Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 December 7

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December 7

Are there any aging adopted parents over the age of 60 with adopted kids in their homes under 19?

Are there any aging adopted parents over the age of 60 with adopted kids in their homes under 19? Venustar84 (talk) 01:51, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Undoubtedly. 61 vs 18 is not an overly-unusual parent-child age difference. It corresponds, potentially, to a parental age of 41 at the birth of the child. — Lomn 01:59, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I said adopted kids. Not naturally born kids. Venustar84 (talk) 02:24, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

• Clarify what you mean by giving an example. Lomn answered the question you asked. μηδείς (talk) 02:41, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Is there any reason, Venustar84, why you think a 41-42 year old wouldn't have adopted an infant? I have a friend who adopted a child at 41. He'll be 60 when she's 19. The answer by Lomn is merely saying it would be ridiculous to presume that no 60 year old in the entire world would ever have a child, whom they had adopted, would be the age of 19. We don't need to name anyone in particular to answer the question, simple logic dictates that there are many, many people who have the age range you describe. --Jayron32 02:43, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

A quick google search for "older parent adoption" yielded a number of results. See one article here that states that "it's a trend that's clearly heppening." Mingmingla (talk) 03:15, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Interesting174.7.167.7 (talk) 04:01, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Many Inuit adopt a child when they are in their 50s and 60s. Usually a grandchild and there are quite a few single adoptive parents of that age. I notice the question actually asks about "adopted" parents. Did you mean people who were adopted and have then gone on to adopt or did you mean adoptive? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:31, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Legally, you can adopt anyone of any age, even those older than you. The practice goes even as far back as Roman times where Augustus Caesar adopted both his stepson and wife at his death. While rare in countries such as the United States, it does happen. For instance, a millionaire in Florida may decide to adopt his girlfriend and her kids to keep his assets and business interests away from an ex-wife who holds shares in a business with him. Adoption gives you more control. Disinheiritance is an easy legal thing to do as opposed to divorce. So people of any age do indeed adopt others of any age. Sometimes they all live together and sometimes they don't. State services get invovled with the adoption of a dependent minor. The state will deny an adoption if a homestudy suggests that the environment would pose a risk to the safety and welfare of the child. Persons with certain kinds of disabilities may need a physician's evaluation to alleviate concerns, but age or disability alone are not determining factors. A couple in their early 60s and in good health wishing to adopt a newborn, could probably do so in America, although many adoption agencies as a rule of thumb do not work with adoptive parent(s) over a certain age such as 50 or 40. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.41.178.122 (talk) 15:30, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

That's a bit Americentric, actually, if accurate at all. I can tell you that in the former Yugoslav republics, a person has to be at least 18 years older than the person he or she wishes to adopt, and the adoptee must be younger than 18. I have no idea why law would allow the creation of parent-child relationship between a 20-year-old (as the parent) and a 40-year-old (as the child). Surtsicna (talk) 16:03, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Of course laws vary by jurisdiction, but some US states allow and some do not allow adult adoption. Adult adoptions are a way of designating one's next of kin and heir, which is what Caesar's adoption did. It's actually the rational alternative to gay marriage law, in that it allows people to designate each other next of kin without the legal fiction of equating a homosexual couple with potential biological parents. μηδείς (talk) 17:45, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

As if that was the only reason people wanted marriage equality, but that's neither here nor there in this discussion... :) Mingmingla (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

The benefit of adult adoption, an institution of which many people are ignorant, is that it accomplishes all the desired aspects of gay marriage from a classic liberal viewpoint: choosing one's next of kin, heir, etc., without bringing in the sticky issues of, if a married lesbian gets pregnant, does her wife or the father have parental rights and responsibilities, or should employers and wedding cake makers be forced to treat gay couples like heterosexual couples. Of course gay weddings is a separate issue from the state imposing, rather than recognizing gay marriage. That's up to whoever performs the ceremony. μηδείς (talk) 04:16, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Self closed since completely OT even though directly responding to a comment. Feel free to move the collpasing. Nil Einne (talk) 21:17, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

