Men should not be able to adopt

[clarinsgirl]

Obviously related to recent tragic events but something I’ve been thinking about for a while. In England and Wales 99% of all those convicted of child sexual offences are men (ONS). 91% of all defendants in child abuse cases are men (ONS). So start point for adoption is men alone cannot adopt.

Of course I realise it’s not that simple but really interested to hear what others think.

The thing is, there is not a direct correlation between behaviour and disruption. Some people keep going despite everything and others don't.

Every situation, every family is unique.

I adopted children with additional needs and I believe these additional needs acted as a protective factor. I have had the police round on three occasions re one of my children and nothing happened in the end basically due to their disabilities and vulnerabilities. Both got taxis to sen schools out of area sovthey didn't have local friends to hang out with and weren't hanging around after school. They both got DLA and I got carer's allowance so I stayed at home.

The difference between the support available to adoptive parents and parents of disabled children is huge. Imo we should be looking to replicate the support available in the sen/ additional needs world.

But this involves adopters accepting that their children are vulnerable and so many simply won't do it. The think it is stigmatising the children. They think they have chosen the children who won't need support and they over estimate their abilities to parent traumatised children.

I guess that more and more prospective adopters will use surrogacy and the pressure to fund services for our most traumatised children will disappear.

Agreed. I have kept going for 18 years. My AD1, the healthy baby, is now blind/ASD/PDA/ADHD/NEET/FASD/NAS plus has a rare autoimmune disease that is treated with weekly chemotherapy. Only the very rare autoimmune disease is not related to her prenatal or early life experiences. I have kept going through the years of CPVA, the stealing, the going missing, the endless police call outs, the extreme coercive control and the awful verbal abuse. Even the arrests on false allegations. I am still going now, while helping with the extreme self-harming that often needs visits to A&E for stitches. I keep going. Because love. Because commitment and obligation. But love is simply not enough. And I absolutely think it is okay for adoptive parents to say that they have had enough of extreme parenting. I actually think it’s brave for adopters at the end of their rope to admit this and to seek the intervention of the state. Nobody ever seeks to have their adopted child re-accommodated by the LA on a whim. And you can absolutely guarantee that said adopters will be put through the grinder by their authority; they will be blamed, shamed, persecuted and often criminalised by admitting that they cannot continue. People have been broken by systemic abuse and they have lost their careers, their homes, their marriages, their families and their reputations.

This is why I post on these threads. Like the Bad Fairy. I never want any prospective adopter to be hoodwinked by the likes of Adoption Week and all the agency adverts about the post-adoption support.

We are in the fortunate situation that we have had good support throughout. However, there is a level of need that no support can cover. Often a professional is nowhere in sight in moments of crisis, or you see a professional when you have already dealt with the situation. And then comes the time, when your child might no longer engage with services. There is no way around it, adopters are choosing a very difficult path. You need to be built for that.

No prospective adoptive parent in this day and age should be naive or 'hoodwinked' as you've described. SS should be able to weed out prospective adoptive parent/s like this.

Genuine question, why is it okay as you've said for adopted parents that you 'absolutely think it is okay for adoptive parents to say that they have had enough of extreme parenting?'

AND that you think it is ' it’s brave for adopters at the end of their rope to admit this and to seek the intervention of the state. Nobody ever seeks to have their adopted child re-accommodated by the LA on a whim'.

Very few bio parents would take this absolutely drastic step. Adoption is (supposedly) permanent and the children adopted are as bio kids to the adopted parent.

On adoption breakdowns/disruptions there's no actual figures recorded properly to give accurate figures. However, disrupt post adoption order was estimated to fall between 2% and 9%. Age at entry to care and at adoptive placement, and the number of moves prior to this, are significant indicators of disruption, as was entry to care for reasons of abuse or neglect. The majority of disruptions occurred when children were teenagers (61% between 11 and 16 years old).

One further thing, you posting your adopted child's past history/medical and mental health issues/issues. Is not something you should be doing. It's entirely revolting. You're not being a bad fairy you're being outrageous. You're posting really identifying information that someone who knows you in real life can recognise. Please find another way, a kinder way, to describe things as a 'bad fairy'. Love doesn't spill their kids guts out on a public forum.

There needs to be more meaningful support for adoptees and their families.

@ForDearSwan Some adopted children have been so traumatised by their experiences with the birth family, that even when placed with a good, kind, committed adoptive family the child cannot cope and has extreme behaviour that the adoptive parents cannot cope with.

You just shouldn't compare these children with children who have been with good enough parents from birth.

This is absolutely true. Some are also traumatised by being removed from their parents at birth or later and not because of anything their bio parents have done to them. Both of these scenarios can be true. Anybody adopting a child, in at least the past twenty years, will know that this.
Adoption is supposed to be a permanent situation, except for when it's not 😒

Another reason for continued sw involvement/therapy and additional supports must available and utilised until the child reaches adulthood. It would support the adoptee and the adoptive family.

Why would social workers weed out naive adopters? Surely that's how the entire system works - it's all about finding families for children and if that means being less than truthful about the realuty of adoption (or unaware, as placing sws are unlikely to see fall out say 10 years later)....

