UK adoption vs USA

[NoGoodPunsLeft]

This is all based on tv/films but the way adoption is portrayed is vastly different in the uk and USA & I was wondering if it is accurate.

For example, in the uk it is always older children being adopted (examples: Adam & Rachel in Cold Feet & the couple in Trying) whereas always seems to be a pregnant teen/young woman in USA who gives up their baby (examples: friends, A Million Little Things).

Is it at all realistic in America?!

5863921l. What I wrote is what happened 50 years ago and is not melodramatic or untrue. Who is the truth offensive to?
Are you part of the adoption triangle from 50 years ago? If not, you don't know what happened.

It's tricky changing something when so much money is involved. I'm not a fan of either pre-birth matching or commercial surrogacy but the people making money from it or those with the money to buy what they want are going to resist as much as they can.

But he's only a child and that might change when he's older. It's wrong to make that decision for a child, and it's also wrong to make a decision that would prevent a child doing that when they are an adult*

You parent the child/ren that you have. As their mum it’s my decision to continue contact or not with their birth family - made in their best interests given what I know of the circumstances of their adoption. I don’t think you can apply a blanket idea of what’s best. Any decision I make about contact with their birth family as they grow won’t stop or prevent them having contact when they are older and I’ll support them in whatever decision they make around that. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

It’s fine that you feel your decision is the right one for you and your family, it’s not ok to suggest it’s the best or only appropriate decision to make for all children. Some children don’t want their birth family to have any information about them, some seek out contact at an age where they struggle to process the impact of that, some seek out contact as adults. No one can predict what group (or any other grouping there may be) their child will fall into. As their parent, you make the best choices you can, and build a relationship safe enough for the consequences of those decisions to be talked through openly.

@woodlandwalker

50 years ago in the UK young single girls were forced/coerced to have their babies adopted. There was no state financial support and grandparents did not want the stigma of an illigitemate baby in the family, no landlords would rent to single mothers etc. The church often organised adoptions. Luckily things are much better here now. In the USA now things are much like they were here 50 years, the only difference being adoption is more of industry.

I am in fact part of the adoption triangle from 50 years ago and there’s a lot of truth in this. It certainly was true 100 years ago, when they was no legal framework for adoption in the Uk and adoptions were arranged informally by doctors or the church. I have two relatives who were adopted like this - one in the 1920s and another in the 1940s.

My adoption in the 1960s was arranged by social services but in all other ways was the same.

Most adoptions then were very successful and I don’t think there’s any evidence that they had a poorer outcome than the current system, mediated by social workers and the courts.

One negative aspect of it ( in my opinion ) is that adoptees were often not told they were adopted until adulthood, which often caused a lot of trauma. The motivation for this was good - to protect everyone involved from the stigma of illegitimacy and infertility - but it often caused psychological distress.

Adoptees and A parents were given little background information about the child. Birth mother likewise were told little about the A parents. This was because people thought they could move on quicker, put the past behind them and move on to make a new family.

Of course things were not as easy as that, but broadly it was well intentioned and promoted by the experts of the day.

Fortunately society has moved on and single parenthood and infertility are no longer seem as problematic. But i think we need to understand that those involved thought they were doing the best for everyone, given the culture they lived in. We can’t judge then by today’s standards.

Please understand - I am talking in general terms. I’m not claiming that the system was ideal or every child / family was happy. I just think it was better that children's homes, which was the alternative at the time.

You parent the child/ren that you have.
No, you parent your children as they are now AND for what they will become in the future. You feed them right so they will grow in the future. You send them to school so they can have a fulfilling adult life with the qualifications they need as well as so they can read enjoyable books to themselves in the here and now. You tell them about puberty before they reach it. You prepare for their wish (likely for most adoptees) to meet birth family at some point in their lives, adult or teenagers. You don't cut off lines of communication if at all possible because once a trail has gone cold it's often impossible to get it back.

Adult adoptees often say they feel like they are seen as permanently children. I know I'll be my children's parent when they are adults and their wishes may be different then (neither of them are THAT bothered about contact now though and I could easily say "ah well, they don't want it").

If on-going contact is damaging for the child, then as a parent you have to balance the on-going damage with the future possibility - and it is not a given - that they will want to meet birth family.

Most adoptions then were very successful and I don’t think there’s any evidence that they had a poorer outcome than the current system, mediated by social workers and the courts.

Most adoptions these days take place after the birth parents have had every opportunity to parent their children. That means by the time the children are placed for adoption they have already experienced trauma and inadequate care. So the outcomes cannot be compared to those of relinquished babies.

@drspouse I think you’re being argumentative for the sake of it, of course you raise your children to be healthy, secure adults - you make all of those decisions in their best interests. Direct contact with birth parents is sometimes possible, appropriate and safe and sometimes it’s not. Your insistence that it’s the only way or indeed the best way doesn’t make it so.

There are other ways to foster a sense of belonging, identity and history in your adopted child, direct contact can do that, as can indirect contact, as can not having any contact where it’s not safe, desired or within the capacity of birth parents to facilitate - there’s different work there to be done to support the child but there’s no one right, or indeed best way in every situation.

We are in the process of Adopting from the US, we were told there is website called The North American connection which we can use for advice. But we can't find it.

Does anyone here have the link or are able to put me in touch with someone who has adopted from the US

US families have been banned from adopting from Russia because of case after caae of the most appalling abuse. You can see massive families on social media often with absurd numbers of children (30+) and these are kids that have been bought ( yes bought) from Russia and Ukraine. This would not be tolerated in the UK as my understanding is adoptive parents have to fulfill the same criteria for both domestic and overseas adoptions

For anyone wanting to learn more about foster and foster to adopt in the US, I find this woman really interesting:

vm.tiktok.com/ZMdEHE8Uj/

She’s a foster mum and she talks about the problems with foster care in the US (though I’m sure a lot of it is also applicable to the U.K.)

@Pix23

We are in the process of Adopting from the US, we were told there is website called The North American connection which we can use for advice. But we can't find it.

Does anyone here have the link or are able to put me in touch with someone who has adopted from the US

@Pix23 You may be better off starting your own thread as otherwise you may get replies on the original question. There is also an Adoption board which may be helpful.

I'm pregnant in a red heartbeat bill state in the US with only 1 abortion clinic. I get targeted ads on Facebook for couples seeking to adopt my (very wanted!) baby.

When you look at the 'why am I seeing these ads' settings, part of the targeting is because we live in a college city in this specific state.

It's really depressing and uncomfortable, but also totally legal.