Adoption Standards Don’t Make Sense

* Reading the article “Orphans of Addiction” (Nov. 16) left me with many emotions: sadness, despair, hopelessness. But, on a personal note, I am infuriated.

I work in a Ventura neighborhood, The Avenue, which parallels the Long Beach neighborhood in Sonia Nazario’s article in many ways. I am a teacher and daily see children who come to school hungry, dirty and emotionally in turmoil because of parental drug and alcohol addiction.

My husband and I recently applied for adoption through the county’s adoption services. We did not ask for a perfect infant, but were open to an older child, any ethnicity. One who may have “special” emotional or physical needs. One who may have been exposed to drugs in utero and after their birth. One who may have come from a situation similar to Tamika [Triggs] or Ashley [Bryan], featured in Nazario’s series.

Mike and I have been married for 15 years. He has worked for the same company for 14 years, I have taught for 13 years.

We have a delightful, happy 8-year-old biological son, who would love a sibling. We are devoted parents. Mike coaches Little League, I volunteer time in our son’s classroom. We live in a three-bedroom home in a great Ojai neighborhood. We don’t smoke, rarely drink, attend church regularly. We are pretty stable folks.

However, our request for adoption was not approved. Why? We sleep on a futon (folds to a bed) in a room other than our bedroom. Never mind that the room with the futon has doors to close it off like a bedroom, or that an adopted child would have a beautifully decorated room of her own, or that our house is 1,650 square feet. The county determined our futon-sleeping made us “not meet minimum space requirements.”

Believe me, it is difficult to work with students who live with five siblings in a one-room trailer, who were kept awake all night while Dad beat his girlfriend, and understand the rationale behind the county’s decision.

JULIE SOSKE

Ojai