Naturally, the NW story is long on supposition and short on fact. In fact, the baby being carried by Ange in the photograph looks suspiciously like Zahara -- another one of their adopted kids -- not Leah. And despite claiming that “it’s official”, there is a decided absence of any named sources in the story.
But for the purposes of this article, I’m choosing to see NW as a credible research source rather than a trashy supermarket tabloid which just makes things up.
The addition of little Leah would thus give Angelina and Brad seven children -- three of their own and four from overseas.In the USA the rise of inter-country adoption to around 20,000 kids a year comes as 130,000 American children are languishing in foster homes, presumably longing for a permanent family.
So why do Americans like the Jolie-Pitts prefer to adopts kids from overseas rather than take care of orphaned or abandoned kids from their own country?
Adopting American kids is cheaper and takes much less time, but overseas adoption is far more fashionable, it seems.
American researchers Yuanting Zhang and Gary Lee explored the reasons why in a recent paper in the Journal of Family Issues.
And their conclusions might surprise you.
Zhang and Lee found there are some practical reasons -- if you adopt from overseas you are more likely to get a baby under one year old, and you’re also more likely to be able to get a girl. Apparently, baby girls are the most in demand by adoptive parents.
But there’s a racial element too.
They found that many white families do not want to adopt African -- American children, as they blame blacks for creating their own social problems, from welfare cheats to giving birth to drug-affected babies.
The study found that parents didn’t mind cultural differences, but racial differences were much more of a barrier.
Adoptive parents also fear that black American parents might want their children back down the track, whereas this is much less likely with overseas adoption.
Martin Luther King may have “had a dream” in the 1960s about American whites and blacks living together in harmony. But when it comes to adoption, the racial divide appears to be stronger than ever.
Sure, the Jolie-Pitts have adopted black children, but it makes a difference that they have been rescued from an African orphanage rather than taken from crack-addicted African-American parents in the Bronx.
