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The Invisibility and Stigma of Single Father Adoption

In the United States, the very occurrence of single-father adoption is readily ignored by adoption agencies. Concurrently, a social stigma around single-father adoption exists in the United States. Through qualitative research methodologies, our work examines the historical stigmatization of single-father adoption by adoption agencies and social forces solely found within the United States. While there is an invisibility of single-father adoption rates in the United States, the United States was also the only nation with any data on single-father adoption. This is the sole reason our research focuses on the invisibility of single-father adoption as it pertains to the United States and not globally.


Conduct a simple internet search of ‘single father adoption’ and there are questions if the practice is even legal. It’s understandable why this confusion would arise as “Agencies have varying policies in dealing with single applicants.” The challenges of adoption for single fathers lie both in the invisibility and stigma of the practice.

Under the same simple internet search for ‘single father adoption’ you’ll find a myriad of results focusing on single-parent adoption. However, the majority of these results for single-parent adoption focus almost exclusively upon or exclusively upon single-mother adoption. There is no reason to completely overlook adoption by single males as 3% of adopted children in the United States were adopted by single men. Thus our research objective is to highlight the lack of visibility of single father adoption and the reasons such invisibility exists.

Most research and conversation related to single parenting is focused primarily on single mothers. Historically, the United States has prioritized the adoption of children by “ideal” parents who fit into the nuclear family of a married heterosexual couple. Laws existed in the United States that excluded same-sex couples, unmarried couples, or single parents from going about adoption. It was not until 1965 that the first legal efforts were made towards single-parent adoption from the Los Angeles Bureau of Adoptions which, “sought out single African-Americans to locate same-race parents for African-American children for whom married parents could not be found.”

By the 1970’s several American states allowed both single women and single men to adopt children with the practice today being legal in every state. Still despite the legality of single-father adoption, the practice remains largely ignored largely due to stigma. While same-sex couples, unmarried couples, and single mothers are still not always seen as “ideal” parents they are still seen as being more “ideal” than single fathers, “single men face even tougher scrutiny as they are asked intimate questions about their sexuality, motives, friends, and living arrangements.” In addition to this, some adoption agencies and social workers have held biases against single men seeking adoption due to the low prevalence plus awareness of single fathers by choice.


The lack of literature and the very invisibility of single-father adoption feedback into the stigmatization of single-father adoption. Thus, adoption agencies have not been recruiting single men to the same degree that they have been recruiting couples and single mothers. This leads single men who wish to be single fathers to take alternative routes toward fatherhood such as surrogacy. Single fathers by choice often make use of surrogacy due to thinking that, “surrogacy would be more secure compared to adoption.” Men who are choosing to adopt children as single parents are doing so with less research guiding them than men who choose surrogacy to become single parents. Single men’s motivations for choosing surrogacy to become a father were/are primarily to be genetically related to their child, wanting to raise their child from birth, and believing that surrogacy was/is the easier more secure option than adoption. This was one of the first studies that focused on single fathers by choice. This reflects why men chose surrogacy over adoption and is a foundation for studying the motivations behind single fathers by choice. But, “because no research has studied single fathers by choice, the extent to which they differ from single mothers by choice in terms of characteristics, motivations [for adopting] and experiences is unknown.”


So given our limited data do we have any reason to be biased against single fatherhood by choice? Despite limited data, research suggests that single fathers are more than capable of being good parents. Even though, “research evidence [suggests] otherwise, the predominant view of single-parent families is that they are on welfare, minority, and adolescent.” But for starters, our current evidence showcases that, “single fathers generally enjoy higher incomes, more stable employment, better education, and more social support.” Single parents are more likely to adopt older or disabled children as well as children of a different race. Single fathers have higher rates of adopting harder-to-place youth than single mothers. This is in part likely since single fathers by choice face adoption rejection more frequently than other demographics. Yet, while single parents historically were more open about which children they will adopt due to being put at the bottom of waiting lists at agencies this trend of single parents adopting difficult-to-place children has continued even though single parents are more positively received at adoption agencies today than they were in the past. Also, men as foster-to-adopt parents serve an important role by showing a positive male figure for children who have had traumatic experiences with men. Many children in the foster system have been abused by men, witnessed men abusing others, been removed from their homes by police (who are primarily men), or had court appearances in front of judges (who are mostly men). Seeing a positive male figure in their life can help repair damages caused by traumatic childhood experiences. In addition, “the most common tasks [of single male fathers] are role modeling, entertainer and emotional support. However, the men also mentioned attending meetings, education, maintaining discipline and being a protector…[single male fathers] look after children and for whom children are central to their narratives.” Whilst the previous quote has been altered and decontextualized, all the points mentioned are within evident plausibility for single adoptive fathers. Yet we do not have much research on such matters about single adoptive fathers so, further research would be helpful given our current data sets. Still, there is no reason to believe that single fathers by choice make for inferior adoptive fathers in comparison with any other adopting demographic.


“The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) found that almost 15,000 single women and nearly 2,000 single men adopted children or youth from foster care in Federal fiscal year (FFY) 2017.” These numbers show a discouragement amongst single men in comparison to their counterparts to adopt. This discouragement ultimately hurts individual children who otherwise would have been adopted. Policies such as how, “in some countries, for example, single men may adopt only boys,” only lead to children staying out of potentially caring homes. These issues will only become more pressing as “the share of American families with children living with a single parent has tripled since 1965. The large majority of those single-parent families, approximately 75 percent, are headed by a mother only,” and all these trends appear to only be increasing. It is time to end the invisibility and stigma of single-father adoption as it leads to incalculable harm. No individual should be shunned out of the adoption based on gender or marital status.


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Tiana Mastrella is a recent graduate of the University of New Mexico and completed studies in Nursing and Family and Child Studies. She is currently a health educator teaching sexual health in Tulsa.


Anthony David Vernon earned his master's degree in Philosophy from the University of New Mexico, his work is highly varied touching upon subjects including dis/ability studies to romantic relationships.


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