'Adult Adoption Families, a new normal': Adult adoptions are on the rise

Adult adoptions are on the rise and offer instant sense of belonging among an increasing number of people around the world

Feb. 14, 2022, 1:18 PM EST

By Kenyon R. Dudley

The institution of family, constantly restructuring its forms and formations in various places, is assuming a new expression as a rising number of adults formally adopt other grown men and women. These new recipients of a sense of belonging are instantly engrafted into a family structure that gives them a taste of home. While there is no one reason that can truly be attributed to the cause of this rise, I suspect there are a few factors that might play an integral part in this sudden upsurge of a new family dynamic. For example, the new hit A&E TV series, Adults Adopting Adults, premiered January of 2022 with a 10-episode storyline following adults who have taken the big step to adopt other adults. Adoptees range from their 20s to late 30s, as they sojourn the way of marrying their world to the world of their adopted families. A new way of blended family for sure. Right at the cutting-edge of this new way of family is the innovative viral virtual group, the Adult Adoption Network created by Jasmine B. Dudley.

“Out of a past filled with so much pain and a present desire to be adopted as a married woman with kids, I felt the need to create the Adult Adoption Network,” says Jasmine. She is a 32-year old millennial who used her basic tech skills to create an app for Apple and Android in 2020 during the pandemic; a time where most adults were quarantined and shut off from the world. Like Jasmine, there were so many who found that they had this secret desire to be adopted. For most of them, the pandemic brought this desire from the shadows into the light of standing in their truth. With her husband and team by her side, she launched the Naomi’s Connect app that matched motherless daughters with daughterless mothers around the world.

As the months progressed she and her team realized that the need was greater than just mothers and daughters. In fact, there were both men and women all over the world who looked for the solution of being placed in a loving family. So Jasmine decided to create a private social media group on Facebook that would allow anyone who met the criteria of joining the group to come in and receive the benefit of linking up with potential mothers and fathers who were willing to adopt adults. Within just one year, the group climbed to 1000 members, and adults were finding their home and their place in families around America.

Jasmine agrees that since the hit TV show, Adults Adopting Adults, have begun to air on the A&E Network, and replay on networks such as Lifetime, her numbers has soared through the roof within just a month’s time. A group that was once at 1K is now almost at 2K within just a few weeks, “And the numbers keep trending upward,” she says. “Of course, with an uptick in the number of people joining the group, we also have had an uptick in scammers. I want this to be a safe and effective solution to the world of adults who truly desire to just belong to a loving family,” says Jasmine. Since then, Jasmine Dudley has led her team to the victory of creating another safe and more effective network group for adults who still want to be adopted. Her system, the Adult Adoption Network, has partnered with ID Verification Company Vouched and Mighty Networks to ensure a safe all-in-one community for serious adults who seriously want to be adopted, and for those parents who seriously want to adopt an adult.

The new app community not only offers safety through professional ID verification, but it has a functionality that allows the adult adoptee member to narrow down their preferences by common interest and location. Because after-all, “What good is a mother or a father that wants to adopt you, but you live in Ohio and they live in Nova Scotia,” words of the Adult Adoption Network’s Chief Operations Officer. The network also has features such as e-courses, e-books, and various online resources to help the families within the system build healthy relationships as they are connecting in the legal sense or adopting at the heart. “Hundreds are already experiencing the joy of being placed in families that love them, and we project that pretty soon thousands of success stories will arise like the many we have in our online groups now,” says CEO and Founder of the Adult Adoption Network, Jasmine B. Dudley.

