Advice for early preparations, and two questions!

[pinksky]

Hi there,

I was really pleased to find this forum - I didn't know there were any dedicated forums outside of specialised websites, so sorry in advance for the long post

My husband (35) and I (30) would like to adopt in the future. Can anyone think of things that we could do now to get us as prepared as possible? We have found out about volunteering as 'independent visitors' for children in LA care, and thought that would be a good start. Aside from reading as much as possible and getting more experience of children, is there anything else that might help?

At the moment there are two things that are worrying me. Firstly that we don't have or want biological children. Will this stand against us? We would love children, but we have never felt that we need to have our own biological children. It's quite hard to articulate this and I worry that it seems odd.
Secondly, we plan on moving the year after next, out of the city to one of the outlying villages. We'll do this to give us the space to have children, but I wondered if this might hold things up? It would be within 10 miles of our current home, but possibly in a different LA. It already feels like a long wait before we move and I would hate to think we wouldn't be considered for a few years after this - it would definitely effect where we move to.

Thanks so much in advance

Oh my goodness, I have stumbled across this thread because it came up in the 'last 15 minutes' posts.

I really feel for you guys that you cannot discuss your deepest darkest thoughts totally anonymously (s Shockers said 'I've said stuff on MN that's too big to tell my friends because I don't want people knowing things about my kids before thay do')without someone posting with their social worker's hat one. Nina, do you not have a life?

its adoption parental contact.dd has siblings older than her, we have been offered 2.
whether you think me racist or not i dont really care.
you have thrown yourself onto the adoption threads with much vigour, and upset people.
i can say whatever i like here, but have a respect for people in the same situation as me.there's no other forums like this that i would feel comfortable with. it now feels you are judging everyone.i have never felt this before.

shockers

My DC's birth mum is a feckless, selfish bitch and I would like to slap her sideways.

But I havent. Instead I supported her throughout her assesment by SS, put up with her demands, took her insults and understood that she had a crap life.

She is still a feckless selfish bitch who refused to get out of her bed to feed her baby and is responsible for many of the problems he will deal with all his life.

I dont respect her at all. How could I?

Doesnt mean I have no compassion.

I still keep contact options open despite her behaviour. I am also always positive to DS about his birth family. There is not a lot to be positive about but I find it.

Basically put, these are the people who hurt the children we love.

fwiw, i have no idea what dd hereditary mix is, she just looks likea good mix of dh and i. same with the next one.

nina - surely you understand its a HUGE decision to say no to one of your child's bio siblings? it might be the only chance your child will have to have a relationship with someone who is biologically related to them

what if for some reason that child is not adopted or the adoption disrupts and grows up in care? how will you explain that to your child?

its the kind of decision that adopters AGONISE over and spend years wondering if they did the right thing

and the issue of ethnicity is entirely relevant. If you are, for example, a euro/ chinese family and adopt a similar child, it is not relevant if the sibling you are offered is white european/ black african?

there is a great deal of evidence that black and mixed heritage children do much worse in the care system. and it takes much longer to place them permanently

nana, i bamboozled my way onto adoption threads a couple of years ago. took everthing the wrong way.go easy.

if i havent apologised to you kristnam i do now. one of my old threads came up and i sound RIDICULOUS.

bless you hifi, i don't remember a word of it

so pleased you have your lovely children now

oh good, you were very patient . i would have bollocked me!

chegirl I understand what you are saying completely.
How old is your DS? When you say you keep contact options open do you mean physical contact or mail box?
I am lucky in a way that I don't have to deal with the realities of contact yet.
I like "After Adoption" because, as I talk to other parents at their outings and fun days, I realise that we are not on our own and that in itself gives us comfort.
I hope that as the children grow, they will talk amongst themselves and realise that they too share experiences and issues and that they will not feel isolated.
Love to you and your DS

shockers, we were a little disillusioned about letterbox. we have a brief description fron a sw on how dd bm looks. every time i send letter box i ask for a photo, none.
the last child we had offered to us, dd half sister, we asked sw to take photos of bm at contact.she has never kept contact with any of her children after their birth.
we are keeping our side of the arrangement for dd sake and keep copies of letters. bm does pick them up.

