Welcome to the Tweed Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey girl. And you are tuned in to Tweed Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Hi, and welcome back to Tweed Trends. Today is World Adoption Day. So let's get started.
Today is World Adoption Day, not to be confused with National Adoption Day, which is actually held on November 20th. But for World Adoption Day, when we think of the word adoption, nine times out of 10, our mind goes to children. And whereas, yes, we can adopt children, there are so many other things out there that we can actually adopt that sometimes you just have to think outside of the box, like you can adopt a pet, or maybe a new mindset, a positive mindset, you want to adopt one of those, or policies, procedures, rules, especially for your classroom. And then you can even get a bunch of your friends together, start an organization, and adopt a highway.
There are so many different things out there that you can adopt. Although today's episode, I am going to be talking about actual adopting children. But I just wanted to kind of throw that out there to let you know that maybe that's not even on your radar. You are not considering adopting a child.
But you can get in on the fun of World Adoption Day and find something else to adopt. Although it's World Adoption Day and not National Adoption Day, I decided I wanted to kind of see what adoption looks like in the United States. Looked up this number and was blown away, even though it was hard to picture in our mind. But the number is 437,000.
That number represents the number of children in the foster care system at any given day in the United States. That just seems mind-boggling to me. And so I'm trying to picture it. And so I said, you know what?
Let me do a little bit more research. So I looked up populations of various cities in the United States and come to find out the population of Miami, Florida is just 4,000 more than that number that I quoted there. So just imagine Miami being nothing but foster children. That is mind-boggling because I've been to Miami before.
And I've seen the people all over the place, not granted. I know there are people there that were visiting as well. There are tourists, vacationers, spring breakers, that sort of thing. But still, the population of Miami, Florida, wow.
And so you think about that. And it makes you wonder why are there so many children in the foster care system? And there are a number of reasons. I can't just say any one thing is the root cause of why there are so many children in the foster care system.
However, getting children out of the system, well, that can be a bit of a problem because some are there just until their families get to a point where they can take them back. Others are in the system and they need a new home. Their parents' rights have been relinquished. And it's like, you know what?
No matter what, we're not putting you back in that house. Hopefully somebody else will come and pick you up and decide to give you a forever home. Which, as the children get older, then those possibilities tend to get smaller and smaller. They begin to realize that, you know what?
I'm going to spend my entire life in this system until I reach legal age and then they send me on my way. Which actually seems like a kind of scary type situation. I don't know what that system is like and I would like to maybe try to find somebody to talk to, maybe to even interview for an episode to find out what is it like to grow up in the foster care system and maybe not have a family to stay with. You know, maybe you're in a group home or maybe you do get a family or maybe you've had multiple families.
Those are all of the many challenges to the foster care system, which makes world adoption day that much more appealing to get people to start the steps. Because it's not a short process. But to get in the game, get your name in the hat and see if maybe you can't find a child in the system that you could bring home and love as your own. As with everything else under the sun, there's always barriers to everything.
And adoption is no stranger to that. Now, the way how I look at it, the bad guys always make it tough for the good people out there. And because you got people human trafficking and being neglectful and abusive, that there is a process to adoption and it can be grueling. It can be really tough.
And a lot of times people run into issues when it comes to the cost to adopt or the amount of time that they have to wait for an adoption to go through. And even the fact that sometimes it may appear that the adoption has gone through and then it fall through at the last minute. So all of these things, there's an emotional toll, a financial toll, a physical and mental toll, just, it's tough. And so I get why some people may be dead set against adopting.
They're like, nope, don't want to go through that. But just think of how good it would feel to be able to help a child that doesn't have a family to, if you have an abundance of resources, money, space, or whatever, why not open your home to a child? So in saying all of that, I want to highlight this organization is called the Gift of Adoption Fund. And they provide adoption assistance grants to prospective parents, regardless of race, religion, gender, marital status, or sexual orientation.
And they also allow donors to direct their funds to help sibling groups or children with medical needs or even those that are in danger of aging out of care. You know, those are the ones that I think, once they reach a certain age, it's almost like in their mind, they know that this probably isn't gonna happen for me. Who comes and gets a 17 year old out of foster care and says, hey, I want to be your parent. So, and it does happen, it does.
But just the frequency, I think they kind of know, and they start to have that bitter feeling inside. Like, you know, I don't see this working for me. Let me go ahead and prepare myself mentally to ride this through to adulthood and then figure out life after that. I really honestly and truthfully feel though, that there are enough people in the United States with resources where we should not have nearly this many children in foster care, if any.
I honestly think that that number can be completely wiped out and good people be the ones to adopt these children. And with organizations like the Gift of Adoption Fund, that can happen. So, just if you want to check them out, just look them up on Twitter at Gift of Adoption. That's at G-I-F-T-O-F-A-D-O-P-T-I-O-N.
Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode of Tweet Trends. As you think about World Adoption Day and start thinking outside of the box of all the different things that you could possibly adopt today, how about go over to Twitter, use the hashtag, I would adopt, and let me know what it is that you're gonna adopt today. Are you gonna adopt a better thought process, a better mindset, or maybe a pet? Or how about this?
Would you consider adopting a child out of the foster care system or one of the other systems that are out there? All of those are possibilities for you to get in and be a part of World Adoption Day. And how about this? You can give your friends a chance to adopt something as well.
Share this episode with them, and maybe they will adopt a habit of listening to Tweet Trends like you. Who knows? Can make a world a better, happier place by sharing this good, just all this podcast goodness that we got going on here, right? All right, so, having said all of that, enjoy your day, enjoy your week, and I will see you back here again on Thursday.