“Adult adoptions are increasing,” according to Chuck Johnson, President and CEO of the National Council For Adoption, an advocacy group based in Alexandria, VA. “While the precise number is not tracked, dozens occur annually.” This is no small occurrence, it’s actually a phenomenon, keeping in mind that just a little under a decade ago adult adoption was not even a thought about. Our usual systems of engrafting perfect strangers into a family—especially in America—was through the foster care system. And it goes without saying how damaging much of this system may have been to many kids as they were passed from foster home to foster home. Many of which were homes that were run by those who only desired a check for taking care of the misplaced kids. Since then the foster care system in America has tried to tighten its reigns on a system that has done its best to place children in-need into loving families. Still, “more than 23,000 children will age out of the US foster care system every year,” according to Social Race Media. When a child in the foster care system has reached the age of 18 years old, 20% of them will instantly become homeless. Left to fend for themselves and most of the time with no family to rely on; they do what they can to survive and make it in the world. Jasmine Dudley, has had her share of the system as well. Because of a childhood of sexual and physical abuse, she was left in the hands of a few family members and friends-who-had-parents that kept her at various times during her rearing. Yet, she still became officially homeless at the age of 18. Through various divine interventions and a lot of hard work to press forward, Jasmine Dudley has now become the CEO and Founder of her own viral adult adoption network, adult adoption app, and various programs that help place adults in families that care. “I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, and I just believe that this is the will and plan for my life…to help other adults like me find hope and a future through the love of parents and a family,” says the millennial CEO and rising activist for adult adoption.

In most states, adopting adults is legal. There are only a few states that have minor stipulations regarding this act, but Jasmine B. Dudley’s Adult Adoption Network, among other credible resources, provide details for various states if you desire to adopt an adult in your area. But Jasmine wants to make it clear that you don’t have to legally adopt an adult in order for that adult to feel like they’re a part of your family. Some adults may adopt grown men and women who may be their stepchild, and because of inheritance reasons, they want to ensure that the adult-child is included and taken care of. Other adults might legally adopt a man or a woman who was once their only caregiver. Perhaps the adult who needed care had no children and they made a conscious and heart-felt decision to adopt the caregiver so that their inheritance can be in the hands of someone they trust after their gone. But these are very limited reasons why an adult would be adopted by another adult. There are all sorts of cases, and the reasons are too vast to express here. Even still, adult adoption never has to be legal unless consented upon by both parties: the adoptee and the adopted. “Within this uptick in new families being formed we are seeing that many people are simply wanting to be adopted of the heart,” says Jasmine. She states that within her group, most of the adults who want to be adopted are simply asking for a family to take them in as their own: love them and their spouses, children, or significant others like their own. And this dynamic has proven just as successful and satisfying as legal adoption for many. “The idea is to satisfy the sense of belonging more than anything,” says one of the Adult Adoption Network members.

“I must admit, I had my doubts coming into the Adult Adoption Network. I saw Adults Adopting Adults on TV, and then went searching social media for a potential group that would help find me a set of parents. The only group I found was AAN. But coming in, I thought I’d just be another small fish in the midst of such a sea of people who were just like me. I didn’t think I’d ever get matched with a set of parents. That is until a few months in, and they found me.” A testimony of a young college-student from Ohio who found his mother-figure within a darling woman who has a husband, 6 biological children, a host of grandchildren, and who has fostered over 40 people (including adults).

“People from all walks of life and backgrounds have shown up in our network,” says Jasmine Dudley. “We have those that have been physically and sexually abused, those who may be disabled in some way, those who were put up for adoption at an early age, those who were passed around from foster home to foster home, we have professionals who still want to be adopted, college students, African Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, Africans, I mean you name it. The need to feel wanted and apart of a family doesn’t just exist within one group of people. It’s a basic necessity of the human race altogether, and I’m so glad that our network was in place and ready to connect adults everywhere with loving homes.” I’d say that Jasmine Dudley and her team were more than ready, they understood the depth of a need that has been in the hearts of so many for decades.

“It is my vision to scale our adult adoption community to the level of other matchmaking social network platforms such as Tinder and E-Harmony. Pretty soon, we’ll have millions of adults around the world having opportunities and second-chances at having a family. We also look forward to the continuation of providing professional services to our group members such as professional counseling services, family-relationship webinars, in-person and virtual events that foster and encourage adult adoption, and much more.”