Reasons not to adopt

[Anon42153]

If facing years of fertility issues, and now realisation set in that biological child is not a possibility. Would you adopt? What would your reasons for not wanting to adopt be?

*I think this coupled with a lack of understanding of psychological trauma has a lot to answer for - the idea that if you place a child in a “nice” home, what’s gone before doesn’t matter. Our understanding of child development, trauma informed practice and attachment has developed significantly which I hope will pay dividends down the line.

I think that this is exactly right.

I think this coupled with a lack of understanding of psychological trauma has a lot to answer for - the idea that if you place a child in a “nice” home, what’s gone before doesn’t matter. Our understanding of child development, trauma informed practice and attachment has developed significantly which I hope will pay dividends down the line

I think that this is exactly right.

Are you talking about adopters who say they struggle with attachment in the first few months of placement? There are quite a few. However, there are hardly any who say they don't love their children once that attachment has formed. I certainly have met none and I know quite a few adopters.

However, I do personally know birth parents who struggled with forming an attachment with their newborn babies. It is probably not as widespread as in adoption, because that baby has been part of their bodies/ families for 9 months already and don't join the family at age 5 as my children, but it does exist. And just to be clear, I fell in love with my children straight away.

The majority (all?) adoptive children are traumatised and come with "extras". Parenting adoptive children is more difficult than parenting most birth children. The adopters I know all try to move mountains for their children.

Sorry, the quote went wrong. My above post is a response to @takeoffyourboots

I admire people who adopt so much. But I I don’t think I could do it knowing about psychological issues ect. I also feel like it would be weird to not know anything about my child. With my children I know where and who they come from and therefore I feel I know and understand them. There’s not nasty surprises. It would be weird and unsettling to not know if your child’s family are criminals or murderers ect, or have health conditions. But this is also not just limited to adoption- I also wouldn’t use a sperm donor or have a one night thing and get pregnant to a stranger. But I really think more people should adopt and I acknowledge that my stance is a failing with me and I should try and challenge my views

@Strawberry33

Adopters are provided with a lot of information about their children before they decide to go ahead.

Of course we cannot know everything, but then again I know very little of my family’s history and unmpteen relatives I have not seen since I was a child.
I know where and who my son came from, as do most adopters. Many of us meet the birth parents. Its completely different to any of the other scenarios you mentioned.

Ted27 you may know them superficially but it’s not the same as knowing all about their character and that of their parents and grandparents ect. Its just important for me that’s all x

@Strawberry33 the idea that you have as much knowledge as you suggest if you are the biological parents of a child is naive. Many families have secrets that are not shared with the children from half siblings due to affairs to criminal convictions. The spread of DNA testing on sites like ancestry.con has blown apart many families. Medical information is also not as straight forward as you'd think as it relies on people remembering things correctly. Then you have health issues caused by recessive genes that crop up more often than you'd expect.

@Strawberry33

your reasons are your reasons, its fine. But its incorrect to say that adopters don’t know who and where they came from, as many of us do have a great deal of information. How do you think we make our decisions?

Having seen what my in laws have gone through with their adoptive child, I couldn't do it. Adopted as a toddler having been in one foster family since birth, they thought they wouldn't have problems. In reality it's been hell and their marriage hasn't survived it, the child has had severe behavioural problems their whole life.

I disagree Ted27... sorry! I think the element of unknown is a big thing for adopters to face and I think many adopters do face it. As an adopter, we knew very little before we adopted. Okay, we should have probably pushed for more information - but I felt like it was at a review meeting where a piece of paper was handed out when I was struggling to entertain our child on the floor where the complete story was handed out and even then it was a bit short. We adopted on the basis that our child was meeting all of their milestones and was healthy and we were only presented with one profile (no picture) and we liked the name and we trusted our social worker, who is amazing. Currently, couldn't be better but I am sure the teen years will challenge us (like any parents). We have a life story book

I think whilst we can know the story on paper, it's very different to actually know the birth family. In our case, we were told it was too dangerous for us to meet with the birth family, so I am sure that if you had that opportunity you would have a much greater picture of the child's background, but I don't think that happens for many adopters. Even then, you're likely meeting the biological parents on one of their worst days...

I did a bit of a cheeky facebook stalk (I know this is slightly ethically questionable but their profile is public and you can see everything), and that told me a lot more about them than any document, and definitely meeting them would tell me more about them all. I don't know how tall they are... I don't know why but I'd love to know. I have asked social workers but they couldn't tell me, they sort of just gestured and told me they were about the same height as me....... small.

There was so much unknown before we adopted, and we wouldn't be here if we hadn't overcome that fear - so I do think it's a valid concern!!!

I do however agree, many families have secrets and I didn't even know my grandparents name until their funeral. One passed away when I was 22... that's an embarassing age to not know your grandparents name, but they were always motima to me (Indian grandma....)....

Ted27 you may know them superficially but it’s not the same as knowing all about their character and that of their parents and grandparents ect. Its just important for me that’s all x

I do know their parents and grandparents character, because they’re my children.

In all honesty I’m not sure why it matters if their birth parents were murderers, criminal behaviour isn’t hereditary - I wouldn’t visit the sins of the parents on the child. I guess it depends on whether you think character is built or inherited.

We adopted on the basis that our child was meeting all of their milestones and was healthy and we were only presented with one profile (no picture) and we liked the name and we trusted our social worker, who is amazing.

That’s the basis you made your decision on, j had much, much more information even before going to linking - I needed to know because I needed an idea of what their needs would be. I don’t know many adopters who made their decision on so little information.

