Thread by @Tojiro

I keep my Twitter posts minimally political, but you'll have to excuse me for a second while I address something near to my heart: Adoption.

If you don't know, I'm the adoptive father of two beautiful boys and I can honestly say they are the best part of my life.

As tends to happen with these things, I've also come to know multiple other adoptive families as well.

We all have different reasons for adopting, but regardless of why we can all agree on one thing: Going through the adoption process SUCKS.

Totally worth it, considering what waits on the other end, but it is a long, invasive, and (crucially) very expensive process.

And that brings me to the political angle: The GOPs new tax plan eliminates existing adoption assistance programs.

I can say with absolute confidence that eliminating that credit WILL prevent people from adopting. No question. Because it's EXPENSIVE.

So for many families that credit is the only hope they have of actually being able to afford having children.

Now, you might say: "If they can't afford the adoption then wouldn't they struggle to actually pay for the daily needs of child?"

Nope, it's orders of magnitude difference, depending on the exact route you take to do the adoption.

Most people get funny about giving numbers, but I think it's worth it to drive the point home: Our first son cost us approx. $50,000

That's mostly adoption agency and legal fees, but also travel, hotel, medical, and a bunch of smaller misc. stuff.

And what you have to understand is that almost all of that is paid either at the point you are matched or when the child is placed with you.

So picture being in the hospital, holding your new baby boy, in a different state, while lawyers are calling saying: "We need $30,000 TODAY"

"...Or we can't start the process to let you keep the baby." That sounds malicious, but it's really just legal reality.

And nobody gives out loans on babies. So tell me: If you needed to how would you come up with $50k in a lump sum?

You probably don't just have it in the bank. If you're a Silicon Valley engineer like me maybe you have company stock. (Thank goodness!)

If you're able to afford a house, maybe you can take out a second mortgage. (This is really common among families that I know.)

And if not... well you can ask for donations from friends and family, maybe a few personal IOUs? I really honestly don't know.

And for many families the only thing that lets them push through that MASSIVE barrier is the knowledge that they can get that tax credit.

It's a non-trivial amount that it covers. Depends on situation but it can easily be 10s of thousands that comes back to you.

Which may let you pay back a decent chunk of that second mortgage, or repay that friend that fronted you several thousand. It matters.

And yes, that all sucks. It's worth it for the families that adopt, to deal with the financial strain to have a family.

Even for me, a Google Engineer, adopting pretty much drained our financial resources at the time. I can't imagine how most families do it.

So it's infuriating to see the "Pro-life, pro-family" GOP repeatedly make these kind of blatantly anti-family moves.

(For the record there's a whole pile of bad in that tax plan. I'm just focusing on this one aspect.)

So adoption tax credit goes away and families simply can't adopt any more. Period. Do you think people will stop having babies, though?

Obviously not, and the tiny child tax credit bump in the plan won't change the reasons most parents place their kids for adoption.

So realistically we're just creating more foster kids, which is definitely a bigger drain on govt. resources than the adoption credit.

And in the meantime good families go without children and kids go without permanent homes. There's zero up side to this.

And for what? So the wealthy can pass on their fortunes to their kids tax free? It's disgusting.

I should really wrap this up now, but please realize that when these senators talk up how they're trying to help "middle class families"...

They're really giving the finger to an awful lot of them, through this and other cruel cuts. /fin

Whooo boy. This was a far more popular thread than I ever expected. 😳 Impossible to sort through all my mentions now.

There's a few common questions/criticisms I've seen re: the above thread, though, that I wanted to answer real quick.

LOTS of people saying ours must have been a private adoption, it can be cheaper, and adopting foster care can be effectively free. All true.

And while I'm 100% supportive of fostering children, please recognize that it can be a hard road to take. Definitely not for everyone.

For one, there's no guarantee of adoption via fostering. In fact, the ideal scenario is that their home situation improves and they go back!

And of course as a foster parent your primary goal is to help the kids through what is unquestionably a rough time in their life.

It takes a certain kind of person, and I'll freely admit that I didn't feel up to the task when we were discussing how to start a family.

I know foster parents. They're heroes. I have nothing but respect for their open hearts and homes.

Anyway, point being saying "Adopting via foster care is ~free" misses that it's definitely not the right choice for everyone.

I should also point out that I'm posting from the perspective of private adoptions of infants because that's where my experience is.

It's not the only way to go about an adoption. Every family's situation is different. This naturally leads to variations in things like cost

So it's totally valid for someone to say "my adoption didn't cost nearly that much!"