Can one adopt being single?

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Patri

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I don’t know if there have been changes, I was made to understand some time ago that the church has not pronounced herself on single people adopting children. However, the church does not encourage it except when done for an unselfish reason like helping the child. Is this still so? Does anyone have more information?
 
I know several single people who have adopted children, all Catholics, and never heard that the Church has said anything about it. Can you give a source of the Church’s “negative” views you site?
 
The person who told you this needs to provide you with proof. Adopting children is a loving, compassionate thing. Single parents are allowed to adopt in the USA.
 
I asked a priest. He said the church had not said anything definite but I understood it was not encouraged, probably motives having to do with it. Maybe being about single people not wanting to be alone but more about the good of the child. He did not say it was forbidden though.
 
I think you were misinformed. If you are thinking about adopting a child and are able mentally and physically to do so, please investigate the possibilities. There are many, many children waiting to be adopted. As to your “motives,” the Church has nothing to say about this because it is not its place. Believe me, you will be thoroughly screened by any adoption agency as to your motives.
 
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Thanks, just wanted to know if there is an official church position.
 
Just as same sex adoption is not good because it deprives a person of mother and father, I suppose it’s ideal not to only have one person adopt alone otherwise a similar problem exists. No harm though in helping to look after a child Informally even though your single, perhaps even foster until a spouse comes along and everything is stable and later formally adopt? Wish I had an answer, but better having someone around to help than nobody I suppose.
 
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I suppose it’s one thing to go out of your way and apply for adoption which is ideally for married couples only, but completely different to let’s say adopt a child that you already know and who has nobody to look after them. There is intended situations and there is accidental situations. Perhaps in the latter case guardianship instead of adoption status is correct.
 
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So if a person never gets married, they can never have kids? Such as foster/adopted?
 
It’s not the preferred way to raise children. Children raised in households with both a mother and father are better off. Single parent children tend to struggle in areas that children with both parents do not. School, social interactions, religion, etc.
 
That is what I understood, that there is no formal rule from the church but it is not encouraged. A single person can adopt for an unselfish reason like in the interest of the child, but not for not wanting to be alone or needing to have a child. This was a question I asked years ago and I just wanted to know if anything else has been said about this issue.
 
Having both a mother and a father present in a child’s life allows the child to learn from both. Having only one parent leaves the child without the influence of the other. Children learn different things from a mother than they do a father, and v.v.; and whether it is boy/father or boy/mother, and the reverse, something is missing.

Having said that, for anyone to say that a single parent should not adopt is to at the minimum imply that a child is better off in foster care than in a “permanent” home. I most strongly disagree.
 
Of course a single person can adopt. Any adoption, were a person has the financial, emotional and mental means to be a parent, would be for the sake of the child, even if the “reason” would be because the person wanted a child or because they didn’t want to be alone. I don’t understand why anyone would even question that. As for the “ideal” situation, its’ never ideal and it’s never prefect, regardless if there are 2 parents or 1 parent.
[JamesV.Cameron], there are more couples looking to adopt “BABIES” then eligible “BABIES”…as they get older or if there are siblings or they have special needs, it becomes for them to get adopted.
[Patri]…if you have the means, adopt and give a kid a fighting chance.
 
Again, children need loving homes. One loving parent instead of being in the system? No question which is better.
 
No parents is better than one parent? Seems a very odd position to take… are there so many couples waiting to adopt that there’s no “surplus” of children anywhere in the world? Every single orphaned child has a stable, loving couple waiting for them? That wasn’t my understanding.
 
If this is true, why are there so many full orphanages all around the world? Why are there so many kids who spent their life bouncing from one foster home to another?
 
twf said:
are there so many couples waiting to adopt that there’s no “surplus” of children anywhere in the world? Every single orphaned child has a stable, loving couple waiting for them? That wasn’t my understanding.
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I believe there is a gross surplus of children who need a stable home but who are not available for adoption or are very high needs. The foster system has an extreme shortage of good stable homes that will accommodate their more challenging youths.

I believe the shortage is of babies and very young children (ideal adoption age) that are healthy and available for adoption rather than short term care while their family situation is sorted out.
 
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All good points. I think a lot of the responses thus far have been in regards to the current situation in the US. Catholicism is global, and the OP asked a general moral question…can a Catholic single adult adopt children? I’m sure there are many places in the world where there are many, many, many children desperate for even a single parent.
 
I disagree with you.

There are more parents wanting to adopt than there are white infant children available.

However, there are far more children available to adopt if one goes beyond the status of white infant; there are children of other races and children in the foster care system, and the number of parents willing to adopt a child of another race or in the foster care system is far, far short of the number of children needing adoption.
 
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