Letterbox

[MissFenella]

Is it usual/typical for letters from parents to include 'when you are 18 and we meet again....' type stuff.

Letter from birth mum included a few 'wonderful future together' type references.

Putting aside the heart crushing 'she thinks I am babysitting' element (because that is about me not the girls) how would you couch the tone to your children?

My "cutting" comment about trauma was in response to your statement a couple of times that you had assumed OP's children had not suffered any trauma when the default position with any adopted child these days is that they have been traumatised, i was questionning (a tad sarcastically admittedly) why you would make that assumption. Is that my comment that you found shocking?

I'm surprised that a parent of a child with executive processing disorder from early life trauma is so insistent that a letter of which OP speaks couldn't be immensely damaging to a traumatised child though I do apologise for assuming you had no experience of parenting a traumatised child. We have all shared our stories on here over the years and are used to people who get involved in threads doing to same to some degree or other, I can see that this isn't the case here.

but if you make cutting, rude, disrespectful comments, you will get people coming back in the same style. It is in your control

This is pretty much exactly what I said in my very first post to Fettucine about why no-one was commenting on whether OP had been unreasonably rude to Duplodon or not. Because people posting about an issue need the support more than the person who has posted a general thought about the issue and by hectoring the OP you run two risks - that OP doesn't come back for support when so very little support is available to adoptive parents and that the thread becomes bad tempered and pointless and not one of us comes out of it with any honour intact.

In the very early days I made some comments on an SN thread about a "Downs" child rather than a child with Downs syndrome and some posters were very rude about me (way ruder than OP was to Duplodon) and I actually thought it was fair - I had wandered into their preserve (ie a life they live) and using terms which weren't acceptable and they weren't under any obligation to educate me (though I did learn pretty fast on that particular score!). I think Duplodon actually pretty much took the same approach as I did then - she listened to other posters absorbed they view and stopped.

It is in your control that is true of every one of us not just OP. We could all exercise some more control over how we post.

I think this has been one of the most unedifying threads I've seen on adoption in years (if I ignore the Melvin/thatguy threads which frankly were a whole new level of mindblowing insanity) and I suspect no-one got very much positive out of it.

So I choose to use some control and stop sniping now.

Yeah, I'm out too. Just one last comment from me, which I do think needs saying. A number of posters (including me) were supportive to duplodon up thread. Speaking just for myself, I felt bad for her after MissF's comment and wanted to hold out a hand of friendship, as it were. I chose not to challenge MssF about it because, frankly, she doesn't need that and certainly not on this thread. For me, the most constructive action was to try to re-establish a tone that was supportive to both - not to start taking sides and getting cross. A few other people did the same. It's a shame the thread didn't continue in that vein.

And now I'm gone. Pouf!

I think this thread has run it's course- There were comments posted that people took differently to how I did and I watch things unravel.

Adoption we can say what we like about how we raise our children- you like so many others assume we must be somehow inadequate because we adopt, and need to be told how to do it right. Like some others you drop by un-announced on here, tell us what we should be doing and get uppity if we try and say, adoption isn't like that.
That to me is what shone through everyone of your posts, not only did you do that you did it in a relentless supercilious manner, and just kept going and going and going trying to break people down-and I have to say you are the only poster on here I have found offensive.

I have had a letter like Miss Fs, a letter that made us out to be a temporary part of our child's life- from someone who did and allowed unspeakable things to happen to our child, and by that I do mean hers and mine. You can read up all you like, but you CANNOT know what that is like-and you cannot tell me what I should be doing, just as I cannot tell you how to help your child, because I am not living that reality.
Your child went through a horrific trauma I have no doubt-and I will not downplay all your child went through, but my child did that without a loving caring figure present, to start instant repairs.Your child like mine may never fully recover, they may carry baggage for ever about what happened. Your child's trauma is horrific, my child went through that alone. Therefore your experiences are different.

I have no doubt you will pop up once more to respond- because you do like telling us what is wrong with us, but you do us all a great disservice.

I must say I do like that your new thread (T&T) has got 'adopters' in the title.

I wonder if perhaps we should put that in all thread titles if we are asking for answers to a difficult topic we only feel adopters could help with/understand the context of.

There are plenty of things that would not apply to just adopters on this thread despite being an adoption thread. E.g. People who are debating adoption and need more sides than just that of an adopter, people who are adopted looking for support, family members of those adopted, birth parents needing support from a variety of people etc etc etc.

I appreciate Suzanne is not an adopter but her questions were slightly different to OP's, albeit on same topic, so a new thread may be better for that anyway. I think both Suzanne and MissF have lost answers in the onslaught...helpful to neither.

Just an idea....but would maybe prevent this happening again.