For clarity, you're saying that in some states mutual adult adoptions is possible and allows all the federal and state governmental benefits and responsibilities of marriage including the same inheritance and next of kin benefits, including when there are children and others involved (as many states treat partners and children differently), restrictions and responsibilities on dissolving? the adoptions as marriage, the same tax treatment, Medicaid/Medicare/Obamacare subsidy, nationality benefits, the same penalties on adultery (adultery is still a violation of UCMJ and a crime in a few states), recognition in other countries in the same manner as marriage, treatment when you do have children whatever you want the parents etc etc? Seems a bit strange to me since to use an example, considering adultery if you have sex with your non-adult adoptee you're likely to end up in prison rather than if you have sex with someone besides your non adult child so I wouldn't have expected it to be a crime to have sex with your adult adoptee, but the US does weird stuff I guess. P.S. Many but obviously not all are fine with the state recognising same sex marriage the same way they do opposite marriage. They don't require the state 'impose' it. This means the state should themselves treat the married couples the same in all ways (recognising with modern fertility treatment and modern law, even with an opposite sex couple the mother of a child may either not be the one carrying the child in her womb or may not be the one who provided the ovum she is now carrying). And that if a wedding cake make is free to refuse to provide a wedding cake to a black man and white woman or a black woman and white man getting married or a 109 year old woman marrying a 18 year old man, they're also free to refuse to provide a wedding cake to a man and man or a woman and woman getting married. (Similarly if they're not free to refuse such a request for the reasons of race, age or sex, they're not free to refuse to any of these requeests for any one of those reasons.) Whether or not the state should 'impose' on private business in this way is a matter for debate, but not on wikipedia and especially not in this topic. Nil Einne (talk) 21:00, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

• I should mention both that the parents of my best friend from high school adopted their daughter's child when she got pregnant at 17, and that when the mother of the love of my life died in childbirth, and the father abandoned the family, the grandmother adopted all the children, and she was in her 50's at the time, while my HS friend's parents were in their forties. These adoptions occurred in the 1970's and 80's. μηδείς (talk) 20:12, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

As others have said, real world examples seem unnecessary we can take it as a given there are lots. But if you really want some, a simple internet search would do. For example, I did one using Google for '60 year old adopt' and found [1] [2] both of which include specific examples where someone was 60 or older when they adopted. We can take it as a given that these parents were over 60 and had an adopted child under 19 in their house since the only possibilites where this wouldn't have happened would be if the parent died before the child started living with them or the child never actually lived with them, but the descriptions discount that. (I'm taking over 60 to include someone 60 years and a day. I acknowlede that ages are sometimes used losely and so when it's said the person was 60 it may mean the person's 60th birthday is coming up or even the person is past their 59th birthday. But in any case and in fact even if you require someone to be 61 years old to be considered over 60 rather than 60 years and a day, in both examples it seems clear that the 60 year old parent did live with the child past their 61st birthday.) Nil Einne (talk) 21:34, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

British adoption agencies used to impose an age limit of 35 on both parents. They may have loosened up now. I hope so. The concept of adoption of over-18s isn't recognized in Britain. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:29, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, the topic of adopting is a heavy duty subject. I find this article interesting: http://forums.adoption.com/34341219-post47.html

<removed copy of entire forum post>

Venustar84 (talk) 00:37, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Your overall point is very unclear. Is your question now, are there great grandparents who have adopted their own great grandchildren? (Having read stories of such in the paper, I would search for parents and grandparents who've been jailed or murdered.) Is calendar age unimportant? Can you state your question clearly in one sentence? μηδείς (talk) 04:20, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

We need some clarity here. Are you phxmama? If not you should delete most of your post above, as you have likely violated their copyright by reproducting their comment here. Particularly since you in no way made it clear that you copied the comment so people may assume it was written by you and therefore released under the CC-BY-SA and GFDL. I would add there is also no reason to copy someone else's random rant on to the RD, particularly when that rant was written in reply to other stuff so is difficult to understand without reading it in context. Nil Einne (talk) 20:17, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

If you are suggesting Venustar84 has copied something from another site, Nil, just close or delete it. User Venustar84 and his alternate names has, in the face of banning threats, promised many times to be on his best behavior at the ref desk, not to post nonsense or or more than one question a day, or otherwise to misbehave. μηδείς (talk) 01:23, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

For clarification I was referring to Venustar84. The rant above definitely appeared in another forum. If you follow the link provided [3], it's there. The link is actually to someone quoting the original comment rather than the comment itself (the correct link is here [4]).

