Matthew and Ryan

[Arran2024]

These two keep cropping up on my Facebook feed. They are a gay couple planning to adopt and apparently it's really happening - next week. They post incessantly about the process and are clearly very excited, but how can social services be ok with this?

(Edited because I can't get the Facebook link to work)

I think they’re wrong to share their child online. I think anyone who makes money out of videos that show their child is exploiting their child to a certain extent. Also, they might only show the back of his head but I can always pick out children I know from pictures of the backs of their heads so it’s likely birth family of this baby might be able to too. Hopefully this isn’t a risk to the baby or the adoption at all.

They do come across as very naive about parenting in general, but then probably lots of parents are until they’ve actually got the child in front of them having a screaming tantrum in a supermarket. Depending on how rich these two are they’ll either discover that parenting isn’t all sweetness and Disney films and learn how to parent real children or they’ll invest in nannies and private schools to do the work for them.

They've just shared his name...

Oh wow. I saw yesterday they were responding to people asking why they weren't showing his face and they said they had chosen not to for now but they might change that in the future.

I've had to hide them...as an adoptee I was beginning to find it extremely distasteful especially the fawning from fans saying how lucky their lo was .

I was just on Facebook, and there they popped up, announcing the name and everyone fawning over how lovely it is. They are like a runaway train!

Similar to the timings not being in realtime, could this be a 'stagename' for Social Media as one commentator suggests?It is hard to know how much is persona...and would you really tell a quite rare-sounding name to so many?

Yes, this has been my biggie/biggy from the start. I worry that the lucky trope will feed into their obvious narcissism and mean that their baby will be increasingly monetised and endlessly paraded for extra £££ and likes. I actually cannot believe that the adoption agency are sitting back and allowing this to happen? Also, the name, surely incredibly identifiable for the birth parents. It’s all massively disrespectful, in my opinion.

All this BS does us as a community a massive disservice. It’s like the Disneyfication of adoption. I speak as one of 50 adoptive parents who worked with the BBC for six months to present the recent tsunami of coverage about the crisis in adoption. No one wants to be the Bad Fairy at the adoption celebrations but today, via another group I’m on, I’ve been talking to an adoptive parent who is waiting to be arrested over Christmas following the worst type of allegation by their young person. These two are just money-grabbing clowns, in my opinion. By the way, Disney, I’ve stuck out being an adoptive parent to a very violent, aggressive and verbally abusive teen who harms me at every opportunity, steals everything that is not nailed down in the house and throws me under the bus every bus going. For 18 years. I would never recommend 21 hours in a police cell. Pretty please, Disney, could my younger daughter, who is battle scarred from injuries caused by her older adoptive sister have a freebie trip to one of your parks? Heaven knows, she deserves it. And I can’t afford it. Because no job. Because adoption.

I think they have the adoption order now and can therefore do what they like. Looks like the baby was placed earlier this year and they waited til social services were out of the way til they started posting

Thing is, what if birth family start posting comments on their posts?

I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the offices of the placing authority! I think it’s actually worse that this has all been revealed to be not in real time. It makes it much more calculating and all about the £££ and the likes. Were they plotting this all along? Poor child!

They have mentioned today being in the press (they have a snippet in a magazine suggesting new parents might be able to learn a thing or two from them) is a dream come true for them!zone of the repleis was:We lovel ypu in Australia-child could nog even hide there! I had tried to ignore their posts.You could not make this up!

I will not be the Bad Fairy on their posts but I do think, knowing what we all know, that they are setting up themselves and their child to fail. If they ever get an advice column, I’d love to ask them how many police call-outs to one’s home is an appropriate number in any given year?!

Apologies for typos!I was clearly too caught up.

Anyone who posts even the slightest concern eg genuinely asking how they can be so public, gets piled on by their fans. It's like a cult.

Agreed. It’s sick. I know they are not really the poster boys for adoption but they are setting themselves up as the poster boys for adoption. This whole mess does the cause of adoption a massive disservice.

Another day another package of freebies - and the baby barely disguised. So sick of these companies cashing on the exploitation of a child who is vulnerable and who has not given consent to their image, name and circumstances of adoption being exploited for financial reasons. Shame on you, JoJo Maman Bebe (JoJoMamanBebe). And I sincerely hope that MN’s powerful SEO engines keep this post high up the algorithms. Please stop exploiting vulnerable babies!

I wasn't sure if it was a gift or just them opening a bag of stuff they ordered.

That is a very unusual name to share with the world! Have they changed it? I thought that the advice was not to. But if the name
was given by the birth parents then it means that the birth parents know exactly who they are.

There was an American set of parents (The Stauffers) who very publicly adopted a little boy and it was all very lovely until they “re-homed” him a few years later.

They have posted that they won't be adopting again. I didn't watch the video where they explained why but tbh I think social services wouldnt be keen to place another child to be plastered over social media.

How about other adopters like dadonthego? He's a single adopter of 2 little boys with their names and faces shared publicly too. I often wonder what the consequences will be for his sons. Are their birth families following them on instagram? He seems like a really switched on dad right enough, but what do I really know.

I love Laura’s stuff so much. One of my DC had an awful foster parent before coming to us, and I find watching Laura weirdly healing.

Haven't come across her, but will try to find. Foster Parents pre-adoption are so important, we were lucky with our boys FPs, and they remain part of our extended family (like grand parents), and we see them at least twice yearly...

This is a really interesting thread. I keep getting an account called Longers on my fyp. It’s a couple who adopted two boys and they give a very ‘look at us, aren’t we wonderful for adopting ‘ vibe. The comments are full of how ‘lucky’ the boys are & he does nothing to counter this, just laps up the compliments and again, as a pp said, if anyone puts anything negative in the comments they get piled on.

Interestingly though it’s very much the dads account, the mum seems to be in the background and not nearly as over excited, Disney style as the dad. I wonder if the mum picks up a lot of the trauma that the dad just doesn’t see.

Just a theory but I wonder if men are more likely to push the ‘aren’t we wonderful for adopting’ than women?

On another note there is an account called the Chinese adoptee or something who is brilliant and shows adoption, warts and all from an adult adoptee perspective. She very much loves her family but shows the need to know her biological history and how adoptees should never be made to feel grateful for being adopted. Highly recommend.

I've seen a few of their social media posts. Had to block them. Revolting stuff altogether. I don't believe they should have been cleared to adopt given that for over around two years they have made money off the back of being soon too be adopted parents and now adopted parents. It's terrible.