Ignoring the abuse, and just focusing on what kewcumber said - I said that I had assumed there hadn't been trauma because the sw had ok'd the letter - read the post again and you will see. Vast difference. After having told you one of my real life realities I find your responses utterly disgusting.

iwish - that is a good idea and similar to what i suggested - 2 threads, one for you to get support and one for general discussion. I was ripped to shreds by kewcumber.

My adoption was cut short because my adoptive parents were emotionally abusive. People tried to intervene in a friendly way at first and got short shrift. Takes me back. If you are feeling the strain, get help.

I am out too - pouf.

Oh my word adoption- if you are going to lie about your background at least be consistent in your posts
I am sure you are aware of how offensive you intended your last paragraph to be when you churned it out- but given how it utterly contradicts what you wrote a few pages ago I have to say I think you have issues that you need help with

I'm a parent but I haven't adopted. I would never say one experience was more valid than the other. I don't know if Stacey has adopted children or biological children so there was no inference that she knows less about how mothers feel as a result of being a particular kind of parent. (How nice for you all to have such a good reason to get so indignant though, that would have been a fantastic one.) However Stacey's observations and interpretations in response and to suzanne's post were warped and subtly snotty. It was clear that whatever else she may be, stacey is not in a position to relate well to women in suzanne's position. Suzanne has left the thread because of your not-quite-nice and not-quite-nasty behaviour... I'm far more concerned about that than any melodrama being created by a group of women who clearly operate as a pack and are excellent at looking after themselves.

Sorry. I'm not quite clear. Because I took the piss out of someone on t'internet I'm an abusive parent?

Crikey - Ss really have got strict innit?

With regards 2 separate threads...

I think a lot of lurkers thinking of adopting, starting the process or in middle of it, get a lot out of understanding the issues surrounding adoption, by reading others chatting about these issues and their solutions, I know I did, so possibly is best if in one place though...

Don't worry tomatoes - absolutely zero chance mn will do anything at all about the adoption topic in any way :)

tomatoes any lurking prospective adopters will be running screaming to another forum if they read this thread.

Personally I'm channelling Frozen at the moment.

Great to know that's happened in the past, baffled. Due to a horrific illness in the family over the last couple of days, I have been able to read only a small number of posters comments - maybe it's just as well!! Seems to have been a bit of a bloodbath.

I'm liable to jump in again if I notice a birth parent being politely elbowed out. Gives me the rage for five minutes and then I forget I posted

DH and I are going halfway round the world to open our home to a small number of children needing long-term care, often as a result of abuse in the family. (Won't be the first time we've worked together on something like this). As painful as it is to care deeply about children who are physically and emotionally scarred, often as the result of attacks by family members, it is equally awful to hear about the dire childhoods their parents have had and in many cases are still having. Although they may not have ultimately been able to raise their children, one or other parent had often gone to heroic lengths to try and manage somehow. I wished I could thank some of them for going through their pregnancies - a huge thing for anyone to do - and just trying, even if it wasn't ultimately enough. Many of them never had a chance in their lives. Not one. Motherless, fatherless, unable to work, unable to eat, plagued with illnesses and often not far from death, abused in every way imaginable, preyed on and sucked in by addictions without hope of accessing rehab programmes - these were people who understood exactly what had happened to them and were almost immune to emotions like bitterness or anger because there was no other, fairer life to compare with their own. Rather than assuming that birth parents are riddled with negative feelings, rather sinister in terms of their attitude to their birth children or to adoptive parents - or at the very least inferior to those adoptive parents deemed more suitable than they were by social services - it should be on our collective conscience that we've created a world where it can be so difficult to raise our children, often unequally difficult. These are people who are often spoken to as if they're not quite on a par with 'proper' parents - but I respect anyone who will give life to and carry a child I will eventually come to love. And I sympathise because there is bound to be a part of them that never stops mourning that loss.

Saturnvista, with all due respect, I appreciate you think that you are teaching us something new but if you had been through the training we have, if you had the knowledge we have about the birth families of our children, then you would know that everything you've just said we already know and we already agree with.

This isn't me sticking up for others, or saying you need to be in the 'adoption club' and if all the posts that you've posted hadn't come before it I'd have replied with "it's so nice someone who hasn't been in this situation has such a great insight " Yep EVEN a ! However, it does very much feel like we're all being a bit patronised in the way youre doing it, if I'm entirely honest. Maybe you don't mean it that way but that is how it is coming across.

I personally am most worried about loss of lurkers, adopters AND birth parents. This has always been such a friendly place where everyone can gather so much info and Kew may very well be right that this one thread will turn others away in droves. Thank you for your input, IF there is anything else you'd like to add maybe you could do one final post and leave it at that and we can all move on to other threads.

I write this knowing you will be angered by it and I'm sorry but I don't think you're thinking about everyone who is reading this, it is an open forum after all.