@specialcase123

of course there are unknowns, but I said MANY of us have significant amounts of information.
To be honest I feel thats shockingly little information on which to make a decision and personally I would have requested a lot more

I don’t really know what other information we could have had - we had the sheet of paper with the bare bones of why our child was adopted- he was so small there was no information - if you’re adopting a tiny child there really isn’t much to go on?

There’s a huge amount to go on, yes you need to know why he was freed for adoption but I know both children’s medical history, their birth parents medical history, their birth mums life experiences which made parenting difficult for her, I know about pre-birth substance use in both parents.

While they gave you the “bare bones”, they should also have been able to tell you why, fir example, the birth family were considered too dangerous to meet you and could have given you an idea of what birth mum was like as a person.

I think I am downplaying how much information we had, as I’m making it sound like we saw the name and said yes as that’s not really what happened. What I mean to say is that you can’t as adoptive parents have a complete understanding of the birth parents and the background as you are getting the information from social workers. This is not as reliable as knowing someone personally so as adopters it is always a risk that something comes up that wasn’t in the social worker report. This isn’t a new thing and we explored it in the prep training.

I’m not saying you have no information, but I am saying it’s a valid concern and I can completely understand why someone would say they didn’t want to adopt for fear of the unknown.

My experience may be different to yours, but it’s not as if it’s unique to me!

@gungholierthanthou
"Adopted as a toddler having been in one foster family since birth, they thought they wouldn't have problems. In reality it's been hell and their marriage hasn't survived it"

Very sad situation, sorry to hear about their experience. I've only just started researching adoption but one thing I've learnt already is that no one should adopt thinking they won't have any problems. Children are only taken away because if very severe neglect/abuse (eg illegal drugs whilst pregnant) so if we do so adopt (we're very early on in our research atm) then we will absolutely be expecting behavioural problems. If they don't happen then great but at least we can try to be realistic!

I would say no one should go into parenting thinking there will never be any problems.

I would not because I would be worried about genetics/family history (addiction, FAS, mental issues). It sounds horrible because these children deserve a loving home too but it's not something I would be able to handle I don't think.

@LovesFood1987 that's exactly what the issue was, drugs while pregnant. However, I do think they approached parenthood feeling sorry for the child and their sad start in life, so never put behavioural boundaries in place and I feel they didn't do themselves any favours.

Any other actual adopters wondering why this thread is STILL being allowed to run after so many pages of ignorance and offensiveness? Would this be the case if the thorny issue in question was to do with the transgender debate?

Moominmammaatsea, would have been removed immediately if it had been transgender or race related. So sad that so many are so narrow minded, judging children on their bad starts in life. I have 4 birth children and 1 adopted, I worry that she will be judged purely because she is adopted and it looks like, from many on here that will be the case. Not to worry because there will be someone along shortly to say that they are only expressing their opinions, isn’t that what you do when you judge someone based on the colour of their skin.

I don't think anyone is judging the children for their hard starts in life. I think people are just being realistic about whether they could take that on or not.

I would not be willing to adopt for a variety of reasons but I absolutely wouldn't judge an adopted child or their adoptive parents in any negative way. I assume the vast majority of parents, whether adoptive or birth, are doing their best. Helping a child to overcome challenges, whether the child is adopted or birthed, is something I would judge, but only in a positive way.

I approached adoption with a fairly healthy level of doubt and uncertainty. Yes, there are unknowns (there also are with birth children btw). Not everyone is going to be able to make that leap of faith and give that level of commitment to take in a child they have never met and do their best for that child. It’s a big ask. It’s okay if for people say they don’t want to do it. Of course people are entitled not to adopt. Nobody has to adopt. They don’t even need reasons for their choice. What is not sitting well with me is that the reasons people are giving are based on little to no knowledge of what adoption is actually like. I know I am not the only adopter to have come across this thread and immediately walked away from it because the amount of misinformation is too much to try to deal with. I have absolute respect for the adopters who have come on here to counteract this.
This thread bothers me no end for reasons far too varied to list here, but I’ll give you the two main ones. The main way it bothers me is it is inviting one sided negativity around adoption. It’s not asking for balance. I chose to adopt and could give a thousand reasons in favour but it’s not asking for any of those. And because it didn’t start out on the adoption board most of the ill-informed negative views have come from those who have nothing to do with adoption. That’s not necessarily their fault but of course it bothers me that they are talking about families like mine negatively when they haven’t met my family, and they perhaps haven’t met any family created through adoption. As it happens the OP hasn’t posted anything on this thread since 22 October when it was moved to the adoption board. She’s either found her answers or is just sitting back with some popcorn enjoying the fireworks.
Secondly it bothers me that people come to this board when they are considering adoption and I really hope that they can see past the BS posted especially early on by people who simply have no idea when it comes to adoption. Of course it’s fine for people to adopt, and yes of course we have freedom of speech, yes, I know that. But why oh why, would people come on here who haven’t adopted, who have no first hand experience of adoption but might have read something once in a newspaper or seen a documentary, come on here telling people why they shouldn’t adopt. Of course people should adopt, because there are children waiting to be adopted. It doesn’t have to be you. That’s fine. Move on. I would never dream of going onto an IT forum telling IT people about how to do their job, or why they shouldn’t have done it in the first place, or to warn people about why they might not want a job in IT. Funnily enough I leave IT people to decide that for themselves. And we all need IT so let them crack on.