Can birth parents change?

[darkriver19886]

I see a lot of threads that say birth parents can't make positive sustainable changes and it just makes me feel so powerless.

I want to change. I just feel it's all stacked against me.

I see a lot of threads that say birth parents can't make positive sustainable changes

I made a comment about this earlier. I hope that is not what you thought it meant. Anyone can change, but change is hard. Realistically (when dealing with thousands of people) many BPs have made a choice not to change and to repeat toxic patterns. That means that any policy or system has to account for the fact that most who get to the point of removal will not change without enormous intervention. There will be many people who have made positive change who do not get to that point.

But none of that means anything for an individual. We all have choices. There is a huge range in the reasons for adoption, even if some stories do recur a lot. From what I know you were not like the 'typical' BPs to start with, but you are certainly different in your desire to change.

Be kind to yourself: we all fail a lot; change is hard. Do what you can to help your situation and live your life the way you chose to, not to some imaginary standard or distant goal.

It's not just a comment here, it seems everywhere.

I have been in therapy for 14 months and had hoped I would have made more progress. I am very much self loathing and just feel a failure.

I think for many the years of chaotic lifestyles and generational abuse and neglect mean that for many birth parents sustainable change is just one step too far. This is seen the in many cases of baby number 5,6,7 plus being removed and put into care.

HOWEVER, as in everything there are acceptions to the rule. There are birth parents who do change and do go on to successfully parent subsequent children. We have fostered two babies (separately) who due to a long family history were removed with adoption being a very real possibility. For one of these children they were child number 3. However, with the right support and a real desire to change they both were successfully rehabilitated home to birth parents and 4/5 years on still doing very well. The birth parent of our own AC is now successfully parenting baby no 4. It is still early days and unknown yet as to whether she will sustain this but with the right interventions she is doing ok at the moment.

So there are some (I wish I had statistics to encourage you with) who can make the sustained change to allow them to parent themselves in the future. Dark river, I know there is a lot I don’t know about you, but from what I read of you on here I truly believe that you have the motivation to succeed in your life. You are independently getting the support in place for this, and so if and when in the future you feel ready to be a parent again I think you can do it. Maybe you don’t want to parent again but I think you will go on to have a meaningful life that your girls would be proud of, and one day I pray for you they will see it for themselves.

OP I almost commented on this on your birth parent support thread, but didn't want to get in the way of the support element.

But before I get on to my soapbox, OP your second post is more to do with your feelings and counselling - it might be worth posting on different sections of mumsnet about your situation and seeing if you get different recommendations about people who have more experience about the things affecting you - leaving the birth parent/adoption issue out of it, ie change your username, and focus on what you are trying to achieve in terms of recovery and see if you can get some useful advice?

So, on my soapbox, I think that it is incredibly unhelpful to lump birth parents into one amorphous group.

If a birth parent has learning difficulties which are too severe to enable them to look after dc without support, they will not change. If they have mental illnesses they may not be able to change. If the birth parents are wilfully violent or abusive, they won't change. And so on. But for those who were referred to on your thread, and probably the majority, who don't want to lose children, who are not intentionally abusive, who love their children, they need a different way of communicating to be used and a different kind of help from what they are currently getting. If they themselves have not ever experienced decent parenting, they will not have a single clue what changes are needed unless they are told in a way they understand

I think that changing how things are communicated to birth families with far more and regular input from psychologists working with child protection services, and restructuring the service so that there were teams dedicated to birth parents would make a difference - I know that in some authorities there are teams dedicated but they describe themselves as last chance saloon and it isn't effective. It could be more effective.

For addicts it is complicated obviously, a myriad of possible reasons and outcomes.

For those who choose abusive men, again, it is likely that they are following patterns taught to them in childhood and with a different kind of help earlier on then there could be different outcomes.

My view is that for some of these families (NB - some) training followed by ongoing support at home and the ability to require changes, continuing for years, would be better for the children and cheaper for society and better for society.

I desperately want to parent again, Don't get me wrong I am not going to run out and find the first man to impregnate me. Mainly because I don't roll like that but, I will forever fear the social services knocking my door down to take that child as well. Probably why I have made no effort to find a new partner in the last three years. I miss being a parent, I miss reading to my girls every night. I miss the trips to the parks, the routines and the percieved love I thought we had. Which obviously we didn't.

