Do you believe that step parent adoption, is the most unnecessary form of adoption?

I think you are mistaken on what has to take place in order for a step parent to adopt. BEFORE this can even begin the natural parents rights have to be terminated. There needs to be EXTREME reasons before a court will do this.

my husband came into my life when my 2 oldest children were 2 & 4. they had 2 different disinterested, non-child support paying, dead beat “dads”.
my husband adopted them because he loved them so much he wanted them to have HIS last name. wanted them to be HIS children.
the deadbeat dads each paid for the adoptions. they were happy to be done with child support payments, etc…
it was what was best for my children. i assure you of that.
that is the best answer i can give you for this question.

My husband adopted my daughter when she was almost 5 years old. Her father walked out of our life when she was 1 years old and never came back. I didn’t hear from him until she was 2 1/2 and that was only to get me to sign divorce papers. He never paid child support, never exercised his visitation, never called to see how she was doing. I started dating my husband when she was 3 and he is the only “father” that she has known. She called him daddy and he was the one who took care of her when she was sick, played dolls with her when he asked, tucked her in at night and told her that he loved her. I was so excited when her father VOLUNTARILY signed his rights away to her so that my husband could adopt her. To me he is her daddy and he had every right to be her daddy in every way shape and form. Any male can be a father it takes a MAN to be a daddy. His adopting my daughter had nothing to do with trying to hide anything or save a reputation or force her father out of the picture he did that on his own. It’s hard to explain what it means when you don’t understand b/c it sounds silly but if you’ve been there then you understand. It’s about her having the same name as her daddy and him being able to have access to her records, insurance, schools and thing like that. It was the best thing that ever happened to our daughter and she was excited when she got her new name and she told everyone that she now had the same name as her mommy and daddy

Yes.

My amom died when I was still at home. My dad remarried, and my step mother was granted guardianship. I had absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. It made everyone’s life easier. It mostly meant dad didn’t have to take time from work to register me for school or go to the doctor. But I would have never consented to a formal adoption. I already switched mothers once. I sure as heck didn’t want to switch mothers again.

My a mother’s sister also died, and her husband remarried. Her children weren’t adopted by their step-mom, but he adopted his wife’s daughter (whose father was also dead) for no reason but to give her the same name as everyone else in the household. It changed nothing but her last name. I think it was very disrespectful toward her dead father.

ETA: Erin L, that’s great that they had a father figure, but isn’t it sad that the guy gave his life in a war, and then his own descendants didn’t even pass on his name? Call me crazy, but I feel so bad for that guy. The more I think about that, the more it bothers me. The guy didn’t just die. He died in service to his country. Then, his country’s laws allowed his name to be taken from his offspring. It’s a mess up world we live in. I have a son who serves, and there’s a war that he is sent to frequently. He has a son. That could happen to my grandson.

I don’t know. I’m sure to some people, the fact that their child is legally attached to their spouse is very important. I’m lucky because my husband is the stepfather of my two oldest daughters, who he loves very much. Their father is very much in their lives and is very much a great father to them. I am very lucky to have such wonderful people who love my children. If my girls’ father was out of the picture, I might feel differently, but I still feel that their last name is very important to their background, their lineage, and their history. My husband couldn’t love them any more if they all had the same last name. I kind of see it as something that is good in some cases, but I also feel some women want to erase past relationships they had by changing their last name, and changing the last names of their children. I have a different last name than my husband, my children have different last names, and to me, its all in a name. They are no more, no less mine because of a label. They are mine because they ARE my life.

I can see for legal purposes though. There are instances where it would make things easier than trying to explain an absentee father.

I believe it is one of them. While there are certainly cases where it is appropriate, I do feel that there are many, many cases where it is used as a form of punishment against a parent who is being alienated out of spite. I also think it has been used as a means of escaping child support, sometimes because the parent doesn’t wish to pay and sometimes because a parent is financially strapped, cannot pay and sees no other way out – this sometimes happens when there is a second family to support or a parent has made payments but has been prevented from having a relationship with the child. There have also been cases where it has been used as a form of emotional blackmail. There are many different reasons people have for doing SPAs but not all of them are the “right” ones.

In most cases of step-parent adoption, I think the consent of the child should be a requirement. I think many step-parent adoptions would be prevented if there were better laws supporting the rights of step-parents or better guardianship laws. Most people do not recognize the “en loco parentis doctrine” when it comes to wills, insurance benefits, school decisions, etc. If these things were more accessible to non-bio caregivers like step-parents, there would be fewer step-parent adoptions.

I also think that one of the problems is the adversarial attitude people have about parenting. Our society tends to pit people against one another and declare that there can be only a set number of people who can care for a child rather than encourage people to work together to provide a network of support for their children. I especially think, in today’s world of blended families and the popularity of adoption, that this change of attitude needs to happen if we want to really provide the best care for our children.

i think it is ok for step parents to adopt the step children because it is basically telling the children they care about them as if they were their own children and they will always be there for them. like when brad adopted maddox. it seemed kind of silly but it gives him rights as a parent because he is now the father.

Until I came here, I hadn’t considered any of this…

I agree with your points completely.

The main reason usually seems to be convenience for the mother so all the kids can “have the same name”.

That and that the “sperm donor” is a good for nothing, dead beat jerk who is never around, yada, yada. But the new hubby is a prince, of course. Cause we all know these women have such good judgment. (eye roll)

So selfish.

Again, fathers are not always aware that their children are about to be adopted away from them.

Tiny “court hearing” notices are printed in obscure newspapers that the father is unlikely to see.

Dad goes to the house to see his kids and the house is empty. The family has moved away, no forwarding address.

Years pass, and maybe in adulthood the children finally learn that their Dad didn’t really abandon them or “give them up.”

They search for him, and if he is still alive, they might be able to re-connect and get to know each other again, or for the first time.

I think it depends upon the situation.

My husband and I adopted our son 5-1/2 years ago. We divorced 3-1/2 years ago and I moved to another state. If I was to ever get remarried, I wouldn’t want or need my new husband to adopt my son. He already has a dad who visits frequently and loves him to pieces. If my ex-husband had decided to end his relationship with both me AND our son, that would be different. I’m not looking for someone to be a daddy to my son. He already has that. If I remarry, it’s because I want a husband, not a dad for my kid.

Not always. Sometimes, children are adopted by step parents in order for the children to be able to receive the step parents’ insurance. But this, like any adoption agreement, does have to be considered carefully, and should be done ONLY with the child’s best interests in mind (i.e., I can see very few instances where setting a child up with a false birth certificate is warranted when they already have a loving family).

But you’re certainly right that getting back at Daddy seems to be a common reason for step parent adoption, which is a truly horrible thing to do to a child. Take away their Daddy, talk smack about the giver of half the child’s genes, then wipe away the child’s identity on top of it. To my mind, there should always be a compelling reason for adoption – it should never be done for frivolous reasons.

I am very much against step parent adoption. My Mom wanted my step dad to adopt me when I was 13. This man was very abusive towards me. Why would I want him as my legal father?

Thankfully, my bio father refused. Even though I had not seen him since I was 6 and he never paid a cent in child support at least he came through for me when it really mattered. He may have been doing it out of spite or whatever because he didn’t know how I felt about it but I am still very thankful to him for this.

I also think about what would happen if the marriage didn’t work out. This other person would have as much legal rights to my child as I did. I know no one goes into a marriage thinking about divorce, but reality is that it happens.