Considering adoption...is overseas an option?

[BarefootWanderer]

Hi, I'm new to Mumsnet and am hoping to learn from your knowledge and experience.

I'm a single Indian women, 39yo, considering adoption. Call me naive but my preference is to adopt a within my ethnicity, ideally a young child/baby. I have a vague understanding of the challenges of matching with young children/babies as well as them being South Asian.

Can anyone advise me on the feasibility/legalities of adopting from overseas, or point me in the direction of trusted organisations?

If anyone has any personal experience to share I would be grateful to hear it.

Thank you in advance.

Sorry this post got massively hijacked by me OP. PPs, thank you all so much for the constructive criticism, feedback, insight etc.

I clearly haven’t thought about this enough yet. I will take what you’ve all said and have a long hard think about what we want from the adoption, but also (as many of you said) and more importantly, what the child wants from the adoption.

Honestly this has been an amazing thread, and I cannot thank you all enough.

I am a trans-racial adopter, and can only echo what others here have said, especially Yolande7 and Ted27. In our case the adoption came about after I fostered my daughters and had an established relationship, by that time I was 'Mum' and adoption let the law catch up with our relationship.

Trans-racial adoption adds a whole new layer of complexity for my children. We deal with it, but if you asked my daughters if they would prefer not to be stared at, questioned about why they look different to their Mum, and speculated about I am pretty sure that they could have done without it.

I also can only support them to a certain extent with handling racism, valuing their hair and skin etc etc, and after that the best thing I could do for them was make sure they had strong relationships with adults of their birth heritage. In addition, I support their choices about how much of their birth heritage they claim for themselves, and how much my heritage. DD1, for example, is more outspoken than many see as appropriate for a young woman in her birth culture, and we have both been verbally attacked for that at time. It can be a difficult balance for a new generation to integrate traditions with their contemporary context - having a mother from a very different culture makes that much more complex.

@percypetulant What children need is to be claimed can you link your authority for that statement please, and explain what you mean by it? Thank you.

@Doomsdayiscoming

You have received some very ‘direct ‘ responses its very positive that you haven’t thrown your toys out of the pram and seem prepared to listen and shift your views.

A last point from me. I’m going to guess that you don’t have any close friends or mix with people who are not white ? I’m thinking that if you did you would already have had some negative reactions.
Which brings me to where you live. Is it predominantly white, are there any ethnic minority communities.
I live in a very diverse city, we do not stand out particularly as a mixed race family, my son does not stand out as having a strange, ie not English, name, he can go into town and see lots young people who look like him, he went to schools which marked all the religious festivals, where numerous languages were spoken. If you don’t live in a diverse area then you really need to think hard about that.

I clearly haven’t thought about this enough yet. I will take what you’ve all said and have a long hard think about what we want from the adoption,

That openness and capacity for reflection will stand you in good stead through the adoption process and into parenting. I commend you for that, and wish you every good thing whatever you decide from here.

@fodderycovidarmy If you Google, you will find the information on the importance of "claiming" in adoption. It's not the point of this thread.

@percypetulant I just googled and found a NHS link, a gov.uk link and something about malpractice in relation to adoption in Nigeria, none of which referred to the importance of claiming a child as you advised it. Please could you link? It is presumably relevant to the thread as it was your advice to another poster on this thread.

I'm surprised if you're an adopter, you haven't read about it previously, but, no, I don't think this is relevant to the thread, and suspect you're sealioning. If you genuinely want to discuss a child's need to be claimed, then please start a thread, to avoid further derailment for the poor OP.

@percypetulant I am not an adopter and I am not sealioning. Were you derailing the OP's thread when you gave the advice? If you aren't able to explain your advice or provide evidence about it, and I assume that is the case, then it is better to say that instead of being antagonistic about it. I will leave that thought with you.

Please start a thread with all your queries about the well accepted concept of claiming in adoption. I've googled, and the concept is well explained by various sources, so I suggest you research, and get back to us experienced adopters with your queries, and we'll be happy to help.

HTHs.