I fear I won't be cured in the way that social services would want for me. The nature of my mental illness means there are a couple of ways for healing to happen but, only one is seen acceptable in medical circles even though the evidence is showing that its not the recommend treatment anymore. I KNOW once I deal with the trauma that is the root of it all I can live a stable life but, the trauma is so ingrained. I am also still carrying the guilt of losing the girls and the fact that I deteriorated.

I have started making positive moves such as committing to therapy and also cutting contact with my mother who is still with my childhood abuser. I never allowed him near the girls but, my mum was still in contact. It was only recently that I felt strong enough to go NC and actually Mumsnet helped me do it. I had to do it though for my own sanity.

It such a slow road, I think this stemmed from listening to an adoption podcast that featured the opennest conference, it had the woman that ran the child protection resource on it. Also its been adoption week and finally there was a youtube video about someone with the same mental health condition as me saying basically "I have this and I can parent!" all in all it made me feel rubbish and low and ultimately powerless.

p.s sorry for the length of this post. You can tell I am a writer. lol

I think everyone is capable of change and in many many years working with families I can count on one hand the number of parents who didn’t want to care for their children. The reality is though that love and wanting to are sometimes not enough to effect lasting change particularly when you add in the impact of child protection processes and removal of children which are necessarily challenging processes. Throw in poverty, trauma, poor education, and there’s a bit of a mountain to climb.

Mental health services are pretty scarce and parents whose lives are chaotic can struggle to engage with the medical system even where services are available. Services are also often time limited whereas it can take someone years to work through developmental trauma to a place of resilience and stability - many birth families simply don’t have the resources to do this privately and it’s the private and third sector that often have the understanding and flexibility to work with chaotic presentations.

In saying that, I’ve seen some amazing examples of long term change - too many to say it’s not possible, often the change is supported by long term, accepting relationships where the individual feels met in their chaos and has some level of internal resilience.

@darkriver there’s absolutely no reason why you couldn’t get to a place of being able parent well. You’re working on yourself and are incredibly self aware - and honestly 18 months is no time at all in working with folk who have survived childhood trauma, in my case I was just getting started at the 18 month mark.

Thank you, everyone. I know 18 months is unrealistic, I need to give myself time. I am not very good at that.

@sassygromit your right it's wrong to lump people in together but society does. I have taken your suggestion of reaching out elsewhere with a name change of course.

People can change but it's whether they can change in the right amount of time. Complex issues can take years to resolve, even if someone is willing. By the time they are resolved, children may have grown up. I think it's more about making sustainable changes quickly. Children are children for a short amount of time really.

You say the percieved love I thought we had. Which obviously we didn't.

I disagree. Every post you make shows the love you had, and still have. What you didn't have - in the past - was the environment to turn that love into the day to day care (and slog) that was needed, at that point in your life.

My DDs came into my life (through respite) in my mid 30s. I could not have given then what they needed when I was 20, or probably when I was 30. Or even when they started coming to me for respite, I would not have been able to care for them effectively full time. I grew into it.

Please don't give up. You matter too much.

@darkriver19886 I am so sorry for all the pain you are in. I honestly do believe people can change, circumstances can changes, things can improve.

Having identified things in your relationship/situation with your mum that are not helpful then stopping contact with her may well be a great move for you.

How can I explain this without knowing your full situation? I am old, now, well, fifties, I've lost both my parents to perfectly normal illnesses etc at the time one would expect to lose them, I've had a few slightly unusual and difficult experiences in home life in terms of difficulties with kids, my own OCD and eating disorder, and I've had a lot of counselling* and spent a lot of time trying to make sense of things...

I was going to use the dreaded 'one' instead of saying you, or me, or I or whatever but I've decided to say 'we' and that means anyone this applies to... here goes....

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that life is very unfair, and difficult, but we simply have to find a pathway through it.

We have to take everything offered to help us, and we have to avoid those things that do not help us.

We have to speak very kindly to ourselves and value ourselves. So difficult for some but we must try.

We have to work out a way that will make life the least painful in the long run.

Your love for your children is so clear and obvious to all of us regulars who read your posts.

jellycatspyjamas and sassygromit offer excellent advice and you dear dark river always seem to respond well to advice, comments etc.

100% agree with Allington "Please don't give up. You matter too much."

We MUST be kind to oursevles

It is hard to make sustainable changes. This doesn't just apply to birth parents, how many people do we all know who have been on multiple diets and tried to give smoking? On average a person will try to leave an abusive relationship 7 times and are more likely to be killed when they leave it than at any other point during it. Change is hard and scary. Birth parents may have to give up survival strategies they've used to cope with their own traumatic experiences possibly including self medicating with drugs and alcohol. Also they have to admit that it is something they've done that has caused the removal of their child.