My guess is when they said "Well, the topic of adopting is a heavy duty subject. I find this article interesting" what they actually meant was they found the forum post, not an article, interesting. So they wanted to show it to us and for added measure they copied the whole forum post here. Of course, there's no reason for them to quote/copy someone else's entire forum post. They don't really need any of it since some random person's rant is not really relevant to the RD, particularly when it is not answering anyone's question. And at the very least if they are going to do so they should make it clearer what they did.

However as the actual harm seems minimal, I'll give Venustar84 a chance to either remove the post themselves from here or confirm they are the author (I may have misunderstood), despite their history.

Nil Einne (talk) 01:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

No I'm not the author. I just found the subject interesting. But I think I will leave the topic be now. Venustar84 (talk) 01:22, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

In that case, as I said above, please do not copy such a large amount of someone else's material on to the reference desk or anywhere else on wikipedia as it may be a WP:Copyvio. I have removed it for now, it would have been nice if you could have done so yourself after I pointed out the problem. In some cases, quoting highly relevant portions may be okay, but definitely not the material in its entirety. But there's rarely a good reason to quote some random person's opinion from a forum post anyway and you definitely should accurately describe it rather than calling it an 'article'. Nil Einne (talk) 15:44, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Devolution of federal power in India

Imagine that Parliament decides to devolve a decision on a question that's related to a power on the Union List. For example, instead of passing a law about what to do with lighthouses in a specific state, they pass a law granting that state's legislature the right to decide what to do with the lighthouses. Would this decision pretty much universally be seen as constitutional (after all, Parliament's making the ultimate decision) or pretty much universally seen as unconstitutional (after all, the state's doing the actual decisionmaking), or would there be a good deal of debate on the question? If our Federalism in India article addresses the question, I overlooked it. Nyttend (talk) 23:29, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I have a hard time imagining any national government intentionally devolving decisions that are constitutionally within their jurisdiction down to the state/provincial level. It is the nature of governments to try to amass power and jurisdiction... not to give it away once they have it. Blueboar (talk) 17:11, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I guess that's a function of where you live. In NZ where we lack a written constitution which combined with parliamentary sovereignty means pretty much everything is constitutionally in their jurisdiction, we do still have local governments. And so logically the national/central government has at times devolved decision making down to local governments. E.g. [5]. Parliamentary sovereignty does of course mean they can taking the decision making back at any time, and they have also done so. And there is also frequent criticism that the government has devolved stuff to local government so that they can blame someone else when things go wrong and don't have to fund it, while not actually giving much power nor ability to fund the stuff they devolved (somewhat related [6]). But the idea that governments don't devolve decisions just seems odd to me. And I suspect anyone in the UK, where AFAIK things have are similar, in fact to a greater level considering the devolved Northern Irish, Welsh and Scottish governments. Nil Einne (talk) 20:30, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, see District of Columbia home rule. The US Constitution grants Congress the right to do whatever they want with DC (aside from general restrictions, e.g. the Bill of Rights), but Congress has devolved lots of local decisions to an elected city council, if for no other reason so that Congress doesn't have to waste tons of time on taxicab regulations and mandatory closing hours for bars. I don't remember hearing about significant objections to this practise; how many people in Oregon care about the issue, for example? In the same way, I'm curious whether the residents of Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Goa would object or acquiesce or disagree with each other, were they to hear that Parliament preferred to let West Bengal deal with an old abandoned lighthouse. Nyttend (talk) 21:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

The EU has adopted a general principle of subsidiarity ("a matter ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized authority capable of addressing that matter effectively")... AnonMoos (talk) 02:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)