Oh fuck. I've been having a pop at mother Teresa...

Saturn I don't know whether you are posting here to intentionally or unintentionally cause offence to so many people in one post. I'm pretty certain the way you keep coming back to do so it means you're doing it intentionally. If not you would have learned to review and moderate your post after your previous post that caused so much offence.
Clearly your recent post is yet again a dig at adopters on how we view and how we should view our children's birth parents no matter how well you think it's been disguised as something else.
We make no assumptions about how our children's birth parents perceive us and it's sad that a non adopter with apparent experience such as yourself makes assumptions about how we feel about birth parents.

"This has always been such a friendly place where everyone can gather "

Sorry but this is not the case at all.

I have watched this forum for several years. I understand that many of you feel that this is a support group for those who want to become a parent by adoption. You are mostly kind people with good intentions. You have had training and some of you are some years into developing your experience of adoption.
Occasionally visitors arrive, those who have been adopted in the past or those who have lost family members. They may offer ideas formed through decades of experience of the adoption journey.
Their input is rarely welcome. If they are unfortunate to say something truly inconvenient, the rottweilers emerge and the bullying starts. It seems that the only welcome role for adopted people and original families on this forum, is to be patronised. Many of those who post are seeking validation rather than advice. I accept that if if I offer my experience and advice, it will potentially hurt those who are dealing with difficult situations and tenuously holding on to hopes and expectations that adoption may ultimately fail to fulfill.
My advice won't be respected, accepted or help any children.

So I don't speak.
Also I don't want to be bullied.

I think that it is time for mumsnet to separate the forum to allow different voices to be heard.

I won't be responding to any follow up posts.

Yes of course, if I hold a different view and post on a thread more than once, it means I'm just trying to offend you

Calm your jets as we say in this part of the world :)

I wasn't trying to disguise my post, I was aiming to be quite transparent about how I feel about birth parents contrasted with how the birth parent on this thread was elbowed out and felt she had to leave. Many others posters have agreed that there is a problem with the way you regular adoptive parents treat those who don't share your circumstances. Rather than clutching your pearls and trying to spot offence everywhere, I think you should work at demonstrating that you share the respectful, inclusive attitude towards birth parents that you apparently all have. Because it didn't come across - not even vaguely.

You've now had lots of feedback from a variety of sources confirming that others also find it a problem. It's up to you to do something about it.

Now need to direct my energies towards a tragic situation that is unfolding in my RL.

I haven't posted on this thread up to now, but feeling thoroughly pissed off and patronised by some posts. Rottweilers? Really??

This forum and the support contained is so so appreciated. No we don't always agree on everything, and yes sometimes it feels that the anti adoption brigade like to troll in here to stir everything up; but on the whole the threads are supportive and all new posters can help to give a different perspective. I'm a relative newbie (only one year in) but can already see what a minefield letterbox contact is. We've just been told that bf will be sending birthday cards, which we are really unhappy about- not because we don't want to teach our LO emotional intelligence, or because we dislike the bf (we don't, we really feel for them, despite pointless delays to the AO); but because we want our LO to celebrate her birthdays like every other child deserves to do, without the very real prospect of her feeling rejected when/if bday cards are erratic.

I appreciate the thread has moved on, but the crux of the matter is that we can't reveal details of each bf to explain why we think some aspects of the letterbox system can be fraught with problems, we're all just muddling on the best we can. If any birth parent faced this issue then believe me, it would cause similar angst. It is a minefield, and patronising us over this is really not helpful.

I am so sorry you feel that way.

I do think, from my understanding, that there is a big difference in adoption now and decades ago in terms of what children are told, how it is treated, contact etc. So maybe people feel that the advice may not be as applicable???? (as most adopters, if not all, have adopted more recently) That is definitely a question not a statement. Though I would certainly hope you would not be shot down for giving it and definitely not bullied.

I personally think it is just as important to hear the negatives as well as the positives. Not all adoptions are happy ones, not all are positive, not all fulfill what people wanted out of them. It's important to hear all to prepare for all eventualities because just because for one family it was all happy endings, doesn't mean it will be for another and vice versa.

I think the nature of this topic, whether you're an adopter, adopted, or a birth family member is so emotional that people do get more upset, defensive etc and that does not always result in positive posts but we're all in the middle of it aren't we, so we can't switch it off.

I go back to my suggestion of us all highlighting who you are asking/talking to in the post title to get the most support/validation/best answers. The other thread for those previously adopted, last time I looked, seems to be going well.

Once again I'm so sorry that it's good for many but not all. And this post was definitely meant as one of good will. I'm sorry if any of it has not come across right.

That was for Offredalba...

And when I say not as applicable, I meant they should still be posted but maybe the responses you've got have dismissed it on their particular case they are commenting on?? Again only a question!