I was heavily involved in peer group adoption support for many years. I ran regular events for prospective adopters. They were all incredibly optimistic, didn't believe the "scare" stories, didn't want to hear anything negative. Their sws were largely telling them to keep away from eg Adoption UK notice boards "where all the people with problems congregate but that won't be you".

Given that the Gov wants adoptions, that agencies are now vetting most prospective adopters (and only paid when a match is made and a child placed), where is the incentive to weed out naive adopters? "Anyone can adopt" is the slogan and the message seems to be that it's going to be a rewarding but manageable challenge, doable by just about anyone.

Not traumatized by anything that birth parents have done? Why do you think children get removed, exactly?

I know that this board loves to blame social workers for everything, but it's legally very hard to remove a child from their biological family. Anyone who doesn't live in a fantasy land would know this.

How do you explain children who are removed at birth having adoption related trauma then?

Head.

Wall.

Bang.

Ad infinitum.

Seriously? Pre verbal trauma.

https://adoptioncouncil.org/publications/prenatal-stress-preverbal-trauma-and-developmental-trajectories/

you don’t need to be rude

it’s commonly accepted that the act of removal from birth parents is traumatic for a child even for those who are just born.Which is why the forced adoption generation have trauma.
Yes the birth parents actions have lead to the removal in these cases and I’m not disputing that, but dearswans point that the act of removal in itself is a trauma that adoptees experience, and also who have never lived with neglect ful parents that harm them will still carry trauma

It's difficult to believe you don't know/are ignorant of pre verbal trauma.

If you choose to misread or misunderstood my comment that's a you issue. This is what I actually wrote:

This is absolutely true. Some are also traumatised by being removed from their parents at birth or later and not because of anything their bio parents have done to them. Both of these scenarios can be true

I don’t think it’s wrong to say not all birth parents are hurting their children, some are you unable to parent their children because of there own circumstances

Yes. Agreed. Some commentors on this board are loathe to accept that not all bio parents are abusive. Perhaps this is their personal experience but it's not universal.

There are two completely separate issues in adoption - being removed at birth and being removed at some subsequent point.

Both can be added to the long list of challenges that adopted children have to deal with.

But they are not the same.

I had the opposite experience. I felt my whole pre and post approval input was nothing but the negative side of things. I vividly remember my initial meeting where there were a few couples who had lost pregnancies and had failed IVF rounds and were being very open and honest about their experiences and the general chat was very much focused on how adoption is not a replacement for infertility. The whole extensive process before I finally brought my child home we were constantly reminded that "love is not enough " and "it's not about you - it's about what the child needs".
Maybe some different agencies /local authorities handle things very differently from each other which is clearly a problem that needs addressed but I definitely felt that they were weeding out the ones who wouldn't handle it or were in it for the wrong reasons.

who said they are the same?

The point was that not all trauma is specific to the actions of the birth parents.

and having experience of parenting both types of child, neither in my own experience is easier than the other .

This does not make any sense.

Judging by this thread, you seem to have trouble responding to people in good faith; I don't know if you've got an axe to grind here, but seems a bit pointless to be on a board if you don't want to have a normal discussion. I'd recommend to re-read your own words before posting if you don't want to be misunderstood, too.

I'm more than familiar with trauma from mother/child separation at birth. If your children get removed from you in this day and age, however, especially later on, chances are they have trauma associated to your actions too. Even if they get removed at birth, chances of in-utero exposure to drugs, to domestic violence or neglect are high. Same with being traumatized during family time. You specifically said removal, not relinquishment.

The vast, vast majority of birth parents' circumstances leading to removal nowadays are traumatic to a child, regardless of intent from the birth parents' side. The only exception is parents with really high levels of disability, like Down's syndrome or DiGeorge, but they're the minority, especially since people with disabilities can have a strong support network from their own families who can step in to take custody.

Not all birth parents are abusive or neglectful (especially in cases of relinquishment, but we are talking about removal here), but nowadays many are, and their children can feel about them any way they want to, even if they didn't mean to traumatize them. Same with adoptive parents. You don't get to choose how your children feel about you, or whether they're traumatized by your actions or not.

Why is it so hard for people to acknowledge that yes many children are removed due to horrible horrible circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it’s the case for all adoptive children.

some children are removed, not relinquished but removed, because the parents cannot do it, not just because of learning disability, but for many reasons, age, mental health, lack of support network, government cuts meaning the funding isn’t there to provide the support they need.

You're, I think, the third person to tell me I'm not responding to comment's in the way some of you would like me to. Having a different opinion/viewpoint or understanding of adoption and/or some of the issues than you or other's does not make my points any less valid/said in bad faith or aggressive. You're also the second commentor to try to tell me to skedaddle from this board. A discussion incorporates (usually) differing viewpoints. A public board means that members of the public can freely give their opinions and views.

You specifically said removal, not relinquishment.

You appear to be splitting hairs here. Children are removed for a multitude of reasons. Not all are due to neglect or abuse. For example, care leaver/experienced mother's are disproportionately represented in mother's who lose their child to adoption.

They are not removed because the mothers are care leavers but rather because the assessment has shown that they cannot prioritise a child's needs.

The vast majority of removed children are in unsuitable conditions for months if not years. The daily toll the abuse and/or neglect takes.......