I think you're right a large part of the problem is that there are simply not the long term support services available for birth families. It seems resources are only deployed when there is a risk to a child.
The fact is that preventative measures would actually save money in the long term. 50% of those in young offenders institutions have been in care at some point and studies show that a disproportionately large proportion of the adult prison population have either been in care or grown up in abusive or addicted households.

During our adoption preparation course we were told of a woman who repeatedly had children knowing they would be removed from her. She felt she was doing something good for the adoptive parents.

Since our adoption order was granted, I have met several adoptive parents whose children have younger siblings that have been allowed to stay with their birth families so change is possible.

For adoptive parents, I think sometimes the idea that birth parents can't change helps them feel that adoption was in their child's best interests. In an age of social media when finding members of your birth family is only a click away, the fear of adopted children finding them and its impact on everyone's lives is real.

Thank you everyone for your kind words and advice. I guess in the end all I can do is keep trying to move forward. Keep attending therapy, working on my house skills and learn to deal with the grief of losing the girls.

It's hard though, I have just watched my brother go through it again. He has already lost two children but because he hasn't made any positive changes, it's looking unlikely he will be able to parent his unborn child.

For adoptive parents, I think sometimes the idea that birth parents can't change helps them feel that adoption was in their child's best interests. In an age of social media when finding members of your birth family is only a click away, the fear of adopted children finding them and its impact on everyone's lives is real.

I think this is true as well as @ifchocolatewerecelery. God knows what social media will be like in 12 years' time. I spent the last year hiding my profile worried about being sought mainly by the adopters. I realized that was pointless when I started sharing my blog on Twitter. I don't talk that much about adoption on there but, my pictures are all over it.

During our adoption preparation course we were told of a woman who repeatedly had children knowing they would be removed from her. She felt she was doing something good for the adoptive parents.

This breaks my heart. Sounded like she needed support to deal with it, did she get help in the end?

I come from a family that involved abuse and children in care.

I think it sounds like you’re sustaining effort to change, can’t say fairer than that Whether you’ve changed or not I obviously can’t say but my point is that it’s the trying that counts, the process, rather than the outcome because there’s lots of variables that affect whether someone can actually change and we don’t often have control over all of them.

But speaking bluntly, I’m wary of this notion that all birth parents need to change is more support and that they’re victims of their own upbringings. Of course most of the time they were victims of abusive families, but there’s lots of who still managed to rise to the challenge of adequately caring for children. Adequately being the key word because generally the bar is set very high when it comes to removing children.

My opinion is that some people are just simply innately unable to prioritise others whether that’s because they’re too selfish or don’t have the cognitive capability.

I absolutely believe in giving birth parents whose children are adopted support, but you have to draw the line somewhere and I get really irked at this idea that they’re victims who could change with support. They may have been victims, but at some point they also became abusers, be it physical, sexual, emotional or simple neglect. Meanwhile there are lots of us included adopted kids who are genuinely straightforward victims as we are gamekeepers who never turn into poachers so to speak. It’s insulting to blame everything on upbringing because there are many people who have dreadful ones and even if they’re shitty parents, they’re not shitty enough to have their children forcibly removed.

I’m not talking about you necessarily as from what I’ve read you yourself was clear that adoption was best for your girls and you have a serious mental illness. At the risk of sounding really patronising, I think you show a lot of self-awareness and self-analysis and have seemed driven by doing the best for your girls. Which is love. Actions speak louder than words.

IME actions v words is where a lot of birth parents show themselves up. So easy to SAY your kids are your world and you’ll do everything, but if you’re leaving them alone most evenings to go to see your lover as my partner did, or prioritising dating, drinks and drugs in anyway, well ...Words can be empty.

And being really, really blunt: no amount of therapy will stop a birth mother from having severe learning difficulties or being of dangerously low intelligence (to the point they endanger their children).

Oops unfortunate autocorrect - not partner, but parent. My poor DH would never dream of doing such a thing!!

At an individual level of course you can change, sort out addiction and mental health problems, get a stable job, decent housing etc. But if you look across birth parents in general very few change significantly, there's a lady here whose had 7 kids removed, all addicted to crack at birth and fas... poor kids have no chance really even with excellent adoptive parents (at least they have a chance and the younger ones were placed with their adopters at birth at least.

But everyone has free will and can change

It’s insulting to blame everything on upbringing because there are many people who have dreadful ones and even if they’re shitty parents, they’re not shitty enough to have their children forcibly removed.