hifi - the only person i rememeber totally bollocking was the poster who wanted to tell her sister where she was going wrong in bringing up her adopted child. the child had severe attachment issues and horrendous behavioural problems and the family was clearly at the end of their tether.the OP wanted us to give her the ammunition she needed to tear her sister apart, as she coudln't be bothered to read the relevant books herself

i tried to reach into the Pc and shake her gently by the throat but kewcumber made me put her down

in the end the OPs helpful input was not needed as the family blew apart some weeks later

whatever this means, been dying to use it!

shit, hope its a good one!

shockers DS is 6.5.

We intended to have an open adoption. She was welcome in my home and I wanted her to play a part in his life. (we adopted from OHs family).

It didnt work out. She couldnt deal with it and had to blame us and hate us. I tried to understand.

She did have letter box directly to us but the stuff she sent was rank. Totally selfish and abusive. I asked for SS to manage the contact and the next time she sent a card they were and called her in. She refused to moderate her cards so they stopped her contact.

She tracked me down on facebook a while later and said she wanted to see him etc. I told her to go through SS and start LB again. I was very concerned about her MYspace sites. One had my DSs name on it but was semi pornographic and I told her I wanted him removed from it. She said she would, went to see SS, put it all back on that afternoon. I told SS that I couldnt allow contact whilst she was still posting DS's details on a site at all, let alone one of such a sexual nature.

SO there we are. I will never say never. But the contact has to be for my son, not for her, not for me. Until she can put him first I dont know what else I can do.

Its so frustrating. TBH I think she rears up when she is bored. She doesnt make a serious attempt to resume contact. I dont think she knows what she wants.

I spent years putting her needs first. She took over our lives. No more. DCs come first.

I wish you all the best. We can only love and support our kids and help them to build the resilence they need to deal with their histories.

hifi, I do have photos of both birth parents. We were given them so that we could identify them if needs be.
BM has vanished and not picked up any letters for 7 years. BD has stopped writing since I said I wouldn't send photos of my children into a prison. He no longer asks for his mail either.
I meant that I don't have to deal with access. My friend has had a letter from her DD's SW asking if BM can see them " now she's got herself together". It's breaking my friend's heart. Of course she doesn't want their BM turning up after all this time but she somehow feels that it's expected of her.
In that respect, I feel lucky.

chegirl... that should be our mantra... DC's come first!

you are lucky to have them for the future.thats tough having to deal with a contact request.
i will keep pushing for photos, have no idea who bd is.

I too have the 'I haven't made any attempt to maintain any contact for years but now I think I will' syndrome and it has to be dealt with sensitively BUT there are still these dark thoughts saying 'GO AWAY!' As I said before, my DS wants nothing to do with his birth family and he is now old enough to be able to make this choice for himself so I have said that, whilst I am happy for his birth mother to know that he is doing fine, any other more detailed contact has to be sanctioned by him and he wants nothing to be sent. Tough for the birth family I know.

DCs come first - ABSOLUTELY!!!!!

My brilliant post adoption worker has always been very clear that I am the parent and I make the decisions about what is right for my children. I take the view that if I will be able to look them in the eye and say that I honestly did what I felt was right for them at the time (which is all any parent can do)then all will be well. (I hope!)

