Adoption shower ideas

[CraftyC]

I have offered to host an adoption shower for my best friend. They have been going through the UK adoption system for nearly 2 years and will be taking a 1 year old girl home mid May. The mum to be knows about the shower and is incredibly excited.

However all the ideas for games I have seen are pregnancy related. Does anyone have any ideas what games/activities I can do with the 15 guests in my house that doesn't mention pregnancy? Any other tips for hosting this shower to make it special for her?

Thanks

Why is it something to criticise? Joy over a long awaited adoption ? It’s clear the parents are dedicated and excited why be negative about it ? A child will be getting a loving safe and stable home with a family who are overjoyed ?

I doubt the one- year old would care.

The parents must be so thrilled, why rain on their parade?

It would not be allowed with the one year old

It's about both,

It's about people who desperately want to be parents or who want to give a child with a difficult background a stable and happy upbringing.

What's not to celebrate?

I really hope people STOP speaking on behalf of children who were adopted. It's vile.

I was adopted and my siblings put into care.

I also adopted my son

The idea of not celebrating children joining a family is horrifically sad.

Treating not just adoptive parents but adoptees themselves as " damaged " and less than.
All hush, hush, and tragic.
More funeral, than celebration.

It's disgusting. Your behaviour on this thread is cruel, gross, and offensive.

You are adding nothing but versions of disgusting stereotypes. Nothing you are typing is relevant to OP's thread.

Not to the adopting parents, I'll bet

Why are you here?

Seriously.

Just to make sure we all know how bad/sad/depressing adoption is?

How many children have you adopted?

Or, are you adopted?

What is your problem?

@Bakersdozens

What would not be allowed with a one year old?

I am adopted, and I have fostered children who went on to be adopted. I have not been offensive. You, on the other hand just have been extremely rude for no reason at all

It is really great to know where adopted people stand in the world of mumsnet. Not much upsets me to be honest, but this thread has really got to me. That we are something that should be hidden, not talked about, not celebrated, not worthy of a loving family as we are all too severely damaged and likely to cause problems forever more. All families have issues. Some of the worst teens I know are not from adopted families.

I will also say the support families and children are given these days are way more than we were ever given. I don't think we got priority on school places like now. You were not classed as a previous LAC (Looked After Child) and once the adoption was finalised that was it.

Why the hatred for adoption? Should we all be locked up somewhere, never spoken about and always thought of as lesser people just because we are adopted?

To be honest a lot of feckless idiots have children, adoptive parents have fought a long and hard battle to get their chosen children and I know I feel wanted and loved because of that.

You all say these parents must think of the children and here you are branding us with this brush that we are all vile, broken, abused, neglected (not in my case at all), shells of people who will cause nothing but issues to our parents. Fuck off anyone on this thread with your fake do gooding bullshit. You may think you know, but until you actually know what it's like, you know fuck all.

You have been extremely offensive along with a couple of other posters.

How will any of what has been proposed actually affect the child who won't even be at the party?

It's for the adoptive MOTHER

Well then I think people are making strange assumptions about the meaning of baby shower. It’s a get together before the baby arrives. It can be simple and sweet or a massive affair.

I completely agree and promise most of us aren’t this insane ❤️

Can you not acknowledge how you have been offensive?

Surely though the whole point is that the parents want to be parents and go into adoption to be parents and want a child? They’re not just doing it for brownie points or to be a good person. They want a child and to be a parent.

The adopted child needs an adult who wants to be their parent and love them as a parent to help them heal. So you want people adopting who have no parental feeling towards their new child at all?

@CraftyC as someone in a similar position this is a lovely idea and something I will also be doing and something worth celebrating if your friend wants it.

Are the parents not allowed to celebrate? Are they not allowed to feel happy that all they've longed for is finally happening?

Are they supposed to live in some sort of self-imposed purdah till the child is 18?

That’s because it was ridiculous. Like that film ‘instant family’. I don’t see how the op is doing anything remotely the same. Change the words to pre-baby get together with friends. Is that ok?

What would not be allowed?

A children finding a family is what adoption is about.

However, parents who look after their own needs are more likely to be good parents. Parents with good support networks (which is what a baby shower is about) are more likely to be good parents, and also provide their children with good modelling for building their own networks.

No one parents in a vacuum. Wanting to celebrate the imminent arrival of a baby with your friends and family is the sign of someone with healthy relationships.

Your comment about Friends (it’s a sitcom) is particularly ridiculous, but so is pretty much everything you’ve said.

A child has been abused and neglected, and likely damaged for life. A new family is taking her on and most likely has years of struggle and heart ache ahead - and most adoptions fail in the long term.

You have been both offensive and ridiculous as your comment above shows.

Adopted children are classed as vulnerable - that does not mean they are ‘damaged for life’. Most adoptions do not fail. Most adoptive parents and family experience more joy than heartbreak.

You have a very particular view presumably based on your own experiences and/or issues.

This does not make it Ok to make up nonsense facts, and refer to a vast group of people as ‘damaged for life’ - can you imagine saying that about another group?

You need to work through your own problems, not inflict your misery on others.

Adoption imo should be about a child who needs a family finding one....the purpose should not be for childless people to become parents. But I appreciate my view is unpopular

The adoption process is about finding a family for a child - the purpose is to secure the child’s future with parents who will love and care for them. The reality is that it is often childless people who seek to adopt and in doing so become parents.

We mark milestones in life - graduations, birthdays, marriages, and yes we also mark becoming parents. If this adoptive mum wants to make becoming a mum with a shower why should she not be allowed to. It’s the end of a long, difficult process and she will have a much longed for child - every child, every new family should be celebrated in whatever way is meaningful to them. It doesn’t deny the loss that everyone comes with, it doesn’t deny the child in the middle of the process.

I really hate this idea that adopters should wear a hair shirt, never able to celebrate or be happy about their child’s arrival because there is trauma and loss involved. Adoptive parenting is incredibly hard, it’s important to find joy along the way.

Must be because she’s “damaged”. 😏🙄

In my experience, it does show unrealistic expectations and its not child centred. Any party type thing for the adults involved, is about it being about the adults needs.

A party, held before the child is placed, is about the parents needs, are we denying that all parents have needs? They aren’t placing the newly arrived child in the centre of a celebratory maelstrom, they are celebrating their child’s arrival before the fact.

It may be the last time for a while that the parents can see their family and friends en mass, as their world will become quite small in the months following placement.