Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives

Adoption Agencies and the Search for the Ideal Family, 1918–1965

Adoption Agencies and the Search for the Ideal Family, 1918–1965 Introduction:The New Selectivity in Adoption Practice Earlier essays in this volume have described the work of Charles Loring Brace’s pioneering agency, the New York Children’s Aid Society (CAS), which began placing children in substitute families in 1853, at almost exactly the same time that state legislatures began passing the first modern adoption laws. The CAS was the ancestor of the modern adoption agency. Few of the children placed by the CAS were legally adopted, and some were viewed primarily as inexpensive laborers, but many became full members of their new families, adopted in fact if not in law.1 Nevertheless, although Brace’s intentions may have been noble, his agency’s efforts were perhaps too dependent on the goodwill of foster parents , and some children were placed in homes where they were neglected, abused, or exploited.2 Around the turn of the century, a new generation of agencies sought to avoid such tragedies by establishing systematic screening processes for prospective foster/adoptive parents. These agencies aimed to select parents who would not abuse children, who had the material means to support children, and who would provide a minimal level of schooling and religious observance.3 The standards were not rigorous, but they were adopted with the clear aim of preventing harm to children. Meanwhile, a deep cultural shift in the valuation of children (ably chronicled by Viviana Zelizer)4 was beginning to affect the characteristics of the children placed and would soon lead to another dramatic change in agency standards for adoptive parents. In the nineteenth century, most of the children who were placed out into substitute families were old enough to begin making an immediate contribution to the family economy. Beginning around World War I, however, children were increasingly desired for reasons more sentimental than economic, generally by adults who were otherwise childless. These prospective parents wanted children who would be as fully as possible their 160 Brian Paul Gill own, beginning in infancy. The demand for babies to adopt began climbing in the 1920s and exploded with the culture of domesticity after World War II.5 Excess demand for young children gave adoption agencies a new opportunity , beginning in the 1920s, to be selective in the choice of adoptive parents. Selectivity was consistent with the interests of agency workers, who hoped to raise their professional status by demonstrating particular expertise in the creation of adoptive families. Indeed, the professional expertise of the social worker in the adoption agency was the foundation of the worker’s right to choose adoptive parents:“The only basis on which adoption agencies can . . . ask for community backing of their right to make ultimate decisions about the families with which children are placed is demonstrated competence,” declared Ruth Brenner, a leading adoption worker, in 1951.6 To demonstrate competence, the agencies moved away from the turn-ofthe -century emphasis on preventing harm to children, instead aiming higher: they began to claim a unique ability to create the “best” adoptive families. In 1951, explaining the market reality that permitted agency perfectionism, two agency workers described the caseworker’s job as selecting “those couples who have the best potentials as parents, recognizing the ten to one ratio of supply and demand in applicants and babies for adoption.”7 A policy statement of the Children’s Home Society of California announced the agency’s responsibility for choosing “the best possible home” for each child.8 The 1958 Standards of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) implored agencies to study enough applicants to guarantee “an optimum choice for each child.”9 Merely excluding applicants who would make bad parents was not enough. A paper presented at the 1960 National Conference of Social Welfare made clear the agencies’ perfectionist ambitions, declaring that the “major concern in adoptive placements is not with psychopathology, rehabilitation, or financial need, but with contriving the best possible parent-child relationships by selecting parents from a rather large group of applicants. . . . The social agency has the responsibility of selecting the best qualified couples.”10 In sum, the adoption agencies came to believe that they had a responsibility to use their professional expertise not merely to screen out bad applicants but also to create only the “best” adoptive families. The Normal as Normative Agencies assumed that the“best”families were those who were most“normal.”11 A 1933 U.S. Children’s Bureau pamphlet declared that all children should have “a...