He's on medication for depression and in special education. Like puppies at the pound, America's waiting children beg for someone to love them. In New York, nearly 9,000 children wait for parents to pick them out of a book, from an Internet listing or video clip. The children muster their best behavior at adoption parties, where they mingle with prospective adoptive parents. Tennessee actually held a fashion show in a mall, where waiting children paraded down a runway, hoping to catch a shopper's eye.
Children can wait years for a permanent family and even reach adulthood without one.
Parties and photo listings offer a golden opportunity for adoption and since listings went online in 1995, adoptions have increased in several states. But they can also add more rejection to a lifetime of loss. According to Children Awaiting Parents, a national referral agency in Rochester, waiting children range in age from infants to 18, but more than half are 10 or older. Half are in sibling groups that need to be adopted together. Many have severe physical or mental disabilities.