Just to try and lighten the tone of this thread: did anyone watch the thing with Donny and Marie Osmond this eve (OK I'm sad - but I only actually saw about ten mins! The Osmonds were part of my childhood!) Anyway - Marie was asked about how she had kept her figure having had eight children and she said that some of them had been adopted. When pushed she refused to say how many she had actually given birth to and how many she had adopted as they were all her children. Now I weep at anything but I felt myself getting a bit teary and wanting to shout 'Go Marie!!!' as she is soooo right. Honestly! And so that is why I am prepared to stand up for my rights to do what ever I see fit for my kids. I know that in some way I am actually related to these people who I may consider culpable for the difficulties my children face (my daughter aged 2 was displaying self stimulating behaviours usually seen in Romanian orphanages - rocking, headbanging etc. All gone now but she remains left with attentional difficulties and language deficits). I have to live with that and I make no apologies for placing blame where it should be - that does not mean that I have no empathy for the birth families situation. I know through my professional life that life is tough for so many people and all we can expect is that people are 'good enough' parents for their kids. And that some children in the most horrendous situations have an intense loyalty to their birth family and will love and have a connection with people we might feel don't deserve it. It isn't our call who is deserving or not.

It is just that I am my kids 'real' parent - oh yes I am because I am the one that does the work!!!! So ultimately I make the decisions (and have to justify them of course).

Chegirl - you are amazing - I could never do what you have done.

And, whilst I have never used pejorative (spelling!) language I have expressed some fairly dark thoughts to my post adoption worker (very infrequently it has to be said) - that is what she is there for! Now - I may be breaking a MN rule (sorry) but I have noticed in other threads that the whole LA v voluntary organisation thing sometimes rears its head. I adopted though a voluntary organisation in the sense that they approved me although the children were on an LA list (but 'hard to place' which is why they were sent to the voluntary organisation). I found - and continue to find (although the last time I had contact was about three years ago) - this organisation absolutely brilliant. they have never patronised me, castigated me for what I have felt but have given me good support throughout the whole process. I had absolute faith in my original social worker - whilst I looked at Be My Parent, I left it up to her to find the match and, boy, did she come good!! (The organisations name begins with B and ends in os by the way!! And I know that I may have just struck lucky locally to me)

Anyway - lots of positive thoughts and support to other families. And pinksky - keep going!

PHEW........ where do I start to respond to so many insults. Well I'll have a try.

Snailwhale - thank you for sharing your perception with me about my posts!
I think everyone "comes across" as they "come across" on here and FWIW yu are coming across as judgemental - do you mean to come across like this?

Mudandmayhem - you ask if I have a life. Yes thank you - I am lucky enough to have avery fulfilling life both personally and professionally. I am puzzled however as to why you only consider this is a relevant Question to me. I would have thought the Q would relevant to all MNs to a greater or less extent. I stumbled on to MN by accident and tis true I find it a little addictive, and I do sometimes think it wierd that so many women are tapping away on a keyboard like this but then that's me and what do I know.

Hi fi please tell me that you are not seriously saying that you don't know your daughter's ethnic origins. I can't believe an adoptor would say such a thing. I hope you are trying to wind me up. AND as I suspected you are not able to give any coherent explanation about this "research" in which you have allegedly been involved. I don't think it is helpful to prospective adoptors to print inaccurate information.

Kristina - DO stop lecturing me and telling me things of which I am all too well aware. Of course I know the importance of ethnicity. I made the comment to you about ethnicity because you said that Hi FI was from a mixed heritage family and I thought this was in response to my saying she sounded a little racist, rather than to her comment about being asked to consider her daughter's siblings of mixed heritages. Please give me a little credit for what I may have picked up over a 30 year social work career. Incidentally given your perfectly acceptable views on ethnicity I am surprised that you have not commented on HIFi's assertion that she does not know her daughter's ethnic origins other than that she looks like "a mix of her and her husband."

I will stand by and await further insults!

ME AGAIN! I can hear the cries of horror from here.

this controvesy started because I was shocked at the particular words used by an adoptive parent about the birth parents. Yes in retrospect maybe I should have ignored it but it's all too easy to tap out immediate thoughts on a keyboard. I went to great lengths to explain that I totally understood the feelings of adoptors in relation to birth parents, it was merely the mode of expression that shocked me, but most of that fell on stoney ground.

