To think a lot of people don't understand adoption

[Kettlesingsatnight]

Based on a comment on another thread.

Adoption is not looking after a child for a few years as the birth parents can't.

It isn't fostering.

It isn't easy and it isn't straightforward. You can't rock up to an agency and announce your intention to adopt and get approved just like that.

AIBU to think some comment just are too much? I realise some are made in ignorance not to be mean but I just don't see that as an excuse any more. I'm fed up of it!

It always amazes me when people say to infertile couples: "Have you thought about adoption?" They seem to think there's a huge supply of newborn babies out there waiting to be adopted. The truth is that the vast majority of children available for adoption are much older, and most have had very troubled lives. There's a kind of myth, too, that if you give them enough love, you will be able to repair the damage, whereas that is far from the truth. Such children often have very difficult behaviours because they have been so neglected.

And it's not easy to adopt from abroad either - that's another myth. There are just a few hundred overseas adoptions each year.

Re my colleague, it was no more than ten years ago but was in Scotland if that maybe makes a difference? I remember bein so horrified and she was so hurt about it. I don't think I got the wrong end of the stick... How weird!

I don't know the other thread, but (especailly since several friends have adopted their children) I have to had to break my well-meaning but ill-informed mother of the habit of mentioning some acquaintance or neighbour's child, then leaning in, as if imparting a secret and mouthing 'she's adopted', as if letting me think that little X was Y's biological child was somehow misleading. Ditto 'real mother'.

Mind you, she did come from a generation of rural Irish people for whom adoption was a shameful secret - because the adopted child was the child of an unmarried mother from a laundry or a home - and the child definitely classed as a second-class citizen, often 'adopted' as an extra pair of hands on a farm and only sent to school if it was convenient. And returned to sender if not suitable, or if they were 'eating them out of house and home'.

But yes, I think adoption is not much understood other than among adopters themselves, and those they are close to. I only started to read up on things like why some adopted children may need different parenting when friends adopted.

I agree OP. I was adopted at 10 years old and even now I have people ask "have you met your real parents yet?". Um, yes, they're the people who adopted me, raised me and gave me the childhood I so desperately needed. People still have this unfailing belief that DNA is somehow more important than nurture.

Well some people are really very stupid. But I think the rest of us know such things as adoption is not fostering and that it is permanent.

I've never heard anyone say adoption is temporary but plenty of people seem to think it is like popping to a supermarket and coming home with a child, or it is an immediate solution to infertility.

I would be surprised if people suffering from infertility didn't consider adoption at some point, even if it is to decide no, its not for us. I have never seen adoption as a negative or lesser road than having your own kids (although understand that it is a very tough process) and do see it as a very valid way to become a parent so find it a little sad that people are so violently reactive to the suggestion of it (I know they find it upsetting a suggestion so I don't mention it to infertile couples). I understand that it is not a solution to infertility, but it is a solution to parenthood which maybe people are not ready to see or consider when they are in the throws of the devastation of infertility. I have luckily never suffered infertility but have always had in the back of my mind the idea to adopt and have looked into it from a very young age. My DH and I actually do intend to foster at least if not adopt once our little ones are a little older. There are so many young children (not so many newborns, as another poster rightly said) that need a home and a parent and love and stability.

I just know that personally, if I couldn't have children, I would have adopted without a second thought. Maybe other people (who haven't suffered the reality and horror of infertility) also from the outside looking in feel it is not such an awful suggestion or idea. I dont think people are suggesting it thoughtlessly as a 'consolation prize'. Just a way to have a family.

At the end of the day, I don't think anyone means any harm by asking if a couple would consider adoption but I understand that it can feel like a slap in the face to an infertile couple to hear that comment. I wish more people would consider it, both couples with their own children and couples struggling to have children.

Timetomuskup, that is just an expression. I'm sure nobody thinks your birth parents are your 'real parents' in the sense of who is a real parent to you. Just a clumsy use of wording. Feel free to correct them so they don't make the same mistake again.

....both couples with their own children and couples struggling to have.....

With birth children Polly

Our close friends have just adopted. I have learned so much about the process and the experience (clearly not as much as them, but you know what I mean). I absolutely take my hat off to anyone who adopts.

Good point strawberry. Wording is a minefield but that doesnt get better with people talking about adoption in hushed tones. I just wish it was recognised for the wonderful thing it is more.

I'm a social worker, and I wouldn't adopt. I've been asked that by people and they seem shocked when I say I'm not a patient and good enough parent to meet an adopted child's needs. I think it appears to be selfish, whereas I know full well my capabilities (I'm a good enough parent to the child I have) and would never be naive enough to think I could be a good adopter.

Obsidian You've just put into words what I think I was trying to say. I couldn't do it. I couldn't be good at that. I have huge respect for those who are.

