Comments on: National Adoption Month 2022: How International Adoption Has Changed and Why https://www.holtinternational.org/how-international-adoption-has-changed-and-why/ Child Sponsorship and Adoption Agency Fri, 04 Nov 2022 16:36:44 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Megan Herriott, Copywriter https://www.holtinternational.org/how-international-adoption-has-changed-and-why/#comment-22315 Wed, 02 Nov 2022 15:30:12 +0000 https://www.holtinternational.org/?p=75757#comment-22315 In reply to Mary Margaret Simpson.

Hi Mary Margaret, thanks for such a great question. Unfortunately, in many countries the stigma of single motherhood persists and is devastating to both mothers and their children. In this blog from 2019, you can read about what this more currently looks like in South Korea. https://www.holtinternational.org/children-who-deserve-a-chance/. In South Korea, Holt supports six mother and child homes to support single mothers who are raising their children, and we have similar programs in countries around the world.

]]> By: Mary Margaret Simpson https://www.holtinternational.org/how-international-adoption-has-changed-and-why/#comment-22262 Tue, 01 Nov 2022 15:54:26 +0000 https://www.holtinternational.org/?p=75757#comment-22262 One of the reasons we were told in the late 1980s that so many infants were available is that societies steeped in a Confucian tradition had centuries-old beliefs that would not be very welcoming to children born to single mothers. In fact, our child had a social worker (male) sign her birth certificate so that it would be “official” (we were told, at that time, that women couldn’t register a birth). Have these and similar attitudes changed? Our dear South Korean friends did not like this but admitted that it was entrenched. I would feel better about the decline in adoptable children if I knew that what we used to call ‘illegitimate” children (horrible term) had a pathway to full citizenship in their home country. And please don’t take offense at this question. In the US, we have little to be proud of in how we care for single mothers and their children.

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