China will match children to single parents over 30 years of age. China will not offer children for adoption to self-disclosed lesbians or gay men. China is quite prudish with regard to sexuality of any kind apparently. The CCAA says,. "Any situation in which other families or others who are not family members live together with the adoption applicants should be explained; in the case of a single adopter who has cohabitant(s) other than a family member(s), the single adopter should give reasons for the cohabitation and ensure that the single adopter is not homosexual." This is part of the home study requirements. The American military approach ("Don't see. Don't tell.") or the legal defence of necessity are alternative strategies here in . The American military ("Don't tell.") approach is one that some have used in response to this state of affairs.

Single parent issues that prospective parent should consider include:

• guardianship -- who will look after your child should you meet an untimely death or disablement,
• do you have disability insurance to protect your single source of income;
• are you eligible for support for childcare;
• can you challenge some of the stereotypic discrimination against single parents (social services tends to sometimes view single parents as inadequate to the task);
• will you have time and energy to make the cross-cultural connections that will enable your daughter to flourish
• can you find the support you need to manage a single parent family. you will need "downtime" and this require caring friends and neighbours who will pitch in to help
• are you able to get linked up with the sophisticated and economically advantageous network of clothes/toys/etc. that provides an alternative exchange economy to regular full-purchase-price shopping.
• are you prepared to live on less sleep, less restful days, less time to work endlessly (a problem if you are in a business requiring total (inhuman) devotion), less money to spend, fewer trips, social outings, etc, at least until you figure out how to manage outings. Take up camping, free outdoor concerts, cross-country skiing, potluck dinners with friends and neighbours, find out about community children's events, identify your children's interets and needs and then arrange for two or so activities (otherwise you will find yourself driving everywhere for events, lessons, etc.
• prepare yourself for (one of) the biggest transformations of your life. what you miss in sacrifices for you child you make up in the love for and from her

Our Chinese Daughters provides funds for adopting singles

Facts about single parents (stats are U.S.)

Facts about single moms: --Single mothers are now the majority. More children live with a single mother than they do in traditional two-parent households. And the majority of single parents are white. --Currently, there are 12.8 single mothers and nearly 2 million single fathers heading households --In 1998, more than half of all first births were to single women, about 53 percent. --The fastest growing group of single mothers are MOMs--Mothers Outside of Marriage. In the past decade, the rate has doubled for college-educated women (in 1992, 6 percent of unmarried women with bachelor's degrees had had children, up from 2.7 percent 10 years earlier) and nearly tripled for professional women and women in managerial jobs (from 3.1 percent to 8.6 percent from 1982 to 1992). --Teen single motherhood has decreased slipping from 8.2 percent to 6.5 percent over that same decade. --The gap between black and white MOMs is closing. The unmarried mother rate for black women slipped to 46.2 percent in 1992, while for white women overall rose from 6.7 percent to 12.9 percent. --According to the Hite Report on the Family: Boys who grow up in mother only families have better relationships with women later in life; daughters in such families are more likely to see their mothers as independent, strong women; both children have closer relationships with their parents benefitting by not having the distraction of another adult in the home. --Numerous studies by speech pathologists have determined that single mothers have children with better communication skills. --A 1999 study showed that teens of single moms were less likely to do drugs and drink than teens living with a father at home where there was not strong communication. Mothers were shown to have more of an influence on their children.
(From Andrea Engber at http://www.singlemothers.org/singlemompro.html)