I am pretty against having a kid of my own for many reasons (scared of pregnancies, scared of babies, awful genepool, etc.) but I do like kids, and am not against adopting a kid. It’s just rare to see many parents with adopted kids, so I’m always curious about the process. I’m getting a tubal in a few months, so I guess I’m just asking all my questions early lol
Those are two huge qualifiers though. There are nowhere near enough people who want (or are able) to adopt kids who have special needs or are in foster care. And from what I understand, just a foster parent adopting a kid they are fostering is a massive hill to climb.
You’re not wrong at all, but people interested in fostering older and/or special needs kids generally come into the process more clear-eyed, or if not then they get there before long.
I have nothing but respect for the big hearted people who take that on, and adoption when the bio-family constellation is irretrievably broken is perfectly sensible and loving.
The “market” for healthy infants just puts a lot of perverse incentives into the US system, from “pay to play,” to pressuring and deceiving birth mothers, to pushing it all onto foreign countries with even fewer guardrails. Not that this reflects ill intent on the part of adoptive parents, but that part of the system has definitely got a dark side.