Today’s guest blogger is Wijit Xiong

The article I found was called, What’s the Point of Adopting a 17-year-old Kid? This article was written by Jessica Good on November 4, 2015 and was published by adoption.com. The author started out by telling her own story of how she thought back on the hardship that she had been through while she was in college. She worked the night shift at a grocery store to pay for insurance, transportation, and her phone, and she took her classes during the day. She was at a loss when she hadn’t anticipated how much a car would cost her to get to campus. Even though she was working as much as she could, she didn’t have enough money to keep her car running. So, her parents helped her trade the car for something more reliable, and paid the difference. After her parents stepped in, she could have the transportation and the time she needed to attend class. She thanked them and was able to stay in school and graduate.

The story continues that her parents helped her apply for scholarship. They helped her study for her SATs, helped her decide on a school, and helped her apply for jobs. She lived at home to save on housing costs. She grew up knowing security and protection. She was a person who has always had the security of a family backing her up. But, in researching for this article, she considered what the outcome might have been had she found herself in that situation, at 18, with no parents to help her with challenges such as the high-maintenance car that she couldn’t afford. It could have meant dropping out of school and losing her scholarship. Thus, when it comes down to it, it was impossible for her to imagine what life might have been like at 18 without the influence of her parents.  They helped her, quite literally, all the time. She knew that if she failed, they would help her recover and move on. She just knew it. And she still know it. So how could she ever fully understand living without that?

Therefore, not only the author’s personal story is the strength of this article, but the data she found on her research also strengthen her stand point. For example: in 2012 in the United States, 23,439 children in the foster care “aged out” before finding a forever family. That’s 64 kids a day who turned 18 – a rite of passage that should be relished and celebrated – and found themselves alone. No support. No family to fall back on. No one to help with the bills or to bail them out of a bad situation like so many parents have done for many young adults throughout time. Thus, the author thinks that it might be easy, when considering adoption, to think “Oh, they’re 17…they only have another year and they’re out” and turn attention to a child with more time left in the system. More data mentioned in this article tells us that less than 3% of those “aged out” kids failed by the system will earn a degree, but 75% will deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. More than two thirds of the young women will be pregnant by their 21st birthday. Half of them still won’t have jobs six full years after being emancipated. The most unsettling statistic of all: 20% will find themselves homeless. 20%. That means that the emancipated teens of 2012 will result in over 4,600 homeless youth adults.  One limitation of this article is that the author doesn’t say how to address the issue that arise for these kids. She explains the fact that many aged out kids found themselves alone, no support, no family to back on and no one to help with the bills or bail them out of a bad situation like those who lived with their parents.

This article does promote permanency by reminding the reader that a stable home and parent support can really help a 17 year-old be successful in college and possibly prevent them from dropping out of school. Thus, adopting a 17 year-old should be an option even for those who only have one year left to be in the system. The author does conclude that for a child who has endured the trauma of being permanently removed from the care of his or her biological family, who was placed into state care with the expectation that they would be given a more secure, safer situation, the need for that protection is all the more urgent. The author ends her article with,…“Adopting a 17 year-old is not about giving them the childhood they never had crammed into one year; it is about giving them a family to turn to for the rest of their life.”
Article cited:  http://adoption.com/whats-the-point-of-adopting-a-17-year-old-kid