Word: child
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...many women as men, with corrosive effects on family life. "I used to have heroin mothers in court who could hold a family together," says Penny Ferrer, director of New York City's office of adoption services. "But crack mothers cannot." And even as new cases cascade into the child-welfare system, the number of foster parents has been declining. With more women working, fewer are home to take in children. Some adoption officials foresee an eventual return to the system of warehousing children in orphanages...
...Mickey; they are also preparing to adopt two-year-old Jonathan, who has weathered two bouts of AIDS-related pneumonia and, under their care, blossomed from an emaciated infant into a chubby, cheerful toddler. A private adoption agency, Leake & Watts, provides the men with $1,200 for each child a month in city, state and federal funds instead of the $437 subsidy for a healthy child...
...their mantel, Frank and Dante keep a silver-framed picture of their adopted son Alex, who was ten months old when he died of AIDS-related pneumonia last year. If Mickey too succumbs, they will consider adopting another child with AIDS. "I think we were called to take care of them," says Frank, a former Franciscan brother. "We know what it is like to go through the loss of a child, but we also know there is another baby out there...
...especially important to the prospects of drug children, especially crack babies. "George," just ten months old, has already endured surgery on his throat and intestines. When he arrived at the Children's Institute International in Los Angeles six months ago, he weighed only 5 lbs. "He looked like a child assigned a set of skin three times too big," recalls Sheila Anderson, director of the infant's shelter at C.I.I. Crack babies frequently have trouble keeping down their food. Given to spasms, trembling and muscular rigidity, they resist cuddling by arching their backs, an early sign of what some studies...
...Federal Government has taken a few steps to make special-needs adoption more attractive. In 1980 Congress passed a sweeping reform of adoption and child-welfare laws that, among other things, offered for the first time a federal stipend -- $200 to $300 a month -- to some adoptive parents of special-needs children. Just last month President Bush proposed legislation to make them eligible for a $3,000 tax break...