FWIW I am still schocked (or maybe saddened is a better word) by the derogatory comments on this thread about birth parents. Do any of you stop to consider that parents who abuse and neglect their children are the abused and neglected children of yesterday? We are all the people we are today because of our early life experiences and for those of us who have been fortunate enough to have been loved and nurtured in our childhood, then we too have become (as I am sure all MNs have) caring and nurturing parents to our children.

Now I can almost hear people saying "oh you can't blame everything on the past - parents are adults and are responsible for their actions" etc etc. Well I think that in cases of extreme abuse and neglect you CAN blame everything on the past. Abused and neglected babies and children grow up (in the vast majority of cases) to be abusing and neglectful parents. Fact.

I would also argue that these "damaged" parents are not adults in the true sense of the word. They may be adults in chronological age, but extreme abuse and neglect "arrests" development in a child and these children often "stick" emotionally at an age far below their chronological age. It ends up with an adult functioning at about aged 11 or 12 trying to parent. The fact of the matter is that if you have been abused and neglected as a child you simply do not have the maturity, emotional strength and relisience to parent, because your own childhood needs were not met. You are unable to make and keep meaningful relations and have grown up to view the world as a scary unsafe place, with adults who cannot be trusted. You are unable to cope with the "adult" world in general and when faced with the pressure of a baby will often resort to repeating your own eperiences of abuse and neglect. This is the only "model" of parenting that you have.

I learned this lesson as a young mother myself when in my first year of social work training. I was doing a placement in a childrens home and there was a young boy aged about 12 who was an absolute bully. It was in the days when young children were in childrens homes (no longer the case thank god) and he bullied all the younger kids and one day threw a large jug of water over the head of a girl aged about 7. I was just a student sw and the staff didn't seem to know how to handle this boy. The day he broke the glasses on purpose of a younger rather timid boy I began to hate this bully. One day his social worker came in to visit him and we got into a discussion about the boy. She told me about the horrific abuse and humiliation that this boy had suffered at the hands of his step father for the past 5 years. His mother was afraid of the step father and so failed to protect her son. On one occasion the boy was stripped, tied to a lamp post and hosed with cold water in front of all the kids in the street. I could barely credit what I was hearing BUT it explained only too well this boy's bullying of other children. It was a salutory lesson which was to be re-inforced time and time again over the years. The emotional harm done to this boy was irreparable and I would bet my life that he became an abusing parent.

I worked with a young woman who badly neglected her children and all 3 were removed. She had suffered horrendous abuse as a child. She was described by the consultant psychiatrist as having "been driven mad by her childhood experiences" - she also suffered from severe post traumatic stress disorder. The abuse is too horrific to mention here. Over the years I saw the same kind of story over and over again.

The children who are adopted by people like yourselves on these threads have been rescued from their dreadful lives and have been given the chance to learn to trust adults again and enjoy a loving childhood which is every child's birthright. However there are many many kids who are not rescued and suffer a whole childhood of abuse and carry that on into the next generation.

I know there are many people who won't want to believe what I am saying. Many people seem to find it easier to believe that some of us are just inherently wicked or evil. I have never ever met an abusing/neglectful parent who has come from a loving family with kind and nurturing parents. Have any of yyou?

SO while some of you on these threads are calling birthparents, "pondlife" "scumbags" "fecklesssselfish bitches" etc etc maybe thank your lucky stars that you were born to parents who knew how to love and care for you and make you into the people you are today, who are able to not only care for your own children but for children you have rescued from becoming the abusing parents of tomorrow.

And having said all that (and yes I know I will be called sanctimonious, holierthan thou etc) I DO absolutely understand your feelings of anger at these people hurting the children you love. I have never said anything to the contrary,and of course I believe that the children come first, absolutely 100% everytime. I do have the highest regard for the way in which you parenting these children and giving them and future generations achance to become fulfilled people and good parents themselves when their turn comes around.

