
:lol:
7Wannabe5 wrote: I don't think single men should be allowed to adopt infants unless they have the funds to hire a good wet nurse.
I think most single men would just as soon skip the kid and hire the wet nurse anyway. ;)

7Wannabe5
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Dragline said: I think most single men would just as soon skip the kid and hire the wet nurse anyway. ;)
Yup, the growing steep cliff dichotomy between the central body obese majority and hard-thin-bodied-elitist-minority is leaving a huge market niche available for us Big Polish Girls. Pretty much an endless supply of free 5 star restaurant meals, symphony tickets and manual labor available to us if we are willing to suffer the indignity of being informed that we have "a perfect body for a mature woman." :evil: Some days I actually long to just fast-forward myself to the wizened old crone phase and be done with this sort of thing. (pardon hijack. end tirade.)

BRUTE
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by BRUTE »

7Wannabe5 wrote:You can f*ck up a kids immune system for life with that powdered soylent crap.
always possible to put some dirt into the soylent. not like the kid would notice the difference. dirt's great for the immune system.

enigmaT120
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by enigmaT120 »

Those bullies were doing me a favor way back then!

I probably ate enough dirt on my own anyway.

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fiby41
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by fiby41 »

enigmaT120 wrote: I probably ate enough dirt on my own anyway.
When children do that we test them for calcium deficiency and ascariasis infection.

JamesR
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by JamesR »

7Wannabe5 wrote: OTOH, one of my old, grouchy polyamours recently put himself in danger of having his parental visitation rights abnegated due to teaching his 11 year old son a terrible game called "Slap the baby and don't get caught." and informing him that he should not be dressing himself in sweatpants and crocs in a semi-harsh manner, and other behaviors that would have been deemed normal.acceptable paternal behavior 40 years ago in rural Michigan
Who is this guy that thinks he can get away with harshly criticizing his kid's choice in wearing sweatpants and crocs? Should a person that is "Irritable and bad-tempered; grumpy; complaining." even be allowed to be a parent?

(P.S. This is a bit tongue-in-cheek)

EdithKeeler
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by EdithKeeler »

he should not be dressing himself in sweatpants and crocs
Sweatpants and crocs is my winter uniform.

enigmaT120
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by enigmaT120 »

fiby41 wrote:
enigmaT120 wrote: I probably ate enough dirt on my own anyway.
When children do that we test them for calcium deficiency and ascariasis infection.
If I were a kid now, they would have tested and diagnosed me for all sorts of stuff, and have me on medication. I'm glad I grew up before all that. I don't mean I was eating dirt on purpose though, just that I didn't waste much time washing food that I found out and about: fruit, weeds, Scotch Broom seeds, and so on. I still don't worry about it too much. A listeria infection will really take me by surprise.

stoneage
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by stoneage »

7Wannabe5 wrote:"Slap the baby and don't get caught."
Is that really what it sounds like ?

Eureka
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Re: Adopting and raising kid rather than bi-parenting?

Post by Eureka »

Zalo wrote:
what if instead of doing the usual monogamous two-parent blood child thing, one parent, Bob, was to simply adopt a child and raise them ...

Some benefits include more flexibility in child rearing geographic arbitrage, no potential divorce shenanigans
Bob's main problem is that he is a man. Had he been a woman he could just skip the adoption part and move ahead.

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