Advice for managing wider family

[BinToHellAndBack]

I currently have two children and may or may not have another soon. The plan is to also adopt, but a few years down line. Maybe an older child/siblings, but mostly just whatever is right for everyone at that time.

There is one family member who is, um, challenging. My (possibly unfounded) fear is that they could be negative about adoption. Obviously if this were the case we would state firmly that it is unacceptable, and manage the situation in whatever way best protected all our children. There's every chance they could be wonderful about it too, which would be great. If there's any way that I can encourage things in the latter direction then I'd very much like to.

So, I was wondering whether it would be better to casually mention the intention soon so that the seed is sown and any feelings can be mulled over and raised massively in advance, or if that might just give more time to create problems that needn't have arisen. In which case it might be best to broach the subject at the time.

Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing, or am I massively over-thinking it?

You are massively overthinking it.

Firstly if you are thinking of adopting an older child or siblings (which of necessity at least one will be "older" there will in all likelihood need to be a 2-3 year age gap between your youngest and eldest adopted so if you consider a sibing gorup say 3 and 5 year old, your youngest would need to be 6 or 7 when you start the process.

Given that you don;t seem to be currently pregnant I would say that 7-8 years in advance seems a little far to be worrying about it!

Thanks Kewcumber!

Yes, probably 3-5 years in the future realistically. Ridiculously far in the future I know , I just wouldn't want to cause any issues from now by not saying something IYSWIM. But I expect you're right

This particular person is rather obsessed with knowing as much detail as possible about our life and future and can get HUGELY offended (and do petty things in revenge) if it turns out they weren't in the know of something from the very conception of an idea.

They once went on a secret holiday (swearing others to secrecy also) as they hadn't been informed that we were thinking of going on our own holiday somewhere. We told them 2 months before we actually went.

Obviously that's a trivial matter, but I was feeling a bit daunted at the possible repercussions from something so big.

This particular person is rather obsessed with knowing as much detail as possible then you need to think about this very carefully. Because there will be a great deal about adoption (Including the circumstances of your childs background) which it is not appropriate to share. And you only have to read the threads on quite well meaning family to realise that people do have difficulty with keeping details quiet.

If you feel obliged to even share holiday details some time in advance with this person I can only imagine the pressure you will come under to tell them every detail related to the adoption and that really isn't fair on a child.

By all means share with them that you're considering adoption whenever you like but I have a feeling that you will be forever falling out with them over your insistence on keeping details to yourself.

How are you going to deal with that?

We told family at beginning of process , we had to as DD told everyone we were getting a baby as soon as Sw doing assessment met our DD ,and i was getting congratulated by all !

we also had some family who believed we would be ruining our DD life by bringing in another child , then wanting to know why our placed child was given away in the first place.

develop a thick skin , believe in what you are doing is the right thing and we told people that our AC was loved by the parent but they couldnt look after her the way she neeeded.

you will come across all sorts of peoples wierd opinions and some people seemd to believe our AC would have two heads , but now although still curious they see that she is just a lovely happy smily baby who needs love , like all children whether adopted or not . And our two children adore each other xxx

I think you need to work on getting some firmer boundaries in place with this person. If she gets offended that's just tough really. The road to adoption can be long and rocky and there may be very good reasons why you can't share details, apart from not wanting to. Besides, do you share details of your sex life and ttc strategies with her leading up to getting pregnant with a birth child?

You all raise totally valid points about the whole process involving all sorts of details that they should and will not be privy to. I guess that will require some management at the time. And it may or may not cause offence, but yes tough luck indeed, I have no intention to pander to unreasonable nosiness.

However, I do think that the more people who can have a loving role in a child's life the better, and so I want to give them the best chance of reacting in a way that means they can be part of all our kids lives in a positive way.

I guess I just wondered if by being open about our intention from well in advance (and yes, total overkill thinking this far in advance, I do accept that! ) then we'd be able set them up to expect all the ins and outs that they wouldn't be allowed to know about. Just to pre-empt any issues really so that they wouldn't be raised in an 'injured' panic once the process had begun and they felt out of the loop.

Defo agree with the firmer boundaries comment! Dealing with this relative has been a real learning curve for us a couple and we're discovering that if we are firm and clear about what we're comfortable with then the dramas are smaller than when we try to give in a little to their bonkers demands!

There's no way I'd put their feelings on the matter above what was best for child/children involved in the adoption. If it came to it we'd tell it to them straight and cut contact as a last resort. It would be nice to avoid that though, hence wondering if letting them know our hopes for the future at this point might help.

Perhaps best to leave if for now!

I told people (including family) that we were considering adopting even before DS (BC) was born. I made it clear that it wouldn't be for a long time yet - at the time I suggested about 6 years at least. Do think it helped some people to have time to get used to the idea though it is impossible to say how it would have turned out otherwise.

In the end we started the process a lot sooner than anticipated - when DS was three. We didn't tell people until assessment was well under way; some people only after having been approved; and some people only when we had a moving in date. Some people were very surprised as they had not expected it to happen so soon; and some may have been a bit miffed at not having been told (that we had actually started the process) sooner.

So I'd say it can be great to get people thinking about adoption in a general sense (but do manage their expectations!)
But would you let this particular relative in on the fact that you were now going to info evenings and looking for an agency that will take you on? That's a bit like telling them 'oh btw we have started TTC' and I personally wouldn't tell hardly anyone. And if you don't tell this particular person when you (try to) start the process, they will be miffed anyway, no matter how long they will have known about your general plans.

Having everyone know that we were thinking about adoption for DC2 really helped ward off all those 'so when are you going to start trying for DC2' questions!

Thanks 64 for you comment, for some reason I didn't notice it at the time.

Good to hear your stance on it as well, and I like the idea of telling people in advance that we're hoping to adopt in the future but not actually announcing the start of the process.

Yes, this person will always be miffed! It's just a case of managing them with the least fallout, whilst not compromising ours or our children's (or future children's) right to privacy .