Adoption & Diets

[Susiewho]

DP and I are in the early stages of considering adoption. We have a two year old DD and would like to adopt a pre-school age child.

However, we're vegan and are strictly so. Will this go against us? We would plan to bring an adopted child up with a vegan diet.

I know a family with two adopted children. The mum's vegetarian and the dad's vegan. The children have been brought up vegetarian. I presume therefore that it wouldn't write us off altogether, but I'm not sure.

Thanks for your advice. :)

I have absolutely no idea, I'm afraid. In itself, I can't see a problem, so long as you are very nutritionally aware and ensure your growing children get a good and varied diet that meets their needs.

But I think some social workers may want to investigate the 'strictly' bit. They are looking for people who are really child-centred and flexible, and will be wary of anything that sounds doctrinaire or as if you would prioritise your nutritional philosophy above a child's needs and desires.

Forgive me if it sounds like I'm saying vegans are doctrinaire: I'm really not. But if I was a social worker I might want to ask you how you would settle in a child whose stock diet was full of bacon, burgers, sausages etc. Would you insist that they ate vegan from day 1 in your house? Because familiar food is a huge comfort and if you would deny it to a newly-matched child, then yes I think that would raise alarm bells.

Are you and your dp assuming an adopted child will quickly and easily accept a vegan diet. What if they don't?

Thanks, hester.

Oh no, I'm not presuming that an adopted child would adapt to a vegan diet quickly at all. I suppose it depends on the child's age, but I appreciate that it could be a very long and tricky process. Of course, burgers and sausages etc come in veggie form too. There are some great meat substitutes available. When DD's friends come for tea, they don't realise that they're no eating meat sausages and hotdogs, for example.

We wouldn't prioritise anything over the children's needs. We believe that a good, balanced vegan diet is very healthy.

I suppose I used the word "strictly" because there are always the fish-eating vegetarians and I didn't want to be mistaken in this thread as being that. What I suppose I mean is that being vegan is very important to us.

Thanks again for your reply.

I am a vegetarian and it didn't go against me. However I wasn't planning to make them veggie if they absolutely refused. I might not agree with eating meat personally, but considering I was planning both times to adopt older children (I adopted an 10 year old first time, second time an 8 year old), you can't really force a child of that age to go veggie - if they don't want to, they'll find a way around it!

I think it will depend on the individual social workers involved. If you are prepared to be very flexible and offer a child both meat and dairy at first, and transition them slowly across, then that would satisfy me if i were the sw! Also, what would you do if the child just point blank refused to stop eating meat? To the point of long angry tantrums lasting several hours? I think its important for you to know food is often a big issues with adopted children. Since they often were starved or withheld food, they can react very badly if they think they are being denied food. e.g. when DD2 moved in, if she asked for food, and I said 'no' she would go wild and cry and scream...in blind panic because she instinctively felt she was going to be starved. And once somone has been starved of food, that gets hardwired into the brain, and food issues are not easy to overcome..in fact they can last all of someones life

Of course not all children do have food issues, but I think you would need to show that you can be pretty flexible with a child like I described above, or indeed one who has been raised on finger foods and meat and nothing else (!) and is very very picky

Also, if i were the sw, I would ask about your DD - if she sees you offering a meat choice to her new brother/sister and she demands a taste...then how would you handle that?

But some people do see a vegan diet as deficient. If you get approved, you may unfortunately find you enquire about adopting a particular child, that childs sw rejects you because you are vegan (you will have a sw, the children have their own sw, so you need both onside). Ao yes, depends on your local authority and the individual sw's

Best of luck :)

Well, I don't see why it should be a problem, then . I would sound relaxed about it in discussion with the social worker - don't raise it early on, or give it undue prominence. But be prepared to talk about practical strategies for gradually introducing an adopted child to the family's diet. I would be tempted to present it as a plan to cover several months, showing lots of flexibility to suit the child and working out what compromises you are prepared to make. For example, I can really understand how hard it would be for you to fry up a load of bacon (the smell makes me gag, and I'm not even vegan), and of course you also need to keep things going as normal for your birth child. But you may feel able to, for example, take the child for the odd burger if they have been really missing Macdonalds. Or get a friend to give them a weekly fry-up. Just until they're really familiar with and enjoying your family menus.

Excuse me if I'm sounding patronising. I'm not vegan but I have recently adopted.

Interesting post from Lilka. My dd is just 17 months, and eats a very broad diet (with a definite preference for curry). But she does have some very definite behaviours and marked anxieties around eating that may or may not prove a problem long term. Food has such enormous symbolic value: it's comfort, it's consistency, it's nurturing. Even very young children can be astoundingly intractable if you try to alter their eating habits.

As Lilka suggests, you may also encounter social workers with stereotyped views of vegans. So you'll need to think through how you present yourselves. I'm afraid all of us who go through adoption have to do this; you're basically marketing yourself to people you don't know and will never meet, who may take only a cursory glance at your information before reaching judgment on you.

But it's worth it. Good luck!

just to re-iterate what others have said food issues are very common in adopted childrne and a big change in diet may be very difficult for all of you to cope with. In DS#s case he was too young to really be bothered by the philosophy ehind food but with the huge number of changes he was trying to cope with I think a radical changein diet would have been very difficult on him (and me!), he has no current food issues but he spent some months eating until he was sick.

By the by - I assume you are aware that its unlikely you will be approved to adopt a child older than your DD so you are either presumably hoping to adopt an infant (where diet less of an issue) or be wiaitng some time for a child to be placed?

great posts from lilka and others

i think the bottom line is that that yes, it will be an issue, with your approving agency and more so with any placing agency. not an insurmountable problem, but an issue

sadly Sws seem to struggle with families who are not run of the mill. of course, its usually extra ordinary families who want to adopt in the first place.

so they leave children in the care system, while their Sw waits for their 1950s " ideal" Enid Blyton family - a opposite sex couple , in their 30s but with parenting experience but no kids at home, dad ft employed and a SAHM. not divorced or with past relationhsip and defninely no kids from these relationhsips.oh and with normal BMI and non smokers. no pets or only the right kind. with a huge family network on their door step. and no strong views on anything - political, religious, cultural, dietary, environmental etc etc

AFAIK none of the adoptive families on this board fit this ideal. they are single parents, same sex couples, mixed heritage families, step families, grandparents and other birth family members. those who practice a religion and people who are overweight and those with histories of depression. i suspect that most of them are excellent parenst, but they are not SWs " ideal family" and so they have had to fight their way through the process

i suspect you might have to do the same.

adoption is always very hard. as other have said, you have several years yet before you can apply , so I would encourage you to fully explore all the alternatives to adoption first.

Yes I am a foster carer a food is a big. Issue your almost likey to get a child who has already been weened.

Also if your adopting outside your race you have to think of cultural issues

In most cultures food plays a big part and being a vegan could separate a child from that which ss will not be happy with

Being flexible and saying I don't eat meat but I am happy for any child which comes to stay with us two will go along way

I think your bigger issue right now might be the age of your DD. I contacted 3 LAs locally before I found one who would consider assessing us before our DD was 5 yrs old. One of those LAs has now moved the bar up to 7 yrs (and that's before they will even start a home study)