Statutory Adoption Pay used to be less than Statutory Maternity Pay. It was brought in line last April so they are both the same now

My big bug bear is soaps, like the current Neighbours character Paige, back with her "Mum and Dad" trying to create a real family. It happens a lot on TV in films soaps books it makes me so angry.
The adopters are brutes beasts or inadequate or just delighted that the child they raised with everything they had waltzes off to live a happy life with their real mum and dad and that was their goal all along.
But it is great entertainment value the happy ever after is the child grows up to go their "real family" and whilst there is so much of that going on in popular media then people wont understand the bonds of adoption.
Yes it is true that lot of people don't understand adoption- or the experiences it throws into the mix of someone's childhood
Or how it affects parenting.
They don't understand the knowledge that you can and will give heart soul and flesh for your child, just like any other parent but that when they turn 18 someone else can come along and say remember me? Or your child can go out and find their birth parents because they have that need to know and actually your role is to support them through that journey, not to find their real mum and dad, but to find the people who made them and played a huge part in their life.

But how do you expect people to know? As an adopter there is so much to learn about adoption, and it takes a long time. You can't expect people to just know that.
There is a part of me that thinks it should be part of PHSE across the years at school.
Maybe more investment from media on adoption programs and not just once a year during National Adoption Week.
That for so many children the reunion at whatever age, will have tears heartbreak recriminations, truths and half truths different versions of what happened. That sometimes there is the happy ever after in the end as happens so often with Nicky Campbell- but it the whole life journey is very complicated.

you can't expect people to just know

I agree and this largely why I've stayed quiet on this subject up until now - but the suggestion on the thread where the OP wants a fourth and her husband doesn't that 'no one has to be a loser as you could adopt' is showing the real attitudes and they are damaging.

Many of us - including me - have a child with additional needs but the casual discriminatory language would never be tolerated on here even though most people don't have a child with additional needs.

I can overlook 'real' parents for 'birth' parents, but surely to God people aren't so ignorant that they don't think adoption isn't being a parent.

And I know full well how difficult adoption is but people stating they would not do it is not actually helpful.

The chairman of Barnardo's said that adoption requirements are so stringent that most people wouldn't be allowed to 'adopt' their own children.

I looked into it while waiting for fertility treatment and I know my council demands 'childcare experience'. So you either have to already have children or work in an environment where you care for children, so that rules out most childless couples. They also rule people out for living in private rented accommodation because the tenancies are not secure enough, and things like having mild depression which don't affect people having their own babies.
It's sad because I think a lot of good parents are ruled out.

But yes, OP, I agree. People seem to think that you decide you want a baby and go out and get a newborn the next day like going to a shop.

You see the same ignorance with discussions on pregnancy choices too with the very thoughtless "you could have it adopted" when somebody is struggling with an unplanned pregnancy.

These people have no bloody clue how hard a decision it is to go through to full term and give your baby away. Its a heartbreaking situation and leaves lifelong issues in its wake.

I know as I did it 20 years ago and whilst I know it was the best decision I could make at that time in my life, I live with the regrets and consequences every day.

Sorry to hear that Patrician

People also have no idea that once you give a child up he or she will be in the care system for months or years before parents are found (which I agree is ridiculous, but ...)

I think years ago it was much easier to adopt a child than it is now, so that's maybe why some people have this idea that adopting a child is just a matter of filling in a form, answering a few simple questions, and then collecting a cute little baby in a Moses basket.

Nowadays, very few babies are put up for adoption and the procedure to be accepted for adoption is stressful and gruelling. After that, there's a long wait, and often false hopes and let downs as birth mothers change their minds or adoption arrangements between countries break down.

It's certainly not an easy option or something that you can assume you will be enabled to do if you wish to.

I think another problem is when wealthy celebrities in America enter into private adoption arrangements (which wouldn't be allowed here), also giving the impression that adoption can happen almost on a whim.

Thanks Kettle . Its easy if they are newborns though as they are fostered and can usually be found adoptive parents very fast as everyone wants a baby, particularly blonde & blue eyed ones which mine was.

My DP was adopted as a baby and always knew he was. He has no interest in finding his birth family whatsoever.

It's not even that straightforward any more Patrician and yes, newborns are fostered but finding them adoptive parents can sometimes be a far more arduous process.

It isn't true that everyone wants a baby and with respect it certainly isn't true that everyone wants a blonde haired blue eyed one

YANBU.

Two separate couples, both very very close to me have had their DCs via adoption.

It is a long, drawn out, complicated process which doesn't end when your child or children come to live with you.

It is not an easy option in any way. Also from the moment your adoption is finalised, this is your child. Your child just like he or she would be had you given birth to them. You do often hear comments implying that an adopted child is not really yours, or that there are "real parents" out there somewhere. No, there are birth parents. Birth parents do not equal "real parents" to me.

I also don't like people sharing FB posts where a birth parent is looking for a child who has been placed for adoption. It wouldn't be "cute" or "cool" to reintroduce that birth parent. Nowadays, children are placed for adoption for very good reason, usually as a last resort. People really should consider the very real damage you could cause to a child or young person by passing such information on. I'm not talking about someone who felt forced to give up a baby for adoption a generation or two ago and who is now looking for a grown adult. Very few newborn babies are placed for adoption in that way now.