Yanerie is looking for a home. Her parents were unable to care for her, so she lives in group housing now. But a recent event where 26 adoptable children and 29 prospective parents tried to “match” with each other has given her hope.
“They’ll be able to tell me they love me,” she says of her potential future family, “and I’ll have my own home.”
It’s a heartbreaking process, and the chances of a teenager being adopted are extremely low, despite Yanerie’s hopefulness. Is there a solution? What if we thought about parenting differently, and instead of everyone isolating themselves to choose whether to have children, we worked together to plan for and invest more in each child. That would mean more parenting resources available for each child, like Yanerie. Maybe then, children like her would have a chance at finding a home.