The Home Study

The first hurdle in adoption is something that natural parents do not have to go through. Theoretically, it answers several needed questions: Are you suitable to have a child? Are you free of offences against a child? Is your home suitable for a child? Do you have enough wherewithal to take care of a child?

Unfortunately, the social workers that carry out these studies go much further than this. There is nothing into which they don’t feel they may pry … rational or not.

This was especially so when a first representative (read ‘owner’) of one adoption agency appeared. She was a frustrated “grandmother.” She wanted continuous ties to the adopted child after it had become our child as well as visitation rights for three years. She was also going to prepare outings for the child and determine, in part, whom the child met. We clearly didn’t get on and she bowed out with a little push.

Then we found a more objective agency and completed the “Home Study” process. It did indeed delve into every private part of your life: home, jobs, finances, investments, wealth, parents, relatives, one’s childhood, relationships, sex habits, biographies, taxes, friends, neighbors, belongings … have I left anything out? They didn’t. One lady. Probably more in tune with old-fashioned brown wood décor, even suggested that we should redecorate our home. The only fortunate thing that stopped questions in one sector was that all my relatives had died and could not be questioned.

This violation of one’s private life is intended, of course, to ensure that the home is a suitable one for the child. Yet nothing of this sort is done when two people, married or not, the same sex or not, with money or not, or even with any sort of sanity or not, have a "natural" child. Society apparently thinks that that is OK, but an “adoption” is a case in which government and the state can get involved and they do.

For the home study one has to compile a set of papers: birth certificates, divorce and marriage certificates, tax returns, home deeds, bank records, medical records, certification of, and by, your doctor, police records, state records, and many more. All have different requirements for certification, affirmation, confirmation by a notary public, and appostilling. Furthermore all require that someone be paid.

Many questions are unreasonable. For example, the agency demanded to know exactly how many square feet my home’s lot size was. Yet I knew that a single woman living in a trailer had been approved for an adoption. Why did the lot size of my single-family dwelling make a difference? Not once were we given a set of criteria to meet.

For the adopted child’s immigration certification one has to complete another set of papers, some of which overlap the prior pile but which, nevertheless, have to be produced a second time, often to different formats. This paperwork goes to a US Embassy in the foreign country – in our case Moscow.

Then, jumping ahead, the foreign court (in this case Russian) requires another dossier of documents, which again overlap and extend the previous piles of documents with sometimes even different requirements for confirming and certification.

This is a time to hold your breath and control your temper, because there are many clerks along the way who follow procedures without understanding what they are doing.

“Adotpion - trial by fire," John Graham and Emmy Roos,To be published.

Contact John Graham fior pre-publication information and samples.