I am simply inviting you to think about this issue. I am sure it must have been covered on your prep courses but I know it's different when you don't actually have the child placed with you and it is all academic.

Can't imagine many will have got to the end and I am sure there will be insults anew awaiting me but I just felt the need to post this.

Sorry you're second post was too long so I haven't read it, but from your first post what is your issue with not knowing children ethnicity? I don't understand.

I don't know what ethnic mix DS is - I have a clue because I think I know what ethnicity his birth mother was - have no clue about his birth father nor his grandparents.

Are you seriously really intending to call Hifi a liar or was the "allegedly" just a poor choice of words? Or to use your own phrase "unnecessarily insulting".

Please don;t think this is an insult - I'm far ruder if I'm being insulting.

and no, you didn't have to try to respond - the thread died three days ago until you resurrected it.

Thanks for the lecture Nana.

Now I know

FFS what makes you think we dont know all that? What makes you think we dont take that into consideration? What makes you think we dont care?

Being abused, having a crap life does not make you into a noble person. It does not make you immune from being a selfish, crap parent.

I can fully understand why b.mum is the way she is. I have had the training, read the books and grown up on the same streets. We are not all from comfortable, priviledged homes and know nothing of suffering or deprivation.

But much as I can understand how b.mum's life so far led her to where she is, I am still having to deal with her treatment of our son. Her being badly bought up is not an excuse for her neglecting her newborn son.

She also sent me texts when my daughter was in the last days of her life, willing her on to death. She has threatened and abused, caused no end of trouble and been a total cow. I had to have the police at my DD's funeral because she threatened to make it all about her. All this despite the support and help we gave her throughout the assesment process. She ask me to care for her child. All I have got for doing as she asked is trouble and abuse.

I am allowed to express my frustration and dislike of her as she is allowed to do so of me. She does, loudly and creatively. Good for her. Why should it be different for me?
So excuse me if she is not on my Christmas card list.

Stop lecturing us for making assumptions about b.parents whilst doing exactly the same about us.

Do you assume that we all sit around telling our children that their b.parents are scum? of course not. I want my son to grow up feeling positive about his history. B.mum on the other hand has had contact stopped because she felt the need to be poisonous about me and OH regardless of the affect it would have on DS.

My OH feels the same way about b.mum as I do. In fact he has been much less accomadating. What would you say to him? Would you give him the same little talk about being lucky blah blah? How would that work with him coming from the same family?

now because of Che's reply I read your second post and really wish I hadn't!!!

"you were born to parents who knew how to love and care for you" - thats a big bloody assumption!

"able to not only care for your own children but for children you have rescued from becoming the abusing parents of tomorrow" - did you really say that "your own children" are you really a social worker. I might accept that crass label with a tight smile from people who know nothing of adoption but coming from a social worker who allegedly has 25 years of experience in adoption its completely bloody unacceptable.

I also resent enormously your use of the word "rescued" in association with adopted children even if you weren't referring directly to them being rescued even using the word in a sentance is pretty bloody unacceptable. My DS wasn't "rescued" from anything - he was "failed" by everyone who could have ensured that he remained in safety and prosperity with his birth family. When he was placed with me he wasn't being rescued, he was finally getting what the Hague Convention accepted is the right of every child - a family life.

For someone who objects so strongly to some use of language, your terminology is appalling.

nananina much of what you say is pertinent but your delivery is not good.
We all of us realise more keenly than you can imagine, the sorts of abuse that went on in the lives of birth parents. However, you don't know our exact stories, our children's or their birth parents.

Mumsnet, I feel is a place for mums to come and vent their worries, share their triumphs and connect with each other. Other mums respond with their own experiences in the hope that maybe a chord will be struck. There is a feeling of community.

On this thread though, I have felt increasingly like a teenager with a menopausal mother who doesn't know the wisdom of picking her battles.