Life too complicated to be accepted?

[LovesFood1987]

Hello,

Sorry for long post, just looking for opinions/advice 🙂

I've been researching adoption for about a year (adoption UK webinars, reading books, online resources etc) and we're thinking of stopping trying for our 2nd birth child as I understand contraception is needed for a while before applying to adopt.

I don't know if our backgrounds are too complicated to be accepted. Specifically

1. One of husband's extended family has convictions against children (truly horrific). He never comes to our house and hasn't seen our birth child for over 3 years but my husband does speak to him on the phone, send him birthday cards etc.
2. My upbringing was not good. My mother was a violent alcoholic, we had to live away from her (with extended family) and it was all very messy (court convictions, cafcas, police visits, social workers erc)
3. We have a birth child who will be 3.5 when we start the process
4. My sister has a complex history, mostly because of our awful upbringing. She has taken drugs and been sectioned. She's fine now though, completely turned her life around and is training to be a nurse. She has never been left alone with our birth child but she does see him because she has turned her life around and he adores her (obvs he doesn't know about her background).

On the plus side

1. My husband and I are very stable, known each other 13 years and very happy together.
2. We're financially very secure and our day to day life is happy and stable
3. We're both part time so one of us is around all the time for our birth son/any potential adopted child
4. We have 2 spare rooms
5. We have researched adoption
6. We have an excellent support network around us
7. I feel my upbringing may help me relate to the trauma a potential adopted child may have experienced.
8. I have had counseling and CBT so have worked through the complications of my upbringing and how this does/doesn't affect my life now.
9. My sister also has some symptoms of foetal alcohol syndrome although she's not formally diagnosed so I feel I have a very small amount of experience with this (she's 6 years younger and I had a lot of responsibility for her day to day care when I was a child due to my mother's state)

Sorry for such a long post, any experiences welcome 🙂

Your husband chooses to associate with someone dangerous to children. How is he planning to explain that?

I don't think this would be a goer im afraid. He Would of needed to have cut ties with him completely

One of husband's extended family has convictions against children (truly horrific). He never comes to our house and hasn't seen our birth child for over 3 years but my husband does speak to him on the phone, send him birthday cards etc.

Unthinkable, whether or not you are adopting.

Everything sounds workable and actually could be of benefit to you due to your understanding and experience of difficult childhoods, except that your husband still speaks to someone that is a danger to children... a social worker would find his acceptance of that person very worrying...

All would be workable except for you husbands continued contact with someone who is criminally dangerous to children. That would be an absolutely no go - he would need to cut all ties absolutely and guarantee that it would never be reestablished.

1. One of husband's extended family has convictions against children (truly horrific). He never comes to our house and hasn't seen our birth child for over 3 years but my husband does speak to him on the phone, send him birthday cards etc.

It really depends on how “extended” extended family is, how long ago the conviction was, what it was for and how much contact your DH has with him and why. They could never have contact with any adopted child and you and your DH would be expected to be able to speak openly and honestly about this.

4. My sister has a complex history, mostly because of our awful upbringing. She has taken drugs and been sectioned.

This will also depend on how long ago, the nature of the drug use, whether she would have access to any adopted child, eg used for childcare etc. It’s ok to say she’s turned things around but people who use drugs can relapse and relapse quite badly so I’d expect sw to be cautious.

Your best bet is to speak to an agency candidly about both issues and see what they say.

@NameChangeForDis

One of husband's extended family has convictions against children (truly horrific). He never comes to our house and hasn't seen our birth child for over 3 years but my husband does speak to him on the phone, send him birthday cards etc.

Unthinkable, whether or not you are adopting.

Yes, this, completely.

Bloody hell, I would have thought that went without saying?

Why on Earth is your husband sending this man birthday cards?

I know it's truly horrific. As I said, this person does not have anything to do with my son and has never been to our house.

My husband is clear that the reason he is in contact with him is because of the fact that contact with non-offenders reduces reoffending risk. Therefore this may prevent further children falling victim to these awful crimes. The Lucy Faithful charity have lots of information about this and they say they are the only charity with the pure aim of preventing sexual abuse of children. If it was up to me my husband would have cut all ties from him already, it's something I will bring up again with DH.

It is a very horrific fact that sex offenders get released from prison and live in society, if anything this man's convictions have made us triple paranoid about protecting our son because we are very aware that anyone we meet could be an offender.

I do completely see it from any Social workers point of view and would completely understand if they expected my husband to cut all ties. At the end of the day child protection and child welfare comes first.

I’d speak to an agency and sound them out. There is research which shows being able to maintain some level of family contact and contact with non-offenders does help prevent reoffending. That doesn’t mean your husband necessarily needs to be part of that, but a decent social worker will either know, or have access to, research in this area.

People convicted of sex offences are released into the community - under supervision - and part of their plan under MAPPA arrangements will include an assessment of social support available to them and the safety around that. It sounds like this person doesn’t pose a risk to your children, the assessing social worker will take a rounded view of the situation and may make recommendations around any ongoing contact.

It’s an emotive issue, for very good reason, but much depends on a range of circumstances which probably aren’t suited for discussion on a public forum.

I'm sure I read a thread on the adoption Board recently that the poster was turned down for adoption because her sister took drugs recreationally years before so given what you have described in your first post it does sound highly unlikely I'm sorry

My good friend was turned down because she had had a difficult upbringing herself and it was deemed that it wouldn't be possible to ensure that she would be mentally sound with a child who has also suffered. Like it would be bad for both of them.
And her upbringing doesn't sound anything like as bad as yours so it doesn't look good imo.