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Adoption)
When couples get married, they usually plan to have children. Sometimes, however, a couple cannot have a child of their own. In this case, they may decide to adopt a child. In fact, adoption is very common today. There are about 60,000 adoptions each year in the United States alone. Often people prefer to adopt babies; others adopt older children. Some couples adopt children from their own countries; others adopt children from foreign countries. In any case, they all adopt children for the same reasons: they feel children are precious, and want to give their adopted child a happy life, such as a comfortable home, a loving family, a good education.
Most adopted children know that they are adopted. However, many adopted children have very little information about their natural mother and father. As a matter of fact, it is often a huge problem for adopted children to find out about their birth parents because the birth records of most adopted children are usually kept secret. This protects everyone's privacy. Otherwise, anyone could see the records, which could cause problems for the adopted children or their natural parents.
Adopted children have different feelings about their birth parents. Many adopted children want to search for them, but others do not. Jake, who is thirteen, says, "I don't think I'll ever search out my birth mother. I might want to get some more facts, but I don't feel I really want to go looking. Maybe she would treat me badly and I'd just be disappointed." Carla, who is twelve, has a sister who was also adopted. Carla says, "My sister says that she doesn't want to look for her birth mother when she gets older, but I have mixed feelings. Sometimes I feel that I want to look for her, but then sometimes I think it would be foolish to look for her, because I'm afraid of finding out what she would say. I'm worried that she'll have a whole new life and I'll just be interfering with that new life. She might be ashamed and not want anyone to know about her past." Sue, who is thirteen, was adopted when she was a baby. With the help of her family, her effort to find her birth mother succeeded. Sue says, "I think adopted children should be allowed to search when they're ready. They need to know where they came from. As soon as I was in possession of the information I was looking for, I felt more normal. Before, a part of me had always been missing."
The decision to search for birth parents is a difficult one to make. Most adopted children, like Carla, have mixed feelings about finding their natural parents. Even though many adopted children do not know about their past or have any memory of their natural parents, they do know that their adoptive parents want them, love them, and will care for them.
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Background information:
The United States: a federal republic in North America, with 50 states. Its official name is the United States of America. It occupies the central part of North America, and there are the separate states of Alaska and Hawaii. Each state of the US has its own government, and the central government is at Washington D.C. The head of the country is the president, elected every four years, and allowed to stand for only two four-year terms. There are over 3,000 universities and colleges, the oldest being Harvard University (1636). People of many other countries have come to live in the US since about 1800. New York is the largest city. The following web sites would give you some information about the United States: http://www.usgs.gov, http://www.unicefusa.org, or http://www.50states.com, http://www.usda.gov.