I agree with this, there’s a point when people need to decide to change - to deal with the impact of their own abuse, to educate themselves, to find employment etc or to simply put their child’s needs first. It’s very hard if you had a shitty childhood, but it’s not impossible. It does however take some firm decision making and determination - support isn’t enough because ultimately no one can support you 24/7. Trauma, poverty, social exclusion, addiction all make it much much harder to parent well - but many people who have all of these issues do parent to a good enough standard.

I understand what your saying. One of my big failures was not dealing with the trauma before having children. I accept that.

I accept full responsibility for what happened. I am not saying I don't. I know that is a problem for many BPs that they don't accept they were the problem.

I hold myself accountable everyday for it. When I told the social worker that I knew adoption was the best thing for the girls, months before it went to court it was because I knew that was true.

It sucks hugely to be so self aware. I wish I could live in the bubble of ignorance sometimes.

It sucks hugely to be so self aware. I wish I could live in the bubble of ignorance sometimes

Self awareness is great, but self compassion is utterly life changing.

Yep I hear ya on wishing to be in a bubble Jellycat’s point is very wise. I think we need both.

Just to be crystal clear, when I was talking about personal accountability and not blaming background I was talking generally, as your point was general. Not about you specifically. And I massively respect you for recognising that adoption was the best thing (to echo you; I’m not making a judgment as of course I don’t know!!)

My grandmother refused to let her sister adopt my dad even though it meant he stayed in a children’s home rather than be part of a loving family and ironically have the chance of more contact with his mum than he got through the home. I hold that against her because the children’s home was abusive, but even if it wasn’t a private family would still have been preferable.

@Bootstraps we had something similar in my family, my mum's uncle remarried and his second wife hated his son by his first. My grandma offered to adopt him but he was put in a home instead. No one knows what happened to him.

oh @ifchocolatewerecelery that's heartbreaking

@ifchocolatewerecelery That's awful :(

@bootstraps I was/am too - more deliberately vague emoticons if they exist.

I completely agree about personal responsibility and you can't blame your childhood for things. But at the moment more and more children are being taken into care, and my experience of children's homes is the same as yours - and only a fraction of the children end up in permanent loving homes where their needs are met - and this is why I think it is worth fighting to help birth families where help could solve the problems (and having people in the home, cracking the whip...). And also fight to ensure adoptive families get the right help. Our social supports in the UK are appalling.

Though... I do also think that innately selfish people who cannot put a child's needs first are like that because of how they were brought up and early life experiences... but it is a reason, not an excuse, as far as I am concerned.

@sassygromit oh I completely agree with you about UK social support being appalling and the need to provide more support/education/training to birth families (and everyone else involved and those requiring no -adoption-related social care too while we’re at it).

What I’m getting at though is I think people (generally speaking) would be kidding themselves if they thought that sufficient support for birth parents was all it took to prevent them losing their children. There are some cases where from a physiological point of view, some birth mothers are physically and/or incapable of adequately parenting (likewise birth fathers but for simplicity sake I’ll just refer to birth mothers). Eg if a birth mother has schizophrenia and a history of refusing to take her meds, or if they are severely incapacitated due to an accident or illness. I have a huge amount of sympathy for these people who are dealing with terrible circumstances outside (or largely outside) their control.

And in other cases, the amount of “support” it would take would be immense and would still ultimately rest on whether the birth mother consistently engaged or was cognitively able to. In the instance of the anecdote shared above of the mother who kept having babies and thought she was helping - that may take a really, really long time to unpick, and frankly it’s a possibility that it couldn’t be done due to fundamental learning difficulties, or undiagnosed so long-standing and ingrained ways of thinking due to autism and other conditions.

As for innately selfish people - yes we disagree here. I think early life experiences are a significant factor but only one, especially since crucially as I said before the bar for removal is raised high. As a child who was abused I am both selfish in some ways and able to parent sufficiently well - it isn’t mutually exclusive. There are many mothers I think are much better than I but, like most mothers overall, I’m nowhere near objectively and ultimately failing enough as a parent, to put it crudely. Many people with bad childhoods still have enough self-awareness and perspective to be good enough parents and I think traits of intelligence, resilience and resourcefulness are net here.

So overall, as a general Q to the OP’s answer, I think some birth parents can never change, and a smaller number can if provided with the right type of consistent support at the right time. It’s how you make that distinction that distinction and where you draw the line on how much support that is the tricky bit.

(Sorry for long post, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to discuss my thoughts.)