[quote Ted27]@Doomsdayiscoming

You have received some very ‘direct ‘ responses its very positive that you haven’t thrown your toys out of the pram and seem prepared to listen and shift your views.

A last point from me. I’m going to guess that you don’t have any close friends or mix with people who are not white ? I’m thinking that if you did you would already have had some negative reactions.
Which brings me to where you live. Is it predominantly white, are there any ethnic minority communities.
I live in a very diverse city, we do not stand out particularly as a mixed race family, my son does not stand out as having a strange, ie not English, name, he can go into town and see lots young people who look like him, he went to schools which marked all the religious festivals, where numerous languages were spoken. If you don’t live in a diverse area then you really need to think hard about that.[/quote]
Grew up in a medium sized town in East Anglia. I had a few black friends, but to be honest, the schools had very few non-white children. Probably under 5% non-white.

Now live in Cambridge which also pretty white. One of my friends (who is also a colleague is Indian) but that’s it. Lots of other colleagues are Indian/Sri Lankan.

But, and this is the most important part, I’ve never discussed adoption with them yet, let alone any details. In fact, I’ve not discussed this much with many people. My wife’s family know this is what we want to look into. One of her cousins is adopted. Her dad’s brothers spent time in foster care whilst as their Dad raised them alone (4 boys) from an early age.

We don’t want to live here long term. Our plan is to move to somewhere like Manchester, if we can secure decent jobs. We will try and do that end of 2021/early 2022. We are moving to be able to afford a decent house.

Also, my wife’s parents will live fairly close by hopefully (if it is Manchester), within 1 hour.

You'll be asked to fill in a matching criteria which will outline your wishes and wants for potential matches, from nationality to learning difficulties to behaviour traits. But ultimately it is a councils management structure and family finder policies that create formal links from children to prospective adopters - as many have mentioned; always with a child centric approach.

As part of home study, they will discuss how you can support any heritage requirements for the child; moreso showing how you can be open to supporting any cultural that is different to your own and that respect others exist. This will all be taken into account for your application and your matching profile.

You'll also be likely asked how you may handle sensitive questions or situations in regards to race.

Sorry, my last was @Doomsdayiscoming

@BarefootWanderer hi, how are you doing? I know your thread has gone on a wander but wondering if you have had any more thoughts on adoption.

I don't know where you are in the UK (and don't want you to say) but when we looked into adoption with our own relatively rural area there was not a lot of info on many children of different ethnicities. However, we did go to an information day in London with lots of local authorities from across the country and there were many more children of different ethnicities.

Hi @Italiangreyhound, thanks for checking in - I'm doing well.

I've found the ongoing thread discussions incredible insightful. I must admit I felt some trepidation sharing my desire to adopt a child of Indian heritage - thinking others may think "why discriminate?". Much of the advice you have shared had already been considered by me which gives confidence in my decision. The priority has to be the child. I would want to provide an Indian child with a life/family/culture/experience/ belonging/identity/language etc they would have had. It's just that it would be facilitated through an adoptive mother, not birth mother.

I live in the East Midlands and it's very diverse here. Having spoken to a few local agencies they advise that the number of Indian children in the system is low but not impossible.

Brilliant. Glad you are feeling positive.

I am sure you will have a lot to offer.

It is my own opinion that trans racial adoption is great and we considered oversea adoption a while ago (about 14 years ago).

We also expressed interest in a child of mixed heritage in domestic adoption.

But it is always who is best for the child and we were not best for that little girl. I still think of her 7 years later. But we were right for our little little boy.

And I think there will be a child who is right for you.

I remember watching a documentary about a couple who adopted three children from China. She said she was not the best mum for her kids but she was the best available - or words to that affect. And I do feel adoption is about being available and loving etc. It is not about some mystical magical connection for me.

Adoption is great and sharing a heritage with your child is amazing. You will offer this child so much, the agency or local authority will bite your hand off.

Just FYI, as I am sure your know, agencies do not have children to place so I would explore that aspect fully and most of all what post adoption support is offered when choosing an authority or an agency.